In the suburban country house, the owners are on short visits or live periodically, including in winter. For this case, it is necessary to organize simple and effective heating in the premises, using cast-iron stoves for summer cottages, capable of working on wood and coal. The trading network and online stores offer many varieties of such heaters, it remains only to understand which one to choose.
Types of cast iron stoves
There are several varieties of wood stoves made from a special grade of cast iron:
- simple heating (potbelly stoves);
- stoves - fireplaces;
- heating and cooking;
- heat sources of long burning.
A stove - a cast-iron stove - is the simplest and cheapest option for a country wood-burning heater. The unit consists of two chambers - ash and fuel, separated by grates. A pipe for connecting the chimney is removed at the back or top of the case, and air is supplied by covering the ash pan door or using an adjustable damper.
Unfortunately, cast-iron stoves - potbelly stoves cannot be attributed to effective means of heating a summer house or a private house. The efficiency of such units does not exceed 40%. This means that the lion's share of the heat from burning wood simply flies into the chimney.
In terms of efficiency, cast iron stoves for the home, made in the form of fireplaces, have also gone near the bourgeois. They rather perform a decorative function, rather than actually warm the room. The difference from the first group is similar to a real fireplace in the shape of a firebox and a front panel closed with wide panoramic glass.
The cast iron stove is equipped with a stove with hobs, where you can put dishes for cooking and heating food. By design, it differs little from a traditional potbelly stove, only in more advanced models the hob is protected from direct flame exposure by a horizontal partition.
Cast iron stoves of long burning are most effective for heating a summer residence. Their design has been modernized in various ways with one goal - to maximize the heat generated from the flue gases and transfer it to the room. Due to these improvements, which will be described later, the efficiency of the heater increases to 60%.
Cast iron stoves for heating cottages and private houses, offered by different manufacturers, can be equipped with additional elements that expand their functionality:
- water circuit used to connect 1-2 heating radiators;
- panoramic glass, allowing you to contemplate the burning of firewood and toss a log in time - another;
- convenient damper for regulating air flow;
- oven, extra compartment for firewood.
Often complete with cast-iron stoves - potbelly stoves various useful accessories are delivered - a poker, a scraper and a metal stand (pallet) for installing the heater on the floors.
Pros and cons of cast iron stoves
Cast iron is a durable and heat-consuming material, a wood-burning stove made from it retains heat for some time after burning wood in the furnace. In addition, cast-iron heaters have other advantages:
- Durability (25-30 years). The property of resistance to corrosion for a long time gives cast iron furnaces a great advantage over metal furnaces. They do not rust from the effects of condensate arising from cold kindling, and therefore quietly tolerate periodic use in the cold season.
- The walls of the cast-iron furnace do not corrode and do not collapse under the influence of condensate mixed with soot and ash. The composition of such a mixture includes acids that corrode products from ordinary metal.
- Wood stoves designed for heating country houses and cottages have an aesthetic appearance and original design.
- Thick cast-iron walls of heating and heating-cooking units contribute to long-term heat conservation.
Thick walls of a cast iron firebox - a double edged sword. They cool down for a long time, that's right. But they also need more time to warm up, which means that the cold stove in the country is heated longer.
A significant drawback of heaters that scares away many users is their price. To buy a cast-iron stove for heating a house, you will have to pay 50-100% more than a wood-burning steel heater costs. The remaining disadvantages are not so significant:
- the heat source has a decent weight, which should be considered when placing and installing it;
- when using a cast iron stove on a hot surface, you can not spill water, otherwise it may crack from temperature shock;
- the material is brittle and can crack from a strong blow.
For reference. Cast iron will not crack due to accidental fall of the unit during transportation. Implies a strong blow with a solid object or tool, such as a hammer.
About long burning stoves
The burning time of one bookmark of firewood in any convection oven can be increased by traditional methods - to “smother” it through the air and put it into smoldering mode, load larger logs, or add coal to the furnace. But these measures will not increase the efficiency of the heat generator, and the transition to smoldering mode will even reduce it.
One loading of fuel is enough for a long time, if you organize the effective selection of heat generated during combustion, not allowing it to fly into the pipe.
A household furnace for casting from cast iron, designed for longer burning of firewood, is being modernized due to such design changes:
- The volume of the firebox has been increased, and from 1 to 3 smoke exhausts have been made for the combustion products — channels where the gases move in different directions. At the same time, they intensively exchange heat with the walls of these channels.
- A secondary combustion chamber is arranged in the stove, where the afterburning of combustible (pyrolysis) gases released during wood decay takes place. This chamber is separately supplied with air heated in the main firebox.
- The selection of thermal energy from combustion products trapped in the chimney is organized. A water heat exchanger or ceramic heat storage devices can be installed on the outlet pipe, as is done in Finnish and Norwegian cast iron stoves.
The quality and size of the wood also affects the duration of the combustion of a cast iron stove - fireplace. Raw and freshly cut wood will burn for a long time, but will not give much heat. Therefore, it is better to burn large dry logs or high-calorie fuel briquettes. The latter can be made independently, as described in a separate article.
How to choose a heater for a summer residence
Earlier, we found out that a convection cast-iron stove is suitable for periodic heating and is not afraid of long downtimes. Like any potbelly stove, it is "omnivorous", that is, it can burn wood of different species, sizes and humidity, which is very important for the owners of the cottage. It remains to understand which stove from the proposed range to choose based on operating conditions. The selection criteria are as follows:
- thermal power of the unit;
- its size and purpose;
- additional functions.
Power is an important characteristic indicated in the technical passport of any heater. It must be correlated with the dimensions of the room where it is planned to put the furnace. For example, in the technical specifications of the Russian-made Bavaria PK 004 cast iron stove, shown in the photo, the power is 12 kW and the cubic capacity of the room for which it is designed is 90 m3. These data should be relied upon when choosing a heat source.
Since furnace heating is convection (air), the equipment instruction manual often indicates not the area of the rooms served, but their volume.
Before choosing a furnace for a country house from cast iron, we suggest that you familiarize yourself with our recommendations in this regard:
- For a small house or a change house located on a summer cottage, it is worth buying a small-sized, and preferably a collapsible model of the stove. Then it can be loaded and taken away in a car, so that in your absence a wood heater would not be stolen.
- If you need to heat 2-3 rooms, it is best to take a stove with a water circuit and connect it to radiators installed in adjacent rooms. But you need to understand that this is due to the increased consumption of firewood and constant supervision of the operation of the heat generator.
- You can purchase and install a beautiful stove in a country house - a fireplace with wide panoramic glass.
- To cook and reheat food, look at yourself a stove with a cast-iron stove.
Among the many different cast-iron stoves, you can also choose a unit with an oven, various additional drawers and original cladding made of natural stone.
Conclusion
When buying a stove for a summer house made of cast iron, you need to remember one rule: only the room where this heater is installed will warm up well. In the rest, the temperature will be significantly lower, because only heated air will get there. The infrared heat generated by the cast-iron walls will remain in the main room.
A similar situation can be avoided by the Finnish method of heating private houses, combining stove heating with electric. To do this, electric convectors are installed in adjacent rooms, which make it possible to equalize the temperature and maintain it when the wood in the firebox burns out. How this is implemented in practice, look at the video of our expert Vladimir Sukhorukov: