Comments

Episode-1774- Terry Mulville on Off Grid Space Heating — 13 Comments

  1. I apologize if this is an elementary question, but how does a system like this maintain draft with 70′ of pipe wrapping all around sucking all the heat out? Are all of the pipes all very slightly inclined upwards perhaps?

  2. We built our house around a masonry heater. Southern Utah mountains at 6200 ft. Heating season typically starts in mid October and ends in late April. Spendy to install but, assuming you can harvest & process your own wood (we do), it’s free heat for life.

    One issue we had here was the insurance weasels wouldn’t give us homeowners insurance unless there was some form of heat in the house that ran off a thermostat. So we got a cheap-o little wall unit, with its own thermostat, and that made them happy. I may or may not have since taken the dumb thing to the dump.

  3. So I am a second generation mason from Eastern Europe..
    This guy didn’t really do a good job of explaining the ins and outs of a masonry hearter. He spent mostly selling them. I know how to build these and I wish he was more informational so other people would have a better understanding. One of the problems with these heaters in America is that people don’t know about them, and more importantly when you build one and the building inspector comes out and they don’t understand it.

    • Sorry you didn’t like it but I don’t think he really did much selling.

      • It’s not that I didn’t like it, just wished he went into more detail of the inner workings, fire chamber, smoke tubes and other things, but that’s just me being picky.

    • I just finally listened to this one (great show!) and I didn’t think he was trying to sell the whole time.

  4. EricM,

    It’s not necessary for all the pipes to be inclined upwards to maintain a draft so long as the exhaust is higher up than the intake and there’s heat left in the air to maintain a pressure differential. It’s just like siphoning water, but in reverse, as long as the fluid would rather be at the exit than the entrance it’ll flow that way regardless of what path it has to take.

    A longer more restrictive path will reduce the rate of flow however, so I would be surprised if 70 feet of plumbing didn’t take the form of 10 parallel paths of 7′ each or something similar rather than a single 70′ long tube.

  5. My wife and I are building a dome home in the New York Catskills. It’s going to have 15″ walls and R-64 insulation in the walls and ceiling.

    Our main source of heat will be radiant heat in the concrete foundation (with lots of insulation under the concrete). Our two-is-one will be a wood stove; but the wood stove may overheat our ‘sealed and super insulated’ space. The first year or two will be very educational for us.

    In terms of 3-for-me, 4-is-more, etc…we have plenty of kerosene heaters, lots of propane and, of course, a couple generators (propane and gasoline). Hopefully, we’ll never need anything beyond the radiant heat but we’ll be ready if we do.

  6. I think he wants to inform people that this method of heating is out there. Many people are not aware of this method.
    It’s May in Wisconsin and we are still firing up our eco-stove. It’s not getting
    warmer. You won’t be cold and have to spend dollars on heating if you have
    one.