What is a masonry heater?

The masonry heater (or stove) has been used for hundreds of years all around the northern hemisphere.  It goes by many names and has many forms;

• Finnish Stove;
• Russian Stove;
• Swedish Stove;
• Tyrolean Stove;
• Kachelöfen.

It is sometimes known as a Thermal Mass Heater or a Contra-flow Heater, which describes the way it works.

See the history sheet on our information page.

Masonry heaters have been shown to have many advantages over other heaters. These include:

• better efficiency and safety than metal wood-burning heaters;
• reduced environmental impact;
• ease of use (you only burn them once or twice a day);
• improved indoor air quality and
• high levels of design flexibility so that they can suit your home.

Masonry heaters have been traditionally custom-designed and built by specialists, making them very expensive and difficult to source away from their usual areas of use. As a result, they haven’t been available in Australia.

Heavenly Heat imports the Tempcast masonry stove from Canada. This comes as a self-assembly core around which you build your own choice of facing. We can also import a soapstone facing if you would like. See the core construction here.

The facing can be brick, stone, concrete or any other masonry material with or without a rendered finish.  In Europe decorative glazed tiles are used to face the stoves turning some of them into real works of art. For examples see:

• our photo page.
• Our information sheets.
•  our slide show and
•  the Tempcast photo gallery.

Various configurations are possible;

• standard for a single room;
• see through for two rooms or as a room divider; or
• a corner configuration.

In addition a bake-oven can be fitted above the main firebox, great for cooking a pizza on a cold evening.

See our information sheets for more details.