thomas rubino

Hi Matt;
How large (weight) are your burgers?
We buy Kyser rolls (1/3 larger) than standard burger buns.
I make 1/2# burgers, and sometimes they are too large after cooking and hang out of the bun.
The burger is 80/20, just like yours, and comes from a small, reliable butcher.  

Hi Ben, yes, the amount of material left is plenty to retain the round half barrel shape.  
Two inches may even be enough.
Some builders create a brick edge at floor level for the barrel edge to sit up against.

Hi Ben, I always used a 10"-12" roof with an eight-inch J-tube.
I did try a 15" one time... not a good idea.
How did you decide on an 8" roof?

Hi Justin, here in Western Montana, we are not quite as cold as your location.
But like you, our fires start in September and easily go into May. March is fully capable of at-or-below-zero temps.
As a long-time lurker interested in RMHs, I assume you have seen my shorty core build.
Our house is small, apx 600 squ ft.  An original 96-year-old 300 squ ft log cabin with 5 additions. Long with lower doorways that make it hard for heat to travel.
For 40 years, we heated with a homemade stove, A two foot piece of 20" Alaska pipeline, 3/4" thick, with a homemade door.  I estimated we burned apx three cords a season. It was always hot in the cabin, getting colder as you headed through the kitchen addition to the bathroom and the laundry room additions.
We have an original wood cook stove in the kitchen that we used to keep that end of the house warm during extreme temps.  In later years, we installed a small, non-vented propane heater in the bathroom addition to make sure no pipes froze overnight.

Then I built Shorty. OMG, having 500 clay bricks and an insulated firebrick core in your home is mind-blowing!
When you enter our home now, as soon as you step into the kitchen, the warmth envelops you completely. As you move through the house, the temperature doesn't change; it's just as pleasant in the back bedroom as it is in the farthest addition laundry room, or three feet away from Shorty. We now have windows cracked open all winter, at times even overnight!
The only issue we have found for us is that during early shoulder season, it is almost impossible to use Shorty without overheating everyone.
Our answer is the kitchen cook stove. For chilly mornings or rainy days, a quick fire in it is perfect to take off the chill without overheating the house.
Last year, as an experiment, I separated one cord of doug fir and larch, to be used exclusively in Shorty.
We like our house warm, so by spring I had used one full cord and perhaps another 1/4 cord.
So, although the 3-cord figure is a guess, Last season I only used 1.25 cords in the house, well over a 50% reduction.

How well it will work in a two-story house, I cannot say for sure, but going by my results, I expect you would take longer to heat your space; perhaps instead of one or two fires a day, you might need three or even four when the arctic blasts settle in.
After living my whole life with wood stoves that get lit in October and never are allowed to go completely out until April, having a masonry stove is beyond belief.
No fires all night, no fire most of the day... You can leave for all day, and the house is just as warm when you return as when you left.
You never need to worry about a chimney fire when you are sleeping, or not home, because there is no fire!

And then to put icing on the cake, there is NO creosote ever, only super fine fly ash in the firebox.
The bell/ stratifacation chamber takes years to build up enough ash to need to be cleaned out.

We do not have wild blueberries in Montana.
But plenty of organic growers with commercial strains.
My current favorite way to eat blueberries is in smoothies, blended with yogurt and apple juice.

Hi Alan, your plan sounds solid, and it sure looks good so far!
I do recommend bringing your box width to the standard size.
Yes, on having the horizontal exit match the riser, even if you go with the larger-size box.

I'm guessing, but you might be ok with the aircrete blocks under the floor.
Perhaps use an inch of clay mortar between them.

Grain finished for sure.
In my opinion, Grass-fed tends to be tougher.
Grain-finished on a small farm is tastier and more tender.

Hey Mike;
There are 4100 watts of new panels waiting on a pallet.
I will post all about them when I get them installed.
Same with the Victron inverter, charge controllers, and the Nucleo smartbox.
My entire original 12-volt system must be removed first.
I'm old, retired, and working alone; things happen when they happen.

The battery is outside for several reasons.
But fire is indeed one of them. I had a friend lose an entire house and several pets to a lithium battery fire.
As for my outdoor fire-retardant box:
Compared to having that battery in the living room, it would first have to burn through the metal box, then burn through the cement board liner.
After that, it sure could catch the wall and roof and burn the house.
However, the time frame might be a bit longer than 2-3 minutes, and my freezeless hydrant with 125 psi gravity water is 25' away from that box.

Apparently, the shelves aren't reliable in the long run.
For short-term use or on a build with easy access to the core, they would be fine.
Perhaps in your warmer climate, they might last indefinitely?

I originally thought first-gen batchboxes required a flat roof, but Peter oked the peaked design.
I suspect that it would work on Shorty as well.

Indeed, Peter uses kiln shelving for testing his experimental builds.
He has not recommended their use on permanent builds.
A peaked roof design with standard firebricks has been used on first-gen batch boxes; it could also be used on a Shorty core.