Masonry Heater Innards

We got everything roofed over, sheet metalled, and stuffed with straw this weekend and Dan put on our super duper $1 door and the bullet heater. Jeff and Dave, the crew from Gimme Shelter Construction in Amherst, have been hard at work in our little straw shack, putting up the innards of our masonry heater. They got here yesterday with a trailer of tools and a truckload of assorted bricks - concrete and firebrick and flue tile. And a Christmas present from me to me - originally I thought we had taken the bakeoven out of the plans, but they brought one, so by golly now I'm having one!! You can see the progress from the pics - instead of going straight up the chimney, the hot gas that a fire produces circulates up and around the bakeoven, then down to the front of the heater and around the side to the chimney through a heated bench. Once the interior stuff is done, then a local mason will face the whole thing in brick and build up a chimney for us, after the holiday probably. Then we may have a little rest till the big timbers come and the weather allows putting them up - we'll see. Also, we were recipients of an early visit from S. Claus - he left us a brand new ladder!!

Robert Burns was so right...

About the fate of the best laid plans of mice and men. We've gotten so much done, but none of it has worked out quite as planned. After the floor was done Uncle Jim's crew, headed by the super accomplished Chuck, who I am now ashamed to admit that for a while we called " the furry one" due to his rather bushy beard, returned to grade over our perimeter insulation and make things shipshape dirt wise for the winter. That guy can do ballet with a Caterpillar tractor - it's a sight to behold. Then Dan and Dad and I put up a temporary bracing and roof structure, Dan wrapped the inside posts with house wrap, and put up some of our super duper scrounger sheet metal. We got a load of it from a guy up by Colfax for less than you would pay for a Coke per sheet, thinking we would use it to cover the cordwood in a more secure fashion. But now it's covering our teeny weeny straw house!! Friday we got 97 bales of straw which I thought was too many but somehow turned out to be about 25 bales shy of what we need, and Mom and I stacked most of them inside the structure, first covering the bottom layer with plastic so it doesn't stain our beautiful but very slippery concrete floor. Then yesterday Matt ( Brother Most Fantastic) came out and helped me put up the plastic roof in the snow. I had gotten a silo cap from Farm and Fleet that I thought would cover the whole thing, except that geometry is not my friend. A square silo cap will not fit over your octagonal framework as perfectly as you think while standing in the aisle at the store, trying to do math in your head. It held through the six or so inches of snow we got, but only through the grace of God and some judicious use of bracing and tape. So today we shoveled - the outside, the inside, the roof, the driveway... And reinforced the plastic at the edges so it will be OK for a bit. The new plan is to use more of our sheet metal offal to roof it tomorrow. Inside it's quite pleasant and will be even more pleasant when we have the bullet heater going. We're going to give it a trial run as we roof tomorrow. The masonry heater folks wisely and blessedly postponed a week due to a more urgent job and the snow, so we should be ready for them next Monday, God willing and the creek don't rise, or the snow don't fly.