Coals from the firebox of Bill Reynolds’ masonry heater.
Photo by Ned Rozell.
This column is provided as a public service by the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer at the institute.
With the rising price of heating oil, some people are looking to the past for ways to heat their homes.
Masonry heaters, huge masses of stonework wrapped around a sinuous channel through which hot gases flow, are now appearing in Alaska homes. The clean-burning, efficient heaters existed for centuries in Europe and Scandinavia, but didn’t reach the shores of America until after the oil crisis of the 1970s.
Bill Reynolds and his wife Brenda Norcross of Fairbanks have heated their 1,400-square-foot house with a masonry heater for more than two winters. Reynolds said they have used two-and-one-half to three cords of wood per year to heat their home, which stays at a constant 70-to-72 degrees Fahrenheit in winter.