posted 3 years ago
I've used a commercial water stove for the last ~13 years and it served me great, but it finally started leaking badly enough that I had to drain it, and I'm pretty sure it's life is over. I got it used, and I think it was made 30+ years ago, so it had a pretty long life. I'm wondering if I could hire a mason to build me something that would work similarly. If anyone knows of examples of outdoor masonry heaters, I'd like to know about them.
My rough idea is to build something like a traditional masonry heater... include an oven for pizza or other baking... except maybe not use a traditional masonry heater flue design for the high efficiency super hot burns (so as to have more flexibility in burning larger wood, wood that isn't fully seasoned, other organic wastes...) ... then put a large (~500 gallon) stainless steel tank on top ... insulate the whole thing really well and protect it from the elements... and use that hot water the same way I've been using hot water to heat my house and domestic hot water (pumping the hot water to my house and running my domestic hot water through a coil heat exchanger in the water stove.) I expect it would cost me at least as much as a conventional water stove, maybe even significantly more, but the stove itself would be masonry and therefore not susceptible to rust and leaks, the tank wouldn't be exposed directly to the extreme heat of the fire box, so hopefully it would last a very long time, and I'd have the benefit of a built in oven. I don't know how well the heat would transfer to the water and whether I'd need to add extra pipes, pumps... to promote heat exchange from the masonry to the water, but I'm hoping that wouldn't be necessary. Any thoughts? Thanks!
And a related question: given the superior heat holding capacity of water, why isn't water used/more commonly used in place of masonry for holding and slowly releasing heat from masonry heaters? I assume metal tanks were just too expensive traditionally, but is there a reason water isn't used to replace some of the bricks/stone/etc. used for the mass for heat storage in masonry heaters today?
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