In Scandinavia today there is a strong interest in replacing energy sources based on fossil fuels with renewable forms both to reduce the green house effects and to reduce dependency on declining global stocks of oil. Wood stoves of all kinds are experiencing a renaissance, and technology is making them increasingly efficient. One of these is the Swedish kakelugn or tiled stove.
Creating comfort
The days are short and darkness surrounds us from the early afternoon until the late morning. When overcast, the days are sometimes not more than a few hours of faint light. It is time to contrast nature’s cold darkness with warmth and light in my home. Time for candles and open fires. The crackling of fires in our two tiled stoves creates a deep sense of comfort. They create a special form of heat - a soft heat - different from the harsh mechanical heat of the radiators. I leave the metal fireplace shutters wedged open so that I can see the play of the fire. Now and then I add a log, and it feels like feeding a friend. We depend on each other. The fire triggers memories of our origins. Deep in our psyche it stands for security from cold nights, from wild animals, food and family.
Fireplaces & Global Warming
However, this winter is not like any other winter on my island. It has been warm, rainy and the lake is still open water. My plants are budding as though it were already spring, and the flowers of the autumn continue to bloom. The media alert us daily to global warming and the green house effect. This winter these warnings feel real, too real, and it is with despair that I listen to the weather forecasts about the continuation of unusually warm weather. I take some comfort in the fact that my fireplaces do not add to global warming. A wood fire is no threat to our planet because the carbon dioxide emitted by the burning wood more or less equals the carbon dioxide absorbed by the growing trees. This is quite different to burning fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas which were created hundreds of millions of years ago from organic material.
A Timeless 18th Century Innovation
The tiled stove is considered a Swedish energy-saving innovation from the 1760s. Instead of letting the warm fumes from the fire straight out through the chimney (as is still the practice in most contemporary open fires), the tiled stove builds on the principle of circulating the warmth in numerous passages and channels before it leaves the chimney, thereby heating the tiles the stove is built from. While in a conventional fireplace only 5-10% of the energy from the burning wood heats your home whilst the rest goes out through the chimney, in a properly functioning tiled stove the ratio is up at 85%.
Firing a Tiled Stove
It is sometimes claimed that tiled stoves made Swedish homes the warmest in the world during the 18th century. Using a tiled stove well means firing it once in the morning and once in the evening. This should be enough to heat the home throughout the day and night as the tiles emit heat long after the fire has gone out. Covering this innovation with one of my scientist friends calls the greatest heating innovation of all time, are beautiful painted tiles and ornaments. As per usual in Scandinavian design function and form combine to produce a beautiful and useful outcome. Tiled stoves have thus become pieces of art with several hundred years of tradition.
A Renaissance for Tiled Stoves In Scandinavia there is today a thriving industry both in newly made tiled stoves (which have even better fuel efficiency) and a second-hand market of antique (but perfectly working) stoves which have been rescued from torn down houses of the 18th and 19th centuries. There is also a renaissance of the kakelugnsmaker, meaning the profession of building and rebuilding tiled stoves. (image courtesy Mariebergskakelugnsmakeri)
Making a Fire the Right Way
When I settled on my Swedish island I had little idea of how to make a fire, and it took some training to avoid using polluting and unpleasant smelling aids such as artificial logs and kerosene based liquids. Here are some practical tips on how to make a real fire:
Make sure the vent to the chimney is fully open (most fireplaces have a vent which can be shut).
If the fire place has not been used for some time, and it is cold outside, burn a piece of newspaper to heat up the air in the chimney (as otherwise there is a risk of an airlock in the chimney). When the paper burns well and the smoke goes straight out and not into the room, the chimney is working as it should be.
Make sure the wood you use is dry (this is also essential for a good fire). You can test this by hitting the logs against one another – dry wood makes a ‘hollow’ sound. Wood should also preferably have room temperature to make them catch fire more easily.
Put two logs at the base with space in between.
Put enough newspaper in between the logs
Take narrow pieces of wood and staple them over the paper
Light with one match!
The test of whether you have created a good fire in Scandinavia is that the smoke from your chimney should be almost invisible.
In Scandinavia there is today a thriving industry both in newly made tiled stoves (which have even better fuel efficiency) and a second-hand market of antique (but perfectly working) stoves which have been rescued from torn down houses of the 18th and 19th centuries. There is also a renaissance of the kakelugnsmaker, meaning the profession of building and rebuilding tiled stoves. (image courtesy 
