subject: Wood Stoves- How They Have Evolved From The Earlier Years [print this page] Author: Shane opp Author: Shane opp
Wooden stoves have been used since ancient times in one form or the other to heat the rooms during the cold winter months. Wood stoves provide effective heating directly into the space in comparison with the modern central heating systems, which distributes heat through ducts. Wood stoves generally consist of an enclosed metal box of cast iron, an adjustable air control and a grate and sometimes have a humidifier attached to them for added comfortability.
In earlier times, open fireplaces were used to heat the rooms, but they were not capable of providing effective heating as most of the heat was not directed into the room properly. The people in America used to build a fire in a fireplace using a lot of wood which was quite unsafe and costly. Then came the generation of what is now known as heath stove, which consisted of metal boxes with an opening at the back strategically positioned against a fireplace to reduce the excess heat which radiated into the room. During the 1700s completely closed stoves were in popular usage, which were efficient in radiating heat into the room.
Then there was a dramatic change in the design and usage of wood stoves, which was seen as the most convenient and cost-effective way of heating the house. The change was brought about by an American scientist and researcher, Benjamin Franklin who invented the cast iron stove or what he called as the Pennsylvania Fireplace and now most popularly as the Franklin stove in the year 1742. He invented a safe and cost effective stove which consists of a cast iron metal box which can heat a room in a relatively safe manner. The stove was capable of radiating heat into the room from a 360 degree angle. However, this stove was characterized by a flaw of radiating smoke from the bottom. In 1772, David Rittenhouse improves Franklins stove by adding an L-shaped chimney which rectified the earlier defects in the model. This improved model continued to be in use without any further significant developments in wood stoves till the late 1980s. The earlier wood stove models consist of some limitations like usage of huge quantity of wood, air pollution, chances of fire hazards and constant difficult maintenance procedure.
In the late 1980s, the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) of United States imposed a smoke emission norm limiting the smoke emission on wood stoves to 7.5 grams per hour to improve the air quality. The manufactures in order to comply with the new emission norms discovered the catalytic stoves and non-catalytic stoves.
The catalytic stoves consist of a ceramic honeycomb catalytic plate imbedded with certain chemicals which catalyses the combustion of resins in the smoke at lower temperature. The catalytic plate is inserted in the path of emission of smoke, which works only a particular temperature. Until, the required temperature is reached the smoke is bypassed through a damper. This was used popularly as it was easy to modify the earlier model but it also came with certain limitations like difficulty in use and maintenance procedure which is quite cumbersome. Later non-catalytic stoves came into use which uses a longer smoke path and secondary combustion chamber which helps in achieving complete combustion.
The wood stoves have evolved over the years and act as an efficient mean of heating the room. Though the wood stoves are giving way to electric stoves and central heating system, their antique appeal is enough to convince a person to go for a wood stove for heating.About the Author:
Shane Opp is an expert on wood stove humidifiers. More detailed information about Humidifier Reviews and all the other different types of humidifiers can be found at his website humidifieranalys.com
