Increase woodstove efficiency with bricks and mud This is a pretty simple do-it-yourself option for anyone interested in increasing the efficiency of an old (or new!) woodstove. That said, a heater in the home poses serious risks — greater than an outdoor oven, and potentially greater than the old stove itself. But it's not rocket science; masonry heaters were developed and designed by people who worked for love, not money (the whole story is in David Lyle's Book of Masonry Stoves: Rediscovering an Old Way of Warming). The videos below show (roughly) how it goes together. In . . .
Lily Gordon, 16, helps build ovens in Tanzania
David S. Cargo, who assembles info about community ovens for the St. Paul Bread Club sent me a link about Lily Gordon, a remarkable young woman who at the age of 16 was helping villagers in Tanzania to build ovens so they can make their own bread (previously, bread was transported from so far that it would often be inedible when it arrived). At the age of 11, Lily Gordon started raising funds for the village of Shirati, Tanzania. For her 11th birthday, instead of gifts, she asked her friends to bring money for the children of Shirati. The party raised $1,300. Behind Lily are many others, . . .
Rainer Warzecha, sculptor, oven mason, collaborator, Germany
Some years ago now, I got an unexpected email from Elke Cole, a German-born architect now living in Canada, whom I had originally met at the first Natural Building Colloquium in Oregon, in the mid 90s. Elke was traveling in Germany, where she’d come across a public art project in a park in Berlin. It was full of earthen sculptures made by a German artist named Rainer Warzecha. At the time, I was collecting stories and photos to expand a little pamphlet about earthen art projects (Dig Your Hands in the Dirt). But most of what I had were small scale projects: benches, ovens, and things . . .