Secrets of choosing and operating a sauna stove in questions and answers

The sauna stove smokes, we clean the chimney regularly (almost once a month), but it quickly clogs up, and resinous deposits form on it. How to deal with it?

This is due to an insufficient system for supplying air to the furnace, which entails an insufficient combustion temperature of the wood. This problem occurs with stoves with a long burning period: a small firebox cannot form the required temperature and all heavy fractions form an oily coating in the firebox and chimney.

To solve it, you need to lengthen the chimney by 50–70 cm and clean the air supply system to the furnace. If you have a factory-made stove, you need to drill three to four holes with a diameter of 12 mm in the lower edge of the firebox near the blower.

Take dry wood (preferably hardwood, but not birch) and maintain the maximum combustion temperature in the furnace for half an hour. This should be done in rainy weather or in winter, because resinous compounds, when burned out, can form a fiery stream in those places where formations have accumulated (pipe, chimneys, etc.). There are cases when a column of flame up to one and a half meters high bursts out of the pipe during this procedure..

A heat exchanger for heating water is built into iron stoves for a bath, is it possible to use it as a heater for a floor heating system, and take out a hot water tank to the chimney?

Of course, such a system can be mounted, but keep in mind that the oven should be 20-25% more powerful than it would be necessary for the volume of your premises. In addition, it will be necessary to provide for a forced air supply system when firing up..

Also keep in mind that if you want to increase the share of heat coming from burning wood for heating the underfloor heating system, this will entail a greater consumption of wood and overheating of the walls of the furnace. If you want to put a tank on the pipe, then this system will interfere with the discharge of gases into the chimney at the time of lighting the stove.

A brick oven for a bath does not heat up well. Tell me what could be the reason?

To begin with, we want to draw your attention to the fact that a brick oven in a bath requires a longer heating period, but the specific heat of the brick is higher, and it keeps heat longer. Therefore, a bath with a brick stove must be heated for several hours longer than with an iron.

If you are doing everything correctly and the stove still heats up poorly, then the reason here may be excessively thick walls of the furnace or a direct-flow gas exhaust system.

See how the firebox is arranged in the stove. From the side of the steam room, it should be laid out in a “half brick” (thicker walls do not warm up). Pay attention to how the chimney works. If it is straight-through, then the wood will “fly into the pipe” almost literally.

The air stream from the firebox must give off some of its heat to the walls of the furnace; for this, passages along the walls of the furnace are structurally laid in cutting the chimney. The smoke temperature at the exit from the firebox reaches 350–400 degrees, and at the exit from the chimney no more than 50–80 degrees (this is the norm). All the heat goes to heating the brick oven. If there are mistakes in the masonry, call the stove maker.

I can’t decide which stove to put in the bath. Some advise an iron, others a brick oven for a bath. Tell me which one is better to choose?

It all depends on how often and how long you will use the sauna. If the trips to the bathhouse are occasional and not long, then the use of an iron stove would be ideal. Its advantage is that it quickly heats up the room, but it also cools down quickly. If you are a connoisseur of a bath and a hike in it lasts for several hours, then in this case a brick bath stove will be the ideal option..

The heat capacity of the brick is high and it is able to give off the accumulated heat for up to 12 hours. In addition, a brick oven can adsorb excess moisture in the room and create a better microclimate for bathing procedures..

The disadvantage of such a sauna stove is a large amount of wood burned, a longer heating period and the size of the stove. The advantages include a more even temperature in the bath, a long period of operation and a microclimate close to natural.

Baths of large sizes are made for a brick stove, for iron stoves – the size of a bath is planned to be smaller. In addition, do not forget that if an iron stove fails, it will be much easier to dismantle and replace it than a brick one..

The iron stove for the bath heats up the wall of the log house very much, what to do?

To avoid this, it is necessary to overlay the oven with a brick “apron”. The apron is laid out in a “half-brick” at a distance of 15-20 cm from the wall of the bath.

In addition, at a distance of 3-5 cm from the wall of the log house, an insulating “sandwich” is attached, which is made of a combination of an insulating mat, a dense surface and a reflective layer.

Here, all air gaps play the role of convection chambers, which force air to circulate and thereby cool the surface, preventing it from overheating and burning..

The iron stove for the bath heats up the steam room very quickly, and the water in the tank is barely warm (the tank is mounted on the chimney), why this happens and what to do?

Most likely, for your steam room you are using an excessively powerful sauna stove with increased heat transfer. That is why the volume of the steam room has time to heat up faster than the water in the tank..

Try reducing the volume of stones in the stove by 1/3, which will reduce the heat output of the stove, or decrease the volume of the hot water tank by one third..

Also try to keep the intensity of the flame at half of the maximum when heating the sauna stove until the water is heated to the desired temperature. This will make it possible not to overheat the stones and at the same time the water will have time to heat up to 75 degrees.

How to air dry the floor using a brick sauna stove. The fact is that the floor does not have time to dry out after washing and an unpleasant smell arises in the bath.

It is very effective in this case, when laying a brick sauna stove, to mount 3-4 pipes Ø 45-52 mm one row above the furnace, preferably into the chimney. One end should be tightly welded, and the other should be brought out below the level of the wooden flooring. The hot air flow from the pipe will dry out the wooden floor..

Attention!The pipes should not be in the firebox, in this case they will glow and there is a high probability of getting burned from the flow of hot air.

We hope that our tips will help you solve the arising issues related to the stove in the bath, and, having solved them, you will be able to steam with pleasure without being distracted by any problems.