A bespoke brick heater, with an unusual flue path, for a new build using the Greb method, in Saône-et-Loire.
This is not a replacement job: the house is new, built using the Greb method — a timber frame filled with straw bales, rendered with mortar on both sides. The heater was therefore designed with the building, not inserted afterwards into an existing flue.
The heater is built in reclaimed firebricks, left exposed. That is the house’s approach: no finishing render, no added cladding — the masonry is the finish. Each brick still bears the recessed ‘N’ mark of its original maker.
The volume stacks three uses. A site-built bench at the foot, continuing the base, which takes part of the flue path. The firebox in the centre. And at the top, a cooking chamber closed by an arched door.
The flue path, before closing
One photograph from this project shows what is never seen on a finished heater: the open flue path, before the capping slab is laid.
The partitions you can see are not reinforcements: they are the baffles. The flue gases leaving the firebox rise, come back down and go round them, travelling several metres before finding the outlet — and giving up a little of their heat to the masonry at each bend. It is this path, drawn for this particular heater, that the title calls an ‘original flue path’.
The reclaimed bricks come from dismantled industrial kilns. They have already been through thousands of heating cycles: their dimensional stability is proven, a real advantage over a new brick — provided they are sorted one by one, which takes the time saved elsewhere.
