I wrote about the wood stoves last year, and that post generated a recent comment from Roger Lehet, the manufacturer of an especially intriguing model: The Kimberly.
Last year, the Kimberly was a prototype only, but by the end of summer Lehet had an actual production model in hand.
I’ll let him describe some of the operational details:
The new design incorporates my 26 years in the stove industry and results in a boat stove which delivers plenty of controllable heat output, the ability to cook, and best of all will burn up to 10 hours on one 5 lb extruded presto log, 12 hours on charcoal, and with its stainless interior can burn salt water drift wood as well.
We are now developing add on equipment such as an oven, hot water coils, a blower system, and the ability to produce electricity from the heat output of the fire.
Great news! I’m eager to see one in person.
{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
the electric output from the heat is some thing I would like to see.
Hi Tom,
I am embarrassed to say I was unaware of your contact until now. We are just a couple of weeks away from bringing this portion of our offerings to market, we will update the website once completed to my satisfaction.
Thanks, Roger
Electric output is probably from Peltier junctions, which means DC. Maybe a couple of amps?
bob
s/v Eolian
Seattle
Hello Bob,
You are guessing pretty closely, we can produce the same output as a solar panel array and can simply power your same smart charger use for solar equipment for a seamless combination of daytime and night time power generation.
Looks like a neat model, and if it could cook and produce some electricity, is probably worth that price tag. I need to start picking up pennies off the ground…
Hello Courtney,
While any stove package has its up front cost (ours is about average when the completed cost is compared), the question I like to address is “when will my investment start paying me back”? We have seen in our 27 years that most stoves will have a 1 to 2 heating season payback when offsetting sources like oil, electric, propane, etc. The other sources could also fall victim to grid supplied power failures where this stove is more or less immune to this issue.
Hello Courtney,
While any stove package has its up front cost (ours is about average when the completed cost is compared), the question I like to address is “when will my investment start paying me back”? We have seen in our 27 years that most stoves will have a 1 to 2 heating season payback when offsetting sources like oil, electric, propane, etc. The other sources could also fall victim to grid supplied power failures where this stove is more or less immune to this issue.
Does anyone know if it has UL approval for insurance purposes? Thanks
Hello George.
We recently completed all EPA, UL safety and CSA requirements for Canadian export. i am happy to say that your insurance guy will be happy with our performance and safety listing!
whats the lil stove cost?
seems to me that whenever it is difficult to find the price… It’s probably not worth buying… Same reason I will never buy from BOSE.
Peace
For $3500 I can buy enough propane to cook and heat my motorhome for the next 10 years. There are far less expensive alternatives such as the “rocket stove” which can run on leaves and pine needles and can be made using materials that most people already own.
Great stove!…… Expensive but well worth it.
Followed your links but can’t find any dealers in Canada.
I live in the Toronto area. Can you advise re the closest dealer?
Erik Beck is a canadian distributor located in Vancouver, BC. I am currently helping him build a website to promote the Kimberly stove, and came upon this thread while researching. You can currently reach him at ironashsales@gmail.com.
Kyle
Regardless of setting, most of the claimed btu’s are of course going up the flue, which will heat the flue very close to the stove and maybe the first 18″ or so to maybe 350F. Doesn’t matter what TYPE of stove is attached to the flue; only the btu’s moving through it. On this stove, there are roughly 1000 square inches of surface area to a 25″ tall cylinder x a 10.5″ diameter. That is about 997 square inches total. Of those, roughly 5 or 6 inches are below the grate area and are therefore not actively absorbing and radiating heat. But I’ll treat those square inches as if they are also actively radiating heat and are roughly the same temps as the sidewalls further up the firebox. 2*pi*r squared = 2*pi*r*h. That is the formula for surface area of a cylinder. It comes out to 997 or so. Of that area, only the window/door area and the “jamb” area for the door is directly exposed to the combustion chamber, and so reaches temps typical to any regular woodburner. The rest of the surface area is separated from the combustion chamber by air ducts to the secondary burn chamber. That is the chamber at the top of the stove where reformation of the gases takes place when those gases are introduced to O2 (room air). The reformation process produces “woodgas” , if it is efficiently done, and that gas is then instantly ignited in that core, and then expelled out the flue. The benefit is reduced visible emmisions (the tars and other pollutants that make smoke visible). One constituent gas found in woodgas is carbon MONoxide. Yes, the oderless, tasteless KILLER gas that people sometimes use to commit suidide in their cars. The builder knows this, but doesn’t mention that anywhere. Strange.
Now, other than the door, the only direct radiating (think “heating” surface) is the top. It is a circular 10.5″ area, or about 86 square inches; or about .6 sq ft. The door area looks to be about the same area overall, but I’ll liberally give it a whole sq ft of heating surface. Add that to the surface at the top, and you have a whole 1.6 square feet of heating surface. The sides are obviously not that hot as evidenced by the extremely small distance to a combustible listed on the builder’s site. That is not appreciable heating surface, then (but dang it’s shiny for the rich boaters).
In all fairness, the top surface can attain quite high temps on the high setting but since the radiating surface area there is SEVERELY RESTRICTED, where then are the supposed 40,000 btu’s going? Into your room? No. Outside? Yes. Most of it. But for $3500 (kWHAT?!!?) dollars, those btu’s are mo’ betta’ than nasty ole’ black smoke btu’s, because you can’t see it. Don’t breathe it though, unless suicide is what you’re after.
Oh, and the watts that the thermoelctric option can produce at a surface temp of 500C, is only 15 watts and so someone better tell youtube Timmy that his little 12VDC vac isn’t really running directly off those 15 meager watts; it’s obviously got capacitive plates storing the charge in that little black box. Watts, by the way is current times voltage. The amperes that vac needs to run at 12VDC is well in excess of the 15 watts made available by the TE device. Watts = amps*volts people.
There’s no free lunch in physics. What that means here is that this stove is probably great as a single burner stove, or a water heater with allot of user ingenuity and more hard-learned lessons. But it would be the best use. Don’t expect this can or will produce a largish tempurature gradient (you know, 10 below oustide, 70 inside?) in anything larger than walkin closet. For your $3500 (YES! $3500) you have a stove, not much of a heater, and a battery tender that you obviously can’t use in your living area in the summer, unless you are at a one of the earth’s poles.
Dear Mr “No Free Lunch”
So which disgruntled competitor do you work for? It seems most people here do not like your “ranting” one asked me to give you a whack on the head which I refuse to give you the pleasure of. Instead I’ll simply cut and paste this testimonial from Guy Girouard of Northern Kentucky who has this to say about his Kimberly Stove.
I’ve been able to analyze my situation in terms of the heat capacity and costs of operating the stove. I’ve had a chance to use the stove all day, about 12 to 15 hours/day for 3 days now. I don’t attended the stove from about 10pm to about 7am. I can say that the house can stay @ 70F all day that I use the stove. The outside temperatures have been between 37F to 40F, the winds varying from 0mph up to 30mph. My house area is about 1300ft2. Today, I’ve had the upstairs open, which adds another 300ft2. So my situation substantiates your claims. When lighting the fire for the first time, I’ve developed, what I think is a great technique. I set a bed of pellets a little below the door. I then put a firestarter so that it sits against the grate and is partially submerged in the pellets. I place the brick(or log) so that it sits on the pellets and on the starter so there is a little air gap between the pellets and the brick. The pellets start to burn real quickly(probably because there is allot of air between them). I’ve got a good fire in less than 5 min. I only use the pellets to get a fire going. It causes too many complications to try to heat with them. I’ve been tracking my propane usage. It works out to 2.9 gals per day of propane for the month of January vs about 10 bricks/day at a cost of $0.50/brick. A gallon of propane costs about $2.50/gal, depending when you buy. Comparing costs:
Propane – $2.50/gal x 2.9gal/day = $7.25/day
Kimberly – $0.50/brick x 9bricks/day = $4.50/day (Based on 2.75hrs/brick x 24hrs. A brick weighs 3.5lbs so presto logs would result in 31.5lbs/day)
I believe it was a scientist who said that by the laws of physics the bumble bee could not fly, but it does. We are one of 14 global finalists to be invited to the Alliance For Green Heat stove decathlon hosted by Popular Mechanics this November in Washington DC. I am also a guest speaker at several large events this year including the Mother Earth News Fair. I guess we are doing what we claim…….what have you done?
As for price……compare our average end cost of 4000 to 4500 and one finds we are about average, all things considered……prove me wrong.
You really ought to properly investigate things before shoving your foot so far down your throat, unless you enjoy the taste of your toes.
Oh, by the way your demeanor got you quite a few comments which questioned your motives eh?
the builder as you call me!
The = sign in my formula should be a + sign. Sorry for the mistype.
By the way that 15 watt thermoelctric “generator” is offered on the bay right now for a mere $299 (300+ to the states) with shipping. The builder will probably get a discount, then mark that up. Even WITHOUT water heating cababilities, you are looking at around $4k with the shipping, I’d imagine, which means all of the above makes sense and also that P.T. Barnum’s famous quotation is then true – “A fool is born every minute.”
Again….such a nice guy!
Is your TEG unit made like ours? or is it the junker made in China?
Oh, and about water heating with a woodstove. Folks, the builder of this stove likes to fabricate danger where there doesn’t exist (outside of negligence) in repeatedly harping that propane and other heating fuels are inherently dangerous. The fact is that more fires happen from burning solid fuels by far than engineered, controlled combustors of propane ect. The national building code will not allow you to build a living structure w/o a permanent heating source. That means permanent fuel source, i.e. propane ect. Woodburners do not qualify as a permanent heat source. I’m not knocking it though. Most everyone has one as an auxillary source where I live. If you are in the National Forest, you cannot burn this stove in an RV, unless you want to see the judge. If you still love the crazy high price, at least know these things. Even for a boat, this thing is outlandishly pricey for what it is, which ain’t much when you disect it.
and he keeps going and going like the Energizer bunny!
Oh cr*p, I was going to mention water heating: Unless you are a certified boilermaker, don’t even think about it. Can you say BOOM!!!!?
Let the builder offer it as a (probably) ridiculously overpriced option to an already orbital price tag. Then compare with proven other options…..
It’s all math & folks this thing at the end of the day isn’t allot more than a $4000 dollar PLUS single burner stove, closet heater, battery tender, steamBOMB.
I think you need a life!
Wow, “No Free Lunch in Physics” must be the owner of some other wood stove company. I’ll take the word of MANY user reviews available on many different websites, over some competitors inane, pseudo-physics babble.
SINCE A LONG TIME i AM LOOKING FOR A STOVE WHO WILL HEAT 1500 SQ.FT. (RADIAN) PLUS WILL BE USED AT THE SAME TIME AS A WATER BOILER FOR 3500 SQ. FT.
CAN YOU HELP ME
A FUTURE CANADIAN CUSTOMER ???????
ALAIN
Hello Alain
Roger@unforgettablefirellc.com