Firespeaking

This is part of a series of articles on heating hot water with masonry heaters and other wood-fired stoves:

• See also Details of Plumbing for a Thermasiphon Hot Water System

We are currently reading “Handmade Hot Water Systems” by Art Sussman and Richard Frazier.  This book has a really down-to-earth late-70′s approach to using your existing woodstove to heat your domestic hot water.  It encourages the golden combination of using both solar and wood fire systems in parallel to meet your hot water needs year round.  The book offers solutions that do not involve complicated nor costly hardware and has a very good section of “recipes” for designing, making and installing components of the system.  We highly recommend it.  Until we can offer it through another souce, you can find it in Amazon’s used books.

Another interesting, more modern book specifically about the solar component of heating water is: Solar Water Heating–Revised & Expanded Edition: A Comprehensive Guide to Solar Water and Space Heating Systems .

We also want to strongly recommend that you check out Hilkoil’s Stainless Steel Hot Water Loop which you can install into your existing wood stove or plan into a new masonry heater.  We were very pleased about their product and service in designing a custom-coil to install into our recent corner masonry heater project.

We’ve also learned through Solar Hot Water Plus about Rheem, a company that makes a variety of hot water tanks (the Solaraide series) made for solar hot water systems that have multiple threaded outlets in the right places so that you can plumb a hybrid wood-electric system in the same tank with ease (no secondary pre-heating tank).

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Other Media Links….

Latest News:

• Ledge Stone Masonry Heater Near Eugene, Oregon - December 20, 2011
• Masonry Heater at the Allen's (Portland, OR) - November 14, 2011
• Pizza Party in the Dabbeni Barrel Oven! - October 20, 2011
• MHA Announces New Masonry Heater Education Program - August 6, 2011
• Outdoor Kitchen at Vistara: Wood-Fired Barrel Oven and Canning Stove - July 26, 2011

Videos:

• Wood-Fired Barrel Oven Video - July 13, 2011
• Beautiful Video of BioConstruyendo Patagonia 2011 - April 15, 2011
• Bioconstruyendo: Argentinian Natural Building Festival - May 29, 2010
• Adobe Oven in Golondrinas, Argentina - May 26, 2010

Articles & Essays:

• Response about Rocket Stoves in MHAmember Forum - December 5, 2011
• The Cabin Stove - A Small Masonry Heater at Aprovecho Research Center - September 4, 2011
• Draft-Horse Workshop in Oregon - July 30, 2011
• Details of Plumbing for a Thermosiphon Hot Water System - January 28, 2011
• Resources for Domestic Hot Water Systems for Woodstoves and Masonry Heaters - December 15, 2010

Front Page Archive:

• - February 6, 2011
• Summer is a time of action! - July 1, 2010
• Spring is a time to sow intentions... - April 7, 2010
• The winter solstice marks a new birth for Firespeaking! - November 29, 2009

OUR INTERVIEW ABOUT MASONRY HEATERS!

While working on this corner heater in Northern California, one of the neighbors we met was a woman by the name of “BR” Graham.  She is a mover-and-a-shaker at the local community radio station: KMUD.  She arranged to do a recorded interview for the Wednesday evening Environment Show and then called us by phone to broadcast a live follow-up interview.  We find it to be a great conversation about what we do and a good introduction to masonry heaters in general.

Long live community radio!

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Other Media Links….

Latest News:

• Ledge Stone Masonry Heater Near Eugene, Oregon - December 20, 2011
• Masonry Heater at the Allen's (Portland, OR) - November 14, 2011
• Pizza Party in the Dabbeni Barrel Oven! - October 20, 2011
• MHA Announces New Masonry Heater Education Program - August 6, 2011
• Outdoor Kitchen at Vistara: Wood-Fired Barrel Oven and Canning Stove - July 26, 2011

Videos:

• Wood-Fired Barrel Oven Video - July 13, 2011
• Beautiful Video of BioConstruyendo Patagonia 2011 - April 15, 2011
• Bioconstruyendo: Argentinian Natural Building Festival - May 29, 2010
• Adobe Oven in Golondrinas, Argentina - May 26, 2010

Articles & Essays:

• Response about Rocket Stoves in MHAmember Forum - December 5, 2011
• The Cabin Stove - A Small Masonry Heater at Aprovecho Research Center - September 4, 2011
• Draft-Horse Workshop in Oregon - July 30, 2011
• Details of Plumbing for a Thermosiphon Hot Water System - January 28, 2011
• Resources for Domestic Hot Water Systems for Woodstoves and Masonry Heaters - December 15, 2010

Front Page Archive:

• - February 6, 2011
• Summer is a time of action! - July 1, 2010
• Spring is a time to sow intentions... - April 7, 2010
• The winter solstice marks a new birth for Firespeaking! - November 29, 2009

This year, during the Village Building Convergence,
Eva led the installation of one of Portland’s first residential straw-clay retrofit projects. 

In just a few days, with many hands, we filled walls that previously had no insulation.  The new insulation is estimated to have an R-Value of between R-1.6 and R-2 per inch. When finished, this “wall sandwich” will have an overall R-3o value, which definitely exceeds the requirements of current energy codes! This project is at the Planet Repair Institute (PRI),  nestled amongst many wonderful natural building and permaculture projects.  PRI is at the home of Mark Lakeman and is the birthplace of City Repair, the annual VBC project, as well as of Communitecture, the sustainable architecture & planning firm. Mark is working with natural builder Charity Li Montez to legalize straw-clay building in Portland, OR. (Update!  They did it! Check out this info from ATAC about permitting this technique…)

The photos show the project with a base coat plaster we applied once the straw-clay insulation had dried. We will be applying a beautiful finish coat in early Spring.  Stay tuned for updates!