9 Day rocket mass heater challenge. newb from scratch safely with 0 experimentation.

i get paid in 9 days and will by then have challenged the community and hopefully with you guys have dreamed up and designed a small multipurpose heater. the way i plan to achieve this is by doing my own research and using this post as a journal with discussion. what i ask of you is your experience. i especially need help in being aware of every single safety curve we could ever find.

we have an 1100 sq ft home with 4 main rooms(mobile home on newly purchased land with intentions of later building a wofati type home). heart of home is a great room type setup with living room and kitchen open to each other both in the middle of the house. rocket stove will be off center in the kitchen on a table next to the window. cant pay for gas lines and last year our electricity heating bumped our bill up on average about 600%. id rather save money on not buying a new hog furnace and bills to pay for the wofati.

here we go:

Small Rocket Stove Mass Heater Wonder Machine -next ill be imagining everything i know of a RS and take an outside in deductive approach, i think?

**1100 sq ft home with 4 main rooms(mobile home on newly purchased land with intentions of later building a wofati type home). heart of home is a great room type setup with living room and kitchen open to each other both in the middle of the house. rocket stove will be off center in the kitchen on a table next to the window. cant pay for gas lines and last year our electricity heating bumped our bill up on average about 600%

-table top and hoping to take up no more than 20 sq. ft
-window vented
--outside air intake ideas.
---how does the air move in the combustion chamber. if is tornado like what would a stream of fresh cold air would do
-multipurpose for heating water as an on demand water heater
-what holds the most heat longest in the smallest space, lol. i wonder about min or max sq size of said material.
- if 6" round pipe is best is that because the flame does rotate like a tornado? id prefer to build heat transfer and storage around the best RS combustion possible.
-heat storage and transfer will be one unit. i can build this to be any shape or size needed.
//ADD more as we evolve the discussion

imagine a tubular mold of super insulating materiel with veins( geothermal ideas here ) molded around the combustion chamber. secondary heat intake veins will be the exhaust split to anything from 6 1/6 pipes of proper exhaust diameter or 12 1/12( like 12 half inch or 16 qtr inch pipes split off from 6 inch combustion chamber ) immediately after the proper rocket stove process coursing through the insulating material with a hot water line buddy'd to it in hopes to take as little heat from the insulating material as possible.

-must account for all the added friction to the air flow. like for 12 splits having a 13th to make up for the extra drag in the 12
-what if i used a small fan in the intake(and or exhaust) one step before the initial combustion to avoid kickbacks of smoke and move the air and gases through the system smoothly. can math out optimals from positive or negative air pressure inside the system.

end journal work session thank you guys for reading i hope this gets your gears going. if you have any wisdom to give or ideas pleas join in on project!

jared

Reserved for diagrams and chosen materials/steps aswell as some Q&A.

Q&A- please copy Q and paste before your answer as one reply so i can edit and add to answered Q&A section efficiently.

-have you experimented with flame sizes?
-does the size and volume of the combustion chamber matter if you can get it hot enough to burn properly? (ie like 6" being the best known)
-how hot does the actual combustion chamber get to burn up the gases? (im thinking specific materials and their melting/boiling points)

Jared Hudson : Hang in there help is coming !

Jared : Have you been to Rocketstoves.com to Download a PDF Copy of the Brand New Third Edition of Rocket Mass Heaters ?

This is where you start, until you can come here and use the simple vocabulary of a Rocketeer, we are more liable to mis-direct you on your
journey to a successful Rocket mass heater build then help you !

2nd, it will be very temping to search in you tube for ideas for your build ! Please, there are Huge Boat loads of Steaming Stinky Crap Videos
in you tube, with 100 hrs of video content added Every Minute with damn all Zero monitoring for Content or safety ! Do not have your
heart broken by a flashy piece of trash that were call 'flaming units of death' and 'Frankin-clones'

More to follow, this is just a taste to get you started Please ! !!! GET THE BOOK For the Good of the Crafts ! Big AL.

Hi Jared,

I love the enthusiasm! A word of caution though. Many people set out with grand ideas of improving the rocket mass heater concept by adding in all sorts of functionality, or making it work in a situation where it never has been done before. Now, I am not saying that this is impossible, but if you've never built a RMH before, there is a steep learning curve to be had. The general advice is to build at least one standards RMH before you start out on trying to improve the design. There are a whole lot of very experienced people who are trying to do the same things you are thinking about, but they al started with the standard design first so that they could get a grasp on the subtleties of the system.

In fact, based on the description of your space, it sounds like a standard RMH would do great. No modifications needed! Is there a particular thing that you think is missing from the system that you need or something that you don't think a standard RMH will do for you?

jared hudson wrote: 1100 sq ft home with 4 main rooms(mobile home w intentions of later building a wofati type home). heart of home is a great room type setup
with living room and kitchen open to each other both in the middle of the house. rocket stove will be off center in the kitchen on a table next to the window. here we
go:

Small Rocket Stove Mass Heater Wonder Machine -next ill be imagining everything i know of a RS and take an outside in deductive approach, i think?
heart of home is a great room type setup with living room and kitchen open to each other both in the middle of the house. rocket stove will be off center in the kitchen
on a table next to the window.

A rocket cook stove is designed to be used out of doors, as a replacement for the 3-rock fire that ~40%~ of the worlds people still use for cooking ! While you might
be able to create some kind of Chemists 'Fume hood' over top of it, the running fan would end up sucking all the heat out doors.

-table top and hoping to take up no more than 20 sq. ft >Not going to happen,see above

-window vented> same problem set above !

--outside air intake ideas.> After you have read the book and done a google search here for the previous threads for RMHs With outside air we can talk !

---how does the air move in the combustion chamber. if is tornado like what would a stream of fresh cold air would do >Cold outside air will cool the fire, and delay
the start of the high temperature Combustion of the Wood gases temporarily delaying the start of the extremely clean burn and its high Efficentcies!

-multipurpose for heating water as an on demand water heater, > Boom! -Squish, you and yours become the Squish, an archive search here is lifesaving !
Basically anything like on demand water heating is too big a goal for your First RMH.

-what holds the most heat longest in the smallest space, i wonder about min or max sq size of said material. >Heavy Dense rock, about a ton of it! This weight is
divided between the Footprint of the Rocket burner base, and the Thermal Mass Bench 30'' high, 30'' wide and 20' long if we can !

- if 6" round pipe is best is that because the flame does rotate like a tornado? > NO the most important reason is to have clean smooth walls for the hot exhaust
gases to travel trough with the least amount of draft robbing Friction, this requires a Large ratio of Cross-sectional area to surface area where that friction occurrs
do to laminar flow !

id prefer to build heat transfer and storage around the best RS combustion possible. > Lets fall back on SAFETY, with ø experimentation

-heat storage and transfer will be one unit. i can build this to be any shape or size needed. >Weight, and supporting it, and protecting your exposures comes 1st!
//ADD more as we evolve the discussion > Ditto !

imagine a tubular mold of super insulating materiel with veins( geothermal ideas here ) molded around the combustion chamber. secondary heat intake veins will be the exhaust split to anything from 6 1/6 pipes of proper exhaust diameter or 12 1/12( like 12 half inch or 16 qtr inch pipes split off from 6 inch combustion chamber ) immediately after the proper rocket stove process coursing through the insulating material with a hot water line buddy'd to it in hopes to take as little heat from the insulating material as possible.

-must account for all the added friction to the air flow. like for 12 splits having a 13th to make up for the extra drag in the 12
-what if i used a small fan in the intake(and or exhaust) one step before the initial combustion to avoid kickbacks of smoke and move the air and gases through the system smoothly. can math out optimals from positive or negative air pressure inside the system.

O.K. Think about this, with X being the amount of air or a fluid that can move through a 6'' diameter pipe, if we cut the diameter in half, we cut the Cross-Sectional Area down to 1/4th, AND we are increasing the ratio of Surface Area affected by Laminar flow, so actual flow is less than 20% of X our system will simply stall out.

If you have the skill set to get under your trailer and brace up the flooring, we can deliver to you a rocket mass heater that will perform as advertised with maximum safety and simplicity !

Jared Hudson : The optimized Rocket Mass Heater RMH is simply all about the clean burn, asper our previous discussion you do not want a system smaller than 6''
and a bigger system would appear to be to big for your trailer,

The RMHs Combustion Core the burn tunnel and the heat riser, see temperatures around 2000º F , iron steel. will fail due the High Temperature Hydrogen Attack,

Also all forms of Portland Cement based Concrete will fail in these locations !

A little home work, on the right top of this page under the Permies Banner, and above the Permies Video of the week, is the Permies ToolBox! On its left hand edge
locate the [My Profile] Tab and click on. At the next page you will be helped to post your information, getting you out where you are much more likely to find a Fellow
Member who is a near neighbor and has RMH or cob Experience, Knowing your general location will help us better give you answers that are relative to your situation!

Just above the [My Profile] Tab is the Permies [Search] Tab, clicking on that from any thread in the Rocket stove/Rocket mass heater Forum will automatically allow
you to do a search of all the threads related to a given topic when typed into the search field !

At the bottom of that page, make sure you are Searching within Permies Good Luck and Good Hunting ! For the Good of the Craft ! Big AL

Tom OHern wrote:Hi Jared,

I love the enthusiasm! A word of caution though. Many people set out with grand ideas of improving the rocket mass heater concept by adding in all sorts of functionality, or making it work in a situation where it never has been done before. Now, I am not saying that this is impossible, but if you've never built a RMH before, there is a steep learning curve to be had. The general advice is to build at least one standards RMH before you start out on trying to improve the design. There are a whole lot of very experienced people who are trying to do the same things you are thinking about, but they al started with the standard design first so that they could get a grasp on the subtleties of the system.

In fact, based on the description of your space, it sounds like a standard RMH would do great. No modifications needed! Is there a particular thing that you think is missing from the system that you need or something that you don't think a standard RMH will do for you?

dont worry, lol. im not trying to reinvent the wheel just yet. step one, if this type of design can be made to work properly over the internet id like to build something like this to use as my foundation to build off of.

This is a youtube video of a fella named Robert J.H. Gisolf showing his auto cad design for his rocket stove. i like how its upright it will take up less floor space and the tall riser will be good to add in a linseed or olive oil line for heat transfer for storage in water and or to use as a heat siphon for forces air heating. but all that jazz math and science can come at a later date. for now i just need help making decisions on a base rocket stove high heart source.

jared

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVoJ14qMvPs

@Allen thanks for quoting an edited version of my post. i must be crazy but i cannot find the edit button and am sorta steamy about that i feel like its taking away from the OP. its like i can only edit my last post or reply. ive never been much of a forum goer i have a lot to learn about your ways.

thank you for the information. I have some time right now and am going to read into it.

jared hudson wrote:@Allen thanks for quoting an edited version of my post. i must be crazy but i cannot find the edit button and am sorta steamy about that i feel like its taking away from the OP. its like i can only edit my last post or reply. ive never been much of a forum goer i have a lot to learn about your ways.

thank you for the information. I have some time right now and am going to read into it.

Jared I looked at his video and found a new teardown and inspection video and have couple of comments ! to see the video go to :::-->

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3jPpNIVpTEUoeXjSTBhtfw please highlight the Bold part and then right click, when you get to that

youtube.com channel you should see the video ''Disassemble Inspection'' click on it ! I get a broken link any other way I do not understand

One more broken link fixed, this one was not my fault, I THINK

I am hurrying a little to get this to you and then will want to parse the build more carefully !

I am not seeing the damage I expected to see, and am very interested to see if he is reporting Temperatures as high as 1500ºF, a more conventionally built
RMH built on this side of the Atlantic with Firebrick and more insulation will see temperatures above 2000ºF, We are certainly building Better Heat Risers too !

In the initial film the captions talk about the hot exhaust gases sinking and giving up heat, this is inaccurate -as they give up heat at the very top of the drum
the exhaust gases cool and become heavier and denser and then fail vertically towards the RMHs base!

I strongly believe that in place of The portland cement that I have already commented on the concrete in question is probably a form of Calcium Aluminate
cement usually called Ciment Fondu, or Cement Fondue on their side of the Atlantic, regardless besides the obvious metal embrittlement there is an obvious
Crack in the Concrete base shown at 5:43 !

I am sure there is much to learn from this example ! For the Craft ! Big AL

Jared sending you a P.M. Big AL

@AL unfortunately that link is dead. im afraid others coming to the page to read will find it a confusing point. im not even 100% if both youtube links(mine and yours) are to the same guy. just cause i cant visually verify.

you say you saw less damage than expected. i saw alot of crap that looked kinda like it would still burn. ive seen some permie native videos with muuuuch less waste.--- obviously this is some back to the basics stuff here. the geometry the of combustion chamber. with fire brick, more insulation and a 6" diameter chamber how tall should it be? once i know that ill feel more confident with trying to find what type of insulation. im leaning towards something like Kast-O-lite 26 kiln insulation. i can mold lines into it and its rated for up to like 2600 degrees and says it has an insulating value of 4.0 btu-in/hr-F-ft^2. now i only have some idea what that means but im hoping the r value is equal to or better than what you guys are used to using.

for the record the placing of heat exchanging and transferring lines will be decided somewhere around last. im just eating as much information as possible to make some informed decisions.

Jared : The Broken link has been replaced with a different one !

Lets try this one, If you take two barrels, one a 55gal Barrel and a 30 gallon barrel, and place them over the top of two identical Heat Risers on two identical

Rocket Mass Heaters, they will both have to radiate off Identical amounts of heat energy for the Push me, pull you magic of Your rocket to make the horizontal

flow of hot exhaust gases up to 50' through your Thermal mass! Counter-intuitively the smaller barrel with less surface to radiate off of will radiate of its heat
energy at a higher temperature, This is why when you 4 year old is tired and wants up in your lap they are such a good cuddle, withLess Surface area To volume
in order to maintain the same 98.6ºF they have to radiate off that extra heat at a slightly higher Temperature !

A conventional RMH with a 55 gal barrel, will let you get a lot closer to warm up than the thingy you saw from Europe !

Finally there is the report option, if you make a new post up but are not sure if you are posting it in the Correct Forum Thread you can ask the moderators For
a second opinion, If you suddenly become a Flaming troll we get to Report your bad behavior to the moderators !

Don't forget you have to tell us where you are from ! For the Good of the Crafts ! Big AL

allen lumley wrote:

jared hudson wrote:@Allen thanks for quoting an edited version of my post. i must be crazy but i cannot find the edit button and am sorta steamy about that i feel like its taking away from the OP. its like i can only edit my last post or reply. ive never been much of a forum goer i have a lot to learn about your ways.

thank you for the information. I have some time right now and am going to read into it.

Jared I looked at his video and found a new teardown and inspection video and have couple of comments ! to see the video go to :::-->

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3jPpNIVpTEUoeXjSTBhtfw please highlight the Bold part and then right click, when you get to that

youtube.com channel you should see the video ''Disassemble Inspection'' click on it ! I get a broken link any other way I do not understand

One more broken link fixed, this one was not my fault, I THINK

I am hurrying a little to get this to you and then will want to parse the build more carefully !

I am not seeing the damage I expected to see, and am very interested to see if he is reporting Temperatures as high as 1500ºF, a more conventionally built
RMH built on this side of the Atlantic with Firebrick and more insulation will see temperatures above 2000ºF, We are certainly building Better Heat Risers too !

In the initial film the captions talk about the hot exhaust gases sinking and giving up heat, this is inaccurate -as they give up heat at the very top of the drum
the exhaust gases cool and become heavier and denser and then fail vertically towards the RMHs base!

I strongly believe that in place of The portland cement that I have already commented on the concrete in question is probably a form of Calcium Aluminate
cement usually called Ciment Fondu, or Cement Fondue on their side of the Atlantic, regardless besides the obvious metal embrittlement there is an obvious
Crack in the Concrete base shown at 5:43 !

I am sure there is much to learn from this example ! For the Craft ! Big AL

Hi there, I (Robert JH Gisolf) found this thread by coincidence. I don't understand the interface of this website, but perhaps this is the way to react to the text of the other user?
A reaction about this energy exchange between flue gasses and the case. The exhaust gasses don't only exchange energy at the top of the drum, but also during their fall down. So is this just another way of telling the same story?
Then about the concrete: I used special fire proof concrete, no Portland. And it is holding just fine. The crack is because the casting was too complex. So during the unpacking it cracked. Not by thermal problems. Because the concrete is surrounded by this metal case, I decided to just use the cracked concrete.

Hi Robert, welcome! I like your YouTube videos and your ambition to build and design rockets. I'm watching the temp readings video right now