Cristobal Cristo

Kristina,

Matt Walker's plans have the advantage that if you follow them strictly you will get proven results. If you are more adventurous then you can enter the rabbit hole of masonry heaters and build anything you like to better suite your needs.
If the chimney continues through entire house then an opening can be made on the first floor to connect the heater.

Directly heated kitchen wall would surely transfer heat better. it is a normal problem in masonry buildings and that's why old houses had a separate heater per each room. Without that the heaterless rooms would remain cold. I experienced it first hand. The hallway to our living room felt warm only within 2 m from the door. I'm facing the same problem as the interior walls in my house are 40 cm thick. I have placed the heater (yet to be built, hopefully this year) in the space between the kitchen and the living room, close to two bedroom doors. I'm also planning to utilize mirrors to reflect radiant heat to the bathroom and the third bedroom. On the other hand, I live in rather warm place, massive house never gets too cold and I like to sleep in cool air.
If the opening to the kitchen was wide enough you could extend the bell and position the heater door to face the kitchen, but it would eat at least 60 cm of the opening and would look weird and rather ugly.

Sometimes unorthodox approaches are not used, because people are stuck in the (imperfect) tradition, but sometimes that may not work. Are you doing it to save the material or to save 13 cm (12 cm Spanish brick + 1 cm bell/wall gap) of living room space? I want it to work for you and it would be sad if you had to disassemble the heater in a year or two to build the continuous bell. Of course we will not know until you try and operate it for a few years. I can imagine what kind of massive heart attack it would give to authorities here who already do not tolerate even single skin :) Your design can be called "half-skin". Please also consider that this region of Spain has some seismicity. Good masonry relies on gravity - so buildings and structures are designed to work even without the mortar, by interlocking pieces, thick walls for stability, erecting thick buttresses for vaults and arches, cornices with proper cantilever per brick, etc.
Have you checked if the floor will support the heater weight?

Permies is a forum where people usually do not boldly say "do not do it" assuming that there is some unexplored path that may be discovered. What I can only say that in hundreds of heaters and builds that I watched/studied all of them had a normal bell - similar like I never saw an engine with half an engine block - the other half being car body.

Despite the fact that I would never do it I remain curious of the outcome.

Tess,

I would hire her for a month or two if you were closer, as my woodworker disappeared. I have a lot of serious projects, all machinery and material.

Mark,

I understand it all. Working within constraints is actually exciting - more than starting carte blanche.
What are the dimensions of the room and what is the distance from the corner to the passage to the kitchen?
Have you considered to open the dividing wall (is it structural, probably yes if it holds the loft) and placing a heater and also a cooking stove? I have seen numerous such builds. I'm just throwing ideas, because I was also going to purchase a house in Spain and renovate it.

After edit:
I have noticed that the distance is 165 cm. Since the perimeter of the feeder part is already encroaching the room, you could also build a BBR sidewinder with door facing towards the room or straight BBR with door facing along the dividing wall. 165x70 footprint would hold straight BBR nicely. It would have a normal single skin (double in the top part) bell. It could be shorter, for example 140 (25 cm distance to the wall), so the chimney pipe would fit in the corner

Mark,

I like your Andalusian house, despite seeing only part of the interior. The house I have built is aesthetically, structurally, and material-wise fashioned after Spanish architecture of your region, but more opulent - I would call it a small house of a wealthy landowner,  jaja.

If I was doing it I would love to preserve the slanted beauty of your fireplace bell. I would:
-keep the massive masonry chimney as it's a part of the room attractiveness
-insert insulated stainless chimney pipe
-build a square bell, 30 cm away from the walls, that would be almost touching the chimney with one corner, so all walls would effectively radiate heat (if heater walls are at least 15 cm away from the wall they are included in calculations of the amount of heat radiated by the bell)
-build slanted top corners of the bell to preserve the style then plaster and whitewash
-insulate the house wall around the bell

I know that you have a different idea, but I was itching to express it. I'm just talking about it from a perpective of someone, who as a 12 year old child, demolished 2 kachel heaters and two kachel cooking stoves, so we could have "convenient" gas, without any regard for preserving the heritage, work of my great-grand father and without any self-preservation instinct (wood can be always gathered, gas - rather not). I also love beautiful design costing a lot of sweat to achieve it.

Mark,

How will you tie the 3 other walls of the bell to the existing house wall to make sure that it's gas tight?
The dividing wall will heat up and expend at a different rate than actual walls of the bell.  Bells are built as separate units. I'm not saying it can not be done, but I'm seeing potential problems. In masonry construction, material compatibility is important and it's even more pronounced in the heaters.

Meredith,

Emitters require minimum 1 atm/15 psi. 1 arm is a pressure of 10 m tall cylinder of water, so to meet the minimum, the tank would have to be at least 10 meters (33') above the highest elevated emitter.

White currants will have lowest light requirements as in general green/white versions of fruits require less sun to ripen.

Mike,

Vitcas HRTA is the 1000 C tile adhesive. This rating is a little bit funny, because already at 600 C the tiles would glow red, but maybe it just proves that it's really good.
New kachels sell for around $400/m2 for basic white 22x24 cm size. Colors are usually 40-60% more expensive. Full sets may have discounts. In Europe it's possible to find used sets from demolished heaters. Importing would not be too difficult - they would fit on one pallet.