[Cob] masonry stove ?heat for cob home?

[Shannon C. Dealy]

On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 Spiritmountn7 at aol.com wrote:

> Would a masonry stove, or russian stove be enough to keep a cob home warm in
> winter? The stove may not put out enough heat to heat the entire home, but
> would think possibly that a masonry stove once got going may do the trick. Since
> the heat from a masonry stove can, from what I have read in a stick frame home
> with fiberglass insulation, keep a home comfortable for a couple of days from
> one firing in freezing weather. Would the masonry stove be enough heat to
> also warm up the walls of a cob home and keep it that way until the next firing?
> A day or two.  Thanks all

The answer is yes with some qaulifiers since it depends on many factors,
some of which are decisions you have to make:

   - How cold does it get outside, and is there likely to be alot of wind.
     Both of these affect how rapidly heat is lost regardles of R-Values.

   - What is the total R-Value of the structure

   - How big a stove are you going to build (you can heat pretty much
     any structure with a large enough stove and enough wood).

   - What interior temperature are you trying to maintain?

Also, you should keep in mind that the cob walls themselves will add to
the thermal mass of the stove and further slow both the cooling off of the
structure once it is warm, and the heating up of the structure once it is
cold.

Shannon C. Dealy      |               DeaTech Research Inc.
dealy at deatech.com     |          - Custom Software Development -
                      |    Embedded Systems, Real-time, Device Drivers
Phone: (800) 467-5820 | Networking, Scientific & Engineering Applications
   or: (541) 929-4089 |                  www.deatech.com