Rhiannon Drake

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Summary

part 3 of a 3 part podcast

Paul and Peter continue discussing RMHs and heating.

Paul describes the cob hat fitted to the 4 inch RMH in the Love Shack.  The Shack lost significant temperature overnight; leading to the modification.  Adding the cob hat above the barrel harvested a lot more heat.  However, the 4 inch RMH has other issues which make it problematic in use.

They talk about the cook stove in Allerton Abbey.  Peter says this is the only double shoebox still remaining as he had issues with the design, but this one works although it has gone through several doors.  Peter says it's a very powerful core and so it's difficult to tame it.

Paul recalls the rocket mass heater jamborees, where they made good progress with designs but it always cost a lot to run.  Paul would like to run another jamboree; Peter remarks that he's almost 80 now and might not be able to get there.  Peter has an idea for a development of a J tube which could be tried out if there was a jamboree.

Ben Falk joins in with some questions.  He points out that with a suitable wood stove you can also do all your cooking and heat domestic hot water while heating your home.  Ben has been using a woodstove to heat his home and hot water and to cook, and typically uses about 2 cords of wood.  Peter says he's often seen people change from a conventional stove to a RMH and use one third of the fuel.  Paul states that one year he measured the wood used very carefully and consumed 0.6 cords, but it's worth noting that is only for heating, not hot water and cooking.

Peter's opinion is that the 10% of the fuel use is not all that common.  He says mostly 30% is a good target.  There are good discussions to have about cooking and water heating.

Relevant Threads

Rocket Mass Heaters forum
2021 Rocket Mass Heater Jamboree - Wheaton Labs

Wood Burning Stoves forum

the first wofati - allerton abbey- version 0.7

Support the Empire

Help support the empire and get all of the podcasts in a bundle here in the digital market at permies.

To support production of these podcasts, make a donation here at Paul's Patreon page.



This podcast was made possible thanks to:

Dr. Hugh Gill Kultur
Kyle Aster
Sasquatch
Bill Crim
G Cooper
Mehron Kugler
Bill Erickson
Julia Winter, world's slowest mosaic artist
Sean Benedict
Rita Bliden
Brent Lawson
Song Zheng
Dana Martin
David Lucey
Janelle
thomas adams
Clay McGowan
Shay Riggs
Dr. Jackie
Keith Kuhnsman
Cindi Duehmig
Banter Couch
Eric Tolbert
Paul Tipper
Paul F
Gerald Bernard

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Summary

part 2 of a 3 part podcast

Continuing the discussion about heating your home if it was 100 below

Paul advances the theory that if it got excessively cold the electricity would go out.  Experience teaches that in extreme weather this tends to happen.  Most common means of heating won't work without power, even if the main heat source isn't electric.  Most wood stoves would work, plus of course RMHs and old style masonry heaters.

Paul figures when it's 25 below in winter he runs his RMH for only around 5 hours a day.  If it did get to 100 below, he would have to burn it longer.

Paul and Peter now get into discussing batch boxes vs J-tubes.  Peter says that to get the same amount of heat both burn about the same amount of fuel, although in a different way.  The J tube needs more frequent feeding.  The Batch box burns more fuel per load, but has to be able to harvest the heat effectively.

Peter describes the differences in batch boxes: they can be made to work faster or slower, depending on how much mass you add.  Without much mass it's a direct space heater ideal for a workshop or similar space.  Paul says for this purpose a batch box works better than a J tube since it can burn more wood per load and heat the space up faster.

When it comes to heating a home, the J tube is more flexible.  If Paul's house is a touch chilly he can burn the J tube for half an hour and increase the temperature by a few degrees.  Peter prefers to have a pure mass heater in his house, but you do have to burn it appropriately for the space it's heating.  Paul mentions this is an issue with people who aren't used to a mass heater.

Relevant Threads

Rocket Mass Heaters forum

Wood Burning Stoves forum

Support the Empire

Help support the empire and get all of the podcasts in a bundle here in the digital market at permies.

To support production of these podcasts, make a donation here at Paul's Patreon page.



This podcast was made possible thanks to:

Dr. Hugh Gill Kultur
Kyle Aster
Sasquatch
Bill Crim
G Cooper
Mehron Kugler
Bill Erickson
Julia Winter, world's slowest mosaic artist
Sean Benedict
Rita Bliden
Brent Lawson
Song Zheng
Dana Martin
David Lucey
Janelle
thomas adams
Clay McGowan
Shay Riggs
Dr. Jackie
Keith Kuhnsman
Cindi Duehmig
Banter Couch
Eric Tolbert
Paul Tipper
Paul F
Gerald Bernard

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Summary

part 1 of a 3 part podcast

The topic is "how to heat your house if it's 100 below".

He asks Alexandra what's the coldest temperature she's experienced, which was about -7°F or so.  Peter van den Berg joins in and has experienced a similar temperature.  Peter says his niece lives in Finland where the temperature can be -30°C

Peter says you need to store fuel inside by the stove, so it's dry and warm and burns efficiently.
Paul is doing an ongoing experiment to heat the house with cardboard, paper and scrap wood.  He mentions efficiency of stoves: wood stoves are sold as "80% efficient" but they don't achieve anything close to that in practice.  Especially, burning a wood stove slowly is very inefficient.  

Peter states that you can get decent efficiency from a wood stove, but mostly people don't.  There are 2 factors: burn efficiency and heat extraction efficiency.  Burning a wood stove slowly creates very poor burn efficiency, so even if the heat extraction is OK it makes no difference.  

Coming back to the 100 below idea, Paul states if there's extreme cold forecast, you need to be prepared: firstly, shut off and drain the plumbing to prevent pipes freezing, as you may not be able to heat the house enough to prevent freezing.  Alexandra asks at what temperature Paul and Peter would decide to drain the pipes.  Paul thinks he could keep his house warm enough with the RMH to avoid draining the pipes even in extreme cold, but he would need to do various tricks to avoid them freezing.

Peter's house has less insulation, but the water pipes are not in the external walls.  Provided the house is occupied and heated it would be no problem.  People say that such houses even if empty for 2 weeks in winter don't freeze inside.  In his father's house they would drain the pipes if it was freezing weather, but the winter in Holland is less severe.

Relevant Threads

Wood Burning Stoves forum

Winterize your home my Permies!
Workaround To Avoid Frozen/Burst Pipes In Exterior Walls?
Plumbing forum

Support the Empire

Help support the empire and get all of the podcasts in a bundle here in the digital market at permies.

To support production of these podcasts, make a donation here at Paul's Patreon page.



This podcast was made possible thanks to:

Dr. Hugh Gill Kultur
Kyle Aster
Sasquatch
Bill Crim
G Cooper
Mehron Kugler
Bill Erickson
Julia Winter, world's slowest mosaic artist
Sean Benedict
Rita Bliden
Brent Lawson
Song Zheng
Dana Martin
David Lucey
Janelle
thomas adams
Clay McGowan
Shay Riggs
Dr. Jackie
Keith Kuhnsman
Cindi Duehmig
Banter Couch
Eric Tolbert
Paul Tipper
Paul F
Gerald Bernard

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Summary

part 2 of a 2 part podcast

Continuing the discussion about burning wet or green wood.

The question is asked about burning green wood in a Rocket Mass Heater.  Paul feels that it wouldn't get hot enough to burn off the creosote and smoke as it should.  With that said it is probably safer to burn wet or green wood in an RMH than in a regular stove, but you still should avoid burning green wood at all.

The best plan is still to dry the wood as much and as fast as you can.  You need to establish a system to process the wood and to know which wood is ready to burn and you will have to store a LOT of wood inside.  It will be more work and you need to plan.

Further to the problem of heating your home, There are other things you can do to help reduce wood use.  You can stack wood near the stove, but leave at least 18" space.  You can fit angle iron to the top of the stove to make a rack to stack rocks above the stove to store heat for overnight.  It's important not to put stone directly on the stove, the angle iron allows about a 2" gap for air to circulate and avoids overheating the stove top.  Especially with a steel stove, getting it too hot is bad for it.  If you have power, you can use a fan to create air movement to dry your wood faster.

Another contributor asks about how thick a brick mass can be.  Paul feels if you stack a single layer of bricks it will work well - it needs a gap between the bricks and the wall.  If you stack more than one layer the heat won't conduct well unless you use cob or other material to bond the bricks together.

Finally a contributor asks about heating a small home - they are trying to heat 600 sq ft.  Paul feels that with a simple wood burner, that can be a challenge.  Adding some mass could help even out the heat.

Relevant Threads

Rocket Mass Heater forum

how to safely heat with green/wet wood in your wood stove when you are desperate

Support the Empire

Help support the empire and get all of the podcasts in a bundle here in the digital market at permies.

To support production of these podcasts, make a donation here at Paul's Patreon page.



This podcast was made possible thanks to:

Dr. Hugh Gill Kultur
Kyle Aster
Sasquatch
Bill Crim
G Cooper
Mehron Kugler
Bill Erickson
Julia Winter, world's slowest mosaic artist
Sean Benedict
Rita Bliden
Brent Lawson
Song Zheng
Dana Martin
David Lucey
Janelle
thomas adams
Clay McGowan
Shay Riggs
Dr. Jackie
Keith Kuhnsman
Cindi Duehmig
Banter Couch
Eric Tolbert
Paul Tipper
Paul F
Gerald Bernard

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Summary

part 1 of a 2 part podcast

Today's topic is how to heat your home with a wood stove and wet or green wood.

Paul starts out by stating the wisdom that you should only burn dry wood.  However, sometimes you need heat and you don't have any dry wood - sometimes, you have to use wet or green wood but burning green wood is not a good idea - what you need to do is dry the wood fast.

Using wet or green wood for heating is a lot of extra work.  If you really need heat now, you can also burn cardboard or paper waste.

Having a place to store wood makes a big difference, especially if you can store the wood indoors so it dries better.  You can get or make crates to store wood.  Stacking wood on end makes it dry much faster; also cutting the wood down to smaller sizes makes it dry faster.  Cutting the wood shorter also helps.

Paul uses crates to hold wood, which can be brought inside to dry faster.  They're great for stacking wood to dry in, you can stack them around the stove, a couple feet away.  You shouldn't put wood right against or on top of the stove as it's dangerous, it can emit fumes and could even catch on fire.  By using all these tips wet wood can be dry enough to burn in just a few days.

Samantha joins in.  She has lived in the Pacific north west where wet wood is common.  She says if you find a dead tree which is leaning, the underside of it can be drier and also the inside of the wood can be drier, even if it's been in the rain.  Split off the outside of the wood to leave that to dry more while you burn the inside parts.

Relevant Threads

Rocket Mass Heater forum

how to safely heat with green/wet wood in your wood stove when you are desperate

Build a kindling cracker - PEP BB metalworking.sand.kindling

Support the Empire

Help support the empire and get all of the podcasts in a bundle here in the digital market at permies.

To support production of these podcasts, make a donation here at Paul's Patreon page.



This podcast was made possible thanks to:

Dr. Hugh Gill Kultur
Kyle Aster
Sasquatch
Bill Crim
G Cooper
Mehron Kugler
Bill Erickson
Julia Winter, world's slowest mosaic artist
Sean Benedict
Rita Bliden
Brent Lawson
Song Zheng
Dana Martin
David Lucey
Janelle
thomas adams
Clay McGowan
Shay Riggs
Dr. Jackie
Keith Kuhnsman
Cindi Duehmig
Banter Couch
Eric Tolbert
Paul Tipper
Paul F
Gerald Bernard

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Summary

part 3 of a 3 part podcast

Andreas, Paul and Samantha continue the discussion about homestead gumption.

Andreas now wants to discuss the difference between a "homestead" and a "permaculture homestead".  Samantha feels that permaculture design means that everything you do is with an eye to the long term future.

Paul defines permaculture as a more symbiotic relationship with nature so he can be even lazier.  Typical homesteads will have a garden in perfect rows with no weeds.  Paul wants his homestead to work without him - systems that are self-sustaining for weeks or months.  Paul's plans are less of a map and more of a list of things he wants to achieve.  Working through the list allows him to learn more about his property, which then revises the list.  If you make a map you tend to become a slave to it.

Andreas feels there's an issue with putting too much energy into things that won't improve your quality of life in the short term.  Paul agrees, suppose you have 10 acres: limit yourself to a quarter of an acre for the first year rather than trying to do everything at once.

The next point raised is what kind of short term tasks can bring gumption back.  Samantha says being able to sit down at the table and eat the food you have raised is a great motivator.  Tomatoes, sunchokes, kale, walking onions all require little effort and give great rewards.  Paul doesn't like goals, as they can become poison.

Andreas thinks you need to take time to appreciate what you have achieved.  Paul recalls when he first got base camp and it was just rock, and now there's stuff growing everywhere.

They talk a bit about frugality.  Paul doesn't like the word as it suggests sacrifice.  He prefers gertitude, which implies abundance, so you don't need money.  Samantha feels that for her frugality is making your own stuff, not buying it.  She prefers to make stuff from what she has or can find.

Relevant Threads

are there currently millions of permaculture millionaires? (the story of Gert)

The great big thread of sunchoke info - growing, storing, eating/recipes, science facts


Support the Empire

Help support the empire and get all of the podcasts in a bundle here in the digital market at permies.

To support production of these podcasts, make a donation here at Paul's Patreon page.



This podcast was made possible thanks to:

Dr. Hugh Gill Kultur
Kyle Aster
Sasquatch
Bill Crim
G Cooper
Mehron Kugler
Bill Erickson
Julia Winter, world's slowest mosaic artist
Sean Benedict
Rita Bliden
Brent Lawson
Song Zheng
Dana Martin
David Lucey
Janelle
thomas adams
Clay McGowan
Shay Riggs
Dr. Jackie
Keith Kuhnsman
Cindi Duehmig
Banter Couch
Eric Tolbert
Paul Tipper
Paul F
Gerald Bernard

Listen Online
Download

Get all of the Podcasts in convenient, giant zip files
Subscribe on iTunes

Summary

part 2 of a 3 part podcast

Andreas and Paul continue the discussion about homestead gumption

They talk a bit about being prepared for winter and power outages - wood heat is a big advantage.  Samantha is keen to get a rocket mass heater in her house.  Andreas says having the ability to survive without grid power is a big motivator.

Paul describes the typical wannabe homesteaders.  What many do is to buy a homestead, usually on a mortgage - but that means they have to keep doing their worky job to pay for it, and thus have limited time to do any homesteading, while at the same time their worky job has a much longer commute.  Often they get fed up with it and just quit.  Paul wants those people to attend a gardening gardeners program (ideally, boot camp)  The right program can give you the skills and experience to do homesteading easily and better.

10 years ago Paul started Ant Village where you could rent an acre of land for $800 a year.  However mostly they lacked adequate gumption.  During the Ant Village experiment, Paul and Fred came up with the idea of boot camp.  Ant village is still there but now you can't rent without doing 6 months in boot camp.  Samantha says when she first got her property she didn't get a lot done to begin with.  Once she'd been there a while she developed necessary habits to work on the land.  She feels boot camp is great to instill the habits you need for easy homesteading.

They talk a bit about families.  Paul feels that most kids in the US want to move out from home and live on their own once they finish high school.  Andreas says in Colombia it's much more common for families to stay together.  He feels that this helps strengthen communities and strong communities make homesteading easier.  Paul feels that boot camp has that kind of community spirit.  Samantha compares working on your own to in a community, she thinks Paul has got a good community there now and as a result lots get done; at her place, stuff only gets done if she does it.

Relevant Threads

Permaculture Bootcamp - gardening gardeners; grow the food you eat and build your own home

are there currently millions of permaculture millionaires? (the story of Gert)

Podcast 716 - Gardening Gardeners - Part 1, Part 2

Support the Empire

Help support the empire and get all of the podcasts in a bundle here in the digital market at permies.

To support production of these podcasts, make a donation here at Paul's Patreon page.



This podcast was made possible thanks to:

Dr. Hugh Gill Kultur
Kyle Aster
Sasquatch
Bill Crim
G Cooper
Mehron Kugler
Bill Erickson
Julia Winter, world's slowest mosaic artist
Sean Benedict
Rita Bliden
Brent Lawson
Song Zheng
Dana Martin
David Lucey
Janelle
thomas adams
Clay McGowan
Shay Riggs
Dr. Jackie
Keith Kuhnsman
Cindi Duehmig
Banter Couch
Eric Tolbert
Paul Tipper
Paul F
Gerald Bernard

Listen Online
Download

Get all of the Podcasts in convenient, giant zip files
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Summary

part 1 of a 3 part podcast

Permaculture Smackdown 32: Homestead Gumption.

Andreas is in charge!  He says that although homesteading can be fun in practice it can be repetitive, overwhelming at times, and costly.  In various ways motivation (or gumption) fades and the homestead fails; he feels there needs to discussion about this.

Andreas says people ask if a permaculture homestead is actually possible.  Paul says it definitely is but it's possible for the wrong choices to make it much more difficult and that can easily lead to lack of gumption.

Samantha joins in.  Paul suggests that Samantha has a ton of gumption.  She says that if you fail on something this year, you can always play again next year.  It's not game over.

Andreas says city living people get discouraged even before starting to try to make a homestead.  Maybe they need to experience a functional homestead first, such as boot camp.  Paul says there's a lot of information out there but it's hard to know which advice to follow.  Andreas says hands on experience shows people it's not as difficult as they think.  Paul describes how it's much easier to get into homesteading as part of a group in a gardening gardeners program.  Samantha says it's great to see people at boot camp starting from nothing and learning stuff.  Andreas asks Paul how you get into boot camp.  It costs $100 to join, you get a questionnaire, once that's done Paul will tell them when the next start dates are.  Andreas asks if families are welcome.  Paul says they can rent a cabin;  12 year olds or older can join in boot camp provided there's a parent with them.  Younger kids can't join in and have to be supervised during boot time.  There's other stuff they can do besides boot camp.

Andreas feels you need to become Gert.  Paul agrees, Gert will have developed the skills to homestead efficiently. They agree it takes time and practice to achieve the competence to make homesteading easy.

Relevant Threads

Permaculture Bootcamp - gardening gardeners; grow the food you eat and build your own home

are there currently millions of permaculture millionaires? (the story of Gert)

Support the Empire

Help support the empire and get all of the podcasts in a bundle here in the digital market at permies.

To support production of these podcasts, make a donation here at Paul's Patreon page.



This podcast was made possible thanks to:

Dr. Hugh Gill Kultur
Kyle Aster
Sasquatch
Bill Crim
G Cooper
Mehron Kugler
Bill Erickson
Julia Winter, world's slowest mosaic artist
Sean Benedict
Rita Bliden
Brent Lawson
Song Zheng
Dana Martin
David Lucey
Janelle
thomas adams
Clay McGowan
Shay Riggs
Dr. Jackie
Keith Kuhnsman
Cindi Duehmig
Banter Couch
Eric Tolbert
Paul Tipper
Paul F
Gerald Bernard

Listen Online
Download

Get all of the Podcasts in convenient, giant zip files
Subscribe on iTunes

Summary

part 2 of a 2 part podcast

Paul continues the discussion on creating permaculture communities with Stephen Brooks from Ecoversity.

They talk about an amazing fruit which takes 2 years on the tree to be ready to harvest, after flowering.  Paul's aim is to have a giant harvest window.  This fruit has maybe a 6 week window to pick it.  There are a lot of people who have limited time for gardening and often miss harvesting stuff due to being too busy.  Larger harvest windows make life easy.

Stephen mentions Joe Hewitt's facebook group Grow all the Fruits as an example of how plant collectors have changed and are spreading fruit or veg around rather than hoarding it.  Stephen wants to integrate all these new fruits into their communities.

They talk about the problems of innovating when it's hard to get government approval.  Stephen says there are sundry annoying regulations they have to meet in Costa Rica.  With that said, people are managing to set up communities despite the governments.  Stephen mentions Bill Mollison's autobiography (Travels in Dreams) where he says more or less that practical solutions can only be suppressed for a short while.  The more people get organized doing stuff the harder it becomes to suppress.

Paul mentions that in most communities he's seen, even if the community itself has endured, there's a lot of turnover of people so that most members haven't been there more than 2 years.  He asks Stephen what his recipe is for an enduring community.  Stephen says there's quite a bit of turnover especially in the first community they started.  The latest community has been running 4 or 5 years with little turnover.  He thinks people like to feel empowered and feel that they are co-creating their community.  It's also important to keep it fun.  Stephen describes the management model for the community which has a lot of similarity to a HOA but with permaculture values.  He also describes the new community they are currently building.

Relevant Threads

south america / central america / mexico Forum
Permaculture community forum

Ecoversity

Grow All The Fruits Facebook page

Support the Empire

Help support the empire and get all of the podcasts in a bundle here in the digital market at permies.

To support production of these podcasts, make a donation here at Paul's Patreon page.



This podcast was made possible thanks to:

Dr. Hugh Gill Kultur
Kyle Aster
Sasquatch
Bill Crim
G Cooper
Mehron Kugler
Bill Erickson
Julia Winter, world's slowest mosaic artist
Sean Benedict
Rita Bliden
Brent Lawson
Song Zheng
Dana Martin
David Lucey
Janelle
thomas adams
Clay McGowan
Shay Riggs
Dr. Jackie
Keith Kuhnsman
Cindi Duehmig
Banter Couch
Eric Tolbert
Paul Tipper
Paul F
Gerald Bernard

Listen Online
Download

Get all of the Podcasts in convenient, giant zip files
Subscribe on iTunes

Summary

part 1 of a 2 part podcast

Paul discusses creating permaculture communities with Stephen Brooks from Ecoversity.

Paul relates that many communities he's visited seem not to be working well.  However Stephen has a different approach and currently has 3 communities up and running.  Paul met Stephen a few years ago at a prepper event in Texas.

Stephen lives in Costa Rica where there's no army, but people are allowed to have guns.  Stephen doesn't and hopes never to need one.

At the event where they met Stephen did a presentation about the community he was running.  Stephen relates things from his life which led to where he is now.  He visited Costa Rica in 1995 and loved it.  Watching a plane spraying a banana plantation and the inevitable drift of toxic chemicals led to him deciding to move to Costa Rica with the idea of trying to build something better.

Having moved to a farm in Costa Rica, he started bringing students there.  He bought an off-grid property where he met an old Jamaican who was born there in 1928.  He started growing food and employed local people who knew how nature worked.  They built a community and then started getting wwoofers there.  He took a course in 1999 in Hawaii as that was the only tropical permaculture course he could find.  He began to teach in 2001.  To begin with most attendees were young hippies, and it expanded to various retreats.  Following a Netflix show in 2020, the government came and shut them down.

After this he defined his criteria for the ideal site for a community, and that done he went out to buy land to build a community.  In 2007 they started a second community and in 2018 they bought 170 acres more land for a third.  There are now over 200 families between the 3 communities and 150 kids in the school.

Their latest project is 100 acres on the beach and includes what is effectively a permaculture school.

Relevant Threads

south america / central america / mexico Forum
Permaculture community forum

Ecoversity

Support the Empire

Help support the empire and get all of the podcasts in a bundle here in the digital market at permies.

To support production of these podcasts, make a donation here at Paul's Patreon page.



This podcast was made possible thanks to:

Dr. Hugh Gill Kultur
Kyle Aster
Sasquatch
Bill Crim
G Cooper
Mehron Kugler
Bill Erickson
Julia Winter, world's slowest mosaic artist
Sean Benedict
Rita Bliden
Brent Lawson
Song Zheng
Dana Martin
David Lucey
Janelle
thomas adams
Clay McGowan
Shay Riggs
Dr. Jackie
Keith Kuhnsman
Cindi Duehmig
Banter Couch
Eric Tolbert
Paul Tipper
Paul F
Gerald Bernard