Wood Stove History
A wood stove is a wonderful addition to any home. Be it a sleek looking pedestal model in the family room of a brand new custom home in a sprawling suburban development, an old fashioned looking yet highly efficient wood stove with legs in a rustic mountain cabin or a fireplace insert set into the fireplace of a 1976 rancher in Anytown, U.S.A. there's just something special that a wood stove brings to the home. The "warm you to the core" radiant heat, crackling song of a fresh log thrown on hot coals, mesmerizing flame dancing around inviting all who pass by to just sit a relax awhile- not to mention independence gained from power outages and money saved on the heating budget- all these things draw us to the hearth.
Mankind has been warming himself fireside since the dawn of time. Maybe that's why we are so drawn to staring into the flickering flames of our wood stove or campfire. Early peoples who built permanent dwellings wanted to bring their fires inside. First attempts at this were fires built on a dirt or rock floor in the corner or along the wall of the home with a hole punched in the wall above for the smoke to escape (though certainly a fair amount of the smoke remained in the home.) No one knows when and who the first people were to improve that "hole in the wall" system but the ruins of Rome show that they had started to make simple clay chimneys. As simple as that was, mediating the "bring the fire inside" and "get the smoke outside" was a big step. The first known people to develop what could be called a stove in their homes are the same who invented gun powder- the Chinese. They made simple stoves out of clay, sealing the fire off from the home completely. These were probably a hole in the floor of the home with clay plates covering it and a masonry chimney to vent it. They could put pots over the clay for cooking or remove a piece for roasting. The Chinese stoves have been dated back to over two hundred years before Christ. About five hundred years later in Japan we see an improved version called a kamado. These were raised, rectangular masonry stoves built up from the floor about knee high and often had a hole or two in the top for pots to be placed over which allowed direct flame contact to the bottom of the pot for greater heat transfer.
Fast-forward to Early America and most folks were still heating with an open fire place. Yet developments in metallurgy and the demand for greater efficiency were setting the stage for change. For a portrait of one of the greatest pioneers in wood stove heat look no farther than the United States one hundred dollar bill- Benjamin Franklin. In the early 1740's he invented what became know as the Franklin Stove which really was more of a fireplace insert. It was a cast-iron box with closing doors and a hole in the back for the smoke to vent out. One would place it directly in front of or inside their fireplace using their current chimney for the flue. From there improvements were made- by others and Franklin himself, to the "fireplace insert" Franklin wood stove. In the later 1700's more elaborate stoves were made having more cast iron panels that enclosed the fire completely. They had tighter fitting doors and flues fitted for pipe- the early freestanding wood stove. Now John Q. Pioneer could buy a saw, axe, wood stove and pipe, load his Westward bound wagon, and have his heating and cooking needs taken care of. The wood stove saw many minor improvements and expanded applications, such as cook stoves with ovens and hot water heaters. Yet the greatest changes took place over one hundred and fifty years later.
The energy crisis of the 1970's brought a renewed interest in wood stoves as a home heat source. Everything was being looked from the angle of "how can we increase the efficiency?" and the wood stove was no exception. From this air tight stoves made of plate mild steel, such as the Fisher, were born. These stoves could be loaded up to hold a fire over night- an important feature in the practicality of heating with a wood stove. There is an interesting parallel between the time of the Franklin wood stove and the Fisher wood stove that illuminates the "Necessity is the mother of invention" saying. Let's go back to Franklin's time. He lived in Pennsylvania- possibly the largest city in the country at the time. Wood was becoming harder and harder to come by especially in the more inner parts of town. Fireplaces of the day burned a lot of wood for a little heat. B. Franklin saw a need. It was said of his wood stove, "you get twice the heat from burning a third the wood". Franklin developed the stove to improve people's lives. In fact, he intentionally never patented it because he wanted it to be available to better the life of as many as possible. There was a need for greater efficiency in his day as well as the 1970's. In both cases outside pressure brought about major improvements to wood stoves and fireplace inserts that continued through the subsequent years. Which brings us to the modern wood stove.
Today, a Kuma wood stove heats at around 73% efficient, burns to the strictest environmental standards and needs to be refueled as little as twice in a 24 hour period. As said earlier, the airtight wood stoves of the seventies could be filled full of wood and shut down to a slow burn. While this was good for extending the length of time that a wood stove would hold a fire, it was not so good for other things. Loading up one of these stoves with wood then shutting them down it created a fuel rich- oxygen starved situation. The load of wood just slowly smoldered, billowing smoke out the chimney. A stove like that put out about 60 grams of particulate matter per hour. A new Kuma wood stove, with it's stainless steel re-burn system bringing in just the right amount of secondary air at just the right places, burns at about 2.5 p.m.p.h! Not only does this make the air we breath cleaner but all that particulate matter getting burned up gives us more heat with less fuel. (Sound familiar? Ben Franklin would be proud!)
A new Kuma wood stove also has features to make heating with wood, not only more efficient but more pleasant. Self-cleaning fire-view doors let you enjoy the age-old mesmerizing flame- while letting you keep easy tabs on refueling needs. The large "live" (ash falls through grate automatically as you burn) ash drawer system keeps the fire box from filling with ash- maximizing wood load and minimizing cleanout effort. Today's wood stove - Efficient. Economical. Simple. Dependable. Practical. Beautiful. The oldest home heat source looks to have a very bright future.
