Wood Burning Stoves 2.0 Kickstarter

Jeremy Powell wrote:Mine arrived today and my player does not recognize the media. None of the disks will play.

Can you contact trepstar?

Download vlc media player. I haven't checked, but I can almost guarantee that it will play.

-CK

Edit: sorry, I discounted the possibility of bad copies. I will check mine now.

For the money spent I should be able to play these DVD's in ANY player. I have quite the collection of permaculture, natural building, self sufficiency DVD's. these were hands down the most $$$ per disk. Most were less than $20 each shipped, and they all work.

Jeremy Powell wrote:For the money spent I should be able to play these DVD's in ANY player. I have quite the collection of permaculture, natural building, self sufficiency DVD's. these were hands down the most $$$ per disk. Most were less than $20 each shipped, and they all work.

Well, this is something I know nothing about.

But i do think that it is possible that trepstar messed something up. Did you contact them?

I mentioned VLC media player just because its free and you don't have to pay more for all the codecs.

In my opinion, instead of getting needlessly emotional, you should ascertain if it's the disks or the player. If you haven't updated your player in years, for instance, I would try that first.

I think that if anyone else has had such problems, we should have heard about it here. If it's the discs, you may have found the only lemon.

Hope you reach a satisfactory resolution.

-CK

I'm not emotional, I'm just stating the facts. I have contacted the manufacturer and have not yet gotten a reply. I'm confident this will be made right.

All I'm saying is that hardware and software have shelf lives. If you are talking about this year's software, or any latest generation DVD player, I would likely agree with you. I hope you get your situation resolved to your liking, and I wish you the best of luck to that end.

-CK

Bought an RCA bluray at Target earlier this year. Again, I'm confidant this will be made right. I'm just stating how it is.

Well anyone old enough to remember burning CDs and DVDs only to realise that what they really did was make a coaster knows it can happen. I'm sure once you get in touch with the manufacturer it will be made right.

-CK

I am kinda anxious to watch them though. I wish they would hurry with a reply.

My DVDs arrived today. I tested first whether they run on my PC and they do (VLC Player). So I will now take the time to watch them all.

I got my DVD's on the 12th but I finally finished watching them last night. They were great and answered many of my questions about RMH's. I'm really glad I got them.

However, please invest in better sound and video equiptment. The menu system could be better too. How about a minute marker on the chapter selection? Were there plans posted for any of the stoves? I listened to a podcast that was made right after the workshop, is there another update somewhere? Thanks.

Is the pre-casted core used in the sneaky heat dvd for sale yet?

Still no response from trepstar.

I've emailed twice and called. Still no response.

John,

As has been mentioned about a dozen times, and was explained in the videos:

A) We didn't think people would be THIS interested in the videos, so we took video at a quality level for a handful of people

B) Bart says I'm not supposed to film stuff for DVDs anymore.

Plans: there were plans for plans. If the kickstarter brought in $100,000 we were going to do a whole lot of things. But that didn't happen. So, no plans.

more podcast: there is another podcast with E&E that was recorded around March I think.



Joseph,

Is the pre-casted core used in the sneaky heat dvd for sale yet?

We are working on it. And the latest prototypes will be used in the workshops this october.

Jeremy Powell wrote:Still no response from trepstar.

Forward me the emails that you sent to trepstar. paul at richsoil.com

Done, thanks

paul wheaton wrote:John,

As has been mentioned about a dozen times, and was explained in the videos:

A) We didn't think people would be THIS interested in the videos, so we took video at a quality level for a handful of people

B) Bart says I'm not supposed to film stuff for DVDs anymore.

Plans: there were plans for plans. If the kickstarter brought in $100,000 we were going to do a whole lot of things. But that didn't happen. So, no plans.

more podcast: there is another podcast with E&E that was recorded around March I think.



Joseph,

Is the pre-casted core used in the sneaky heat dvd for sale yet?

We are working on it. And the latest prototypes will be used in the workshops this october.

That's good, but does not fit my time tables. I guess I'll be a building my own. In my backyard first of course.

Now I watched DVD one and two. In one way I'm happy to have these DVDs, on the other hands it's realy hard to listen to the english language without beeing from US/UK. There are so many english jokes which I can't understand. Sometimes I think in these jokes might be something intersting for me. So I went on hoping for pictures of building the RMH and they come in DVD2 from 2:00:00 to 2:07:00 but soooo fast that it's nearly impossible to learn from the pictures.

My main questions about DVD2:
1:16:50 there is the talk about the dock?-length / duck?-lenght.
Do you mean the pipe-lenght?
On a 6" system it shall be 40 feet linear length without ellbows.
But what about ellbows? I heard that I had to "introduce" 5 feet per ellbow.
What does that mean? With one ellbow should I use 35 feet or 45 feet linear lenght?
With two ellbows 30 or 50 feet length?

And the same problem for me to understand what to do with vertical chimney. Earnie is talking some seconds later. But I do not understand what he wanted to explain.
15 feet vertical chimney... you can overcome??...10 feet of drag/draft??

english subtitles would be so helpfull to translate word by word with a dictionary.
But may be somebody can help me understand via this forum

Question to DVD 4:
at min 49 Erica talks a bout a natural pellet. I can't understand her words.

After watching all 4 DVDs I still have two major questions:
On several RMH projects I see that the horizontal pipe ist going down some inches for the first half of the length and than going up again.
You can see this good at DVD 2 at time 1:52.
Is it needed or recomendet first to have a small slope down and later a small slope up in the horizontal way of the pipe?

second question:
If you burn wood to CO² and steam and than cool down the steam under 212°F / 100°C you get condensation in the pipes. Does this happen in RMH? I think it must be.
Where does this condensate flows to? Or will this water evaporate again? If the whole horizontal pipe is always going down a little bit, including going out of the wall from the house, its fine. The condensate will flow outside the house. But what happens if the lowest point of the horizontal pipe is in the middle of the room? And what is if (recomended now in the DVDs) a vertical pipe is following the horizontal pipe to get the CO² out of the roof.

Konstantin

Hey Paul, my replacement disks showed and every one of them works. Thank you for influencing the outcome. I'm very excited to watch these.

Hello Konstantin,
Thank you for supporting Paul's DVD project, and for telling us your thoughts on the results. If it's any consolation, sometimes our jokes don't make sense to native speakers of English either.

I will answer your questions one by one, in line:

Konstantin Kirsch wrote:Now I watched DVD one and two. In one way I'm happy to have these DVDs, on the other hands it's realy hard to listen to the english language without beeing from US/UK. There are so many english jokes which I can't understand. Sometimes I think in these jokes might be something intersting for me. So I went on hoping for pictures of building the RMH and they come in DVD2 from 2:00:00 to 2:07:00 but soooo fast that it's nearly impossible to learn from the pictures.

My main questions about DVD2:
1:16:50 there is the talk about the dock?-length / duck?-lenght.
Do you mean the pipe-lenght?
On a 6" system it shall be 40 feet linear length without ellbows.
But what about ellbows? I heard that I had to "introduce" 5 feet per ellbow.
What does that mean? With one ellbow should I use 35 feet or 45 feet linear lenght?
With two ellbows 30 or 50 feet length?

Duct is a word for pipes, normally ducting is used for air while 'stovepipe' is for hot smoke. 'Pipe' is mostly used for water pipe, but also for stovepipe or duct.
Because our exhaust (smoke) is not hot and not very smoky, we often use galvanized air ducting for the bench instead of stovepipe.
Either one will work, and stovepipe will impress people more (and probably last longer, though neither has failed yet except in constant damp conditions).
We recommend stovepipe on the loose-fill "portable" design because the loose fill does not guarantee a seal if the pipe does fail.

Elbows cause the exhaust to slow down, and too many can make it so the exhaust does not move through correctly. Therefore we start with a length of 40 in a straight line. With 1 elbow fully bent to 90 degrees, subtract 5 feet: 35 feet for an L-shaped bench with one bend. 30 feet for a U-turn, and so on.

And the same problem for me to understand what to do with vertical chimney. Earnie is talking some seconds later. But I do not understand what he wanted to explain.
15 feet vertical chimney... you can overcome??...10 feet of drag/draft??

If you have a tall, warm vertical chimney, you can go a bit longer. We add maybe 5 to 10 feet of horizontal length for each 15 feet of vertical chimney, depending on how much hotter it is than outside air. We usually work to about 100 F (40 C) at the exit if we can get it.

For one example:
We have a bench with 19 feet of pipe and 5 bends, plus a 15-foot chimney. The bench surface temperature is about 90 F (35 C) just after firing in the evening, down to 75 F (23 C) when we start the fire the next evening.
The chimney stays about 115 F (45 C) on the metal surface, and our weather in winter is usually 0 to 30 F (-15 to 0 C), occasionally colder. Works well for us, and I think it would still work with another 10 feet of pipe.

For another example: A bench with 32 feet of horizontal pipe, 2 1/2 bends, and a 20-foot chimney, operated 8 hours per day in a climate with winters between 30-50 F (0-10 C). Works well for its owner, but can be a little slower to start than ours if the bench is cold.

english subtitles would be so helpfull to translate word by word with a dictionary.
But may be somebody can help me understand via this forum

I am honored that you would consider spending so much time on our words. Please let me know if there is anything in this reply that you don't understand.

Question to DVD 4:
at min 49 Erica talks a bout a natural pellet. I can't understand her words.

It is idle speculation.
I don't like the amount of processing that goes into making wood pellets. It's hard to believe the wood pellet can hold more fuel energy than the energy used to process and transport the pellets. Which means that fuel becomes more expensive, pellets will be less available. I am not interested in designing around a fuel with this limitation.
But many cultures use animal dung for fuel, and have done so for centuries. We use grass-eating animal dung when we want 'chopped' straw - the animals like chewing up grass much more than I do.
Some animals (notably goats) produce pellet-shaped dung. There are also certain seeds like fir-cones that are not edible for people, but might be able to roll down a hopper as fuel.
Since I prefer to use renewable, minimally-processed fuels, I suggest these options as "natural pellets."
For my own purposes, I will continue to use sticks and scrap wood.

After watching all 4 DVDs I still have two major questions:
On several RMH projects I see that the horizontal pipe ist going down some inches for the first half of the length and than going up again.
You can see this good at DVD 2 at time 1:52.
Is it needed or recomendet first to have a small slope down and later a small slope up in the horizontal way of the pipe?

Usually we go for horizontal, or a slight upward slope. Going down at first will tend to concentrate the heat in the first few feet of pipe, where it is already more than hot enough.
In my perfect world, we do a gentle slope where the first run of pipe starts out 6" below the bench surface, and ends 4" below that surface (a total rise of 2" over the entire length).
In benches where the pipes are doubled back more than twice and lie on top of each other, we just aim for mostly horizontal. Sometimes the hottest run is on the bottom, sometimes on the top.

second question:
If you burn wood to CO² and steam and than cool down the steam under 212°F / 100°C you get condensation in the pipes. Does this happen in RMH? I think it must be.
Where does this condensate flows to? Or will this water evaporate again? If the whole horizontal pipe is always going down a little bit, including going out of the wall from the house, its fine. The condensate will flow outside the house. But what happens if the lowest point of the horizontal pipe is in the middle of the room? And what is if (recomended now in the DVDs) a vertical pipe is following the horizontal pipe to get the CO² out of the roof.

Konstantin

In our experience this water generally evaporates again, most likely toward the end of the burn cycle when there is lots of warm, excess air.
On projects with a lot of wet cob (earthen masonry), however, you can get so much moisture that it will drip from a pipe.
(I don't know if this is due to condensation against the cold cob, or the water from the cob escaping through the pipes.)

When we locate our first cleanout at the lowest point (just outside the manifold), it also serves as a drain for this temporary excess of moisture.
I have not experienced any problems with excess of moisture in the pipes after the masonry is dry and warm.
It is true that the exhaust sometimes comes out as fog (white clouds), but not always. The dew point of the water in the exhaust can be higher or lower than 212 F, depending on the concentration of water. I have seen exhaust come out clear, then turn to fog after it leaves the pipe, much like steam above a boiling pot.

I would recommend if you are concerned, to place a drain at the lowest point. I think you will find it does not collect much.
The entire horizontal path does not need to double as a drain. Having the exhaust raise slightly helps move the heat further along, producing more even temperatures throughout the bench.

Hope that is helpful. Thank you for the good questions, and please let us know if you find any more.

Yours,
Erica W

Hi Erica,

thank you so much for these detailled answers. They realy help me a lot.

Just today I met a plumber. This friend was interested to learn how a RMH workes. Immediately he said: Oh. the steam is going down so cold, its "Brennwert-Technik". That german word means the steam will come out so deep in temperature, that there is condensation in the system. This condensation brings lots of usable energy into the house, but you get some problems: The draft, the acid-water, the corrosion, the "Versottung"

The draft will not be needed because the RMH - core presses the steam through the duct.
Second: The "water" which will condense is not only water. It includes sulfuric acid. This acid will be there.
Third: This acid water destroyes the stovepipe. So stainless steel is recommended.
And than the german word: Versottung see: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versottung ( I miss the english word for that)
The plumber told me that the bench will look like yellow, dirty rubbish after a while because the acid water bestroyes the pipes and cob.

Anyway the plumber is still interested. He just would use stainless steel duct and would look for a way where the condensate will run.

Even if I live in Germany, I got the thought that so much "security" looking is a little too much german...
But he is in the job and if a customer got problems with a stove, he would get trouble.

My questions: Have there ever some ducts destroyed? Would you also recommend stainless steel? I thinks it's quite expensive.

Konstantin

I don't have a rocket mass heater, but I'm pretty sure there have been more than a few which have survived many years without having a problem in the bench. I remember Ernie,when asked about longevity by Paul in a podcast, mentioned replacing the barrel but not replacing the ducting in the bench. Thus, I don't think people are having a lot of problems with acid corrosion, or else the surrounding cob takes up the task. I don't know if there are any loose rock RMH's over 5 years old. . .

Perhaps there is very little sulfuric acid in the output, or maybe the amount varies with the fuel??

Versottung is sooting, in English.


I'm watching Fire Science as I type...I may have to contact Trepstar because the DVD keeps shutting off on its own or it just stops like it's YouTube and I have a slow internet connection. I'll go through the other DVDs before I say any more.

Very good info, I hear Jack Spirko a lot, too. Just got to Diagrams. TTYL!

R. Colby Layton wrote:Thank you Paul, Bart, et al. The family and I look forward to receiving our 4-disk set and seeing how our first attempt at the stove meets with the information in the video.

We received our video set on or about Friday 16AUG13. We have watched them a couple times now. Thank y'all.

I have received my 4 DVD set, many thanks!

So far I have watched first two, and I have a just a few comments:

- for non-native English speakers like me it would be fantastic to have English subtitles
- things are more complicated than I have expected, so there is no chance that based on this knowledge I will be able to build my first RMH instantly - but as it has been repeated a number of times, I will start building one in my backyard
- I'm impressed with shippable core, if it was available here for reasonable price, I would buy it instantly - building RMH's is great fun, but with so many projects started and not finished, I would choose to buy one and save on time required for "backyard building"
- I do not fully understand a part about heat riser insulation (perhaps I need to play this part some more times and listen carefully) - if I build my heat riser from fire bricks, how to add 2 inches of vermiculite to it? or it related to two pipes with vermiculite between them only?

Overall, thank you very much for these DVD's , I'm really glad that I have participated in this kickstarter. Good job guys!

Can I ask why you decided to speed up the portable rocket stove Shippable core section? I had to slow mo the DVD to get a good look at the new core. It looks really cool - no pressure but how long til we can get the magic boxes?

Finding all the DVDs very interesting, but I'm now chasing the specifics and technical details. We have some details but not others and every time I run through these forums I find a new tidbit of information. Is there going to be a Erica and Ernie book soon with all these useful pieces of information in it?

I finally put the trailer up on youtube:

Paul Wheaton's work finally accessible for Canadians ! Do you want to stay warm for Christmas ? Maybe the best investment you could do !
http://www.amazon.ca/Wood-Burning-Stoves-2-0-Permaculture/dp/B00FBXAFQA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1385083650&sr=8-2&keywords=rocket+mass+heaters

I'm hoping somebody will buy and try - and tell me if everything worked out okay.

If I hadn't already purchased them, I would prefer do it this way.

paul wheaton wrote:I'm hoping somebody will buy and try - and tell me if everything worked out okay.

I bought it but it doesn't download, as soon as I press the download button I get a pure white screen and nothing! Can I get my money back? In fact I'd much prefer to have the download.

I purchased it and the first one appears to be downloading fine. Will you be making other stuff available this way? I'll buy the lot!

John,

I asked the scubbly developer to check in here - let's see if he has an answer. What browser and O/S are you using?

Monte,

If problems like John's get quickly solved, then I think we might do more stuff this way. Plus, I would like to hear more feedback.

Hi John C,
I checked your download token, and it's working OK. If you see the page with your purchase details and the four big "Download" buttons, then that's a good sign. Clicking the Download button should start sending the file via HTTP to your browser - and you will likely be prompted to save the file.

If that doesn't happen, then something is interrupting the response from the Scubbly server. That's what I might expect to happen if your connection to the internet is interrupted.

There are a few reasons why a download might not work. here are some:
1) The Scubbly server might be down. *... but I checked, and it's not, so that's not it*
2) You're using a web browser on a device that has no writable file system, e.g. an Apple phone or tablet, Android, Nexus, or some such thing
3) Interrupted or flaky/throttled connection to the internet, which aborts the whole download process.
4) something bad happening in your computer, or on your local network

#3 is by far the most common.

When a buyer reports problems like that, I usually send them to read this blog post I wrote, which explains how to fix 99% of those problems.
go here:
http://www.scubbly.com/blog/2012/12/16/download-problems-and-how-to-solve-them/

That post explains how to use a "resumable" downloading tool. It's explained there, so I won't repeat it here.
If that doesn't fix the issue right away, please contact me at admin(at)scubbly(dot)com, and I'll help troubleshoot the issue.

Cheers!
Ian Ring
Administrator,
Scubbly.com

P.S. for everyone who is buying Paul's set of videos, I strongly suggest you read that blog post (^^ mentioned above) and follow the instructions.
Those are BIG files. Even on a fairly solid broadband connection, it's going to take time for them to finish. With a resumable download tool, the download will be *faster* and more *reliable*.

You'll be glad you did.

John,

Everything right as rain now?


Monte,

Did you finish the downloads? Everything work okay?