keffle ovens - where can i get plans for a keffle oven?

[twiggy]

does anyone know where i can get information on keffle ovens? i believe there is an address in europe that one can write to for plans.
i'm in the high semi-desert of new mexico and people consume vast amounts of fossil fuels to bring copious quantities of wood down from the distant mountains, i'm thinking that there is adequate twig fuels right here in the desert in the form of mesquite bushes and ocotillo cactus... :O

[Tamandco]

This one sounds interesting.

Any ideas?

Tam

[permaculture.biz]

G'day,

I did a quick google and came up with nothing. From the fuels used it may be a mass oven they are talking about, it which case there is some very good books on the subject.

Guess we'll need to hear back from the aptly named Twiggy to see if this is correct or not.

Ciao Darren Doherty

[SueinWA]

Are you spelling "keffle" right? I can't google anything on it.

What's the basic concept? Is it a mud oven? Stone? A hole in the ground?

More clues, please. You can't just tantalize us like this!

Sue

[christopher]

Are we talking about a welded metal "kettle oven"? I have read wbout them, and they are extremely efficient. They make them in parts of Africa....

Goood luck,

C

[Peter Clements]

At the recent Melbourne Uni PDC Geoff Lawton spoke favourably of the "kachel" stove, also known in German as the "kachelofen". The firebox in a kachel stove is built inside a large masonry mass with a winding chimney to absorb all the heat and re-radiate it slowly over the next 24 hours. (radiant heating is the best since it heats only the people and solid masses it strikes, not the air).
Two companies in the US sell kachel kits, although they are pricey! http://www.heatkit.com http://www.mainewoodheat.com
The peak body for kachel stove manufacturers is The Masonry Heater Association of North America http://mha-net.org
A short explanation of the kachel stove is found at http://www.ceramicstoday.com/articles/kachelofen.htm

[SueinWA]

aka Masonry Stoves or Swedish Stoves.

Gotcha! And everything I've heard about them say they're great.

Sue

[SueinWA]

Here are some possibly interesting sites on masonry stoves:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/library/ ... _Fireplace (http://www.motherearthnews.com/library/1983_November_December/The_Siberian_Fireplace) (Fred Fitzpatrick’s article in TMEN)

books on masonry stoves:
http://www.hollowtop.com/cls_html/do-it ... stoves.htm (http://www.hollowtop.com/cls_html/do-it-yourself/masonry_stoves.htm)

Masonry Stove construction plans:
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vin ... y/nav.html (http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/4095/masonry/nav.html)

The Guatamalan Stove Project, building masonry cook stoves for impoverished families:
http://www.guatemalastoveproject.org/building.html

Note: masonry stoves are usually built before the house. Sometimes you can get away with putting one in the basement, but adding one to an existing home can be tricky.

Sue

[heuristics]

Hi. the mighty Bill M and Geoff Lawton spoke about Kachel ovens at the Sept 05 permaculture design course in Melbourne.
It is a German word and the ovens were once a common device in mid Europe, (they said).
From my notes it is a masonry stove whcih produces three types of heat - convection, conduction and radiation.
I think from my notes it is also known as a "Kang" in China and in mid-winter in extreme climates people used to sleep on top of them.
From the diagram I drew it is a small stick fire, especially suitable for coppice wood. The heat can be vented out, and the thermal mass gives radiated heat. Bill, being Bill, went off on a tangent about bundles of sticks being known as "faggots".
My notes take back up with something about the oven being able to be heated to 800 degrees C.
Then there is something about "19 uses for a wood stove", but the point was lost among some of the digressions.
Hope this is a bit helpful.

[Franceyne]

My partner and I looked at masonary heaters/ovens/stoves when we were planning the building of our house (which never happened - we brought a house instead) for similar reasons (less wood/fuel use) and discovered that it takes a while for the heater to heat up and ages to cool down - great if you live in country that is under snow for ages (months) but not so practical where it is only really cold for a few days before changing to warmer days when heating is not needed...depending on the local climate of anyone considering this type of heating this may be something to take into consideration.

Cheers,
Fran.