Is a 6" system good enough?

I met someone here in KY that said he would never put a 6" pipe system in again as it's hard to heat with it, 8" pipe only he said. I thought I would jump on here and ask others if a 6" pipe system is ok for damp winter weather that can hang around 0F for days and not get above freezing for a month. We can also get quite a bit of snow as well.

Our home is a 750sqft apartment with 10' ceilings, 2x4 walls with fiberglass insulation (blown cellulose in attic) and a concrete slab for a floor. I built the place 2 years ago so it's all newer. Currently I have a wood stove with a 6" pipe going out the wall with triple wall (6" interior) going up the side of the place. So I don't want to get rid of any of that. One thought (instead of putting in a RMH) is to put rock and earth around the wood stove so it will hold more heat like a masonry heater or RMH.

Any input is greatly appreciated!

Josh Hatton : Welcome to Permies.com, our sister site Richsoil.com, and a Big Welcome to the Wood Stove and the Rocket Forums! With over
25,000 Fellow members World wide you should be able to come here 24 / 7 and find someone who wants to talk about what You want to talk about !

Yes on surrounding your current Wood stove by stacking massive amounts of Brick and Stone around your Regular Wood stove !

I am reasonably sure that you should be able to heat your space with a good wood stove with a 6'' system, the question is how often are you going to be away
from your house for extended periods of time !

Unless you create some kind of Thermal Mass to store Heat Energy as soon as the fire in your Wood stove goes out you are going to start cooling your house
down ! Some Wood Stoves even have an Automatic Draft corrector that opens wide as the fire starts to die, and will actually sit there wide open after the fire is
out, Drafting all your houses heat out through the Stove and up your chimney !

Basically a Well made Rocket Mass Heater RMH is a Space heater that does an Excellent job of heating the Core of your home. people who have lived with a RMH
in the core of their home quickly learn to run their RMH almost totally by ear, adding several pieces of fine split very dry wood to the feed Tube as needed, as part
of their daily little chores around the house.

One period of 6-8 hours, or Two Periods of 3-4 Hours will 'Charge-up' your Thermal Mass for 20-25 Hours, and when you come home to a warm house you will
thank yourself for being So Clever !

This is where I ask if you have been to rocketstoves.com to download your PDF Copy(s) of the brand new 3rd Edition of Evans' and Jackson's Great book
Rocket Mass Heaters ? After you have taken in the basic ideas of building a R M H you can try to build one out doors to figure out the simple geography of
the RMH, This will be a great help to you when you are talking to your Permanent Flat Mate about moving the Whole thing indoors and into the core of your home.

If you have any expectation that your partner will be feeding the R M H during the times you are away, this will help both of you to understand the Care and Feed
-ing that will go into keeping the dragon that lives inside every RMH happy and provide you with a warm home !

If you decide to go in a different direction after trying your RMH out in the Field, you will still have the Rocks and bricks to surround your Wood stove with a
Thermal Mass ! Good Luck ! For the good of the Crafts ! Big AL !

Thanks for the welcome wagon!!

We live in the woods and have used wood stoves for a long time. I know that a wood stove will heat our space as that's our main source of heat right now but it's annoying. Hot or cold, no other choice. We have no furnace, no phone lines or a flushing toilet at our place. As for leaving in the winter for extended periods of time, we don't. We might leave in the AM but return by the PM. Maintaining the stove is no big deal as we've lived with a stove for years.

I've been reading on RMH for a few years now (and I've read Ianto's book plus others) but most of the documentation is for the Pacific Northwest and the other places don't mention what size pipe they use. I honestly don't have time to build one outside...it's either do the RMH or just surround my current wood stove with rocks and dirt (similar to RMH.)

Thanks

Josh; considering the temps you mentioned i would use an 8 " system. You can purchase 8" hvac pipe in 10 ' sections at H.D. for around $11.00. After you enter your mass with regular thickness stove pipe you switch to the longer lighter hvac pipe as the temp when it leaves the mass will be apx 130 degrees or so. Make sure to surround your pipe with cobb as the lighter pipe will rot out over time and you will be left with a smooth bore cobb tunnel. You won't need a triple wall to pass thru your wall as the temp will be low enough to lay your hand on no matter how hot you have your barrel at the time !

Thanks Thomas! I've already got triple wall up from the last two winters and a thimble with a 6" hole going out so making it 8" hole is a lot of work. After you recommending the 8" system (and the other guy here in KY) I think I'll just play with building a rock/cob thermal mass around my current wood stove to help that night time temperature drop that comes from a wood stove. The stove is not insulated but just a metal US Stove that you can pick up for a few hundred dollars so I figured it would be a good candidate for a test.

When we expand the house into the garage maybe I'll put a more centered RMH in.

Thanks for the input you probably saved me from freezing this winter!!!

Josh

there's plenty of other options!

Bells, half barrel bells or flues. Batch rockets. And 8 incher fed into a six inch chimney!

It all depends on your architecture. You don't need to go absolutely by the book. And a 6 inch batch rocket is far more powerfull than a 6 inch J tube!

http://donkey32.proboards.com/thread/848/18cm-inch-double-batch-system

http://s65.photobucket.com/albums/h228/mremine/NYC%20Rocket%20Stove%20Build/

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

http://batchrocket.hostoi.com/html/foto.html

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

http://heatkit.com/research/2009/lopez-rocket.htm

Once you've gone through all this, may be you'll have different ideas!