Right now we are planning work-shops in Spain, France and England.
Two of them allready this year. Take
a look here.
Different from traditional Danish work-shops, its allso about cook-stoves,
Gymse (kind of efficient open fireplace) and other kinds of heaters, since
the needs are so different througout Europe.
Lately i had visitors here on my little island from Peter and Pál
from Hungary (from the work-shop in 2008).
They brought special bricks, special castiron, and not the least -
a thermogenerator to produce electric power for the pump when you want
to produce hot water where electric supply is not very reliable.
New ideas are created from local needs, born by the simplicity of theese
stoves. I just love it more and more.
While they where here, they made us a tower on our farm, just for fun.
Afterwords they ask me, how the h.... i thought they could build a
tower ?
Well - if you can build masonry heaters the way you do, you can do
anything ;-)
And they did. Pictures later when the cubber is on place. Its a beauty
:-))
November 9 2010
A strange summer
Sorry i havent updated this page for a long time. !
Now is the time. Later i´ll tell you why, but first of all, it
hasn´t been a quit sumer for me.
At Wildacres (se my filmclips here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ildsjalen
Find Wildacres part 1 and 2 in the culomn to the right.) a lot of connections
where made, that kept me busy, so i simply forgot to update this site.
No more excuses.
Most stovebuilders have had a quiet summer this year due to the international
crises.
The usually experience for me is, that in good times i have custumors,
because stoves do cost money, and if bad times are ahead, i really have
custumors, because energysavings is a major concern for everyone, and masonry
heaters do give that + a steady rock solid feeling in the beally.
Why this criusis was different i really don´t know, but i think
it had something to do with, that the deccision where taken out of the
hands of the ordinary people, and put in the hands of the banks, who knows
nothing about masonry heaters.
Better times seems to come back for us stovebuilders here in Denmark, but i know from collegs in other part of the world, that this isnt the case everywhere.
So let me try to cheer you up :-)
This quiet summer left space for a lot of fun here on my little island
in Denmark.
Our international work-shop turned out to be Nordish, probably due
to the vulcano on Island. Nobody wants to be trapped fare away from home.
So - really no reason to speak english, even if some actually wanted
to. Even if danish and Swedish are very mutch alike, it sometimes
realy is more easy to chose a forreign languishe.
But we toke it as a challenge to practice.
Through the link to you-tube above you can find "work-shop 2010"
As you can se, we had a concert with Paul Banks in the mittle of this
work-shop.
It was just great, and quit unexpected.
If you rool down on my youtubefilms youll find another clip from this
concert.
To me it was just so great to hear, that my effort to make a fine accustic
ballance in our new building had succeded, so only a month later i hired
a famous danish folk-group to give a concert at the end of our "grandparents-week".
A week where we invite all the grandchiuldren of this island to join in
a camp, just to get to know eatchother. (on the same channel on you-tube
you can find "Mormorugen" that shows what its all about (in danish - sorry).
Small bits of the concert with Phoenix is allso there, and they allways
sing in danish, no matter if they play in Germany, Hungary, USA or elsewhere.
So you just get used to that ;-)
Back to stovebuilding.
After actually to few projects during the summer, i got a huge project
this autum.
On a very tiny island with no public ferry, they where building a brandnew
restaurant, and wanted no less than 4 huge open fireplaces and i big pizzaoven.
Well well - acording to the Danish regulatiuons, you have to build
very tight houses theese days, so if so many open fireplaces schould be
approved, they would have to have a smaller jetengine to blow in enough
airsupply.
No good, so we ended up with 3 masonry heaters (that needs mutch less
air) one huge open fireplace in the restaurant, and a big pizzaoven in
the kitchen. A project for about ½mill. danuish kr. (100.000 US$)
It took some time of course, and challenged my logistic, since we couldn´t
afford to forget anything before entering the island. That means tools,
materials, food, tothbrush.......just everuthing.3 stovebuilders needs
for about a month.
The arcitecht behind this project was luckywise very openminded, and
the owner couldn´t get it wild, violent and vulgar enough, so we
got totally free hands to do our best, what ever that might be.
The building is not at all finished yet, so pictures of the result in
its final surroundings are still to come.
Of course i have loads of pictures and film from this project, and
im working to make a decent presentation, but its still not ready.
The last project of this year for me, was very different from this huge
thing. Mutch more like it use to be, but consisting every good aspect of
stovebuilding ive experienced through my +20 years is this business.
Just one cosy stove to build,-
in a very cosy house,-
for very cosy people,
who takes very good care of you,-
very special local experiences to garther,-
together with a nice fellow Michael who did his best to learn about
stovebuilding. ( And really is coming after it !).
Again i miss a good picture, but it will certainly come later.
This heater is most likely my last one made by my own hands.
2 years ago i lost most of my sight on one of my eyes,
Since then i have been fighting with succes to rebuild my 3 dimentional
sight, but shortly after this stove i lost the sight of my other eye. (Lose
retina)
This is very new, and i got a heavy surgery, that i dont know the result
of yet. So i might get some back, so i can continue training new masonry
heater builders.
Anyway, i do have a long list of skilled stovebuilders all over the
world, who´s capability i know of of, either from personel experience
or solid reputaion.
So if you want a masonry heater, and want my advice - feel free to
ask. Im not dead, just unable to do the hard work if i want to preserve
the rest of my sight.
Update from january 2011:
I´ve got most of my sight back on one eye after another surgery
januar 18.
So after an unusually dark winter, things look remarkable more bright
:-))
My plan is still the same though - to take care of my helse and ability
to pass on what i have learned.
I do still build stoves, but a lot of skilled masonry heater builders
who want to learn more + talented newbees push me friendly to go on, using
their hands and power.
Im sure most of them will add more to the stoves we make together,
than if i just did it alone, so it´s really an advantage for the
custumores.
Work-shops is no problem for me, and i hope it will be a major part
of my future work.
Stovebuilding has entered a new face in my life, and i really wellcome
it !
April 30. 2010
Wildacres 2010
The Masonry Heater Assosiation of Northamerica have their anual meeting
in april at Wildacres retreat in North Carolina.
I was invited to be there, along with the legendary Heiiki Hyytiaiinen,
Albie Barden and a long list of the old guys in this business.
It was just great, and very recommendable for everyone interested in
masonry heaters :-)
About 120 people from all over attended.
9 very different masonry heaters where builded up, fired, and pulled
down again within a few days.
A lot of talking, discussing, laughing, working, eating, enjoing the
magnificant nature etc. toke place.
Live music, Russian theparty, presentations in the auditorium............................
Im just now editing hours of film, that i will put on Youtube in good
quality as soon as im done.
I´ll put a notice here when its ready.
Videodocumentary
from our international work-shop 2009
If you click on "More from ildsjalen" when you are on Youtube, you
can se what else i have put on.
Among other things, there is a litlle film from my trip to Austria
to learn more about kachelofens.
This is both in a dansih and an english version.
An old secret is no longer a secret
Why is some Danish masonry heaters so mutch better ?
When i, 20 years ago, learned about masonry heaters, i knew a lot about
efficient wood-combustion.
What i saw was very good, but when you are a playing human being, you
allways try to do things even better.
I made a change in the upper chamber compared to what was the commond
Finish fireplace at that time.
This change later on turned out to be a radical improvement.
Why a secret ?
More than one time in my life, i have seen others benefit from my ideas,
by calling them their own.
Making hot water from your stove as an exampel.
This idea was so simpel, and so easy to copy, that i thought, that
maybe i shouldn´t talk to mutch about it.
(May be find out about the possibilities for a patent and so on).
My custumors knew about it of course, and the students that i
educated, and in fact - everybody could read about it
in the public libraryes where they could find my test rapport, but
who did :-)
Now, i find pictures and descriptions on Hungarian and American websites,
so why shouldn´t it be on my own.
Here it is:
The centrifugal forced carburator.
In fact just a box with 3 holes !
Here you see the upper chamber in one of my early stoves.
The two small figures (Narsissus and Ecco) are ceramic that just have
beed burned.
They are not black, and they are burned all the way throug.
Ceramic will turn black if oxigen is missing for a short time.
So the temperature is o.k. and the mixing of gasses and oxigen has
allso been o.k.
When the burning gasses enters the room from the throat in the floor
just behind the door,
they can only leave throug the two hools located in the mittle of the
sidewalls. (You see one of them at the right of the chamber)
Even gasses has a weight, and are affected by centrifugal forces, and
when they enter this room, they are quit speedy
(thanks to Heikki´s invention of the throat), so they are forced
into a spiral movement, where the latest gasses will keep up the heat of
the first.
Furthermore - burned gasses are lighter than unburned gasses, so they
come easyer into the mittle of this stream, and can leave the room
throug the two holes in the side.
The heavier gasses - those who are not burned yet - have to stay in
the outher cirkel, untill they find som oxygen and can burn,
this way get lighter (allso because of the differens of temperature)
and procide in the process.
This system functions allmost independently of the temperature
of the stove, so the ordinary high contens of Co in the
beginnig of a fire is allmost gone, and the overall average becomes
extreemly low.
The system allso means, that you need less space to get a complete combustion.
Unless you put fare to mutch firewood into your firechamber, flames
will not occured outside this "carburator".
That means, that you dont have to use anything else than one layer
of ordinary bricks between your livingroom,
and the smokechannal just outside the bakeowen.
The temperature just outside the two holes will be less than the 572degrees
Celcius that by time will damage ordinary bricks.
More freedom to build - mutch faster heat, if you come home from holliday
to a real cold house, and a stove that dosn´t looks like Cassius
Clay.
Remember:
This system we have used for allmost 20 years now.
You are wellcome to copy it, but please remember to tell where it came
from.
Now we use it in our cookstoves to, but here it is located underneath
the fireplace as an accessory
you can use when you don´t cook on the plate, and want a more
clean burning and more heat to the buttom
of the cookstove. The "loss" is - no ash-dump, but that´s not
so bad anyway.
In this case you off course have to have more than one damper to controll
it.
In fact this is not so easy to explaine, but look out on my webpage
for upcomming international work-shops,
where i whould love to tell you all about it.
Quistions are wellcome, but please - email me instead of phonecalls
Lars