Hi all, new UK member looking for advice :-)

Given all the Covid-19 stuff that's going on, I'm thinking of getting a steel box section rocket stove made to give an alternate means of cooking if we lose our electric and natural gas supplies.

Not that I'm a doom and gloom merchant, but most of our gas comes via a pipeline from Russia, and if we lost that, bang goes most of our heating systems.

Then, reliant on the electricity network for heat and cooking, that will burn out too. Cue civil unrest...

We have a local metal workshop who make gates etc. and they're happy to knock one together along the lines of the design referred to in another permies forum post    but he wants some dimensions.

Could someone suggest dimensions please for each length of 5" (and maybe 6" too) box section please ?

I read that metal is likely to spall (eat itself away ?) but given the alternatives, I'm happy to risk a bit more iron in my diet in the short term ! :-p

Many thanks, and here's to hoping never to need to use it in anger !

Hi Colin,  Welcome to Rocket Stove Central.  

You are correct in saying that the metal will spall, but if your only using it as a temporary stove, you will be able to get many good fires out of it  (probably years) before it would need to be decommissioned.
If you were to insulate it to make it burn even hotter (and cleaner), the spalling rate would probably more than triple.

When I made one of these about 5 years ago, I was following the 1:2:3 rule where 1 is the feed tube height, 2  (twice the length of the feed tube) is the burn chamber length and 3 (triple the length of the feed tube) is the heat riser height. Over the years this formula was modified, especially when many people started posting their creations on You Tube.
It short, its not that hard to mess up with one of these stoves just to burn some wood. The main thing is to keep the riser much taller than the feed tube so that the fire goes in the right direction.
FYI - It has been said that sometimes the 45 degree angle on the feed tube models has a harder time self feeding long pieces of wood smoothly without getting caught up. However, if your going to constantly be there to tend it or want to use pellets, then probably not an issue.

Feel free to post some pictures of your creation when you get there!

To ease your fears a bit only 17% of UK gas comes from Russia and none directly, so while rationing might be possible total stoppage is unlikely.

As to spalling yes the same as the bottom of your BBQ does over time, but it takes a lot of burns to burn through, and I don't think any of that is going to end up in your soup