Daniel Truax

Raised beds at 3 foot high definitely need more water attention during times of drought, but the raised 3 foot Hügelkultur are more forgiving and resilient.

20260529_133206 by Daniel Truax, on Flickr

20260529_133155 by Daniel Truax, on Flickr

Almost done

This story starts in 2015.

I created some 3 foot tall (countertop height) raised beds to help me garden with my arthritis.
IMG_20150722_102027_838b by Daniel Truax, on Flickr

Some years later during replanting I made one of the beds Hügelkultur and the results between the non Hügelkultur and Hügelkultur beds was very evident.

Fast forward to today I no longer suffer from arthritis due to lifestyle changes and turmeric but my 73 year old mother is still trying to garden with two hip replacements, one knee replacement and the other knee replacement on its way.

So I decided to make her these for her:
20260520_175622 by Daniel Truax, on Flickr

20260520_175641 by Daniel Truax, on Flickr

20260520_185208 by Daniel Truax, on Flickr

20260520_193533 by Daniel Truax, on Flickr

I intend to add more wood to the top, and then add the topsoil from her garden at ground level to top it all off.
I'll post some more photos when I get the wood layer added.

Jim, I went from a steel box wood stove to a RMH 8". I dropped from burning 18 face cord a year to 9 face cord. It was worth it for me, I turned 1/2 of my wood storage into places to park my tools.

I live in NYS right next to lake Ontario. This is my 3rd winter season of heating with it.

Here is my stove so far...

My middle name is overbuilt, but then again 2 ton on wood cut in 1860 may require a little support to keep tile from cracking mortar and tile...

Your Floor sounds similar to mine this is what I did to support all that weight, I only had room for 2 tons.

RMH on wooden floor...

RMH ash drop...

Closed...


Open and drained...


Ash clean stove and no mess in the living room...


Building an RMH on a suspending wood floor was a pain in the ass, but the ash drop alone was almost worth it...

And link to whole stove My stove so far...

This is how I did mine, what they describe is similar...

My RMH

A 8" system can have twice the gas flow a 6" system can. So an 8" system can eat wood twice as fast as an 6" and put out about twice the BTUs. In the same home with the same mass you would have to light a fire and burn roughly twice as long with an 6" system.

A 8" in a small house would be burned maybe not often enough, so the mass gets too cold and you get condensation. A 6" is a too big house would have to be run too often and could be a pain in the ass. In some medium sized/insulated houses either system could work.

Lots of free 6" piping to be found, used 8' piping is harder to come by.

I almost wish I used a 6" system since I could have gotten more mass in my couch (limited space) that way.

I have burned a shitton of cardboard in my RMH, it burns clean and hot, I was doing it mostly to get rid of it. The downside is that one day of burning cardboard produced as much ash as a week of burning hardwood. Glad my RMH dumps its ashes into a can in my basement!