My
rocket stove is setup to burn pellets, as chunk firewood is what is a pain to get, and to keep lit. I wanted my stove to run for at least 4 hours with no crackling and no failures that cause flames to run up the wood. Mind you I can't prove it runs totaly fan free has I have broken a rocket stove rule of minimal elbows as I run it back and forth across the dehydrating room 6 times. But I do via the outlet fan's sucktion have the options of running it at a steady 350f or I can shut the main air inlet and draw air through the pellets for a 500-600f gasification fire the design isn't terribly far off from the one in the
video but I'm using larger tubes and can convert back to wood even though it drives me crazy. Around here fire wood is a novelty and not a source of fuel so unless you travel far out or can buy it in serious wood shed bulk I can't store more than 2 days continuous burns worth. A bag of pellets will last me 8 to 16 hours depending on how much pull I allow and how much i reduce the burn area.
If you can build a proper rocket stove and have the space I say go for it, mines made strickly out of high tempurature flue pipe and a barrel suspended off the ground and the heat tubes run under a deck filled with gravel. In the summer I run it without a fire into my
greenhouse for cooling as the ground keeps the air cold.
