Thermal Mass wall covering

[RussWhiting]

I'm a new homeowner in a stick-built house with some green considerations like passive solar orientation and in-floor heating that will be converted to solar soon. What I need is some thermal mass behind my woodstove to absorb and radiate heat. It's a frame wall with sheetrock facing. Is it possible to put a river rock facia on this type of wall and have it hold? Any information is appreciated. Thanks, Russ.

[EastNokomisDIY]

Russ, the folks in the Hearth.com forums are woodstove nuts. You will get excellent input there.

[lookingup]

Originally Posted by RussWhiting

I'm a new homeowner in a stick-built house with some green considerations like passive solar orientation and in-floor heating that will be converted to solar soon. What I need is some thermal mass behind my woodstove to absorb and radiate heat. It's a frame wall with sheetrock facing. Is it possible to put a river rock facia on this type of wall and have it hold? Any information is appreciated. Thanks, Russ.

Hows the in floor heating doing for you? any pro's and cons?

[dhamblet]

Originally Posted by lookingup

Hows the in floor heating doing for you? any pro's and cons?

We had in floor radiant heat in our basement and baseboard radiators upstairs fired by a wood boiler and an oil furnace. Liked it ok until a chimney fire burned us down. Now we have a geothermal heat pump forced air and have abandoned the in floor heat. Only thing I didn't like about the in floor heat is we live on the west coast. We have huge temperature swings. When the outside temp changed it took a long time for that thermal mass to heat up or cool down. There were winter nights where we had doors and windows open trying to lose heat so we weren't sweating.

[Concretemasonry]

Since you have lightweight frame construction, what you do with the wall material behind the heat source will really have little effect on the whole home, but may make a statement and show an effort. The heavier the veneer material, the better since you have more heat storage capacity. the lightweight artificial veneers or "paste and stick" types offer little storage.

Do you have any way to capture the solar gain in masonry walls of a concrete floor with aircirculation in addition to heat in the slab above?

Dick