New to Forums and RMH Questions

Hello everyone!

First off, I'm a newbie to the RMH process. I have a working Rocket stove in the front yard using standard brick and 4" stove piping. Nothing fancy, just playing around with it to get a gist on the principles and how it works.

Anyway I got interested in the RMH purely by accident. I tend to 'surf' YouTube and sometimes I just end up on a video that really get's me thinking. This time it was Ernie and Erica's RMH Sorry to sound so familiar, but I have been watching everything you guys have out there since then.


Of course, my family thinks I'm obsessed over this, but I spent a LOT of money every winter heating my old 1903 hand carved stone house. Which got me to thinking that I could use something like this to help heat the house.

My thoughts were to build a smaller scale RMH on the side porch for the dogs. 1 wall of that side porch is shared with my kitchen and the other wall with my living room. The problem I run into is whether or not I should try and build the mass into the wall of the house. Since it is stone, I would think it would be fine, but that stone goes down into the ground which I was worried might end up 'wicking' away the heat the stone is storing.

Should I put some kind of heat shield between the mass and the stone wall, and possibly the concrete porch? My thought would be to make the mass low enough for the dogs to get up on and sleep at night during the winter. The side porch is enclosed, but not insulated.

I apologize for the spew of information and questions mixed together. I'm just a wee bit 'obsessed' over this. There, I said it

Thanks a Bunch!

Eric Buckner : W.O.W., a working 4'' Rocket stove on your 1st go round, just getting to the Build makes you one in a hundred, having a working sub 6'' system makes you - well anyway my hats off to you.
Two things, three really where are you? You really need to get Ianto Evans' great book 'Rocket Mass Heaters' $15.00u.s. for the download pdf (all the copies you can print) or $18.00u.s. in paperback through www.rocketstoves.com, you really need to get the book just to learn how fortunate you have been to hit it on your 1st go round. After you have had a chance to read the book just put a layer of radiant heat reflective heavy foil down on your concrete slab and video tape re-building the rocket stove and cob bench on your side porch, live with it and check out Ernies Plans at www.ernieanderica.info/shop for your in house build this spring
Pyro-maticly Yours , - Allen L.

Honestly I didn't think a 4" build was that difficult. There is no way it would be able to run for long though. That metal is just to thin to be able to withstand anything for long.

Anyway I'm actually just a mile away from the geographical center of Tennessee in a college town called Murfreesboro, the college is Middle TN State University.

Yeah I didn't know about the ebook until I came here, was just experimenting based on what I have seen on You Tube, so I will definitely be picking it up now that I know it exists.

I'm still debating on whether or not putting mass on the side porch is worthwhile, or if just a regular rocket stove will be enough. I'm thinking the build will be easier and the temp could be better maintained by insulating the porch enclosure.