Contraflow Fireplace by Tulikivi

So what is a contraflow fireplace? Who knows how to build one? Not me as of yet. The idea sounds interesting, though. With a huge pile of bricks in my front yard, I started my research.

Turns out the idea, although it carries a very long and distinguished history, dovetails neatly with today’s green revolution. The northern European countries and Russia have been using masonry stoves for years—since the 17th and 18th centuries, when kings in Prussia and Scandinavia ordered their craftsman and architects to produce better wood stove designs.

This concerted effort produced radically new heat-storing masonry stoves, which showed enormous improvement in efficiency and wood conservation.

Contraflow heater by Eric Moshier

Fast-forward to today, when masonry heaters are still in widespread use throughout northern Europe and are highly regarded for their excellent heating abilities, safety, and environmentally positive aspects. Countries such as Germany, Austria and Switzerland use the “kachelofen” or tile stoves, which are so popular that buying one can require a one-year wait.

In North America, our heating traditions unfolded differently, where an abundance of available, relatively cheap fossil fuels led to more widespread use. As a result, gas, oil, and electricity still have the lion’s share of the residential heating market (and the industry marketing budgets spend millions of dollars to keep it that way).

During the North American energy crisis of the 70s, many people turned to wood stoves to cut their heating bills. Environmental and economic concerns of the last decade have forced a critical look at better wood-heating devices. If we’re going to get this right ecologically, the stoves have to be efficient more efficient than typical metal-clad stoves.

How energy efficient are today’s masonry stoves? They are proving to be the cleanest method of burning wood, because the wood burns very hot and quickly, producing little or no smoke, soot, or creosote. When wood burns at 1100ºF, everything that can be burned is consumed. The secondary combustion chambers in masonry stoves reach temperatures of 1400º-1800ºF, and well over that point.

After the quick-burning but intense fire has gone out, the energy stored in the massive bulk of masonry is released slowly into the house over the succeeding 18 to 24 hours. Various forms of biomass heating, including masonry stoves, are getting a lot of attention from ecological architects and designers today.

If you’re considering a masonry stove, you can take one of three approaches: ready-made product, stove kits, or custom design. But first, be prepared for a long-term investment. The better-known soapstone fireplaces from Tulikivi will set you back anywhere from $7,500 to $10,000. Temp-Cast build-it-yourself stove kits start at about $3,500; then add another few thousand for professional installation.

Bread oven by Gulf Island Oven

The Masonry Heater Store in Holland, Ohio designs and installs custom masonry, which is a beautiful way to make the hearth the heart of your home—see photo to the left. In talking with co-owner Nancy Matesz, I learned that business is brisk in their corner of the world. She said, “As the environmental and cost advantages of masonry are becoming more understood, our business is really growing. Whether we’re doing a custom design or installing a Tulikivi, we hear the same message from our customers—they like the security of protecting themselves against skyrocketing fuel costs.”

Like many decisions that support a more sustainable world, an investment in a masonry stove saves money. Then, as a bonus, add a pizza or bread oven to keep your buns warm.

Recent data derived from keyword searches and from the most frequently visited Web pages indicate that most visitors (67%) are eager to find information about solutions that can be implemented rapidly without requiring a complete retrofit of their homes, such as low-emission stoves powered by local products, including wood, corn and other grains, or wood pellets. There has also been a renewed interest in coal stoves and boilers. Moreover, 21% of visitors have shown an interest in geothermal systems, perhaps because these systems can also be used to cool their homes during the hot summer months. As for solar heating, most visitors come to realize that efficient systems either require them to retrofit their homes or to purchase a system of collectors that may not be easy to install. These solutions are better choices for new homes, and they aren’t cheap (roughly 10% more than the cost of a standard home). They take a while to be paid off, but their value generally remains steady or increases over time. Once the system is installed, provided enough thermal storage has been put in place, it generates its own heat. It should be noted that new generation passive and active solar heating systems, as opposed to earlier ones, are far more efficient, and that proper insulation plays a key role in that efficiency.

Many visitors have voiced the belief that the clock is ticking, be it due to Peak Oil or to impending turmoil in the Middle East. “If the Strait of Hormuz gets blocked or if transit is interrupted because of another war, then we could see oil prices shooting straight up to unforeseen levels,” says Bryan O’Neil, a long-time visitor and contributor. Undisputedly the world’s most important oil choke point, the Strait of Hormuz consists of a pair of two-mile-wide channels for tanker traffic to and from the Persian Gulf. The U.S. produces most of its electricity in fossil fuel centrals, while a great percentage of home heating systems still use oil or gas directly, all at a time when it would be possible to build homes that would be heated by about 20% of the carbon-based energy used in a conventional system.

Climatic changes are another concern. In January 1998, an ice storm struck the province of Quebec in Canada. According to Wikipedia, “many power lines broke down and over 1,000 pylons collapsed in chain reactions under the weight of the ice, leaving more than four million people without electricity.” Most people didn’t have any type of home heating back-up system, or else they had inefficient fireplaces. Four days into the crisis, when people learned that they would be without electricity for days or even weeks, sales of wood-burning stoves skyrocketed. The military was sent to help people cope with the ordeal. It took a full month for homes in the Montérégie valley to regain power—a population of almost one million was affected.

“For various reasons (one being their relationship with oil-rich countries to whom they sell arms), Western governments may not be willing to start a ‘Manhattan Project’ to end our dependence on foreign oil. But some people are. Through this sharing platform, individuals from all trades can hopefully get involved, and together may end up solving many problems caused by certain corporations’ appetite for obscene profits and by the political passiveness of the majority,” says Christian Laurin, founder and editor of Alternative-Heating.com. “In releasing this information about the increasing interest for greener heating solutions, we hope to get the ball rolling so that concerned individuals from different walks of life can begin to really connect and share ideas to address an issue that is sure to hit everybody—the poor in particular—seeing as fuel prices are not likely to go down anytime soon.”