Dear Firespeaking Community,
2023 was a relatively quiet year for Firespeaking. We focused on continuing to strengthen our hardware distribution.
Four years ago, we felt that the masonry heater industry could not grow without attention to the supply chain. We were concerned about the limited amount of suppliers to our industry, particularly of cast iron and other complementary specialty hardware. We decided to address this by becoming a supplier ourselves. Over the past four years, we have:
- Introduced an entirely new line of cast iron hardware to the North American market
- Created a streamline online catalog which is easy to shop.
- Honed our warehouse, packaging, and order fulfillment processes with the goal of maintaining a healthy inventory and shipping within 1 business day.
- Grew our customer base which includes both professionals and DIY masonry heater and oven builders.
Based on this success, we are moving into 2024 with the goal of addressing another serious limitation we perceive in our industry which is access to plans. Over the next couple of years, we hope to….
- Increase general awareness about masonry heaters amongst homeowners, builders, architects and designers.
- Make basic plans available.
- Participate in, provide tools for, and encourage open source masonry heater design.
We look forward to sharing more details about these plans as well as sending updates including some awesome recent projects by our customers which highlight their creativity and innovation. We also plan to send you a survey to see what you think would be most helpful for us to focus on that would help you out most immediately in 2024. As the year unfolds, we hope to make our design work more readily available.
Feel inspired? Share your thoughts below!
Warm Regards,
The Firespeaking Team