RMH on a wood-framed floor?

We have a 1.5 story house over a full basement. We'd been planning on putting a standard wood stove in on the first floor, but that was before my science-y 13 year old created a sort of rocket stove. And started researching rocket stoves. And rocket mass heaters. And on it goes.

So now I'm looking at a rocket mass heater thinking the "mass" part would be problematic. I designed our floor for a standard living load, not a point-load of concrete (or whatever the "mass" is)...


What are some thoughts on this?

Wax. There is a good discussion on this thread about using other materials that store more heat and weigh less. Paraffin wax being one of those materials. If you put a few closed containers of wax in your mass, and it temperature cycles around the melting point of the wax, a small weight of wax melting and solidifying can take the place of a lot of dead load of concrete.

What a great idea. Thanks.

Erin Hatfield : You did not give a location so I'm guessing here, but in a Rocket Mass Heater (R.M.H.) Warmed, worker friendly world a semi perfect day would run something
like this-

There has to be a near continuous 6-8 hr period of close personal attention and Feeding of the days R.M.H. fire, this requires frequent feeding with very dry, small, finely split
wood, over the 1st 1 1/2 - 2 hrs, of operation. At that point, with a fire brick lined combustion chamber and the bricks glowing red or white hot, a fairly large piece of wood ( 8''
system, 3 - 4 pieces fill the feed tube!) the chunk of wood seems to spontaneously burst into flame ! At this point the person in residence while also doing simple, and typical
daily chores will be in attendance for the following 1.5 to 2 hr planed feedings - this is usually judged by listening to the auditory clues ( how loud the rocket is !) and the 55 gal
drums Temperatures. From this point forward there can certainly be a carefully co-ordinated shared overlap or planned brief break from direct supervision of your Rocket
stove Mass Heater R.M.H.. The total planed coverage in time by the family unit to achieve 20 -25 hours of Thermal Mass Heat Storage is the same 6 hours to
8 hours of near continuous coverage.

After you have grasped this simple but strangely different fact, planing the days start time, and finish time and the amount of time that your Bench is covered with insulating
quilts, will be an almost auto magic reflex.

However, your plans must include the requicent daily 6 hrs - 8 hrs of close personal attention and feeding of your Rocket Mass Heater, if you are willing to Always plan your life
around feeding your R.M.H. and it's Dragon, you will be the beneficiary of the dragons gentle warming heat regardless of the season ! For a healthy, but home bound person, or
most persons invested in 'Homeschooling' this should prove to be an Advantage, rather than any kind of a draw-back !

The point is make this decision 1st, before you decide to change the layout of your house ! Hope this helps, for the good of the craft ! (and the children / our future ! )

As always, your comments and questions are solicited and Welcome. Think like Fire, flow like gas, Don't be the Marshmallow ! Pyro - logically yours Big AL !

I live in a standard 1300sq ft Ranch style home with a basement and was also concerned with weight. I personally have very little knowledge of Rocket Stoves currently but was thinking is it possible to use 2-3 smaller (pocket rocket) stoves in different locations instead of 1 bigger stove? But the constant feeding thing would probably be a problem like the previous poster mentions.

Aaron Festa : The Pocket Rocket is a very handy wood stove for outdoor use, picket lines, ice fishing, Preppers, and Zombie Hunters. These burn so hot they can,
and have set fire to Blacktop ! Unfortunately, there is no method for holding the heat, most of it goes up the chimney AND it eats up tremendous amounts of wood!

4 Tons for a Rocket Mass Heater / Thermal Bench sounds like a lot but the actual foot print is close to the weight of a water bed !

Have you been to rocketstoves.com for your PDF Copy $15.oo of Evans' and Jackson's great book ' Rocket Mass Heaters ' there is STILL No other book
in any language with as much Rocket Stove, Pocket Rocket, or Rocket Mass Heaters Family information! ( and i don't make a cent ! )

Thanks! This is all new to me. I just started watching some videos and listening to podcasts. Now I'll add the PDF.

Aaron Festa :Have you been to our Sister site richsoil.com, and click'd on Rocket Stoves. There are several good videos there ether professionally done, or reviewed
by pros. Please be careful of the Jreck out there in You-Tube land! Be especially careful of single videos without follow-up. This is usually a sign that the person has become
disenchanted with his Frankin-stove, and is off chasing the next shinny Bauble ! Hope this helps and is timely ! For the good of the Craft !

As always, your questions and comments are solicited and are Welcome. Think like fire, flow like gas, Don't be the marshmallow ! PYRO - Magically Big Al

Thanks again Allen. I'll check it out too. I also found a place in my area that holds Permaculture workshops. Rocket stoves are on the agenda but time is TBD. So I'll check that out also when it comes along.

As far as timely, I put down considerable money for a pellet stove 2 years ago to get away from oil. I thought I was making an investment at todays current oil prices. So you can image my dismay when I first saw the RMH.