Korean smoke heated Ondal floor explained in detail, ancient and current uses as well as how to use one for a greenhouse. Simple Tek Facebook - / simpletekvideos SUBSCRIBE to Simple Tek - ru-vid.com?s...
@@SimpleTek Back then if a Korean was found chopping down a tree he was jailed, they could take anything that broke off or fell down but no taking down a tree, In ities the sild charcoal that was teken from harvested trees in a managed way. There was small mountain village just below the microwave site I was stationed at and I can tell you they were hard working people and they kept us informed if any strangers were in the area. These mountains weren't that high and most of the tree cover was stripped by the Japanese in WWII or before. The only mature trees I saw over there were at Buddhist religious shrines and sites, the Japanese did not cut those down..
@@dell177When I was there in 1977/8 it was still that way. No cutting of trees, they bought charcoal the size and shape of the old style coffee cans . Had to be careful about monoxide poisoning.
@@n2skcmo I was there 1988-1990 and had to change the those charcoal bricks twice a day but, we had a heated water based system. The Army would not let service members live in a home with the heated exhaust air from the fire systems because of the carbon monoxide issue.
Storing excess heat or even cold in your floor or wall has always seemed like such a good idea to me. It blows my mind that it's not standard practice.
@@anthonyman8008 please keep religious comments off this channel. I have asked you nicely and respectfully. Please treat me with the same respect I’ve shown you.
We have been using a similar system in Spain since Roman times..... It's called "La Gloria" underfloor heating.. In the Castilian countryside you will find lot's of these kinds of Buildings.
My grand father had 3 greenhouses heated this way here in Finland. It was a common way back in the 1950s. Greenhouses where 30m long built in a slope to get the heat to rise and circulate. Smoke channels where of red tiles not to crack by the heat. Carbon monoxide was a real problem. Main source of heat was though raised compost beds and this method was used only as additional heating method during early spring and the coldest nights. In 1960s steel pipes became affordable so hot water central heating replaced this heating method.
Thank you for your interest. First of all, the name of this heating system is "Ondol", not "Ondal". It means a warm stone. In modern Korea, more advanced hot water underfloor heating is used. If you apply this with Ondol, you can use the warmth more efficiently. The type of boiler can be used depending on the conditions, such as wood boiler, oil boiler, gas boiler, electric boiler, solar heat and sun light, etc.
I did a tour of duty in the ROK and have stayed in Ondol heated homes. This was in the '70s and the Air Force brass told us not to sleep over in an ondol heated house because if there was a crack in the floor, CO can intrude and asphyxiate you. I remember the women sweeping up pine needles that would be compressed and heated into cylindrical Ondal briquets, each about the size of a 14"x 6" cylinder perforated with longitudinal holes, just the right size to put in a terra cotta tube (the stove) that when ignited vented the smoke under the floor, warming it comfortably. It gets very very cold in the ROK, they didn't call it "Frozen Chosen" for nothing.
식물재료를 태우는 온돌에서는 일산화탄소 중독사고가 없습니다. 이유는 초저녁에 1시간 정도 불을 때면 새벽까지 바닥이 따뜻하므로 잠든 후에 일산화탄소가 발생할 일이 없습니다. 말씀하신 구멍뚫린 숯은 연탄이고 채굴한 무연탄을 압축성형한 것입니다. 연탄은 잠자는 동안에도 계속 연소하므로 일산화탄소 중독사고가 많았었지요. 마른 솔잎은 형태의 변형없이 그대로 아궁이에서 태웁니다. 지금은 직접 화염이 방바닥 아래를 통과하는 방식의 온돌은 거의 사용하지 않습니다. (1% 이하) 주로 가스 보일러로 데워진 물배관이 방바닥을 순환하면서 열교환되는 방식의 온돌입니다.
One of the primitive technology channels did a video where they used clay tiles + clay to cover a trench that crossed the floor with the fire and chimney on opposite sides of the hut. Pretty cool for long term winter camping.
Ondal is actually the charcoal brick used in the stoves. It can be used in cooking stoves, inside heating (was most common) and for radiant heat, though all the buildings I saw when I was there in the 80's had a ondal stove in the kitchen used for cooking and floor heat together. The kitchen was dug down about 2 feet, and each room (normally total of 4) had a slightly raised floor for the smoke to slowly rise underneath. Third room raised a bit higher, and 4tj room at ground height with the moke exiting to the outside.
Although I heat my greenhouse with waste heat from my house heater, in Winter, I grow onions, garlic, cabbage and loose-leaf lettuce, crop choice being more the determining factor than mechanical heating. I live in North Texas and right now, we are having an ice storm, but all the plants inside my greenhouse are just sailing through it.
I spent a little over a Year in Korea, Weonju. Even though I didnt have the floor heating system, I hardly ever turned my central heat system on. I was living on the 3rd floor of a building, the room below, keep there room very warm, and the one above me the same. The floor was always warm to the touch, around high 80 degrees, and the ceiling was warm from the occupants above. I really enjoyed that time in that country, but I did spend a couple nights in a traditional korean house, which the floor kept me plenty warm....
Brilliant. I thought I had heard of all the Permaculture ideas for heating, from Kachelofen to Kang to Rocket Mass Heaters to Long Houses but this one is new to me and makes total sense.. Congratulations for finding it.
Im no especially knowledable in this world but plants growing in soil heated from below has caused problems with soil drying out from below while roots try to grow down low. This is was my experience with underfloor heating, raisng the plants off the ground certainly helped the plants.
Many years ago I lived in my Grandma's house in North east china, which has similar weather like Korea. They had a mass clay based bed that occupied more than half is the house. The bed was toasty after cooking dinner, and the heat last the whole night. That system is much more effective than fireplace. The only draw back is if someone wet the bed, it could collapse:)
And that's why eastern slavs were sleeping on their massive stoves. You can even wet your bed with that one, since it's made out of actual bricks and mortar. Although I wouldn't recommend wetting your bed in any circumstances...
Personally, I'll be going for a rocket mass heater. Similar idea except it uses a modified rocket stove for the fire, then runs the exhaust through some mass, and of course out of the house. I think my favorite mass that I've seen is a cob bench. It's really efficient on the amount of firewood that you need to use to get enough heat. Although, I do walk around barefoot a lot. A warm floor sounds very nice.
To get most heating benefit out of ‘Ondol’ you do need to sleep on the floor and sit on the floor. Floor is the thermal mass and you want your body to be in contact with floor as much as possible. ‘Cob bench’ seems to be a segway from ‘Ondol’ since cob bench are found along lower Siberia steppes. Ancient Korean territories include Manchuria and Inner Mongolia. Ondol probably is more thermal efficient even without insulations. Koreans cook three meals a day, and the cooking thermal energy all goes into Ondol. Some additional late evening heat may be needed during cold winter night. The ridges, slopes and channels under the floor manage thermal energy to control fire and spreading energy.
I was in the US army stationed in Korea in the 1980’s. I still remember the smell of ondal during the winter. I remember there were occasional deaths from carbon monoxide, mainly because the entire floor had to be completely sealed from the fumes below the floor. Some of the older houses in the village were built right after the war so they were already leaky. The available materials were pretty basic back then. Ondal in the 80’s was a compressed cylinder of charcoal about the size of a coffee can. It had several holes from top to bottom so they could be stacked and still burn from bottom to top with flow of gasses. Most of the stoves would take two of the charcoal cylinders. I think they would last about 5 or six hours.
bricks are rarely used in traditonal Korean construction, unlike China. most ondols are made with stones and clay and lime, before the modern era. after 1900, cement concrete blocks, cinder blocks, bricks and portland cement is commonly used. after the floor is rendered with clay, it was covered with special paper.
It was on my mind too!!! And Romanhousing used the same principles. I wonder about one thing though: how would you keep the floor tubes / canals clean?!
There is a big danger with ondal. I was stationed in South Korea and the 8th Army would not let any service member stay in quarters with this type of heating. If there is a crack in the floor, you can get carbon monoxide poisoning very quickly. Right before I arrived in country, a service member and his family all died because of this and we had to inspect all of the service members' off base quarters to ensure they did not have that system. Most systems had switched to circulating heated water under the floor.
A guy in my unit at Osan was poisoned by a carbon monoxide leak from his off base apartment's ondol floor. He almost bought the farm before someone went to check on why he hadn't shown up for duty that morning.
So, a more efficient fire plus CO detectors, would make that safer. Mass heaters are designed to burn very hot so about all that is left is CO2 and H2O. You would burn thru wood faster but produce more heat. So if there was a good way to hold all of the heat, like a heavier mass, then the results would be the same without the danger.
only with coal fired ondol. wood fired ondol didn't have carbon monoxide problem. so, carbon monoxide poisoning wasn't an issue before the modern times, when they started using coal, and now most homes don't use coal fire anymore, so became less of an issue today.
Very time proven method and there are variants seen in many cultures. You don’t want smoke, as smoke = unburnt wood-gas = inefficiency. Smoke also has a tendency to condense on cooler surfaces. This forms creosote which not only acts as insulation, but being unburnt refined fuel, IS highly flammable. Creosote is what fuels chimney fires, and is the result of cool/smokey combustion. What you want is a fire that burns hot enough to fully break down all the combustible wood gas, so there is nothing left to condense. You control the size of this hot fire to control the overall amount of heat delivered. A rocket stove is a good selection for this as it can be sized, or run in 2s or 3s to deliver an appropriate amount of heat yet burn very clean. The problem with the basic Ondol is it requires constant attention to feed that fire. A biomass or pellet burner would also be a good choice as they can run automatically and maintain small but very clean combustion for long periods of time. I drew up a plan for a cabin that had the flame inside where it could be seen(Humans like and are comforted by seeing the flame), but the exhaust was drawn under the floor to heat the floor mass Ondol fashion with the burner on the opposite end of the building from the chimney.
I have seen a greenhouse (in Korea I think) with a rocket heater and a bench. I liked that idea, as the bench can be used as a heat mat for seedlings in early spring, and as a nice bench to sit on in summer. Or just to place pots on.
Romans had something similar in their bath houses where there was a gap, brick pillars, and about 30cm of concrete. Gap was for smoke to pass and heat the floors. In slavic countries we have pec wich is similar to rocket mass heater. It's used for cooking, baking and heating. It's traditionaly build out of brick, positioned in center of house and very heavy. Rest of the house is usually out of wood, so outside that would suck heat out, is from light thermaly isolating material while heating is from heavy heat absorbant material.
Thanks for another great video. Really appreciate all the ideas you give us. I would have thought a wood boiler and hydronic floor system would be more versatile but you are probably write that they aren't as efficient as a smoke heat system since there is hardly any escaped heat. Cool idea, never heard of the concept. Thanks again.
I used to live in Korea in the mid 1970's. They used to have continuous running PSA's about carbon dioxide poisoning from people heating their homes in this manner. I'm not sure how it went wrong, but apparently, this was a common cause of death at that time.
한국의 바닥 난방 변천사입니다. 천연식물재료(나무,풀,짚 등)를 아궁이에서 태워 방바닥 아래의 통로를 통과시키는 방식, 초저녁에 1시간 정도만 불을 피우면 새벽까지 따뜻함. 중독사고 없음. -> 1970년대 이후 도시화 되면서 연료가 원형의 압축 무연탄으로 바뀜. 이 연료는 점멸조절이 불가능해서 잠이든 늦은 밤에도 계속해서 연소되므로 방바닥에 균열 발생시 일산화탄소 가스중독 사망사고가 많았음. -> 1980년대에는 연탄보일러 등장, 연탄으로 물을 끓여서 방바닥을 온수 배관이 통과하는 방식으로 변경, 한편 보일러실에는 배출용 팬을 설치해서 사망사고가 급격히 줄었음. ->90년대 이후에는 온수 보일러의 연료가 천연가스로 변경되기 시작함. 즉, 연탄가스 중독 사망사고는 연탄사용 + 방바닥 아래에 연기통로가 있은 직접가열식 온돌 상황에서만 발생한다고 봐도 됩니다.
재미난 점은 한국은 인구밀도가 매우 높고 직접가열식 온돌을 사용하던 1970,1980년대 중반까지는 시골에서 가스중독 사고는 전혀 없었지만 엄청난 양의 벌목이 연료용으로 필요해서 산림이 빈약 했습니다. 연탄이 등장한 이후에는 산림이 점차 울창해진 반면 10~15년 정도 연탄가스 사망사고 빈발 했어요. 이후 연탄보일러 시대를 거쳐 가스보일러로 바뀌면서 산림도 울창해지고 사망사고도 없어졌어요.
I love the design. It's both simple, yet sophisticated in the details of its execution. What really scares me is the thought that in our civilization, millions could die from a blackout in winter, due to something utterly preventable and to give fate a cruel mockery: our ancestors wouldn't even know the thing we depend on with our lives... Last week, we had the coldest week of the year and local power outages in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria! My boss was one of those who got hit and he was lucky to be one of the few who still had a functional fireplace in his home. Since I live in a rented flat, there's no real way for me to make a fire indoors. The best I could do is put a rocket stove on the balcony and heat a big cast iron pot filled with sand, take that one in, and maybe fill a water bottle for my bed...
It sort of reminds me of the hypocaust underfloor heating system we learned about in ancient history class, I think we might have been learning about ancient Roman Briton that week, I guess such a good idea as underfloor heating has to have been invented and reinvented everywhere on earth every few centuries, very cool, I would be interested to see more about where else this has been done in other cultures and time periods and how the systems are different and similar.
Seems pretty awesome. Surprisingly how little attention this gets relative to RMHs.. for GH applications... I think running a series of wicking beds(water in the bottom of the bed) on top of the hottest part of the channel makes sense. Water + non-grow media would be a really good thermal sink. Plus, you'd have your soil storage containers double as thermal mass, and get the heat literally into the roots instead of all-around.
I think i would build the furnace directly into the thermal mass and have the exhaust be built in pipes that lead to a manifold and exit on one side for ease of cleaning.
Mentioned modern underfloor radiant heating is invented by well-known architect, Frank loyd Wright, after seeing copied exhibited model of ‘On-dol’ in his visit to Japan, adapting heat transfer medium to water from smoke for apparent benefits. Thanks for the interesting video.
yes, and Frank Lloyd Wright was very influential in Chicago area, and there are many residential buildings with his "gravity heating system". not sure why he used "gravity" to describe his system, though.
맞습니다. 그 방식(보일러식 온돌시스템)이 1980~1990년대에 한국으로 역수입 됐어요.(미스킴 라일락처럼) 다만, 일본에서 그가 본 온돌은 일제 강점기에 일본이 한국에서 한옥 한채를 통째로 뜯어다가 일본에서 전시한 걸 본겁니다. 일본에는 온돌이 없어요. 많은 문명이 한반도에서 일본으로 넘어갔지만 온돌은 지진,기후 때문에 일본에서는 정착되지 못했습니다. 지금 미국이 세계 최대의 콩 생산국이지만 원래 콩의 원산지는 한반도,만주,일본인데 종의 다양성은 한반도가 세계 1등 이었습니다. 아이러니 하게도 현재 야생콩 종자 원종의 1위 보유국은 미국입니다. 한반도에서는 많이 멸종되었지요.
Some historians say the earliest known record of an underfloor heating system was in ancient Rome. The Romans built this heating system called a Hypocaust for heat distribution.
The rocket stove klan got it from Korea. It's well documented in the Cola-Cola-Cola book, written by Coka Coka, dated 1765. The subject is, as here, DIY. Cool soft drink without the aftertaste of smoke. Canada had started building houses according to the Korean building tradition in the 1920s, but then came the Wall Street crash in 1929 and the Great not-great) Depression. Then came the Second World War. Then the Korean War. Then the Vietnam War. And then the Cold War. And finally the pizza war in the USA. Canada ditched the Korean house-warming idea in 1980 in favor of disco-dancing warm-ups. In the USA it was called the Jane Fonda Workout Dance, and the USA has never since grown such healthy vegetables as under the sound of the Workout music in the fields. It's been over 40 years, and a lot of North American discout wave since. In 2006, the cinema movie: "Idiocracy" was released. The actress Denzel Washington was America's first black president in the period 2009-2017; followed by duck breeder Donald the Duck Rump. AND thus so much bullshit fills the airwaves 24/7.
I came across a similar idea but it's called a Dakota Fire Pit. I saw an ondol/ondal in a photograph but until now didn't know what it was called. I was calling it a dakota fire pit because it's basically the same principle.
My precious wife was a Korean immigrant to the US. She would talk about this from her youth and missed the warm floor heating. But it also came with the danger of carbon monoxide poisoning and fire. I reckon that is one of the reason she loved the electric blankets on her side of the bed ONLY as I couldn't stand them.
Pretty neat. You might want to check out Peter Henderson's "Gardening for Profit", c. 1889, especially chapters on Greenhouses for forcing vegetables and Forcing - pits or greenhouses. Both hot water and heating by flue shown.
I was thinking maybe having a tube on the side of your house made out of greenhouse glass with and inlet and outlet to your house may be a good way to provide passive heating and air flow.
Perhaps "exhaust" is a better term than "smoke". Ideally the design of the burn core will be smokeless. Especially these days with the abundance of information about efficient stove design garnered through people like Broaudio and Sundogbuilders here on RU-vid
For a little extra money, you probably can get it passed. Divide your stove flue into several smaller line and used VCP(vitrified clay pipe), a bit on concrete around the pipes extending under the floors, and in direct contact with the earth and stone floor. If the exit is vented in a proper chimney, there is zero risk of fire, carbon monoxide or smoke the under-ground chimney portion. I would recommend intalling a small steel cable inside the VCP. Yearly you can connect a brush to it and pull it through cleaning the chimney.
Outside rocket heater with better heat extraction to liquid radiant floor mass. 4 ft gravel and sand Underfloor. but 70-80% temp drop from fire to chimney output so less wood no worries on co2 leaking in floor
ANOTHER "TRICK" TO INCREASE THE HEATING VALUE: * Have some type of water containers "under" the home that the hot smoke will heat up while it's circulating under the home. * Because water is the BEST substance to retain heat, the intensity of the fires could be reduced... which of course reduces time, energy and money invested in keeping the fires going!!! FYI: * My wife and I just retired and we're moving to NW Montana and we'll be implementing many of these techniques in our new home... along with a "Log Boiler" (load it once and it runs for a couple days) for our radiant heat in our home, greenhouse and shop! Amen Retired, Veteran
@@bighappy177 You might want to test "pex tubing" wrapped around a closed water container of some sort... maybe many small to medium sizes ones or one large one. Copper tubing is to expensive unless you can get some for free at the "Junk yard!" Of course, you could just do it the old fashioned way and put the pex plastic pipe under the dirt laying it as much as you can before it goes up the chimney. That will keep the ground fairly warm and that will help a lot! Amen Retired, Veteran
i am about to start construction on a greenhouse and have planned to do a GAHT system. the trouble with it is i need power to move air with fans. i love the idea but have always thought what if one day there is no power. Two questions for you: 1. does the stove need to be below the floor level to draw the smoke, so i would have to dig a "walkout" for the stove. 2. could you run the smoke down the middle of the green house as a heat source and GAHT weeping tiles on the sides? would love your thoughts and ideas. i am looking at a greenhouse of 30x60ft.
Great idea, but what about thermal couple refrigeration or electricity? Use the hot smoke, refrigerate food? Generate electricity to charge a battery, inverter, and free electric. I might start making them next month. Solar doesn't pay itself off very fast, sun, wind, and water are not always available. But if you have wood or fuel, you can live off grid.
Maybe if you used abs sunken floor forms you could get a cavity below the structure and then you can vent air from the roof or warm environment. Extreme temperature and mold would might be a problem though. Maybe it could be a closed loop somehow.
Interesting thought here. What about using forced air square duct insulated on three sides, with sand on top . Row of bricks or treated lumber on two sides too support weight from floor. Even any kind of cheap pipe in a insulated trench. Two boards landscaping fabric and perlite would work on the cheap.
how does sweep the floor? i have bench in one house, awesome to sit on if you come from outside in winter. needs cleaning. but how does one do this inside floor eh.
I am going to do this for my house. But I think I will use a heat exchanger to blow fresh air under the house, yet extract as much heat from the fire exhaust as possible. I could do the same thing for the 2nd and top floors as well.
@@SimpleTek If there is a way to recirculate the non-combusted air, and without electrical power, that would keep more heat under the house to heat the thermal mass. Using a fan would defeat energy independence, and would be impossible with the power knocked out. It may not be possible to recirculate....unless I could harness wind power during the day, maybe from the wind mill operating the well.
To get most heating benefit out of ‘Ondol’ you do need to sleep on the floor and sit on the floor. Floor is the thermal mass and you want your body to be in contact with floor as much as possible. ‘Cob bench’ seems to be a segway from ‘Ondol’ since cob bench are found along lower Siberia steppes. Ancient Korean territories include Manchuria and Inner Mongolia. Ondol probably is more thermal efficient even without insulations. Koreans cook three meals a day, and the cooking thermal energy all goes into Ondol. Some additional late evening heat may be needed during cold winter night. The ridges, slopes and channels under the floor manage thermal energy to control fire and spreading energy.
Not sure why you think a woodburner in a greenhouse is bad, most of the fires in them are electrical in nature. I used straight junk like 2 propane tanks bolted together for years and no seal on the door, I just cut a slit with a grinder and used self tappers to smack a hinge on the cut the other three sides. That's like 3/16 gaps on all sides. What I'm saying is that it would runaway. But it had five 50 gallon drums and block around it so I let it scream. The only real issue is short flues without screens dumping embers. That's not exactly an accident, that's not being qualified or doing research or following code.
Though I'm cool with different opinions, I still think it's hard to beat the math in the science. If heat is what you want, nothing is going to be cheaper and work better than simply heating water and insulating first. Why? Nothing compares. Density 1000, specific heat 4190. We're not going to run out of it. It just makes sense. Remember the goal is heat measured in BTUs. 1 cubic meter of water can hold over 268KJ OR 64,049 BTUs, that only one meter cubed! Huge!
Also, calculations is water heated to 95 c from 31c, not 0 c. Why did I use 31? Because I'm use to working with fahrenheit. Lol. 95-0 gives you 95,073 BTUs.
I think I will try to build a greenhouse with this heating system in the next couple of years for a moving to West Texas next Sprint and I hear the winners can get quite cold down there
Looking at the diagrams, getting enough draw could be an issue. A metal flue with its intake at the furthest end of the underfloor chamber and then passes through the firebox in an "L" shape skyward might mitigate that without any fans or motors.
Let's see. Next year I plan to update my greenhouse. IF we will get a digger, we can test ALL systems. To me interesting is an idea of rocket stove used to heat FLOOR of the greenhouse. Rocket stove built IN floor (nothing raised above floor) and feeded from outside shed - attached to greenhouse. In addition we will dig large diameter ducts 3m deep under the greenhouse for a secondary system ( like in Curtis Stone channel) AND use vacum solar panels to "add" a storadge heat under, mostly during a summer, because in winter these panels are needed for house water heating. However, in summer we must cover them, because heat is too much and overheating damadges them. IF the panels will be working, perhaps greengouse will get the dedicated vacum solar panels for itself. will see where it will lead us.😂
Why couldn’t we combine the Korean style floor with the sand battery floor system? Just an idea. Maybe top it with sleet panels of some kind to give a hard surface on top.
Do you really need insulation beneath the house? Wouldn't the soil itself act as a geothermal battery? I can see the need for insulating the perimeter, however, way down into the ground.
Smoke in the house - most do not understand how much air-pressure and humidity after how a fire burns and how a chimney reacts. Running a cold fire can hurt results too.
The floor is all masonry. So even if you had a big fire down there. No big deal. Air flow would be a problem. So yes you would need clean outs. Which they do have.
