Ted Brown

Hi. I know people have been posting on this for a while. I just read that lawn care article the other day.
I was going to read through the post to see if anyone already had asked my question, but I thought this might be easier.

I have a lot of moss in back yard. Which is fine. I have heard from the neighborhood farmers (i live in the city right next to an urban farm) that the soil here is Alkaline. It also maaaaybe seems like my soil is compacted. It's pretty good soil, but our grass doesn't do great.  

I was going to rent a airator, buy some leaf compost, and over seed.

1: is moss bad for grass? Is moss a sign of some other quality in my yard? - I don't mind moss other than my dog tears it and leaves mud spots (at my parents house even when its super wet the dog never gets muddy because they have such nice grass - i like that idea. )

2: Do you think an airator is over kill/ how do you know if you have compacted soil

3: Is adding compost good enough to help with PH or should I add garden acidifier?

Briefly:
I live in a city in the midwest, I make about 35,000, married, have 2 kids, work 40 hrs a week, and spend 90% of my free time being a dad/ husband.
There has been a stirring in my soul to create and build sustainable stuff. My dream would be to have an Earthship inspired home, and have all the time in the world to build it.

Someday I may get there. I know my wife wants to go back to school and we have some baby raising to do...BUT  I Cant wait!!!
SO... I've started dreaming up an RMH to put in my basement. I have some ideas about how it could supplement heating my house (i have a standard gas furnace) and it feels cheap and "easy" enough to do with my budget and time. I don't own a truck :( - and not living in the country makes finding certain cheap materials tricky. (plus i have little time)

I am creating this forum to post photos and update on my RMH so that I can get feedback throughout the project. Any comments and suggestions are welcome.


Core
Thinking 6" system. I will be using Matt Walkers "poured" design , kinda.   [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ANMXGrxgnEI[/youtube]  
would love some feed back. Here are my plans/ ideas.  


I would build both interior and exterior "mold" out of wood. I would build them With a larger interior diameter and add fire brick to the inside after build. I would use some kind of mortar/ slip to hold firebricks in place.

i want to use 1 Barrel for the build, and I want it to function as barrel and Manifold. This means my riser will be shorter than standard build. I have no problem shortening feed tube. I'm going to be cutting all of my own wood. Is there any other issues with making these aspects shorter? I understand it may decrease overall heat production, but as long as it will burn up all creasote etc, I'm fine with it.

I will be building this in the basement, under wood floor. I was thinking of doing some metal heat shielding. I will have to show pictures eventually, but does anyone see issues with this?

MORE TO COME

Thanks so much. So interesting. I’ll stick with the old standard then.

Hi. Been researching for a good.. 10 mins and can’t find an answer. I know I should just read that book, but don’t want to buy any more stuff till I start expiramenting.

If I wanted a longer burn tunnel (aesthetic, ease of use [if my barrel is set back somewhere harder to get to idk?], wanting to sit on burn tunnel). Whatever the reason. What would need to change? At inovators event dvd, Earnie talked about theoretically lengthening burn tunnel with “fins” and said something about shortning riser.

Ive read people saying a longer riser? Can burn chamber be too long? Can there be a bend in burn chamber? Would a longer tunnel burn hotter? Without getting into equations, does anyone have any thoughts on this, or has tried it.

I just haven’t seen many people changing that part of the design much.

I just (mostly) finished watching all of 4dvd set ‘bwh’  It was awesome. But somehow I either missed or didn’t hear what the duct piping is inside of mass. I’m assuming I can’t buy hibachi ducting from Home Depot, but stove pipe seems like over kill. I read someone suggesting aluminum. Where would one buy that other than online?

https://www.google.com/search?q=6+aluminum+pipe+duct+hvac&sa=X&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS774US774&hl=en-US&biw=375&bih=591&noj=1&tbs=vw:l,ss:44&tbm=shop&srpd=4866792618927279527&prds=epd:6874571121997822976,paur:ClkAsKraX-_yZqE2TfOZF-EGUv80RZOBodB8LYAdnUKjEFDKwL5H_L22CJxUfraNJ2rWwqXSIeZbWYI3rB6fcYIxduCB1YdRQjImQ6AX-BSDYFk57P4slAZU8BIZAFPVH72UQvQX2p5DWT5DxS9QIOsCG0VasQ,cdl:1,cid:15736563221099844753&ved=0ahUKEwiTwKvCn_LYAhXP0FMKHQeaCjUQgTYI1gQ

Could I use this flexible pipe?

Awesome! Thank you much. Just bought rmh dvd set. So that will be awesome.

I LOVE FORUMS.
First forum I have been on and it took less than a day to get great answers.
I started looking to buy some ground fire clay. But could only find bentonite(sp) and fire clay that was $70 for a 50lb bag. Bentonite doesn’t seem to be the right stuff and $70 seems high.

Trying to come up with cheap, easy way to build riser. Looked at a number of forums. It seems using clay, sand, perlite mix is best. Usually people use metal forms and keep metal within riser. Would the mixture harden enough under heat to hold form if i were to prefab riser using concrete tubes.  My thought was to create temp r stove outside to burn off cardboard. Then transfer riser to perminent RMH. I was wondering if standard clay, sand, perlite mixture would hold form without metal form? Sono tubes could cost me roughly $17.

Make sense? Thoughts?

Could riser mixture be used for the entire structure of j tube instead of fire brick??
Probably going to by dvd set eventually, but want to build a practice heater on the cheap first.