Rocket mass heater for workshop?

Hi, I am new to the forum, so hello! I am from the UK but live in Latvia. I have looked at Rocket stoves in the past but now I want to build one to heat a workshop, so I am looking for plans for a no metal mass heater. The room is 6.5 meters by 5.1 by 2.5 high or 21 foot by 17 by 8 high. Not well insulated but not drafty. I was set on buying some lightweight insulation bricks today to build the heat riser and was winging a design but was luckily sent to a specialist ceramic dealer, who quite blew my mind with all the possible materials I could use plus some pallets of used fire bricks of many different types including clean though pitted lightweight insulating at 50 cents each. So I would like advice on the best way to go and what design, though I favour the bell types at present. There are cast-able materials etc! Strangely for me his buildings were heated by the air conditioning units and it seems more economic than our present electric use plus we have a wood fired heating system on top!

Will you be in the workshop everyday to fire it? If yes, you can go for massonry. Otherwise, i'd go batch and barrel bells. You also can do a mixture of the two!

Thanks for the reply Satamax. I will be able to as it is just a few steps from the kitchen, though my reasoning for thinking insulating fire brick for the riser was that it could be done intermittently and the heavy brick bells for long term heat release. I work with metal and I don't like the idea of steel drums because they will be continuously shedding oxide inside probably more than outside. We lived in two rooms of a friends cottage for the first 2 years we were here, arriving in feb to minus 27 for the first month, the heating system was 2 masonry stoves that were held together in a thin metal cylinder they were actually really good and held the heat for a long time but needed a lot of fuel and constant clean up, I see the rocket system as a major step forward and want to try it out.

hmm thanks for opening my eyes to the batch box at first when I looked it just seemed like a normal stove over here but now I understand it is a self loading system, saw a stove by "mang Ggong" quite impressive but no plans and metal which if I understood what was actually going on I could build! I built a rocket stove out of old chipped heavy fire bricks this morning fully expecting it to be a fail as I have seen where others had done the same, but despite it not being sealed around the bricks, it worked! I am not sure the lightweight insulating bricks are necessary as it seemed to stop smoking within 10 minutes with the heavies?

Well, i don't know what you searched to find mang Ggong wile searching for batch rockets. But his stuff is far from batch rocket.

Here's a few examples of finished ones. Or semi finished.



http://batchrocket.hostoi.com/html/foto.html

http://technologieforum.forumatic.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=27

http://www.ecologieforum.eu/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4610

http://donkey32.proboards.com/thread/1330/story-bells-20cm-batch-proposal#page=3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFchLpXIbTw



Here for the uggly ones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpsGO9tY8rY

https://permies.com/t/44806/rocket-stoves/Cobbling-workshop-heater

The batch box and the thermal storage/release method are separate considerations; you can use a batch box with any type of mass or radiator. A batch box puts out its heat fast and cannot be damped, so you want to store at least some of it for slow radiation.
It is not "self loading", but you can load a good amount of wood and fire it all without tending for an hour.

The heat riser may be more efficient when built with insulating bricks, and will come up to temperature faster. The feed tube and burn tunnel in a J-tube will be more durable if built of heavy firebrick. Thin firebricks that have less mass but a hard surface may be the best combination, with plenty of insulation around the J-tube.