I’ll update this topic once in a while. But If you are looking for information on this subject you can always find a shortcut on the page “Basic Needs”.
As it will take some while to put all information here I’ll just start writing and complete it with time.
What’s the difference between Ovens, Heaters, stoves and fireplaces?
Well… actually they are just words to describe a device that provides heat in someway…
I’ll use following (selfmade) definitions to make a distinction between different types of heating devices:
Heater: This can be any kind of heating device.. including ovens, fireplaces, stoves, ….
Stove: This is a closed system with or without little window. Generally it’s made from cast iron, but there are also “Tile ovens” wich are made from firebricks and special heatresistant tiles or loam ovens (as it states they are covered with loam)
Fireplace: This is an open system. Normally the fire get’s in direct contact with the air of the room. The new fireplaces have been provided with a transparant side to be a little more energy-efficient and to make them safer.
Oven: This is an open or closed system provided with a room for backing stuff (ceramics, food, …)
It might seem stupid to give a definition to all these different types of heating devices, but I noticed when I was talking to people, they didn’t use the same words as I was to distinguish all these devices..
There is one exception in all this: a “Finoven” … although it sais fin-”oven” it’s not really an oven… actually it’s a combination of all kinds of heating devices… primarily it’s a stove, but you can use the heat for different purposes aswell…
ok, that said… I first have to explain some main principles….
- Different types of heating principles:
Radiation: This is heat transfered by waves… it’s like the direct heat you receive from the sun… Imagine you are in the mountains in winter, but the sun is really shining very strong than you might still feel warm, even when the air around you is very cold. This is due to radiation from the sun.
Convection: Heat transfered by the movement of matter… most of the time this is air or water moving… Hot air and water move up because they are lighter than the air or water surrounding them. But this movement can also be forced by circulation (ventillation or by a waterpump)
Conduction: Heat transfered by movement inside material. For instance a metal plate will get warm when you put it in the sun… even if the plate is half in shadow, this part will also become warm because of conduction. Conduction depends on the material… metals will conduct more heat than wood or plastics…
What about the Pro’s and contra’s of different heaters?
The finoven
My personal favorite is the “Finoven”… This kind of heater works on the radiation principle. There are some pro’s about that.. First of all, because it’s working on radiation, there is almost no air getting heated. Because no air is heated, there is less movement of warm air going up. And because there is less air movement, it’s better for allergies and astma (dust doesn’t circulate anymore).
Another pro is that the sense of heat is less dependent of the distance. Radiation goes as far as the heatwaves go. And because there is no air heated, the air surrounding you can stay on a very low temperature, while you are feeling warm.
Most of the finovens use a second combustion, which means after having fire in the first room, a second “explosion” is introduced in a second combustion room. This means there is almost no smoke exhaust!
Finally and probably the most important pro of these kind of heaters is the big amount of inertia. Because finovens are build very massive with heatresistant stones, they keep warmth inside for a long period of time and release it drip by drip. This way it’s sufficient to heat a finoven only 1,5 hours a day to keep you warm all day!
A great thing about finovens is that you can use the smoke or warm air to heat up different things…
For instance an oven, a water boiler, a wall and/or seating, a bath thub, … you name it!
There are two big contra’s though… first of all it costs allot! When you build it yourself with a DIY-pack, you pay about 2 000 to 3 000 euro’s. When you would buy a full system it can cost up to 15 000 Euro !!!
The best alternative is to fully build it yourself… Up to now I haven’t met someone who did this… But I’m going to try it anyways…
A second contra is the weight… It weights a few ton… up to 3 or even 4 ton for a big one… This means you have to take this into account when building the fundaments!
And finally, the last contra is that the heat is only felt in a certain range. For instance… when you put it on the groundlevel you’ll not really feel the heat on the second floor (remember less air is heated!) You can only heat up a room of a limited area… normally that’s around 80m² at the most… but all depends on how big you build the oven offcourse…
<More technical information comming soon>
The Tile Stove
This heater is very similar to a finoven. Actually it’s difficult to make a clear division between the two of them… As for me, it seems that a tile stove is just a different way of dividing heaters… it has nothing to do with the system itself, but with the fact that tiles are used to cover the oven. these tiles heat up and work as a radiation element on the outside of the oven. You can perfectly turn a finoven into a tileoven just by decorating it with tiles (duuh!). So in a nutshell: a tile oven can be a finoven, but not every finoven is a tileoven.
A “Tichel” stove
This is a very interesting stove because you are able to build it yourself and even break it down and rebuild it in another place. This stove works on the same principle as the finoven, only it is smaller and made of prefabricated building elements. It’s perfect for smaller places!
The only downside of this system is that it’s not really made for building allot of different add-ons on it (like a pizza-oven) or to heat-up water. it’s just a plane stove to heat a room…
Build-in systems (<”Inbouwcassette”)
You can find allot of pre-fabricates systems you just have to build in. the adveantage is that you don’t have to worry about all the technical difficulties and still are able to build a relative inexpensive stove (it will still cost you 2 000 Euro’s though). You buy the system, place it on a good spot and start building walls around it. You can get systems with central heating systems or to heat up waer for the bathroom or…. whatever you want actually! Make sure you buy one with a second combustionroom though!
A Pellet stove
I don’t really like these kind of stoves… for me it seems like some kind of marketing trick.. You pay allot for them and you never know what is going to happen with the price of the pellets… Nope… I’m not convinced..
If you are lazy and you don’t like filling up the stove with wood than this stove will win your heart… it has an automatic suply of pellets.. so the only thing you have to do is check once in a while if there’s still enough pellets around and buy new once when needed.
A pelletstove is good if you have money enough and you aren’t worrying about the prices of the pellets going up OR if you have no way at all to put a chimney… one of the good advantages of these stoves is that they don’t really need a chimney… you can just put a tube through the wall!
A traditional stove
A traditional stove is made of castiron… The good thing about this stoves is that they get warm in a relative short period of time. A disadvantage though is that they don’t keep their warmth and are primarily working on convection. As soon as the flames go down the room is getting very cold.
There are traditional stoves with a secundary combustion room… I have no clue if they really work as efficient as a finoven with a secundary combustionroom. I doubt it because it seems to me that the secunday combustion can only work well when there is enough heat kept inside for a certain amount of time… and traditional stove just doesn’t keep this warmth inside…
This kind of stove is good if you haven’t got allot of money or you are not that handy to build a really good stove yourself. It’s also good if you want to cook directly on the stove… this is offcourse not possible with a finoven because the surface isn’t really hot in the later case (you can easily put your hand on it without burning… don’t try this with a traditional stove!).
A Fireplace
When we are talking about ecology and technical strengths this is the worst kind of heating device!
As soon as wood burns it spreads the warmth all around… There is almost no radiation and you can only feel the heat if you are very close.
If you are building green: don’t use a fireplace! I know… I know… we “nature people” like to see the fire, put a stick in it once in a while… That’s fine! Do it when you are hiking in the mountains .. don’t use this heater as a general system to keep you warm in winter… it’s extremely polluting and inefficient.
Some considerations about the choice of a heating device…
It seems that all heaters have pro’s and contra’s… How should you choose your heating device?
The only good way to make the right decision is to ask yourself what you want to do with it and how you are going to use it…
In my case for example:
As I’ll be at work during the day, I’ll only need to be warm in the morning, in the evening and in the weekend during the whole day. It’s a waste to kep a finoven burning all day if you’re not around… So also not possible to heat up a finoven in the morning, because it will take me too much time before I get heat out of it.. by the time I feel a little warm I allready have to go… IF I get lucky enough to feel warm.
So a traditional finoven won’t do the trick… unless in the weekends… This is a tipical problem in our climate… we aren’t living in Norway, Canda or Finland! We have rather soft winters and soft summers… we don’t ned a die-hard heating system! Especially when you are working during the day!
You might think “Well.. just buy yourself a traditional stove than!”… It would seem the most appropriate sollution, but I’m not convinced… there must be a more ecological way!
What if I would combine the pro’s of both systems??? Would this be possible??
YES ! On my quest for the perfect stove I found a system that combines the inertia of a finoven with the speed of a traditional stove.
This kind of oven is build with firebricks like a finoven, but has a special exhaust on the back… So when you are having cold and the heater is out you just put wood inside, make it burn and open a valve at the back… The warm air is ventilated inside the room and within 15 minutes the room is pleasantly warm!
Now you close the valve and the heat is kept inside the oven. The bricks are absorbing the heat and are functioning like the bricks of a finoven! During the weekends it’s sufficient to burn wood for about an hour and a half to have a full day of warmth.
A very nice family, not far from where I live now have this kind of stove. Here are some pictures:
This is the front side where you enter the wood. Notice the little door on top used as a baking oven.
Here you can see the exhaust ventillation system. You can open and close it as I described above.
< To be continued>
As you allready might know my plan was as followed:
1. Break down existing structures
2. Build a log house
3. Get all materials and information on low-impact building
4. Start building a low-impact house
Because of allot of different reasons I decided not to go by this plan.
First of all… everything was pointing in a another direction:
1. People around me were asking why I ‘m not building a strawbale house rightaway
2. I met some interesting people who might be able to provide me wood from Belgian forests, which would be, offcourse, more ecological
3. My architect became more and more enthousiastic about the low-impact idea
4. I met two women who asked me to help them with a strawbale project in france
5. I visited some conventional strawbalehouses and got allot of information allready
6. I followed a lecture on lime (<”kalk”) finnishes and the possibilities for coating strawbale walls. I also got allot of practical information on loam (<”Leem”) finnishes…
7. The plan of building a log house would have taken more time than anticipated: it seems they have problems coating the logs in winter… so I would have to wait untill the winter is over.
Another reason why the loghouse is taking more time than expected is because all formalities aren’t working out that well… my notarian is still inspecting everything… (luckily there is a legal timelimit to this… in my case 4 months).
So I would have to spend 4 to 5 months more without starting to build… this would be enough time to gather all information on low impact building (as I allready have lots of that)
8. Building the low-impact house was my goal and building the loghouse first would just be a time- and money consuming activity…
9. By now I have assembled so much information on green building that there aren’t many secrets to the benefits and downsides of each building method… so I’m able to make a prutty good decision on which buildingmethods I can and want to use.
The only problem I’m having is the lack of experience… sure I know allot from the books I’ve read, from my studies as an architect, from things I have visited and so on… but there is a huge difference between reading it and doing it.
Building with strawbales is easy… but building a wooden structure in a good way isn’t that easy… especially if you aren’t using any professional tools… and doing most by hand…
I might build a loadbearing strawbale house, in stead of one with a post and beam structure, but I don’t like the idea of having a 6 Ton roof above my head, knowing it is supported by straw…
Once the straw get’s wet I would have to take it all out and by result dismantel the roof aswell… This would be a good sollution if I was making a (cheaper) temporary house… which i’m not!
So! Here’s the new plan!
Before/during winter:
1. Break down the existing structures on the ground
2. Gather more information on strawbale building and alternative building methods
3. Collect willow branches (<”wilgentakken”) for building with strawbales (more information later on)
4. Design the low-impact house, make an architectural plan and model
After winter:
5. Make a foundation
6. Get the wood
7. Prepare the wood
Before summer:
8. Assemble the wooden structure
9. Prepare the roof
During Summer:
10. Build the strawbale walls + put in the glass and doors
11. Do all the plumbing and integration of the low-impact sollutions
12. FInnish the walls and floor
13. Make a little dance of joy!
As you can see there’s allot to be done!
During the building proces I’ll provide you from all information and visuals on the building method. Aswell as the time I’m putting into the proces.
I’ll also try to put on allot of information about other methods I won’t be using and the reasons why I’m not using them… (they might be usefull for other projects).
So.. that’s it for now…
Normally I’ll have a meeting with my architect next week about the new plan and hopefully we can figure something out we are both enthousiastic about.
Oohyeah! For people wanting to build a loghouse, this is the firm I was planning to work with:
Rhino Loghouse: http://www.rhino-loghouses.nl
Some time ago I visited “De 12 ambachten”, wich is some kind of research center for ecological living sollutions in the Netherlands.
The good thing about this center is that they have been experimenting allot and they share all their experience at their homebase in Boxtel.
You can visit their site on: http://www.de12ambachten.nl
Even though it was very intersting to see all those nice little “inventions” in real, I didn’t really discover somehting new. What I saw where sollutions I had allready found on the internet.
Another big dissapointing thing about this organisation is that they are asking allot of money for their paperbacks… I can understand that it’s not easy to keep financing their project, but still … more than 60 Euro’s for a paperback on purifying water.. come’on! I can get that information right from the internet aswell…
So in short: it’s worth the visit if you really don’t have a clue of all different kind of ecological inventions , but don’t expect too much if you have been doing some research on the subject allready…
Some interesting sollutions they had:
This is a scalemodel of a composting toilet they invented and experimented with… For those who don’t know what a composting toilet is: I’ll put a page online with all the information about this topic (and many others)….
The goal was to have a turning device that would “inject” fresh air in the Humanure to stimulate the composting proces. Sadly enough the design became too big to incorporate in a existing situation.
Another remark: A few hours after visiting “De twaalf ambachten”, I also visited “De kleine aarde”, wich is an organisation with somewhat the same goals as “De twaalf ambachten”, but they have grown bigger and more commercial. They also had a composting toilet and after visiting the little room and checking out the composting unit underneath, I discovered that there was no smell at all! So I went to ask the owners if they turn the pile upside down once in a while… and they didn’t… Another good resource on this subject is “The humanure handbook” (by Joseph Jenkins), you can download it for free at http://www.jenkinspublishing.com/humanure_contents.html
It also states that turning of the compost pile isn’t really helping the composting proces…(thank god, you don’t have to get your hands filthy!)
This is a “finoven” (more info on this subject will be provided later). They discovered that by putting a wall next to the oven and using water tubes running through the wall, they can capture enough heat from the oven to use as a central heating system. Also this method isn’t new, but it’s intersting to see it at work…
A section vieuw of the “heating wall”…
Allright… this is a “drying system” for frute, vegetables, meat or whatever…
The special thing about this “instrument” is the way they force ventilation by using a “heatpipe”.
There are two ways of stimulating ventilation:
1. By airmovement outside the structure and by using a chimney. The wind will “pull” the air through the chimney as it is moving in a perpendicullar sense to the ax of the chimney.
2. By using a difference in temperature. Hot air is lighter than cold air and will (as you all know) move above the cold air (like oil on water) as a result.
This system uses both principles. A chimney will allow wind to pull the air through the cabin and as they have put a glass clock around the metal pipe, this will become hot and by result the air will start moving upwards aswell..
Underneath another detailed vieuw of the “heatpipe”.
