Hearth around Wood Stove to Increase Efficiency?

Hoping some permies can chime in on this..

We live in a 1907 farmhouse with no insulation in the walls and drafty as can be. I added some plastic window inserts to half the windows, because there’s a lot of windows and that’s as far as I got. they were a pain to get right since all the windows are so unique in shape and sagging in their own ways. Anyways that Seems to help and I should probably get back to work on that as well.

Temps are dropping daily and we are heating the whole house by a combination of a 1970s fireplace insert in the living room and a brand new wood stove in the dining room. We stay huddled around one of these day and night, and I’m thinking of ways to make the house more comfortable over the next several Central Oregon months.

Would building a stone or brick wall around the wood stove be a good idea and help retain heat? As is, it has a stone pad below it, but it’s in the corner of the room with just plain wall behind it and windows beside it.

Heavier curtains are also in the works..

Any ideas??

Yes, dry stacking clay bricks walls on two sides behind the stove (not too close) will add more mass to heat up.
Do not pile mass on top of your metal stove it will eventually cause it to warp.
Fans of course will help.
Finish getting your windows covered.
Hang blankets (tapestries) on the walls and in front of outside doors to control drafts.
Read all you can on building a Montana Masonry stove RMH) this winter and start collecting  parts to build one next summer (you will not regret it)
(Books currently on sale @  (dragontechrmh.com)
Hope for spring to arrive soon.

I like the suggestion made by Thomas.

Here are some threads that might offer some other suggestions for you or others wanting to do the same:

https://permies.com/t/43930/bunch-bricks-regular-metal-stove

https://permies.com/t/128936/steel-stove-adding-mass-mod

https://permies.com/t/135449/Thermal-Mass-Wood-Stove

Gabrielle -

Have you seen Kiko Denzer's "Heater Hat"?
https://www.handprintpress.com/wp-content/uploads/shopp/products/KikoHeaterHat-1.pdf
He adds thermal mass to a standard issue Scandinavian wood stove (Jotul or similar), using some brick and flue tile, making something of a thermal mass heater out of it.  Combustion efficiency still seems likely to suffer, but at least you could capture more of the thermal energy which is released during combustion.

David Lyle mentions in "The Book of Masonry Stoves" that it is common practice in some parts of Europe to build a masonry surround for steel or iron stoves.  I can dig up the exact quote, but he even mentions some stoves being equipped with wheels, so that they can be rolled out of the enclosure for cleaning.  As I recall, this masonry enclosure is more-or-less a bell, surrounding all but the front face of the steel stove, with a gasketed seal where the stove meets the masonry.  Again as best I recall, the stove pipe exits from the masonry mass down low, the stove directly into the masonry mass (or, more properly, the air space between stove and mass).  I'll try to find the exact reference for you.

On edit: the attached are the relevant pages.  I borrowed the Lyle book from Archive.org, and made screenshots for you.

On further edit: you can see that my memory was faulty; the masonry mass is basically a circulator cabinet for the iron stove, at least in the illustration given, which shows room air convecting through the space between the masonry walls and the iron stove box.

Maybe this helps you, maybe not...

Kevin

Don't think it will work in OP's case, due to the combustibles.......(floor, etc), but has anyone tried routing the flue output of such a wood stove as OP has thru a bell, then out to the flue? If wood stove will stand the abuse, run it hot?

Option B would be to replace stove with a Liberator rocket heater and run that thru a bench or bell?

Eugene Howard wrote:Don't think it will work in OP's case, due to the combustibles.......(floor, etc), but has anyone tried routing the flue output of such a wood stove as OP has thru a bell, then out to the flue? If wood stove will stand the abuse, run it hot?

This seems like it might be possible.  I've contemplated doing exactly this for my father's wood stove.  He has an older plate steel stove which is somewhat of a bell construction, with the smoke outlet fairly low in the firebox behind a baffle.  My thought has been to add a catalytic combustor at the stove pipe thimble (just a thin 2" replacement element), then either install a stack robber or pass the flue gasses through a brick bell, before heading up his chimney.

For a bell, my thought would be to place a few bricks, with generous air spaces between, on rosin paper on his hard maple floor, span over them with a piece of sheet steel, then build the first layer of the bell floor on the steel sheet with fire clay mortar, etc.  The first layer would bear directly on the spaced out bricks, spanning the air gaps.  I'm pretty sure the Wisner's advocate for something similar for their J-tube builds, but I'd need to double-check their book to be certain.  I am pretty well certain they showed air channels between bricks running under a bench and up the wall behind it, which is more-or-less what I'm thinking, though the air channel at the wall might simply be a piece of flashing, spaced out from the wall on 1" standoffs.  I have a piece of flashing so spaced between the wall and his single wall stove pipe, and it has been doing yeoman's duty at keeping the wall cool, even if the stove pipe is quite hot, so I have no doubt it would work between a brick bell running at much lower temperature.

A render of lime mortar, with poultry cloth or fiberglass mesh buried in it for strength, would help to seal any cracks in the single wall bell.

The exit to his chimney should pull from near the bottom of the bell, while the existing stove pipe thimble exiting the fire box is more than 3 feet  off the floor (his stove is up on a dry laid paver block plinth, so he doesn't need to bend over as far when stoking or tending the fire).  I'm thinking a version of the "juice box" system, with the stove pipe extending to near the floor of the bell, would do the trick.  Some "tuning" of the juice box straw would likely be required, and a bypass would need to be rigged, as well, to facilitate cold starts.  I'm thinking 2 Ts and a damper plate might suffice, though a blast gate would be more positive than the damper plate.

But, I haven't done it yet.  This is all conjectural and theoretical.

I am trying to find ways of enhancing or encouraging clean combustion and (ideally) adding thermal mass while still accommodating his entrenched firing habits.  Old dogs, and all...