mike Bannon

thanks tom, yes, burn burn burning lol, few things, it IS insulated from the slab, with a 6 to 1 perlite to portland slab 3" thick, i knew before building that was a must or all id have are happy worms under my house. i for all intensive purposes built e replica of amy and ernies 6" L bend "code" bench they made, theirs was brown with reclaimed tile here and there... anyways, about 25ft of horizontal run before a 5ft vertical pipe near the barrel dumping into a single flue mason chimney in the middle of the house. the drum is a 55 gal drum, and she rockets like a champ, havent heat gunned it yet, but the barrel puts out some serious heat, have floor registers cut in the first floor right above it. one mod i did that was for asthetics but did change some function was add a hand hammered copper top to the drum, which looks boss, but also adds a thin layer of airspace between the copper and the barrel, thus insulating it, so much less heat comes off the top than before the copper, BUT, sends more heat down into the bench, which i dont mind, and was hoping that would aid to make the bench super toasty.. plan on heat gunning soon. id say currently the barrel gets about 600, the bell of cob around the barrel gets to be 100 the bench seems to get to 70? maybe not that much, and the final stove pipe, which is only about 10" from the barrel may only be around 90 after hours of burning... just gunna keep it crankin, i just hope it wont be this much of a struggle until i finish and insulate the basement in a couple years. thanks guys.

i believe galvy vaporizes at around 700deg, which is why many people including myself have used galvy in the horizontal ducting, by the time it enters the duct, its more like 300 deg, and much less by the end of the road

also, i know, i get the whole, make it the heart of your home thing, put it in your living room... i have a 1952 cape with a 10x14' living room, trust me the beast would not fit. also, if i f-ed it up i didnt want a 8000 lb paperweight in my livingroom.

so heres the rundown, built your L bench 6" rmh, did it in my basement, for a few reasons, slab floor to support the weight, center of the house footprint with existing center single flue chimney, un insulated floors for radiant heat transfer etc... only a couple variations on your design, a 55 gal drum, un insulated fire brick heat riser, and a pretty sizeable rock wall perimeter for visual effect and added mass... heres the thing, finished cobbing 5 or six weeks ago, cob is hard as a rock with surface cracks, cooked that thing for 15 hours thanksgiving day, the bench was meh, warm. mayybe 65 degrees. my concern is that theres is too much cold thermal mass in the hollow block foundation and uninsulated slab. now, i put down a 3" slab of portland stabalized perlite before bui'ding to shield the thermal mass from the cold slab, but i seem tp be losing the battle, also, frequently get condesation running out of my final cleanout, and the stovepipe exhausting to the chimney, which is, 10" from my barrel, is cool enough to put your face to, just looking for input thanks guys-mike from maine