Tommy Bolin

I apologize if my reply was overly blunt or negative, but my opinion stands.
I agree with what others have written above. Learning and growing in whatever space you have is worthwhile. If you or your partner are mechanically inclined, self taught and motivated, curious, and can avoid small failures becoming overwhelmingly negative, can find a bit of happiness in small successes, then you have a good start.
The more you understand before you start, the less you will have to learn on the fly. You will likely find that your growth and enthusiasm become the motivation your partner needs to help him along. I am of the impression that a lot of folks have unplugged to a small rural type lifestyle, especially since the pandemic. Stay calm, stay on message without being overbearing, grow with gratitude, be realistic about immediate goals and what you don't know, start shopping local and secondhand to acquire knowledge and tools, and you all may join them. Without a foundation of knowledge, EweTube and the forums are a rabbit hole for desperate, attention seeking, self-promoting drivel vendors looking to sell you on their version of the truth. Wading through endless narratives, conjecture, opinion for information is very hard.
This lifestyle used to be the only lifestyle for anyone outside of cities. That knowledge is still available in books if you look.

Judith Pack wrote:He is not as excited as I am and I am in the position of trying to convince him.

It may not be working.

If both of you are not convinced, which is to say, if your are not clever enough to make him think it was his idea, then forget it.
It is a difficult enough transition, without one partner feeling as though they were being pushed or dragged, and coming to fully resent the pusher/puller. It would also likewise be unfair to the 'victim'.

Hasn’t the barrier to hydrogen gasoline fuel adoption always been the extreme flammability of hydrogen gasoline? Remember the Hindenburg Pinto…

Portability, density, seem far more plausible. Lot more to the hydrogen story, be my guess.

Have to add, plenty of horrific tragedy over the years with gasoline. Never slowed a profitable idea.

Our last rehome/rescue to 'the end of the road' was a pup Marema. Her energy is all nervous, very in your face, relentlessly playful. Our older posse, especially our female Anatolian, Beksi the self medicating LGD, https://permies.com/t/274138/Smart-LGD-Beksi-Anatolian#2863800 ,had a hard time tolerating her energy.
Her name is Kitka. I asked my Finnish brother in-law for the translation to 'pain in the ass'. The answer was Kitka, which is 'trouble' more or less. For a quite awhile the first year, she was kind of without friends.  
Beksi hates squirrels for whatever reason, and me tolerating them around the house is a no go. Too much destruction/mischief. Beksi comes running when she sees the air rifle come out. The squirrels never even hit the ground, she snatches them out of the air as they tumble, dispatches them if they have not yet expired.
She then scrubs her snout in the snow or grass to cleanse the stain. The squirrels then get toted off to I'm not sure where. Our property has a 'Pet Sematary' full of deceased squirrels somewhere.
Kitka drags branches or driftwood into the yard and chews them puppy style. One afternoon she was tossing and chasing a small black branch. I went to have a look, it was of course the mummifying, hairless, slick black corpse of a squirrel revived from Mr. King's Sematary.  She would toss it, chase it, throw herself down in front of it, waiting for instruction, then grab it, toss it, chase it, bark at it. Her new friend was the most compliant, willing playmate she had. Whatever instructions the squirrel had, she gave it her full attention, paws crossed, waiting. I buried the poor beast, of course, after an afternoon of joy.

We lost our two older dogs this summer, the patient LGD master Marco, our Marema. His son, Nebo a Pyrenees mix, I had to put down two months later because of fast moving cancer. Both very good, work focused outdoor guardian types. Both a bitter bit of business. I think Marco's heart gave out. He went for a walkabout with the other dogs, as was his habit, clunky and slow but steady. When he didn't come back we of course worried. Three days later I saw a white shape across the lake. I canoed over knowing of course it was Marco. We choose to believe he went down to the lake, maybe not feeling well, and laid down in the water, knowing I would find him and bring him home.

We like our number at five dogs, all larger, because of predator pressure. Coyotes, black bears, cougars, no problem. Two big Anatolians run them off. Wolves and grizzlies, more trouble, but good sized dog pack will have no real trouble likely. We have agreed to rehome another Pyrenees from here in Nevada. 3-4yrs old, horrible abuse in his puppy past, but pretty well adjusted. Can apparently climb a 5-6ft fence. The owner, someone we know here in town, having trouble keeping him home, would like him to go to a place where being confined to a small yard, auto traffic, chasing coyotes solo, are not problems.
We brought him home for a night to see if we all got along. Sitting reading, I heard a very familiar noise. Getting up quickly, I found that Sebastian, the Pyr, had opened the front door for himself, and was going for a walkabout.  Called the owner, " Oh yes, I forgot to tell you, he also opens doors! Sorry. "
Nudges the handle up or down, then pulls the door open. We found he will also stand up and put his weight against it, in case it opens out and not in.

larry kidd wrote:Just remember LifePO4 cells have a narrow temperature range. They must be kept above freezing and below 100f.

.
That temperature range is for charging, Correct?
For discharge, the range is a fair bit wider, storage not quite as wide. Therefore just need to be able to heat batteries a bit before recharge and make sure you can cool them. High quality LiFePo batteries have the management system built in and are self heating.

If you have ever come home to an off grid system built with L-16 LA batteries and a house temp in the single digits F, or gotten your 'dozer started at -20F, then you know lead acid batteries work just fine in the cold. Reduced capacity, for sure, but never a thought as to whether they would function.

High quality LA batteries built in the US might cost 2500USD for 760aH of 24v power. Same for LiFePo would be almost four times as much.
I'm not sure I believe that a battery from an anonymous assembler dropped from a foreign container ship in LongBeach will have the same reliability/durability as one built by the domestic economy. You can't know that either, systems have not been around long enough. Domestic batteries, your dollars stay here.

LA is more demanding for the charge part, seems to me, need real solar power, take many cycles to achieve full capacity. Seldom hear that mentioned.  Above mentioned system would like almost 40A of charge. Almost everybody that has an LA complaint is also very likely undercharging their bank.

LA batteries have a very long history of usage and are stone axe simple. Maintain water, set your solar controller to equalize every two to four weeks. Keep terminals clean. Who actually discharges their batteries to 50% regularly, or ever?

LiFePo systems are very new. Need complex electronic management, occasional rebalancing, right?  The inverter and management systems being pushed are astoundingly expensive. Might be they are better suited to charging with a generator, more tolerant of partial charging, far more suitable for very deep discharging. But no one can point to a 100yr track record.

Off grid battery fire from an LA setup you could handle. However remote a possibility you try to convince me it is, a lithium battery fire is a spectator event, pretty sure.

How susceptible would either be to a power surge or EMP/solar flare? I don't know, nobody asks that either.

For long term reliability and watts returned for dollar spent, the answer is not a clear as most forum parrots would have you believe.

Remember rules/regs/codes are there to help ensure that the lowest common denominators both (builders and homeowners) are somewhat safe from their builder's/their own ignorance or malicious intent.
Ignore them if you like, you'll likely get away with it, they are designed to accommodate the widest range of possibilities. Make whatever decision you like for the people whose safety depends on your judgement, just don't try sell it to anyone else. That's not right.

If you live with home insurance and building inspectors, (we don't, yet, up here) then don't forget there is also generally a 'minimum developed height' to chimney termination or something similar for woodburning appliances, which is 15ft above the firebox. Believe it is 5ft for gas appliances. Helps ensure constant available draft, minimizing possibility of stagnant or backdraft conditions, help with potential creosote.

If you are bragging to your inspector about how little heat your wondrous homemade woodstove 'wastes' up the chimney, realize in his/her experienced mind that some (gas) appliances have a minimum BTUH they are required to send up the chimney to ensure a constant draft. You'll be fine, I'm sure, but that is how engineers/inspectors think.

Seems intuitive, (maybe wrong) that a steeper pitched roof would have a heavier 'cascade' of cold air to backdraft a chimney. So to me, if your little cabin has a 20ft roof span of 4/12 with a chimney near the peak, the height of your stack will rule and you can have whatever chimney you want. Ignore if you like.
If your house has a roof span of 40ft with a 10/12 snow pitch and a chimney near the eaves, seems logical to pay attention to codes.
After all, they were implemented only after tragedy.

I worked a bit underground in Nevada gold mines. The one thing they tell you in your safety certification classes is more or less:
"Yes, there are a ton of regulations. But. most of these came about as a result of fatalities. If you guys would stop killing yourselves ( and having your grieving family try to sue the mine for something you did to yourself ), we would stop making rules." Once again, rules are for the Lowest Common Denominator. If you don't have a lot of practical experience in the area you are contemplating, that LCD might be you.

I framed a small addition to a trailer my new 'neighbor' had moved into out back, kind of a mud room to house his woodstove. 6/12 metal roof. He ignored my few suggestions re: the chimney/stove. He is the LCD type.
1. Use insulated pipe outside heated envelope of the house and through the roof.
2. It is a simple thing to build the horizontal section through the wall on a 45deg angle up, rather than the even easier square/flat horizontal section most folks use. Reduces stagnant air on a cold start.
3.Minimum 10ft. stack or so, above the bend as his chimney is right at the eaves.
These ideas are especially critical, because he is the grasshopper not the prepared ant, and needs to burn wood, wet or not, that he cuts on a semi daily basis all winter.
What he built was single wall pipe, three sections long, with a horizontal wall penetration. What he got was creosote, he's already had a chimney fire.
Maybe worse, his stove will actually snuff itself out with damp wood, because of lack of draft when the temps are below -25F at night. Seems poor timing. We get those every winter.

I very much doubt he is equipped to live out here. Not only is he LCD, but he also the one who believes he knows everything better than you ever will, because he worships at the altar of EweTube.
Practical experience be damned!  Forums and video are his guiding lantern, his freedom train Polaris.

Les Frijo wrote:
I'm sure I'm not the first one to think about this but it just dawned on me that there should be fairly simple ways to turn RMHs into Assbackward Turbo Mass Coolers in hot times of the year? Anyone doing work with this yet?

I think where I live it could be as simple as pulling air backward and out the door inside with a small fan overnight. I imagine that eliminating condensation damage would be the main concern.

It might be worthwhile to read John Hait's 1982 book 'Passive Annual Heat Storage'  to consider the speed at which heat travels through mass exposed to airflow, and the actual mass required to store any appreciable amount of heat/cool, as well as the methods of storage and retrieval.

John F Dean wrote: I, and many others, hold that if a small supplier is making is quality part critical to making my product, it is in the best long term interest of my organization to help him stay open and to continue to produce that product.

As a homesteader, I find myself having to make similar decisions.  While I will not roll over and be taken advantage of, I do often make the decision to purchase at my small town hardware store rather than buy on the net or wait for my next trip to the big city.  It is in my long term best interest to keep that little hardware store open….even if I pay a few Pennie’s more.

100%

While I must allow there is an opportunity cost to the amount of money I 'save' buying online, no one seems to acknowledge the redundant carbon footprint of all those one off Amazon deliveries of items available locally.
No one acknowledges the lost local opportunity costs of incrementally adding to the wealth of the world's richest people, rather than help fund the necessary economy of your local area. Same wealthy folks whose wealth and spending power will never add anything to your local community.
Same wealthy folks who have by direct action suppressed the profits of suppliers, driven sources overseas, narrowed choice.

Erika House wrote:Two things: 1. Not having adequate floor support for the weight (and not easily having a way to fix that). 2. Really loving the view of a fire in my fireplace and not yet being willing to sacrifice that for the efficiency of a RMH.

Everything is a compromise. Espousing a 'permaculture' ethic while demanding the redundant carbon footprint of the immediate delivery/instant gratification of everything Amazon, is a compromise.
I've never owned a home without a fireplace or woodstove. Wet fall/winter heat supplement and a small joy. Even with inserts, my fireplaces were a somewhat indulgent, not too efficient pleasure.  
Our Fisher woodstove is an excellent and life critical heat source/cooktop, but no dancing flames, and I burn a bit of wood. One of the compromises for a quiet, off grid, (more) self-sufficient life.

Live the best you can, leave the scorekeeping to the zealots.

The roquetinho.eu site features a very efficient woodstove, with a lighter mass, and a glass firebox door.
From the proboards site there is a section on the Vortex stove. Efficient, lower mass, potential cooking use, also fitted with glass.
Neither of these are as grassroots, DIY friendly, as the Ianto derived cob stoves, but all do a fine job of clean burning with varying levels of heat extraction and storage, speed and density of heat. They have been refined and tested so that anyone mechanical skill and motivation could build one.
Aesthetics, skill, willingness to work or compromise, access to materials or labor, end use, environment, cost, all have a place in your calculation.

John C Daley wrote:In Australia I am held back by lack of concrete information.
I habe been advised by members on this site about what type and size I need to build.
But detailed information about build plans are very hard to find.
I have ascertained from batchheater.eu what dimensions I need but that is all.
I would love detais for a 125mm [ 5 inch] batch rocket  unit.

Have you considered the following resources?
The designs, builds and dimensions are well spelled out. In the case of roquetihno, mass and size scaled down it appears for more temperate climates, build well documented. Not all stoves are rockets, not all heaters have huge mass. In the case of the 'proboards' more math, figures, analysis than most folks will digest.

http://www.roquetinho.eu/en/Welcome.html
https://donkey32.proboards.com/