2012 MHA Annual Meeting

Wildacres, North Carolina --- April 16 - 22, 2012

MHA Annual Business Meeting. Max Edleson presents his work to date on the new website re-design.
You can check it out here:

Agenda for 2012 Annual General Meeting

List of Attendees for 2012 Annual Meeting at Wildacres

The first evening, project leaders presented brief descriptions of their upcoming workshops

Norbert Senf presented a seminar on combustion and heater testing.
Download Powerpoint.

Adam Buursma gave a presentation on "Building Shell Assessment for Masonry Heater Design"
Here, he demonstrates cellulose insulation by melting a penny on it.

John Ackerly, president of the Alliance for Green Heat, gave an excellent Powerpoint presentation

Wednesday morning. The work area in full swing. Seven projects were crammed into the covered gazebo area.
Another two projects were under a tent. One was in the barn, and two or three were outside.

Alex Chernov's brick tandoori workshop was a big hit. Here he holds a roasted chicken that took about an hour. The outside was sealed,
and the chicken was incredibly juicy.

Lars Helbro built a Gymse with a long bench that cooled the smoke to the point where
it drafted downhill. Nobody, including Lars, knew whether it would work, or not. What you
see is cold steam leaving the chimney. With a sufficiently cool chimney, downdraft is provided
by heavier-than-air carbon dioxide in the exhaust gas.

HMED class. Eleven students successfully completed part 1 of MHA's masonry heater education program.

Alex Chernov did a low cost multi-function single skin Russian Rocket that was very impressive for its performance
and lack of cracking.

Steve Cohan built a lime kiln based on a Count Rumford design, and we made some lime putty afterwards.

Steve worked off a Sketchup model on his laptop.

Chris Prior did his popular Archology class, featuring an arch for a standard bake oven opening.

6 of the 10 women attendees. Left to right: Susan Alexander, Jane VanDusen , Terri Brown , Eva Edleson,
Marge Padgitt, Kathleen Randolph.

Marty Pearson was the auctioneer again this year, and did a fabulous job. Large purchases were down and there
were a lot of smaller items, that Marty did a great job in moving quickly. Serving wenches Jane and Kathleen
kept the bidders' beer cups full, which helped to lubricate sales.
We raised a grand total of $16,454.00 to further MHA's mission. Donors List

Thursday night was cool and rainy. Projects were nearing completion, and it was time to kick back with a beer.

Friday morning. Finishing touches on the oven, getting ready for the afternoon pizza party. Lime kiln (lower right) has been
disassembled. Five other projects are visible.

Grundofen designed by Jerry Frisch. Built in 1 day by Jerry's crew.

Contraflow with soapstone heat exchange channels and high performance soapstone
white oven, built by Doug Hargrave and Steve Bushway.

22" MHA Plans Portfolio Contraflow, without oven, built by Brian Klipfel

Tom Trout gave a "Bricklaying 101" workshop to teach basic trowel skills.
photo credit: Dylan Boye

Dan French does his hands-on test for heater mason certification.
He has to build a 2' section of chimney within a time limit, which gets judged for plumb, level, quality of finish.

Charles Bozzo tries his hand at stone carving with a pneumatic chisel

Pizza party after Pat Manley and Marty Pearson's 48" dome bake oven build.
Hendrik Lepel is a German mason who lives in Ireland, and won this year's masonry design contest
for an outdoor kitchen project in Ireland.

Members from 7 countries attended: U.S., Canada, Argentina, Ireland, France, Czech Republic, Denmark

MHA President Steve Bushway congratulates Frank Brown on becoming a Certified Heater Mason.
Other heater masons receiving their certifications this year: Jim Frisch and Paul Anderson.

The HMED (Heater Mason Educational Devolopment) class receives their certificates.

Pat Manley gave a talk on his Masons on a Mission project in Guatemala to bring clean burning cookstoves
to indigenous Mayan indians. A donation of $150 will build a stove, and no money goes to overhead.
Masons on a Missions has built several thousand stoves to date.

Musical instruments were brought out after the pizza party. The music and camaraderie lasted into the early morning.

Simple fireplace, 84 firebrick, 5 minutes. Traditional European design.
Impromptu build by Lars Helbro during late stages of pizza party.

Steph Miscovitch pitches in with the teardown and cleanup.
The materials are all reused and palletized, and taken off-site for storage until next year.

2012 MHA Annual Meeting

Wildacres, North Carolina --- April 16 - 22, 2012

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