rocket mass heaters and leaks

if it's not sealed correctly couldn't you essentially poison everyone in the house?

I suspect that if you try, you can come up with a thousand ways to poison everybody in the house.

And, for rocket mass heaters, I think that if you are really fucking stupid, and you really fuck it up, and you actually make it so bad that you basically have a fire in the middle of your house - you should open a window. I have yet to see one that was this bad.

I suppose if you tried to make a home made conventional fireplace or wood stove and you fucked it up just as bad, the result would be far worse, because there would be about five times more wood/paper/fuel. Oh wait, people forget to open the flue all the fucking time. So I guess you could say that people in the house are poisoned. And, they usually just open a window and survive to see another day.

Dear Paul,

If I'm driving my car, and go over the speed limit, and then steer it into a tree, couldn't you essentially poison everyone in the car?

That's a good question Paul. Yes. Yes you could. You could poison everyone in the car with poison hemlock. Note that the word "poison" was put right there in the name of the plant, for your poisoning convenience.

Dear Paul,

I read a book about underground houses, and I've decided to build one. I have a massive track hoe to dig a big hole. And I have a cardboard box to be the interior of the new home. couldn't you essentially poison everyone in the house?

Great question Paul.

Many people have managed to build an underground home and live in them, comfortably, for years. I think you should write a book on how to poison those people and put it up on the internet.

The inside of the combustion chamber is the hottest. And that is where the powerful draw is happening. So at the bottom, there is a lot of pull into the combustion chamber. At the top there is a lot of push. Any danger would be after the push - and yet the smoke has been burned rather completely. Very little danger even if there are lots of leaks.

And remember, this design is based on rocket stoves which are designed for indoor wood cooking with no exhaust to the outside other than an open door/window.

Just to cover my ass: nobody should ever build one of these because they will probably die from somebody in their family jabbing them with a hypodermic needle full of poison. Stab stab stab.

As another bonus: I have already had way too many people sharing some seriously bad designs - that were so bad that it would end up as nothing more than a fire in the middle of the house. Darwin's theory at work i guess.

I want my rocket mass heaters to have a good seal. Although I think if it were super leaky, i would be more concerned with inefficiency and odor. I'm also the kind of person that thinks that having a gas stove is a bad idea because that exhaust is typically not vented to the outside. But it seems people aren't generally as worried about that as I am.

The answer is huge and complicated. And if anybody asks this question they will never be satisfied by any answer I can come up with. So it is wise to skip the question.

Here is the question: "If I fuck it all up, will anybody be poisoned?"

People are poisoned the moment you close the door in any house with a seal. They start breathing in their own farts and burning up the oxygen.

"If I strap dynamite to the exhaust on my car, will people die?" How much dynamite are we talking about?  Will you ever drive the car?  Will you drive it far enough that it could get hot enough?  Did you put insulation between the dynamite and the exhaust?

The question is way, way, way too vague. And the answer is about 47 flavors of "it depends". And the overall answer is "you probably cannot fuck it up so bad that anybody would get hurt" but the fact that you have to ask the question reminds me of the people with ideas like a horizontal "heat riser". Well, yeah, you are playing with fire here. It is possible for people to set their house on fire and have everybody die. It's also possible for the same people to put rat poison in the kool aid.

If the rocket mass heater was working perfectly but just had a small leak. I think it would be about 20 times cleaner than if you had a conventional wood stove with a leak.

if it's not sealed correctly couldn't you essentially poison everyone in the house?

paul wheaton wrote:
If a person farts, do they poison everybody in the house?

paul wheaton wrote:So I get this question:

if it's not sealed correctly couldn't you essentially poison everyone in the house?

It sounds like paul is really battling this question: "so if I'm an idiot, how will I know if I'm stupid??"

One of the most dangerous things this world has is stupid people that don't know they are stupid. I get along fine with the stupid people that are willing to admit there are stupid...just saying..


Oh and the post just above this one Kirk has a pretty sweet half bell bench setup... I wonder if Donkey has any video of that stove??

Matt Carkhuff wrote:

paul wheaton wrote:Oh and the post just above this one Kirk has a pretty sweet half bell bench setup... I wonder if Donkey has any video of that stove??

No, I don't.. (yep, K is D)
Nothing really to see, it would be just another video of a rocket stove, chugging happily along.