By Patrizi Cherici
Martin Stoppel’s “Calorenaturale” boasts over twenty years of experience in the construction of storage systems which – combined with specific professional experience in the field of energy-saving and eco-sustainable constructions – has led to the implementation of a design with an even more conscious vision of the whole. The heat that emanates from their stoves is “healthy and pleasant” as their heating systems, based on the principle of radiation (the only source capable of producing heat increasing the well-being of the body) emanate the accumulated heat in the form of infrared rays similar to the sun’s rays.
“My passion for wood-burning stoves, storage stoves to be exact,” says Martin, “dates back to my youth: it is an ancient concept born more or less 500 years ago, as an evolution of the classic wood-burning oven: there is a chamber where combustion takes place and instead of sending the fumes directly into the chimney, they run through a refractory masonry duct that absorbs and stores heat; Thus, only when the smoke is almost cold does it enter the chimney and escape. In this way, the heat produced remains stored in the house. To achieve this, it is necessary to generate combustion at a very high temperature (800/900°); The air intake must be totally open so that the wood burns very well and once the combustion is finished after about an hour and a half, a period of time that allows the entire refractory mass to be heated, the flow of air is interrupted by closing the stove door and the heat that remains inside ensures an optimal temperature for 24 hours.
Normally, only one light per day is enough, loading the stove with 10/15 kg of wood, to ensure excellent quality and the right amount of heat. In the case of homes with high dispersion or with poorly insulating fixtures, the loads must be carried out twice a day (morning and mid-afternoon) to obtain the same results. If an apartment is built on two floors, without an internal staircase or in any case without a direct connection, the stove can be ‘divided’ and the central body (the one where the fire is lit) can be placed on the ground floor, in a room normally central to the plan of the house, and a second body called ‘satellite’ on the upper floor, joined together by a well-insulated pipe”. He explains.
“I became fond of ‘this kind of warmth’ – continues Martin – experiencing it personally in Germany where I lived; I then met a great master ‘smoker’ of old tradition who produced this type of stove and I began to do an apprenticeship with him: so I entered the technique, I learned to calculate the heat needs of the house, to identify the right size of the stove based on the environment where it was to be placed. I then attended IBN courses in Germany, becoming a Bio-building technician: all these in-depth studies on the issues of Bioecological Building, have allowed me to optimize my heating constructions according to a whole series of additional factors so as to make homes healthy and welcoming, installing qualified and high-performance stoves that can guarantee real thermal comfort”, He adds.
Then he continues: “When I arrived in Italy, I thought I would have to put aside this passion of mine, since I imagined the country much warmer: instead I realized that here too there was a need to heat the house and eliminate humidity, making the environment pleasant in the colder months. I created the first stove for my home, then I made some for the neighbours, finally deciding to turn my passion into a real profession and thus opening the company in 1998. The first works were obtained by word of mouth; then I gave lectures at some conferences with architects who dealt with the topic of heating the house, receiving commissions for the creation of some of my projects on some construction site; With the advent of the internet and the creation of the website, we made ourselves known and the demand for our products increased. Currently, my son Lucas and I take care of the entire work: from the first contact to the inspection, to the hand sketch of the stove you want, to the estimate, to the internal technical project up to the actual realization: for all this process it can take from four months to a year! First of all, it is essential to understand the real needs of those who turn to us: for example, how one lives in the house, how much time they spend at home or if it is a holiday home. Each room, each individual need, corresponds to a different stove project, personalized and perfect to meet the particular needs of each one. A handcrafted stove as we create, is a stove that you make today, but that ‘will be forever’: first of all it has to fit well with the environment in which it is placed and then it must ‘heat in the right way’, that is, as one wishes!”
“I would like to emphasize that the heating produced with this type of stove ‘is slow’: you cannot expect you to enter a house where it is cold, load the stove and it is immediately hot! The stove should be lit with the first cold weather in October, when the days begin to be humid, until April: after two or three days of continuous lighting, that heat is created that generates the so-called thermal comfort and the house is always kept warm! This type of heating, in addition to being natural, leads to considerable savings on bills: wood, in fact, is available at low prices and with a stove, there is no longer any need to turn on traditional heating!
Our philosophy is that we consider our profession as a sort of mission to try to improve the quality of life of our customers and at the same time, by ‘entering lively’ into what we create, we manage to derive energy and nourishment for ourselves: good taste, the quality of the products we offer, the professional ethics, the love and passion we put into what we do, These are values that animate our work, which for us is not just a profession, but represents our very existence”.
Info: Calorenaturale Martin Stoppel , Via G. Marconi 29 – Anghiari (Ar)
Tel: +39 348 7332887
Mail: terra@calorenaturale.it / https://www.calorenaturale.it