Tom Wilson

Thanks for your replies

Thomas, I have a question about the L tube design. Is that a lot more work to keep attentive to the fire to make sure it doesn't burn out? I guess the gravity feed of the J shape would mean that you wouldn't have to be there so much. Because that would be something that seems important, particularly if it's a decent amount of water. I reckon it'll be 400 litres or say 100 gal.

Something that came to me as I slept was to have the burn tunnel turn a corner. This could potentially shorten the tunnel length. How short should I go though? All I really have heard and have been operating on is that the dimensions need to follow a ratio of 1:2:3 . This would suggest that the length of the burn tunnel would even be fine in my original drawing assuming I can get a riser that is tall enough. Would you agree with that statement or is there something else I am missing?

And yes, I agree that insulation is key here.

Larry kidd. I looked up your project. Nice work man...and it sounds like really good performance. Seems similar in concept to what I tried. But I wasn't able to get anywhere near the performance that you're suggesting out of it. I wonder why... hmmmmmmm

Hello,

I am looking for some advise. I have a plan and I don't know if it has any merit, so I would love some feedback from more experienced rocket builders.

I have a 1.2m diameter aluminium tank which I've cut in half. One half is a cold plunge pool. The other half I want to turn into a hot tub.

I tried making a rocket fire already which had the flames running over a copper coil... but the heat transfer was so slow that I would have had to wait for half a day just to heat up the water. I also made it from old benchtop offcuts which began disintegrating under the extreme temperature. So it eventually destroyed itself anyway.

I figured that direct heating would work better. So I thought why not run the burn tunnel in direct contact with the base of the tank. You can't really get more direct heat transfer than that.

My question is whether the dimensions (see attached images) will allow me to run this properly. As I said I'm not very experienced at this stuff so I would love someone else who is to let me know whether what I'm proposing is feasible.

It seems that burn tunnel is longer than recommendations that I've seen before. What happens when the burn tunnel is longer? And what effect does the width of the burn tunnel have too?

The burn tunnel is currently 300mm wide. This means that the burn tunnel has to be a minimum of 1068mm long (see attached image) plus the space required for the chimney and feed. I could make the burn tunnel narrower which would mean the chord length across the edge of the tub is a shorter distance to cover. But I'm also not sure whether this is important and what impact it would have reducing the width of the burn tunnel. It seems there's some competing variables in this equation.

Would love to hear your feedback! Thankyou

Hello
I have been given a huge trailer load of hay which is bedding from a rabbit boarding house. It's got urine, poo, wood pellets and the occasional tissue in it.

They have offered a big trailer every 2 weeks. I said yes, but I'm wondering what the best way of dealing with it all is.

I have chickens which I thought might appreciate scratching through it. I also have worm bins, but I doubt they could keep up with the qty on offer. I also have trees to mulch around.

I would like to know if anyone has some good suggestions for me.

Seems like too good of an opportunity to waste. It should be a valuable input.

Cheers
Tom

P.s. the pessimistic side of me just activated. Do you think I should be concerned about pesticides from the hay? It's called Timothy grass apparently and it comes from Otago (Not that I expect that to mean anything to anyone, but does hay get sprayed?)

Hi

I'm new here. I've been voraciously reading through the posts and am feeling pretty inspired. I thought it would be a good idea to ask a question about my first permaculture project on my new land.

Here's my place. We've had a bit of land excavated so that we could move our tiny trailer house onto the site.



I'm wondering what I should do with that big old clay bank behind my house. It's pretty steep and hard to walk up because the clay is dry and crumbly.

I would like to plant it up to stop it from eroding and it would also be nice to get some food growing on it.

My initial thoughts were to put in some dwarf fruit trees with a miniature retaining wall beneath each one. The retaining wall could be made from logs that we've got lying around the property. I'm not sure what I would do with the space between the tree's though. I feel that I would need to cover all the clay with something to stop it from eroding. A ground cover of some sort?

Any advice on what would work well in this situation?

Thanks for your help
Tom