Rocket mass heater for greenhouse design question

So, in all the rocket stove/RMH discussion and documantation I have seen, people keep making the point that the exhaust is "mostly just water vapor and CO2".

So, if you are using an RMH to heat a greenhouse, why vent the exhaust to the outside? Isn't warm, moist, CO2-rich air pretty much perfect for plants?

Of course, you would have to have an exhaust vent somewhere in the greenhouse in order to equalise air pressure with the outside for the RMH to draught.

Also, the atmosphere within the greenhouse would be bad for humans/animals, so you would want to be able to read the interior temperature, light the RMH and add fuel, lower sunshades, and controll any watering aparatus without going inside. You would also have to vent the air in the greenhouse before entering to do any work.

Any other problems with this that I am not thinking of?

The best thing to do with a good theory is test it. Take lots of pictures, documentation, etc. and share your findings with us.

I would not recommend this for the following reasons:
1) People gotta be in the greenhouse at some point and there is no way to guarantee no CO was produced along with the CO2 and water vapor.
2) Plants need oxygen too, not just CO2.
3) The water vapor is gonna condense on everything and it'll be a rainforest.

Jeremy Cash wrote:The best thing to do with a good theory is test it. Take lots of pictures, documentation, etc. and share your findings with us.

I would if I had a greenhouse, or a place to build one.

C.J. Murray wrote:I would not recommend this for the following reasons:
1) People gotta be in the greenhouse at some point and there is no way to guarantee no CO was produced along with the CO2 and water vapor.
2) Plants need oxygen too, not just CO2.
3) The water vapor is gonna condense on everything and it'll be a rainforest.

Good points. The first response I have is that I am not immagining a completely sealed greenhouse. It would be normally ventillated, only with the addition of a passive one-way vent to keep the pressure equalised if the heater was burning with the service vents closed.

The CO point is a particularly good one. I personally smoke tobacco, and hope to one day heat and cook solely with wood/biomass, so I am not hugely fussy about small ammounts of CO exposure. The key would be what concentrations we are talking about. I have CO detectors in my current home in addition to smoke detectors. They are relatively inexpensive and can be run on wall current or batteries, it would probabally be a good idea to have something like one of those on my exterior "control panel".

cause we would like you alive.

there is still a little smoke and some plants die when exposed to it.

its not tested and we dont know what happens in the situation.

it all comes back to the first line.