What kind of woodburning stove?

What kind of woodburning stove shall I put in?

Some of you will be familiar with the @tulikivi stove at Slackbrae. It's a stove with a remarkable difference.

The principle is like an electric storage radiator - but with logs and much better heat storage and emission. Heat from the stove passes through a series of chambers surrounded in soapstone before the gases exit through the flue. The soapstone soaks up and then slowly releases the stored heat over several hours.

To use, the stove is prepared with firewood and this is burnt down. No other logs are added for another 12 hrs at which time a second load is added. Heat will be continue to be emitted from just these two loads for up to 18hrs afterwards.

This makes it a very efficient heat provider: just two loads of wood provide heat for long after the flames have gone out. And it also emits radiant heat, like the sun, which is a gentle heat.

These 'kachelofen' or ceramic or masonry stoves are commonplace in other woodland areas of Europe: from the Nordic countries in the north, down through the alps into the Romanian mountains. It was a common source of heating in Stockholm flats to still in Romanian mountain refuges – anywhere with trees.

And then there’s the Top-Down method. We’ll leave that for another day. For now look at the Stories of the extraordinary stove and its production in north Finland, plus a few others . . .