The Kroupa Stove

Image Gallery With the stove in its normal heating mode, soot may accumulate on the Vycor window.

It's now feasible to cook your food, heat your home, and warm your water (efficiently!) with the same woodburner.

Until recently, it wasn't considered possible to combine efficient space heating and thorough cooking capabilities in the same woodburning appliance. The quick, hot fires associated with the small fireboxes common to most cookstoves just aren't compatible with large-bodied, draft-regulated, slow-burning, airtight heaters. Without question, cookstoves do provide radiant heat and airtights can be used for cooking .. . but each is designed to perform a specific task, and does so at the expense of the complementary function.

Well, as any regular reader of this magazine is aware, we're not in the habit of heralding the arrival of every interesting new product . . . but if an invention comes along that seems to be innovative enough to set conventional wisdom by the wayside, we think you should know about it. So when tall, red-headed Gene Kroupa gave us a demonstration of the woodstove he'd recently completed, we jumped at the chance to feature it in these pages. Why? Because the Kroupa Stove not only combines efficient and convenient cooking and heating capabilities in the same appliance . . . it even allows you the option of setting up the heater to warm your water, as well.

A "NECESSITY" INVENTION

The inventor didn't intend to get into the woodstove business when he began assembling his prototype three and a half years ago. Rather, Mr. Kroupa had a more immediate goal: He needed a woodburner to heat his just-completed home, cook his food, and warm his water . . . all in the demanding climate of Nova Scotia. And, after three years of studying burn patterns, testing ideas, and making innumerable improvements on three different versions, Gene finished the woodstove he'd set out to build. What's more, he realized that he'd invented a truly versatile appliance . . . one that other people just might want to buy!

HOW?

Essentially, the Kroupa Stove is three woodstoves connected by a precise and intricate (but easily controllable) set of baffles. The base of the unit is a 17"X 23", airtight, 1/4" steel, brick-lined firebox ... equipped with an adjustable, preheated primary draft (which introduces combustion air at the front or back of the firebox) plus a Vycor brand (it's rated to handle temperatures of 2000°F) self-cleaning glass window in its door. Directly above the 9" X 15" firebox opening are a pair of sliding metal shutters—with chrome wire handles for barehanded operation—which monitor the draft for the entire stove. And directly on the back (cooking) side of the woodburner (see the illustration) are two push/pull knobs that regulate the direction that inflow will take.