
In the last one month or so I've been working with Jason Temple of TempleFire building masonry heaters. I've wanted to learn how to build masonry heaters for years, and I feel so blessed my work as a natural builder has brought me to this chapter of learning fire and brickwork. Yay!
Actually, I made this wish on my birthday in March of this year: we stopped by a large building site that included a German style double-bell masonry heater and I thought, "I want to help work on this!" Bychance months later, Jason asked if I would help with a project, and when we arrived to the site - it was this stove! We've since built the benches, plastered another heater that Jason already built, and now...
Last week, we and Anthony Richards AR Stonemason started an oven build from scratch in the countryside of the southern olympic peninsula.
Actually, I made this wish on my birthday in March of this year: we stopped by a large building site that included a German style double-bell masonry heater and I thought, "I want to help work on this!" Bychance months later, Jason asked if I would help with a project, and when we arrived to the site - it was this stove! We've since built the benches, plastered another heater that Jason already built, and now...
Last week, we and Anthony Richards AR Stonemason started an oven build from scratch in the countryside of the southern olympic peninsula.
There's a few different designs for masonry heaters that come from different places in the world, namely Europe, but very basically, this Swedish 5-run style of oven will work like this:
We're going back out to the countryside to work on this one this week, and we'll probably finish everything but the plaster.
It is such a gift to have a relationship with trees where we experience their life as such a comfort in the form of fire when they are no longer living. Particularly stoves which are pleasant to use and utilize the heat with exceptional efficiency, storing it in brick or clay or stone, become an anchoring tool for a home because they are appreciated and used often. Even if the people move on from the space, the memory of such a sturdy and warming presence will be carried with them forever. Radiant heat has a magical quality of persistence that seems to stick around, not just in the house days after a fire, but also in the heart, years into the future.
Cheers to building lasting systems!
It is such a gift to have a relationship with trees where we experience their life as such a comfort in the form of fire when they are no longer living. Particularly stoves which are pleasant to use and utilize the heat with exceptional efficiency, storing it in brick or clay or stone, become an anchoring tool for a home because they are appreciated and used often. Even if the people move on from the space, the memory of such a sturdy and warming presence will be carried with them forever. Radiant heat has a magical quality of persistence that seems to stick around, not just in the house days after a fire, but also in the heart, years into the future.
Cheers to building lasting systems!