Peter Chauffeur

Hi,
this build is on Vancouver Island. This was my first build over a decade ago. Since then, I have built 4 more and I have documented all of them here on one thread ending with Frankenstove 5, with an announcement of a Frankenstove 6 to heat an heat an aquaponics greenhouse.
Currently Frankenstove 5 heats our home and hot tub, Frankenstove 3 heats my shed and 4 will be dismantled and repurposed  with a post mortem and be part of the Frankeknstove 6 project.
I have only one main thread on this site so everyone could make sense of the progression of the evolution of the Franklenstove franchise builds.
All posted under "Peter Chauffeur" under the rocket stoves forum

Stay tuned, learn from my mistakes and I'm always up for suggestions from this site and its kind people.

my first mistake with rocket stoves was thinking high temperature metal risers would work!

Experience is a horrible teacher.......First she tests - then she teaches!

Rudy Mallonee wrote: Hi--- New to the site..
Relating to full home heating with the rocket stove...

Having read the first few pages, I didn't come upon anything regarding using a typical forced air furnace air to air heat exchanger in conjuction with the rocket mass heater.. Has anyone addressed this?

Couldn't this type of air to air heat exchanger be connected to the exhaust end of the chimmey? The rocket stove wood heat should be no different than gas or oil fire that is directed through the exchanger provided that a sufficient distance from the chimmey is allowed to prevent extreme heating of the exchanger....Yes, the fan system is needed to propel the hot air throughout the house duct system nornally used with a forced air system....
These furnaces (used) can be bought through Craigslist very cheap, I've seen some in my area (Alaska) that are given away..

Also, for a radiant water system, why not use the same principle using the boiler exchanger, expansion tank and pumps from a conventional gas or oil fired home heating water boiler? .. Just direct the flue gases from the rocket stove to the boiler chamber at safe distance from the exchanger.....
Again there are older used boilers out there for sale cheap....Weil-McLain, etc.... and use the same radiant floor system with the PEX tubing... The PEX tubing eliminates the hard water deposits in piping....
Yes, there would have to be a heat sink, hot tub, etc..... or a steam pipe vented to an outside exit with a pressure relief valve and tempering valve at the expansion tank exit before entering the PEX manifold, eliminating pressure in the PEX piping and keeping temperature down....

Here is my “Frankenstove Mark 5” that I built from what I’ve learned here on Permies.com and documented in forums under “ Peter Chauffeur “. Enjoy the read

Anthony Donner wrote: I am looking into building a stove or rocket stove that is efficient and safe to use in my huge 2500sq ft home, not a mass heater but a furnace type unit.... was thinking of building the burn chamber and riser with a 6" refractory cast core, using the 55 gal drum style unit for the heat exchanger, build a sheet metal box around the heat exchanger and hook up a blower to this box to circulate the hot air through my ductwork, just like a regular furnace style setup, I want this to be a pellet gravity fed unit, was thinking of making the pellet basket or grate out of refractory metals and any area that gets extremely hot also, this unit would be set up in my basement and be hooked up to my masonry chimney which is approximately 20-30 feet tall , I want to build this unit to be very durable and safe (meaning I don't have to take it apart and rebuild it every year like some of the units I have seen on youtube or is going to fall apart in a short time). instead of buying a normal furnace that is on the market for 2-3 thousand dollars why not just build a efficient safe rocket stove with that money....instead of building junk or ones that wont hold up and nickel and diming yourself to death..... I am new to this concept so any solid input would be greatly appreciated...
any suggestions ideas or concerns...feel free to let them be known...
thanks

I will try to make this short and painful for your design proposal….. metal risers will spall. Here are the pictures

Peter Chauffeur wrote:

Peter Pis wrote:Hello,

i am working on my first RMH and am wondering about the temperatures inside.

I found information that temperatures inside the core can go up to 1000*C. But what about other parts of the heater ?
- what is typical max temperature at the top of the primary bell ?
- what is typical max temperature at the bottom of the primary bell (floor) ?
- what is typical max temperature at the top/bottom of secondary bell (bench) ?
- i found information that chimney temperature will usually go between 60-100*C
the reason i am asking is so i can better choose the materials:
- to isolate the floor. the heater will be build in the room with concrete floor, i don't want the heat escaping into it, so i want to build a proper insulation layer below the heater.  I saw how perlite can be used but i am worried about building on top of loose perlite so i would prefer to use something load bearing. I was thinking about using YTONG blocks covered by a layer of concrete made out of cement and perlite.
- to isolate the back wall of the heater and bench which is going to be build against the wall stone of the room. I was thinking about double skin bricks with a layer of ceramic wool in between them. I don't like it so much as there is still one layer of bricks absorbing the heat there. I was thining about using ytong blocks instead of bricks for the back wall of the bench, still doing double skin with ceramic wool in between. ytong blocks are ok up to 600*C, so i want to be sure temperatures inside my bench are not going to reach that level. I am wondering if i could do the same for the back wall of the primary bell ?

any other suggestions on how to insulate the floor and back wall ?

thank you.

Here are some pictures og what I’ve noticed on my “Frankenstove Mark 5” gravity pellet fed vertical rocket mass heater with a 4” ceramic core.

Peter Pis wrote:Hello,

i am working on my first RMH and am wondering about the temperatures inside.

I found information that temperatures inside the core can go up to 1000*C. But what about other parts of the heater ?
- what is typical max temperature at the top of the primary bell ?
- what is typical max temperature at the bottom of the primary bell (floor) ?
- what is typical max temperature at the top/bottom of secondary bell (bench) ?
- i found information that chimney temperature will usually go between 60-100*C

the reason i am asking is so i can better choose the materials:
- to isolate the floor. the heater will be build in the room with concrete floor, i don't want the heat escaping into it, so i want to build a proper insulation layer below the heater.  I saw how perlite can be used but i am worried about building on top of loose perlite so i would prefer to use something load bearing. I was thinking about using YTONG blocks covered by a layer of concrete made out of cement and perlite.
- to isolate the back wall of the heater and bench which is going to be build against the wall stone of the room. I was thinking about double skin bricks with a layer of ceramic wool in between them. I don't like it so much as there is still one layer of bricks absorbing the heat there. I was thining about using ytong blocks instead of bricks for the back wall of the bench, still doing double skin with ceramic wool in between. ytong blocks are ok up to 600*C, so i want to be sure temperatures inside my bench are not going to reach that level. I am wondering if i could do the same for the back wall of the primary bell ?

any other suggestions on how to insulate the floor and back wall ?

thank you.

thomas rubino wrote:Very Cool Peter!
Besides being functional it is a work of art!  

Congrats on version #5!
Is there a version #6 floating about your head?

Hello Thomas and fellow Permies enthusiasts!  

Greetings from the Canadian PNW. We are currently enduring a 10 day run of cold liquid sunshine that has us trying to avoid early sunsets and soggy outerwear during our winter solstice!  

Yes and Thank you! Yes! There will be a Frankenstove Mark 6!!! Soon to be built and this time it will be documented online in a step by step series from the “ground up” so to speak…… it will take every thing I have learned from the “Frankenstove Franchise featuring what I have done wrong on previous builds and how they got resolved in “Frankenstove Mark 6”
However, Frankenstove 6 will be a unique build for a 8’ x 12’ greenhouse over an aquaponic fish pond for growing lettuce and other greens year around!!! Yes! Another ambitious project that I wish to share!
This will include a sizable increase of thermal mass to help regulate the temperature during late fall to early spring. It will be wood pellet fueled as all other Frankenstoves and be of a 3-4 inch ceramic tube riser. You will have to follow along for other modifications that may be interesting for those that may wish to build their own. I hope to keep tooling down to a drill, a grinder and a flux core welder to keep the build feasible with respect to fabrication cost. I also promise to pull out one of my older builds to “recycle and reincarnate them” keeping the spirit of continuous improvement with Frankenstove modifications like its iconic movie namesake!  
It’s good to be back on forum! Stay tuned!

Hello Permies!  
It has been a long time since I last posted about developments on “Frankenstove Mark 5”.
“Frankenstove 5” has been heating our home and cycling daily during our PNW cold wet weather and soggy humid winters since its initial build and commissioning.
Here are some of the modifications I have done that I feel, you deserve to learn as you have either followed or have read this forum to the end to get to the prize of a gravity pellet fed vertical rocket mass heater that you can safely use to heat your home and have a means to hot water at no real extra cost.
Ok, where to begin…….

1) the 4” ceramic riser has held up very well with the daily high temp heat cycling. There are small cracks at the 90* where it glows red going up the riser.
2) The addition of a “bypass heating channel” to prime the chimney to increase an initial draft has solved a slow Smokey startup to just a short period of steam condensation and then clean burning out the stack. So those who say a RMH with a 4” riser won’t work are wrong, it just needs the draft to be established.
4) I re-engineered the ash bin to become a “secondary rocket stove to burn the small embers to completion using old double walled stainless steel thermos bottles.
5) the additional of 100 feet of copper pipe wrapped on the OUTSIDE OF THE BELL to act as a contact external heat exchanger to heat water for our hot tub. Note: our hot tub heater circuit died, leaving us with only a circulating pump which runs 24/7 which we have to leave on due to freezing conditions and to keep the hot tub filtered.
6) a knife valve to stop pellet feed was added to allow a fast shutdown of pellet supply. This means that the hopper doesn’t have to be emptied every night.

Hello Fello Permies!

Here is a pic of my Mark III  RMH!  
This third version from the one I originally built and posted on your site! It has been running every cold day for 11 hours a day for the past 3 years. It still uses the original pellet feed from the original “Frankenstove” and will be upgrading it this winter to a larger pellet burn chamber. It burns around 1 pound of wood pellets. Here in the cold and soggy Vancouver Island fall and winter it keeps a 2000 square foot two story home very comfortable. Here, with taxes wood pellets are around )8 / 40 pound bag. So my house is comfortable at a cost of $2.50 a day. The starch is a 4” I.D.  CERAMIC TUBE and is insulated with a mix of homemade water glass and vermiculite. Search “Peter Chaiffeur” on this site for a complete history!  I love this stove and the money it has saved me. Everyone who sees it is in awe of its operation. The photo is from a few years back but I had the bell removed to examine the status of the ceramic core riser and it has held up perfectly.  I still plan on replacing the original pellet feed system and re-incorporate the steam addition to the intake air shortly. Thank you for your continued support and interest! I am getting close to 4,000 views on my original post on the day 1 to present developments of the "Frankenstove and Beyond!

Wow! Over 3,000 views!  Thank you everyone for having interest in my rather unique form of Rocket Mass Heater Stove!  I am happy that I have found a forum to share my design experience. I am also proud that my wife has become proficient at staring this stove on her own and has taken ownership of the overhauled Mark III ! So I can say with a happy heart that I am doing my part to heat a home safely with secondary processed wood [ wood pellets ] and having a happy wife that actually enjoys starting a fire in a self designed contraption. I know that this design has deviated from the puritan version of a rocket stove but this is the beauty of this site.... we are all doing what we can to be a little more self reliant than most people who just complain about the current situation of today's world.  It has been a long journey from the first days of the Frankenstove and a lot of modifications but some of the parts are still original and can be recognized from the first post! Sometimes it is better to be luckier than good! However, when you are lucky AND good, the Gods give you an "Attaboy" and your design works even better than you imagined it would! What I have built has now kept our home warm and cozy, engaged conversation over this weird contraption with curious visitors, operated under the radar of a fire department located a mere 400 yards away and more importantly, kept a 2000 square foot, 4 bedroom, 2 story home warm an comfortable that an originally electrically heated home (baseboard heating only) was bankrupting us just to stay barely marginally comfortable.  I have kept this thread rolling from the beginning so anyone that follows this can see my trials and tribulations and guide them in their own creation because there is no "only one way to build one of these things" ! There are, however, some basic guidelines to follow but I encourage anyone interested in building a RMH (or variant) to educate yourself on this site and try!  Do your research, ask questions and most importantly, learn from the mistakes of others! The satisfaction you will feel when your design works and the money you save to do what you want instead of paying for some CEO's vacation home in whereverville  is priceless! Good luck....
I still have some things I want to try now that I have a 4" ceramic riser ( which took me at least 3 years to source and finally successfully install into the Mark III (modified) and they are as follows:

1) a vertical pellet feed
2) utilizing my steam addition to act as a venturi to assist secondary air addition to act as a bellows ( I will elaborate on this later once I get it to work but it is based on the premise that when you start a fire and you blow on the tinder it forces more oxygen into the embers and aids combustion.
3) some kind of view portal to see the flames to add to the warmth experience ( this will be the crowning achievement in my design and probably most costly as it will probably require quartz tubing!)

Stay tuned, I will probably resurrect my Mark II to achieve all this as budget for R&D is scarce these days!

As mentioned earlier, I used water glass as the refractory matrix glue. Here  is a picture of  the “ every day items” used to make the refractory material. There are many videos and instructions on the internet to make water glass and I suggest you watch a few and be safe.