Wood and Coal Stove Advisory

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Russian stoves came in scores of complex flue designs needing multiple dampers, draft openings, and cleanouts to manage the exhaust gasses. Most were massive blocks two yards square and extending from cellar to roof. Houses were built around them so there would be a heat-radiating wall in each room. Not always successful reproductions were built of concrete block by a few enterprising North American masons during the '70s and '80s. You can still build your own, based on plans from a book or magazine (see page 130 of MOTHER issue # 77 or David Lyie's excellent book cited at end) But you are advised to consult an experienced freehand firestove designer/builder such as Lyle (c/o his publisher) or Albie Bardon of Energy Systems, Inc. in Norridgwock, Maine.

Today, most North American thermal mass firestoves are built by masons franchised by several experienced European stove makers. Look in the Yellow Pages. No longer the house-high monsters of Russian design, a modern thermal mass stove is often hard to tell from its logwood-burning counterpart. Made of heavy soapstone or other heat-absorbing material, they must rest on as solid and deep a Parts such as doors and dampers come pre-assembled; stone panels come precut; still, each firestove and flue must be erected on site as a new home is built or an older home gutted and restored from the foundation up. Cost is $4,000 to $5,000, and you can get heaters, cookers, or combinations. Firestoves serve best in the center of a super-insulated, open-design modern home, though they can abut private areas such as the bath or a bedroom. Kacheloven owners I know heat large homes using only a cord of wood or two a year.

Lacking airtight doors and dampers, firestoves are classified as free air-flow fireplaces and are not regulated by the EPA. But, with a hot, dry fire, emissions amount to little but carbon dioxide, water, and a few particulates. So long as your wood stays dry, you'll never see much more than a puff of smoke at start up, and the neighbors won't know you are heating with wood. Of course, if you are used to having a bright fire snapping cheerfully all evening long, you won't know you are either.

How About Your Pre-EPA Stove?

I know of precious few long-time country cordwood burners who have traded their old iron beast for a modern thermal mass stove, pellet-burner, catalytic, or high-tech, unless they had to move to town. And thankfully, the EPA isn't going to make you junk that rebuilt antique Parlor Brilliant, Jotul Combi or gorgeous red enameled Morso you paid megabucks for a decade ago and have been treating like a great lady ever since. Older stoves may be bought and sold as used appliances and—thanks to the Building Code "Grandfather Clause"—any woodstove in place when restrictions are implemented may be operated so long as it doesn't attract the smog patrol.

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