Original Designs by Dowling Stoves
We started off in 1982 by imitating the basic Scandinavian box stove; then turned it sideways for the larger door opening.
This is the configuration that most modern stoves have settled on, with the grate squashed into the base, an ash drawer and bottom draught underneath, and a long baffle across the top to lengthen the flame path and accelerate the burning gasses to exit. Nowadays a preheated secondary air system usually provides an air wash over the glass doors to help keep them clean.
Otherwise, the difference between the various stoves tend to be in the detail, or in the overall quality of construction. Because we didn't want to get involved with glass doors to start with, it was important that our stoves burnt well with the doors open, as customers wanted to see the flames.
We
found that sloping the front helped improve the 'draw', so we tried
the same with the sides, until we ended up with the pyramidal shape
of the Sumo.
As
well as improving the draw (the burning gasses can be seen to
loop the loop, before exiting over the back plate), other incidental
benefits became apparent: large radiant surface areas close to the
fire for rapid heat radiation; the fire continually collapses in on
itself for safety when opening the door; volume where it’s needed,
i.e. the fire bed itself; the wide door like a mouth, that allows easy
loading of large fuels pieces, like wood or rubbish, and also affords
a good view of the fire. (The door looks up into the room.)
Building completely in steel and fabricating rather than bending and pressing has given us the freedom to experiment with these shapes.
Cast
iron plates would crack so close to the fire, and would be difficult
to protect without complex brick design. We operate on the principle
of getting the heat out of the stove as fast as possible, and large
surface areas allow us to do this. Detail in steel, however, is labour
intensive, so we have to keep it simple. Most modern stoves press
the bodies out of steel, and use cast iron for the doors, grates,
and other details.
Building purely in steel, we've had to come up with different solutions. Hence instead of fire bars for the grate, we use one heavy block of steel (20 to 25mm thick) cut to what we call a 'jaw' that rocks the collapsing fuel to riddle it into the ask drawer below.
A set of cast iron fire bars cost up to £200, and might need replacing every two or three years...the jaw on a Dowling does not burn out! It also allows us to introduce air directly into the heart of the fire, pre-warmed as it come in through the ash drawer in the plinth below.
Secondary air is introduced by simply cracking
the door open.
Again, simplicity of construction is essential,
so the door handle provides both the function of locking the door
tight, or, by simply turning the other way levering it slightly open
for secondary air. The glass plate slides it into the door from the
side and is secured by 4 clips, which hold the glass about 1mm from the door face allowing for a simple air wash -, no nuts, bolts or screws,
fire cement or glass fibre rope.
Although we intend to be here for a long time, if our stoves should ever outlast the business, there is nothing on the stove that could not be continually fixed by a competent Blacksmith. That’s the beauty of steel!
It was once pointed out to us that our stoves
echoed the natural shape of flame.
Although this was never
the conscious intention, there is a beautiful logic in a flame that
perhaps the stoves have unwittingly moved towards the way the flame
tapers within its envelope of heated air, providing itself with a
circle of convection, sucking in fresh oxygen at the base, to replace
the gas as it burns.