Mark Bomhoff

Hey 'tobans! I'm IN the heart of Winnipeg too! I live in Transcona and I'm quickly enjoying this site for new ideas. Not really a permie but definitely some neat ideas on here. My wife and I have raised garden beds that we're going to turn into some hugelkulture beds this year. They won't be huge in height but should still store enough moisture so we won't need to water more then a couple times a year!

I'm also hoping to make a rocket stove boiler to heat our house next winter. Haven't decided if I want to run the water through piping under the floors for heated floors or through a heat exchanger in the furnace for forced air heating. Lucky for me I have a few months to decide.

Curious to see some of your projects and how they are coming along.

Ya it's cheap insurance

Apparently I missed this post altogether lol Thanks for answering my Question 8 months ago lol

paul wheaton wrote:When it comes to spruce, fir and pine - all of these will work fine. They won't work as well as cottonwood or poplar, but most hugelkultur beds I've heard of are using spruce fir or pine. Check out this video where Mark is using spruce - looks like it is working pretty damn good

So I have a ton of wood that I have split and even more yet to be split for burning how ever I don't have room for it anymore. I recently found out about HK and got excited as my wife loves to garden! We already have nice landscaped raised beds but I'm thinking of digging them out and putting some of my non split wood in there. I have some 2 year seasoned maple and will be getting some fresh birch and pine in the new year. Will all of these work? I know I've seen people talk about the maple and birch but not much mention of the pine. Anyone using pine? I'm worried it may be toxic on very acidic but I don't really know. Any insight would be great. Thanks everyone! I'm really enjoying this forum and learning about all these new things!

Yup I've seen those too.

Did you cahnge anything about your system to run in closed loop or just isolate it from the house water with some valves? No expansion tank or anything?

BAH!!! it hit me last night that this system uses water and water will freeze if I don't keep the burner constantly fired. Because I'm looking for a setup that I don't have to keep fired all the time means I can't do water! So no hot water tank for me I may have to use something else... glycol? Then I can just use a HE in the furnace and heat just the house. I'll have to get my buddy here who does HVAC for a living to see if he can setup my furnace fan to come on and off when needed.

Thanks for the diagram but aren't you missing the hot water side "T" that goes to the house plumbing and to the rocket stove?

Cool that's exactly what I was thinking. I don't need the diagram your wording was excellent. But it never hurts to put up for others that come across this and we all know a pic is worth a thousand words lol. Thanks for all the info. It's cold where I live now but I'm thinking of starting some testing next summer and if all goes well maybe I can have a stove finished by fall... I won't hold my breath though lol

Excellent thanks for the info. I figured the HE must be over sized to insure nothing ever gets to hot. Is there a way you could show how it goes in and out of your hot water tank? I'm curious how it's under pressure so it can be used. As it's used from the hot water tank is more water introduced into the system from the check valve?

I've been looking at RMH and RS for a few weeks now and I really like your design and it was something I was thinking of doing. I don't have much room in my house for an RMH but really like the idea of using a RS to produce some heat to supplement my furnace. I have some questions though. Does this system run non stop? I know you have a thermal switch on the fan to shut off when the water gets to be too cold but it looks to be on the HOT side of your heat exchanger. Wouldn't it always be hot enough to have it run unless the fire goes out? How do you regulate temperature in the house? If you stop the blower the water would get super heated... super fast

I'm basically looking for a system I can build that will heat my house primarily and use my furnace as a back up for when it's extra cold or the wood runs out. But so far I'm having a hard time trying to think of a way to regulate the temps inside the house besides how big the fire is in the RS.

ps. why the use of two different tubing sizes in the coil? If the water comes out of the heat exchanger then into your hot water tank does it then return from your hot water tank to the coil? Or is one coil for the heat exchanger and the other for the hot water tank?