What does it mean to heat the stove in black and how to do it right?

Although the phrase "heating a stove in black" may seem strange, it has a vital role in conventional home heating techniques. All it really means is using a stove to heat a space without a chimney. For centuries, people have used this technique, particularly in rural areas where access to contemporary heating systems may be limited. To guarantee efficiency and safety, heating a stove in black, however, calls for considerable thought and expertise.

Fundamentally, heating a black stove means managing the airflow to the fire to retain as much heat as possible in the stove and the room. In contrast to a chimney, which lets gases and smoke out, heating in black depends on controlling the combustion process inside the stove. This technique is a sustainable choice for home heating because it uses fuel more effectively while still producing warmth.

When heating a stove in black, proper technique is essential to prevent dangerous situations like smoke infiltration into living areas and carbon monoxide buildup. Considerations like the kind of fuel used, the size of the fire, and the room’s ventilation must all be carefully considered. To guarantee the stove operates at its best and is safe, regular maintenance is also necessary.

The efficiency of conventional heating techniques can be greatly increased by comprehending and correctly applying the principles of heating in black. Utilizing the heat generated by the stove and distributing it efficiently throughout the house allows residents to live comfortably with less energy use and less negative environmental effects.

Why used to drown baths and at home in black?

Due to the fact that the stove in question was fumigating the home in which it was situated, the term "kuren furnace" originated in Russia and applied to all heating appliances. The smoke from these devices entered the room first and then exited through designated windows. They were given the same name at home (smoking huts) after the stove.

Even after the appearance of white analogues, such an oven was in high demand due to its many benefits, despite its antiquated construction and equally antiquated heating principle:

• disinfected the room, suppressing the reproduction in the logs of the log house of any pests and diseases;
• had a high efficiency of useful action (efficiency);
• represented a warm area for sleeping.

As a result, the history of the Kurine furnace’s appearance is closely tied to the history of Russian North Russian settlement. Many tribes and even entire nations were forced to relocate during the Great Relocation of peoples, which was mostly brought on by changes in the climate.

The Roman bread stove, from which the Russian black furnace was derived, was known to the ancestors of the Slavs, the same Ants and Ventas, who had frequent contact and served as mercenaries for the Greeks and Romans. It was sufficient to create a rectangular top instead of a round one with a sleeping platform.

Warm-intensive furnaces were used in place of hearths when the Russian North experienced another cooling and bitterly cold winter. This allowed people to withstand harsh frosts without discomfort.

Subsequently, Siberia developed, and it was discovered that the old Russian stove—which enlightened Europeans hated as an anachronism—was far more efficient in Siberian conditions than modern “Dutch” modern stoves were at the time.

One of the biggest benefits was that clay technology allowed for the creation of the Russian black furnace even in the absence of brick.

How lived in Russian chicken huts?

Contrary to popular belief, the smoke-filled huts inside were not black from soot. A decant hut has been preserved in the Maly Korely Museum in the Arkhangelsk region; a picture of it is available online.

Physics and heat dynamics explain why the walls are clear and free of soot even though the ceiling is actually covered in smoke. Steamy fumes from the furnace ascend towards the ceiling or roof, where they condense into a sort of bag that is positioned atop the chilly interior air. A portion of the smoke (stuffy or smoke) cools down to the bottom edge of the bag and escapes through the window.

Because the stove’s furnace required female labor—a practice dating back to ancient times when a woman was known as the hearth keeper—a blackened house suggested the presence of a lethargic and incompetent mistress. Consequently, girls were instilled with the knowledge from an early age that having a Russian stove was essential for cooking and heating the home, and that it was also improper to drown the stove itself.

In addition, the temperature of the outgoing smoke is high enough to be easier to ignite than air, but not high enough to ignite a straw roof, as most village peasant houses were covered in straw or reeds until the early 1900s instead of slate.

Another benefit of this type of heating is that, unlike furnaces with chimneys, sparks never land on the roof, meaning that, even in the worst-case scenario, the roof won’t catch fire.

An important benefit was its extraordinarily high efficiency when compared to white furnaces. The smoke that was released heated the air and walls right away, and the hot body of the furnace continued to heat the hut even after the fuel was burned.

On warm nights, there were plenty of straws to keep the hut warm, but during deep freezes, firewood was needed.

The huts’ extensive ventilation removed excess moisture and updated the gas composition of the air, which is especially important for large families. Additionally, the smoke’s preservative effect gave the huts their durability, allowing them to stand for several centuries.

Smoke stoves had many benefits, but they were also extremely dangerous; one mishap could result in the family’s death. This was one of the reasons why King Peter I was searching for safer ways to heat homes. As a result, he brought the furnace’s design—later known as "Dutch"—from the "Great Embassy."

How such stoves are used today?

Although it is the foundation of the authentic Finnish sauna, this type of furnace is hardly ever utilized for heating these days. Additionally, a lot of people in Russia enjoy taking black-steam baths because they create a unique atmosphere that is impossible to recreate in a white furnace.

These stoves are used in many hunting houses and forest dugouts because they are more effective than any other building and can be built with just enough clay that has the right amount of fat or more fat diluted for sand.

Why in some buildings the walls are smoked, while in others there is no?

Three requirements must be satisfied for the furnace to operate safely and effectively:

1. The correct design of the furnace.
2. The correct construction of the house.
3. The right firebox of such a stove.

The Russian stove, unlike other structures, including Finnish Sava, provides maximum carbon oxidation due to a bag of hot gases under the arch, which means that smoke from it creates less soot.

The house’s architecture should mimic that of the furnace, meaning that the top of the chimney should match the bottom edge of the furnace and that there should be a bag of hot gases beneath the roof or ceiling, heating the space through both direct radiation and heating walls.

To ensure the maximum heating area and hence increase efficiency, it is also advisable to place the dushnik in the opposite corner or edge of the house.

While most modern bathrooms are unable to accommodate a ceiling height of 2.5 meters, it is simple to implement these requirements in other types of rooms where there is no ceiling. This is because adding height to a room increases its cubic meter capacity, which raises the necessary amount of thermal energy.

Furthermore, the smoky’s design should allow for the possibility of shutting it after the furnace flips on; otherwise, all of the heat will immediately escape into space, causing the room to cool down.

Why are baths drown in black?

Up until now, people have preferred saunas and baths with black stoves because they maintain a ambiance that is not possible in rooms with white furnaces. Why are baths sometimes drowned in black, just as they used to be?

When these furnaces have the proper firebox, the walls stay clean because the hot air passes through the stuffy and doesn’t come into contact with the walls, preventing condensate from collecting there and turning into soot.

One more benefit of the black furnaces is that the stones are heated to 600–800 degrees, which produces the most beneficial finely dispersed steam when it comes into contact with water.

How to avoid the appearance of soot on the walls?

The walls of the Finnish Sava Saun are covered in a layer of soot, which is accepted as normal since smoke enters the room and soot is expected. However, these days people hardly ever think about such moments.

This is actually just abnormal because, in a proper chicken bath or hut, the hut covers only a small portion of the walls and the roof. We need to take a closer look at the combustion process in order to comprehend how to heat the oven in black properly and why soot covers some rooms from top to bottom.

What’s on fire? This is the process by which oxygen oxidizes carbon and hydrogen atoms in the air to form heat radiation that is visible to the human eye.

But firewood isn’t just carbon and hydrogen; it’s also made of wood, which is made up of organic polymers like lignin and cellulose. How do simple chemical elements become complex polymers?

The process of pyrolysis, or the thermal breakdown of complex materials into simpler pyrolysis gases that react with oxygen, is what causes this transformation. In other words, the wood isn’t really burning; rather, pyrolysis has formed as a result of the heating process.

Furthermore, the temperature of the medium surrounding the pyrolysis process directly affects its intensity as well as the oxidation of the gases produced during the process.

The temperature of a burning match, when brought to the traction, is about 900 degrees, which is more than sufficient to initiate the pyrolysis and oxidation of the expelled gases. However, because of its low power, this flame can only heat small masses, like a piece of paper or bark, whereas the airflow flame’s temperature will be similar to that of a match’s flame.

The thick log will not light when you bring a burning match near it, but the black soot trace will still be there because it forms when the mixture of pyrolysis gas and air cools, slowing down the oxidation reaction.

This slowdown causes condensate to settle on the cold surface, where it evaporatively evaporates and leaves behind a visible carbon trace.

Therefore, the irregular ignition of firewood is the cause of the soot formation on the surface of the walls below the stuffy. As a result, the flame’s energy is primarily used to heat the wood to the temperature of pyrolysis, resulting in a noticeably lower temperature of the outgoing smoke than is appropriate.

Because indoor air cannot replace it to the ceiling and roof, the lower the smoke temperature, the higher the specific gravity. Additionally, the cold walls collect condensate with carbon, which turns into soot as it absorbs or evaporates water.

In order to prevent this sequence of events, it is necessary to alter the furnace’s melting principle. This is because the majority of thermal energy should be used to heat the smoke to its highest temperature, with the remainder going toward warming the firewood within the furnace.

In all other furnaces, the chimney thrust compensates for the outgoing smoke’s insufficient temperature, allowing firewood and kindling to be laid simultaneously. However, in furnaces heated in black, doing so causes soot to accumulate on the walls.

How to drown in black?

There are six steps in the entire firebox in black process:

1. ROZZHIG.
2. LOVE OF DRIOUS.
3. Adjusting the combustion mode.
4. Removing coal.
5. I ventilation of the room.

ROZZHIG

A well-dried wood bark and finely chopped wooden bars with a thickness and width of between 5 and 25 mm are required to light such a furnace.

Some peasants made stoves without matches until the end of the 19th century. Others used fires that were already going, like candles or lamps, or they used the antiquated method of flint and chair, where the bark had to be as far removed as possible in order for the sparks to ignite it.

To ensure a quicker kindling ignition and a higher flame temperature, which will result in the appearance of hotter smoke, we also advise fluffing a portion of the bark.

If your firewood is perfectly dry—that is, if it has been stored in the barn or covered for several days next to the stove—you can add the same styling from them right away, just like in the Russian furnace. That is:

1. The first row of two logs, lay along the edges along so that you can put the same log across them on top.
2. The second row of the three smallest logs lay across the first row.
3. Lay the third row from the logs of the pounds in parallel.
4. The fourth row of the largest logs lay across again.
5. Between the logs of the first row, lay the kindle of birch bark or other bark.

Light the kindle once all the firewood has been laid. If the firewood is not completely dry, light the kindle first, then add the bark and chopped planks in order of increasing size.

Avoid hurrying to lay down; instead, wait for the trampling to properly flare up. This way, adding more fuel won’t significantly alter the temperature of the flames or smoke, preventing the latter from becoming volatile and shooting toward the ceiling.

LOVE OF DRIOUS

Put firewood in when the kindergarten got really hot. Avoid stacking more than three logs at once to avoid cooling the flame and producing a lot of smoke that fills the room rather than rising to the ceiling.

When the fire has already flared up with force and main and a fresh batch of fuel won’t cause the temperature to drop to dangerous levels, place the thinnest logs in first and fat towards the end.

Adjusting the combustion mode

In relation to modifying the combustion mode There are two opposing viewpoints:

1. Some are sure that if the combustion is slightly muffled with a gate, you get more heat due to the smaller parasitic heating of the air passing through the furnace.
2. Others are sure that since the furnace does not have a chimney, the more intense fire in it is, the better, because strong fire emits more hot smoke, moreover, the oxidation of carbon proceeds, albeit for less time.

In cold winter nights, when you have to heat the furnace’s body in addition to the air, the first point of view is more accurate. Otherwise, the air will remain cold. Since it uses 20–30% less fuel, the second point of view is better suited for furnaces in the fall and spring, when it is sufficient to warm the air in the room and an oven is not necessary for body heating. Use the same damper that is used in the Russian furnace to regulate the combustion of fuel.

Pay attention to the color and sound of the flame to maximize the furnace’s body warming:

• If it is bright yellow and burns without a hum, then the damper is installed correctly;
• когда пламя краснеет или теряет яркость, то заслонка слишком сильно закрыта;
• A buzzing flame speaks of an insufficiently closed valve.

Removing coal

You should pay closer attention to the stove as it approaches the end of the firewood burning process, as indicated by the fading flame and reduced brightness from the furnace. It’s time to clean the firebox and remove these coals when only infrequent flames remain above the coals.

The furnace needs to be cleaned:

• metal bucket;
• non -combustible stand on the floor;
• metal scoop or shovel;
• poker.

Using a poker and shovels, remove the coals into a metal bucket placed on a non-combustible stand. Next, take a container outside into the street and pour water over the coals.

The damper shuts the firebox tightly in the winter to prevent the fire from cooling too quickly after the coal has been removed. Use a damper to modify the temperature inside if you plan to use it for cooking.

Improving

Even though the majority of the smoke exits through the dushnik on the street, make sure to ventilate the room to bring the carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide levels back to normal by the time the furnace is finished, that is, after the coals are removed.

Furthermore, the remnants of smoke under the ceiling must be removed because they will fall to the ground as they cool. To eliminate all smoke from the room and introduce fresh air into the house, open the door and one or more windows for a duration of one to three minutes. Remember to shut off the smoke-inlet openings.

Video on the theme of the bath in black

This video explains why the baths were submerged in black earlier and provides a clear demonstration of how these types of baths are set up and operate:

What does it mean to heat the stove in black?	How to do it right?
Heating the stove in black means firing it without adding any additional air.	To do it right, close the air vents almost completely and let the fire burn slowly.

Although heating a stove in black may seem like a strange custom, it’s actually a standard way to get a stove ready for effective heating. In essence, it’s heating the stove so that heat can enter and be retained without having a fire inside. When it comes time to start the fire, this procedure guarantees that the stove reaches the ideal temperature for effective heat distribution.

The first step in properly heating the stove in black is to give it a thorough cleaning to get rid of any residue or debris. This guarantees even heat absorption by the stove. Next, use kindling to start a small fire that you should leave burning for a short while so the stove can warm up gradually. Close the damper to prevent airflow once the stove reaches a comfortable temperature and to keep it warm without starting a fire. As a result, the stove’s structure can absorb heat uniformly.

It is imperative to keep a close eye on the stove’s temperature during the black heating process. For cast iron stoves, the desired temperature range is 200 to 300 degrees Fahrenheit (93 to 149 degrees Celsius); for steel stoves, the range is 400 to 500 degrees Fahrenheit (204 to 260 degrees Celsius). This temperature range makes sure the stove is sufficiently heated without running the danger of breaking any of its parts.

The stove is ready for use when the temperature reaches the desired level. Now that you’ve lit a fire as you usually would, the stove will effectively heat the entire room. You can optimize the stove’s heating efficiency and create a warm and welcoming atmosphere in your house by heating it in black.

"Heating the stove in black" is an age-old practice of firing up a stove without lighting it from the front. Instead, it involves igniting the fire from the back, allowing it to slowly spread forward. This method is efficient for maintaining heat for longer periods and conserving fuel. To do it right, start by cleaning the stove thoroughly to ensure proper airflow. Then, place small pieces of dry kindling at the back of the stove and ignite them. Gradually add larger pieces of wood, pushing them towards the front as the fire builds. Maintain a balance between airflow and fuel to keep the fire burning steadily. Heating the stove in black can significantly improve its efficiency and heat retention, making it a smart choice for keeping your home warm during the colder months.

Video on the topic

Bake in black: advantages and disadvantages

Bath in black: pros and cons, steaming features, differences from a regular bathhouse.

Russian bathhouse on firewood! Differences from the White Bath, the features of the old village bath inside