ROYWOOD Masonry Heaters, LLC

Cardboard Spacer burns and leaves expansion joint between the core and facing.

Mineral Wool expansion joint between core & downdraft channels, and under lid.

Dark Mortar

Existing Chimney

Brick: Recycled Drurys made in Essex, Vermont

Stone: Locally Gathered Fieldstone

Mortar: Dark

Mason: Woody

Core: Roycore 1500

 Apparently Mr. Twain travelled to Europe and experienced the heat-storing fireplace first-hand, and here’s what he had to say:
     “All day long and until past midnight all parts of the room will be delightfully warm and comfortable…it’s surface is not hot; you can put your hand on it anywhere and not get burnt.
     Consider these things. One firing is enough for the day; the cost is next to nothing; the heat produced is the same all day, instead of too hot and too cold by turns..
     America could adopt this stove, but does America do it? No, she sticks placidly to her own fearful and wonderful inventions in the stove line. The American wood stove, of whatever breed, is a terror. It requires more attention than a baby. It has to be fed every little while, it has to be watched all the time; and for all reward you are roasted half your time and frozen the other half… and when your wood bill comes in you think you have been supporting a volcano.
     It is certainly strange that useful customs and devices do not spread from country to country with more facility and promptness than they do.”

-Mark Twain

The maximum water content in our Refractory Castable is 12 percent, making for a dry mix. It is therefore necessary to vibrate the form when casting to achieve material consolidation. The finished product tolerates temperatures of 2,400 degrees fahrenheit.

Masonry heaters were once known in Eastern Europe as “peasant stoves” because they were built from locally available clays and stones, and were therefore much cheaper than the imported cast iron stoves.  Good combustion and heat-storage were also a functional necessity in poor rural areas where, due to heavy deforestation, fuel wood may have been scarce.  
In North America, the masonry heater encountered large homes, strict codes, and recently, abundant credit. Stove masons were few and far between. All of these factors have made the masonry heater the most expensive wood-burning system available. Let’s work to make the installation process as efficient as the technology itself.  Let’s make this safe, clean, wonderful heating system an option for all of us who would benefit.

this is a small wood load, including a couple of 2 by 4s.