rocket mass heater in my shop?

So as a first post I want to discuss the viability of a RMH in an industrial/shop environment. I'll give you the details of the space and then open it up for discussion.

my concerns
- will it heat the area
- are there special construction considerations for this type of environment
- will it be effective, efficient, cost efficient

here are the details.

live in the mountains of central PA

its a 30ft x 120ft shop with a 24 x 30 bump out. the ceilings are 20ft high. there is one wall at 40ft separating the shop into 2 room. the small side is a mechanic shop and there is a double barrel Alaska stove in there. the large side has no internal walls.

I had previously heated the shop with a 60 year old 9 section coal boiler that put out 880,000 btu. there are 3 wall mounted powered radiators on a broken thermostat. we used to work in our t shirts with the door open to cool the place down. it was warm but sucked up so much wood i decommissioned it 2 years ago and used kerosene turbo heaters and a set of Carhartt overalls to warm up.

my water pump house for my whole property is also in there in a small insulated room. i have a heater on a thermostat in there to keep it from freezing.

we currently heat our home with wood and go in with 3 other families to split, stack and store wood for heat on our property.

my shop is a fully outfitted fabrication shop with a cnc plasma cutter, welders, press brake, shears, mill, lathes, 3 phase power, etc.

there are no code, osha, or insurance requirements i need to follow.

3 part series you might be interested in its not using wood but i dont see why it couldnt be retro'd to a larger rocket burn type design... you probably have most all of the things needed from the decommissioned boiler...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef0L8ORvCPQ

thanks for the link! I'd love to do the auger fed biomass boiler. but at this stage I am more interested in a no moving parts dirt simple Rocket style boiler.

How large of a burn chamber would i need in comparison to the volume of the water jacket?

Daniel, how's your insulation?

I could see a big batch rocket with a bell, or two, or may be three. I heat 320 sqf workshop up to the point i work in tshirt, and the rest of the room, which is about 1200sqf gets warmed enough. With a six incher batch rocket.

I think a ten incher would do you no prob. As long as you have insulation. But i'd say no mass. Go for a big metal bell. In the order of 120 sqf radiating surface. Well, you could heat a concrete wall too. Or add mass around the bell.

Hmm a big bell. I'll have to look that up.

My shop has 6in insulation in all exterior walls and about 12 inches in the ceiling.

Danniel Chakka : Lets start of the conversation with have you seen the myth busters show where they did the exploding hot water heater ! Look it up on you tube !
Think the Boston Marathon Bombing only with more full body, full thickness burns ! Here at Permies we call it Boom, Squish !

In all of the entire British Isles, pressurized boilers made to burn any type of solid fuel is banned ! All water heater tanks have to be vented to the outdoors all of the time
safety valves as we know them can not be attached to any solid fuel water heater.

Basically there is No work-arround for a fully charged 2000 degree F combustion chamber, and coils of water that will flash to steam in seconds if you have a power failure
and lose the ability to flow cool water when your pump quits !

You need to switch to A Rocket Mass Heater RMH, or an RMH with bells and less or no mass, And you will also need to be able to batch load your wood, which means you
need the help of people with specialized experience I will let Satamax help you from this point forward ! Good luck ! Big AL !

Daniel Chakka wrote:Hmm a big bell. I'll have to look that up.

My shop has 6in insulation in all exterior walls and about 12 inches in the ceiling.

Well, that sounds good insulation wise. My workshop isn't insulated at all. Tho the walls are 2' thick at least. My stove is an old 500l water heater fited with a horizontal batch rocket in it. If i do à lenghty burn, it stray warm for up to 4 or 5 hours. By that time it's lukewarm, but still noticeable.

I don't know how much room you have. But with a 6 incher, you can go for a 50sqf internal surface area (isa) bell. The floor is never accounted for. I would say go at least 8 or may be 10". Since you're in metalworking, it should be prety easy to make any shape bell you want. If your wall in the workshop is concrete, or concrete blocks, or even bricks. May be it would be intresting to make a flat'ish bell bolted against it. So you would use the wall's mass. And heat the other side too (a smidge) A bell in the same kind of shape as a matress. If you can picture what i mean. A thin box, layed verticaly against the wall. With the batch rocket directly into it. No barrel, nor paint to worry about. Otherwise, you could do the same kind of tank as the old tractor fuel tanks. You know, rectangular in shape, and on legs. Chuck a batch rocket in there. And instant stove.

Few things to read.

http://donkey32.proboards.com/thread/511/adventures-horizontal-feed

http://donkey32.proboards.com/thread/849/green-machine-inch-tube-help

http://walkerstoves.com/products.html

On this one you can check the pic, and may be read, but it's in Dutch.

http://technologieforum.forumatic.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=27

About bells.

http://www.stove.ru/index.php?lng=1&%20rs=16