泊头市三色铸造有限责任公司

This is a question often asked by customers: Is the cast iron furnace better or the steel plate furnace better? I have to answer this question several times a day, and finally, I feel the need to take some time out to write a feature article explaining it in detail, in the hope of helping others who have the same doubts.

It is important to state in advance that the discussion of which material is better, cast iron or steel, is only relevant when it comes to furnaces (furnaces: wood-burning furnaces that are placed on the ground and the whole furnace is completely exposed to the air). More than 90% of the world's fireplaces are made of steel (fireplaces: wood-burning stoves with the body embedded in the wall and only the door exposed), and this has been established, for reasons explained below.

Choosing a cast iron furnace or a steel furnace is a process of prioritizing factors such as the furnace's structure, heating characteristics, aesthetics, and price.

Before comparing iron and steel stoves, you must first realize that both cast iron and steel are made of the same material, iron. Steel is an iron alloy. The iron is simply melted and poured into a mold to make cast iron, which is rolled into a plate to become a steel plate. Therefore, when you understand that you are comparing your latte to iron, you understand that the composition of the ingredients is of little significance to your decision.

Cast iron furnace

Advantages: People choose cast iron furnaces for many reasons, the most important of which is that cast iron can better withstand high temperatures and reduce room temperature fluctuations. This is because cast iron furnaces are heavier and heavier than steel furnaces of the same size, and under the conditions of the same specific heat capacity (specific heat capacity, simply put, is the ability of the material to hold heat, detailed explanation can be searched on Baidu, not to say much), the heavier cast iron furnaces can naturally absorb more heat than the lighter steel furnaces, and in a long period of time after the fire is extinguished, The cast-iron furnace continues to release heat to heat the room. In addition, the simplicity and roughness of the cast iron has a unique retro aesthetic feeling, and the surface of the cast iron furnace often has exquisite decorative patterns, giving people a heavy sense of historical precipitation. In recent years, manufacturers of cast iron furnaces have begun to apply the enamel process to their furnaces, producing fireplaces in a variety of colors: pure white, postal green, dark coffee, wine red, beige...... Can be perfectly matched with any color of home decoration style. The coefficient of thermal expansion of steel plate is large, and the shape variable is also large at high temperature, so it is not suitable for enamel. If you want to choose a color other than black furnace, then often only in the cast iron furnace to consider.

Disadvantages: Cast iron furnaces are more expensive than steel furnaces of the same size. Because the furnace of the cast iron furnace is assembled by bolt + sealing rope, the sealing performance will decline after many years of use, and a certain degree of maintenance is required. In addition, the advantages of the cast iron stove mentioned earlier, weight, is precisely its disadvantage, in the large size of the cast iron fireplace performance is particularly prominent. Heavier weight means you'll pay more for logistics, handling, installation and post-maintenance. Cast iron furnaces, of course, take longer to cool (or to dissipate heat for longer), but this comes at the cost of heating up slowly. A steel plate furnace with the same power will heat up faster than a cast iron furnace.

Steel plate furnace

Advantages: The joint of the steel plate furnace adopts the welding process, the furnace seal is good and reliable, basically does not need later maintenance and repair, only the sealing rope of the furnace door needs to be replaced every few years. Due to the use of CNC laser cutting and advanced robot welding technology, the parts of the steel plate furnace have high precision and good consistency, and the whole machine quality is stable. The lighter weight also makes the steel plate furnace easier to handle, especially on narrow stairs. As mentioned earlier, the steel plate furnace heats up quickly after ignition, and the room will soon warm up, of course, the corresponding furnace cooling speed is also faster after the fire is extinguished.

Disadvantages: light weight, low heat storage capacity, the furnace temperature drops quickly after extinguishing. Unable to enamel, no other colors are available except black.

Comparison of quality level of domestic furnaces

Cast iron and steel plate are common materials for manufacturing furnaces, and the material itself is not the basis for distinguishing the quality of the furnace. In foreign countries, there are both big-name manufacturers of steel plate furnaces and century-old shops of cast iron furnaces. But as far as domestic furnaces are concerned, most of the production of cast iron furnaces are small-scale foundries, and the production of steel furnaces is a large factory. This is because the manufacture of steel plate furnaces requires a lot of expensive equipment and stamping molds, and the investment is huge, and small factories can not afford it. The mold for making cast iron is a sand mold, which has low cost and small investment, so the majority of small factories. In general, the overall quality level of domestic steel plate furnaces is significantly higher than that of cast iron furnaces, but if it comes to furnaces originating in Europe and the United States, the quality of the two can be said to be equal. Denmark's Morsø is a major manufacturer of cast iron stoves, 160 years of manufacturing history, our fireplace experience center installed two Morsø stoves, each time the mood is happy. Canada's Regency is an outstanding representative of steel plate furnaces, products with high efficiency and durability renowned internationally.

How to choose?

Well, it's time to make a decision. The late maintenance workload of the steel plate furnace is small, the heating and cooling speed is fast, and the modern style appearance is mostly. Cast iron furnaces require regular maintenance, slow warming but long heat release time, modeling in traditional retro style mostly, enamel furnaces are available in a variety of colors. If you need a furnace to burn all night long and keep heating, you can consider a cast iron furnace. If you use the furnace more frequently, you want the room temperature to rise rapidly after ignition, and the furnace to cool as soon as possible after extinguishing (which is safer), you can pay more attention to the steel plate furnace. In fact, how to choose more depends on personal preferences and tastes, and it is not necessary to be too tangled in the material of the furnace.

Why is cast iron unsuitable for fireplaces?

As mentioned earlier, 90% of the world's fireplaces are made of steel, and only a few factories are still using cast iron to produce fireplaces. The discussion on the material in foreign forums is limited to the furnace, and when it comes to the fireplace material, the steel plate is almost overwhelmingly identified, why? This is because the advantage of the cast iron furnace is that the heat storage capacity is strong, the disadvantage is that the weight is large, it is not easy to transport and install, and it requires maintenance in the later period. If cast iron is used to make a fireplace, because the fireplace body is embedded in the wall or surrounded by other structures, and is not directly exposed, the advantages of cast iron heat storage are useless, but it adds the trouble of difficult handling. In addition, because the cast iron fireplace uses the bolted connection process, its sealing will gradually reduce over time, so it needs regular maintenance, but the fireplace body is embedded in the wall, can not be maintained, so the industry has chosen to use the welding process of maintenance-free steel plate to make the fireplace, forming the steel plate fireplace in the world. So what explains the fact that there are so many cast iron fireplaces on sale in the country? The reason is simple, cast iron fireplace mold investment is small, do not need expensive processing equipment, low threshold, small factories can do, so there are more players. The price of a full set of molds for steel fireplaces is very expensive, millions of them, and it is usually developed into a series, and the capital investment is large, which is by no means can be borne by the general scale of factories. The scale of the factory is greatly related to the level of manufacturing and management, from this point of view, the quality level of domestic steel fireplace is much higher than that of domestic cast iron fireplace should be said to be a large probability event. The next time someone tells you how fancy their cast-iron fireplace is, you can go "Oh, boy."