Stove

A stove or range is a device that generates heat inside or atop the device for local heating or cooking. Stoves can be powered with many fuels, such as natural gas, electricity, gasoline, wood, and coal.

Stove
Indonesian traditional brick stove, used in some rural areas
Classification	Major appliance
Powered	Electricity Natural gas Gasoline Wood Coal

The most common materials stoves are made of are cast iron, steel, and stone.

Concerns about air pollution have fostered efforts to improve stove design. Pellet stoves, for instance, are a type of clean-burning stove. Air-tight stoves, another type, burn their fuel more completely than conventional ones and so reduce the amount of the combustion by-products. Another method of reducing air pollution is through the addition of a device to clean the exhaust gas, such as a filter or afterburner.

Research and development on safer and lower-emission stoves is continuously evolving.

Etymology

Old English had a word stofa, meaning a hot-air bath or sweating room. However, this usage did not survive, and the word was taken newly from Middle Low German or Middle Dutch in the 15th or 16th century, later meaning any room heated with a furnace. By the 17th century it had come to mean a heated box such as an oven, and by the 18th century could mean an open fireplace.

History

Versions prior

Cooking was performed over an open fire since nearly two million years ago. It is uncertain how fires were started at these times; some hypotheses include the removal of burning branches from wildfires, spark generation through hitting rocks, or accidental lighting through the chipping of stone tools. During the Paleolithic era, approximately 200,000 to 40,000 years ago, primitive hearths were constructed, with stones arranged in a circle shape. Human homes centered around these hearths for warmth and food. Open fires were quite effective; most fires are 30% efficient on average, and heat is distributed positively, with no heat being lost into the body of a stove. An estimated three million people still cook their food today over open fires.

Pottery and other cooking vessels were later placed on open fire; eventually, setting the vessel on a support, such as a base of three stones, resulted in a stove. The three-stone stove is still widely used around the world. In some areas it developed into a U-shaped dried mud or brick enclosure with the opening in the front for fuel and air, sometimes with a second smaller hole at the rear.

Early designs

The earliest recorded stove was created in Alsace, France in 1490. It was entirely made out of brick and tile, including the flue pipe. In similar times, the Ancient Egyptian, Jewish and Roman people used stone and brick ovens, fueled with wood, in order to make bread and other culinary staples. These designs did not differ extremely from modern-day pizza ovens. Later Scandinavian stoves featured a long, hollow iron chimney with iron baffles constructed to extend the passage of the leaving gases and extract maximum heat. Russian versions are still frequently used today in northern nations, as they hold six thick-walled stone flues. This design is frequently positioned at the intersection of internal partition walls, with a piece of the stove and flue inside each of four rooms; a fire is kept until the stove and flues are hot, at which point the fire is extinguished and the flues are closed, storing the heat. During Colonial America, beehive-shaped brick ovens were used to bake cakes and other pastries. Temperature control was closely managed by burning the appropriate quantity of wood to ash and then testing by inserting hands inside, adding additional wood, or opening the door to allow cooling.

Ceramic

Clay ovens have been used for millennia for cooking.

Details of a Renaissance Revival stove from the D.A. Sturdza House in Bucharest (Romania)