Dear Forum,
I collected my ideas how to bring
Rocket Mass Heaters into the public in the last days and hope they make sense
1.) As long as there does not exist an easy to understand book about Rocket Mass
Heaters and why they are superior to basically all other
wood stoves, in simple laymans terms that everyone can understand, with a simple ("non-technical") explanation of the reasons why RMHs are superior to regular woodstoves, I think it might take decades for RMHs to finally become mainstream, as I wrote in my other
thread at
https://permies.com/t/132252/attractive-book-advantages-rocket-mass#1036917
As far as I have seen such a book does not exist yet.
The book
should be funny, easy to understand, can be ironical, cynical, make fun of all other woodstove types, call them names, whatever, just stir the pot. This would make people recommend it by word of mouth and by writing reviews.
It should give on overview of the possibilities that only rocket stoves offer and also add that RMHs can have a double glass pane AND that you can automate them AND equally important is the optical look of the
RMH. This is f*cking IMPORTANT for the average person, the average person is shallow and is always interested in optics, vanity and stuff, if you are talking about a black steel barrel in the middle of the living room you are f*cking doomed, this persons wife is going to kill the man (or something like this, lol). Anyone who does not realize this "sad facts" and does not know the average person (Joe Smith aka Homer Simpson) should not even think about writing such a book.
I am not a
native english speaker and am not familiar
enough with Rocket Mass Heaters so I cannot really write it I fear. I could be an advisor though and read it and give my thoughts about the book or something.
It does not matter if the book is short, this makes it easier to translate. Just keep it simple. If it is not simple, the average person will not understand and will not recommend it and not review it.
Only few people read
books (IN GENERAL), the ones who do read mainly fiction, novels, sentimental stories etc., and a small FRACTION of these people read technical books. And a very small fraction of this small fraction is going to read a technical book that is "complicated" and contains a building plan for something that they have to build THEMSELVES. So you have a fraction of a fraction of a fraction - if the book is technical and contains a building plan for something you have to build yourself. You cannot expect such a book to ever become mainstream, this will ever be the domain of do-it-yourself-types, and they are always, always a tiny, tiny, tiny minority. I mean, such a book is far better than nothing of
course and I am happy that the books about the RMH exist, but I guess you understand what I am trying to say.
It is imperative that the book has a "grippy" title like I mentioned in my above mentioned thread, like
"Rocket (Mass) Heaters, the most efficient
wood stove designed by man (yet) and why YOU need one"
It is important that someone spends a great deal of time thinking about and researching a good title, this will determine the books success by a great margin.
The book is IMHO key and center, because
2.) without such a book, no translations, and without translations, RMHs will basically stay on an isolated Island where they are "technically forbidden" (for certification / fire reasons / "market reasons", nobody on the "
wood stove market", "firewood market" etc. wants the RMH IMHO)
If you have such a book and a translation however, it will surely move off the Island and will probably be certified and built somewhere on a bigger scale, for example by some northern small autonomous region of some indian tribe or whereever, or some smaller state in an arctic region somewhere in the northern hemisphere. Or some poor country. Etc.
As soon as RMHs are produced by a region or state on an industrial (standardized) level including the certification, it is just a matter of time until they WILL spread to other countries, so much is for sure IMHO.
Just as nobody knew Dyson vacuum cleaners (utilizing an air vortex) in 1998, now everybody knows Dyson vacuum cleaners. Took 20 years, but somewhen, all "normal" vacuum cleaners will disappear, it is just a matter of time. Basically Dyson could not really get on the market in 1998 except in the UK and Japan as far as I remember, but from there, his invention spread to the whole world and now everyone knows it.
3.) As soon as such a book exists, you can use it to bring RMHs to the world "through the back door" also by other means, for example there exists a sophisticated portable outdoor
rocket stove for hikers / backpackers etc. called the "vire stove", see
https://www.virestove.com/
If you could get the makers of this stove to advertise for the book or at least mention it or add a piece of paper to each stove mentioning the book, you would have hit quite the jackpot, as this stove is probably going to become "hiker-mainstream" / "backpacker-mainstream" quite quickly and will most likely conquer the market by storm. The construction is quite genius IMHO. This means that more and more people will see the
rocket stove in action. This thing is then going to be sold over the entire world and anyone who sees this thing will want to have one as well and will show it to his or her backpacking etc. friends, and will also want to have one in his or her home. And there will be a lot of people who will learn of the book and this increases the chances of translations, which will make RMHs leave "the Island".
4.) The book should contain a small section which should be "public domain", aka a few pages which can be translated and shared freely (for example by a Creative Commons license). These pages should contain the most important information. This would significantly speed up the dispersion of the information about RMHs and the information that the book exists to more people. This section should also include instructions how to spread the information about RMHS most effectively, for example it should tell people to write letters or forward this information to their
local communities, to local oven-makers, their local authorities, universities or whatever, you get the idea. Aka an "action plan". It should of course also mention that more books about RMHs exist including books that contain building plans. And that the permies forum exists and contains a lot of technical information, if a reader wants to dive into the technical details.
Etc. etc. etc. I could go on for quite a while I guess, sorry for my clumsy english, it is late here and I think I simply fall on the "Submit"-button now
If you find any errors you can keep them.
Thanks for all the answers in the other thread!
Happy New Year!! Albert.