Insulating rocket stoves.

Hello, I'm wondering about the benefits of insulating rocket stoves. I'm not building an RMH just yet but a few different rocket stove designs and I was looking for more information on insulating. Is it only the heat riser that you want to insulate? Does insulating the heat riser improve draw or overall performance? Is insulting the burn tunnel also helpful for efficiency or would it have a negligible effect? Thanks.

A lot depends on the individual design but apart from metal build stoves yes insulation is very important.

In some cases insulation is absolutely critical, in other cases it could cause issues if used in the wrong places.

Generally speaking the fire box and heat riser needs to be very well insulated.

Most rocket stoves require very high temperatures to operates efficiently and those temperatures can only be achieved with the use of insulation.
There  are discussions about high mass and low mass designs used for fire box construction ie the whole fire box is made from insulating material or the fire box is made from high mass material and then insulated behind the mass.