Cob thermal mass; conventional wood stove

Hey folks,

I've seen a few posts on here talking about adding various forms of thermal mass around (or on) to a conventional wood stove. I know folks have experimented (successfully) with things like brick, rock, soapstone slabs etc. I'm curious if anyone has successfully built cob attached to and around a wood stove to create more mass? My goal is to do something that is quick, simple, cheap, and artistically effective. The area my wood stove is in doesn't allow for enough space to convert to a good rocket mass stove. The wood stove does a great job heating my 1200 sq ft strawbale....(typically takes about 2.5 cords of wood for my SW Colorado winter), but I would love to add some more efficiency and continue to expand on the artistic interior from the previous builders.

One obvious concern would be to not allow the cob to interfere with the stove's intake or components, as I could see some potential safety concerns. Also just curious if you would end up impacting the stoves burn efficiency (at least initially) by having mass in contact that it then has to heat before regaining its efficiency once the cob warmed up.

Thoughts? Photos?

Hi Travis;
I think if you try to place a cob mass up against your box stove, it would not last long.(the stove )
Your stove is designed to shed its heat into the room. It currently does a good job of that.
If you put it against a cob mass , the metal will not shed its heat fast enough and would start to warp out on you.

Are you aware of brick bell rmh's?  They can fit it odd shaped places  and do a great job of holding heat .
They can be built as a J tube design, or as a smaller batch box design.
Either would allow you to use even less wood and have no fire all night long.

Hi Again Travis;   I did not realize this was your first post!
Big Welcome to Permies!
I suggest you come check out our rocket mass heater forum.
Weeks worth of reading old threads and a whole bunch of happy rocket scientists eagerly awaiting your questions!

thomas rubino wrote:Hi Travis;
I think if you try to place a cob mass up against your box stove, it would not last long.(the stove )
Your stove is designed to shed its heat into the room. It currently does a good job of that.
If you put it against a cob mass , the metal will not shed its heat fast enough and would start to warp out on you.

Are you aware of brick bell rmh's?  They can fit it odd shaped places  and do a great job of holding heat .
They can be built as a J tube design, or as a smaller batch box design.
Either would allow you to use even less wood and have no fire all night long.

Thomas, great points. I was sure there would be impacts in some form. I have built RMH in the past, but more traditional styles with longer benches. I am not familiar with the brick bell RMH's but will look around for some resources. My stove is nooked in a corner adjacent to a hallway so there is about a 3x4 space in which to work.