Kevin Shay

I have the fan right before the elbo that is heading out the building . The temp read was actually on the sides. . I'm hoping to do away with the fan.... Crossing fingers!

Hey gang! Good news... I installed one of the duct fans and had the RMH running for about an hour or two yesterday and for about 4 1/2 hours today.... The cob is starting too dry up a bit in spots .... Was steaming off loads! We are buried in snow - so once it clears and I can safely be on a ladder and my roof I plan to put a stack out there . But this seems to be working? The barrel had a temperature read of over 600°F and the exit pipe was reading at about 100°F. The mass was nice and warm but still very damp. I think I have at least 3 -5 more days of long fires before it's dried out.
As for being in the basemtnt - no problem for us as it is the only spot with a Tv and where we do most of our socializing .
I know the fan isn't optimal but how do you think it's doing with all thing considered ?

Wow man you're scaring me Big Al! So basically it sounds like I need to run 30 feet of vertical pipe outside my house… Now does it have to be the insulated stuff that cost a small fortune or can I do 7 inch and 8 inch and insulate it myself? Or does it even have to be insulated at all? I have a fireplace in the living room and hardwood floors throughout so the basement was really my only option to place the RMH and it seemed perfect because the previous owner had a stove sitting there and closed off the 8 inch terra-cotta exit… So to me it was providential... Sounds like not so much anymore. But I'm willing to put in the blood, sweat and tears as long as you guys can be patient with my zillion questions and problems

Many thanks !

The photo with the bed is our second cleanout. Wondering if we should light a paper fire in there as was suggested that for an upper clean out on the vertical pipe? And I'm actually going to take another photo of the burn tunnel feed tube area because I have more mass on it then in the photo I sent

I didn't completely cover the feed tube and the burn tunnel because I was afraid if I needed to dismantle it I didn't want to have to undo everything.. I saw many other designs with just as many turns. Is that young to be a problem? the book said 20-40 feet and the only way for us to do it that way would be with turns.

Actually there is some insulation and mass around the heat riser and burn tunnel. For some reason that photo did not come up- i'll repost it. I just wanted to show you some of the raw photos so that you have an idea of how it actually looks inside .

Some more pic

Hi guys here are the pics.

Sorry,I forgot to edit my post. ( now edited) the RMH is located in the basement and the exhaust is about 5ft above the base of the heater. Do you still believe this to be the problem?

Hello all, in my basement I am building a rocket Mass heater exactly to the specs of Ernie and Erica. The Brickplant and all the piping and are exact... everything is very proper. I Used firebricks in the Burntunnle and first portion of the heat riser and topped it off with 8 inch round terra-cotta fire pipe riser. Covered the whole thing with galvanized steel piping and filled with Pirma lite and fireclay slip. Put the barrel on top and somewhere in our packing and setting up of the perrmalite around the riser and everything the exhaust pipe pushed out about an inch to an inch and a half. So it's no longer perfectly under the barrel. We toyed with the idea of cutting out some of the Pirma lite Clay and pushing it back into place but we were not sure if that would be a good idea. So instead we covered it with a brick and packed clay/ sand around it. Once we lit the rocket it was not rocketing at all.... In fact the flame was coming straight up at us and tons of Smoke back. we did place a small fan over the feed tube and it's got it to draft in the proper direction however as soon as we remove the fan it came right back to us. We never really got a good fire. And fact the best read we got on our barrel was 200°F. A lot of the Clay is still wet and cold not sure if that affects anything I did read that somewhere. Please advise. Our exhaust on the outside of the house is at 1 ft above ground level. There is only about 1 inch gap between the wall of the house and the cap--- as we pushed it in to avoid rain getting in. Is that my problem possibly ? I also noticed that my barrel is slightly off level. Front to back it's perfect- left to right it's about a half of an inch off. Guessing with the buildup of the Pirma light and such I got a little extra caked on the bottom some how.... Where do I begin Thanks so much for all your feed back.