My idea for a RMH

First off, hello everyone! What a site you have here! The sign up requirements I thought were fantastic! Be nice... Imagine if we replaced all our current laws with that!

So anyway I have stumbled across the RMH and I likey a lot! So like most of you I spent some time soaking up all the info and building a picture in my head of what I actually want. I have big plans for it and I don't see why it wouldn't work and I reckon some of you are doing it already...

So this is what I have planned, though nothing is set in stone and I am still in the designing stage...

So I was going to go with a frame, probably wood, then build the feed with bricks, the burn chamber will be brick too or maybe clay? But with one side missing so I can put in a window, was thinking about an oven door type thing? Maybe even functioning so I can clean out ash easy... The length of the burn chamber is up in the air at the minute but I was hoping to put 1 or 2 car radiators between the wood feed and the barrel, if you get me? In an attempt to collect high level heat for central heating and power generation via TEG's.

Then I will have a SS flue coming up and the barrel over the top as standard... Then I was going to go with flexible flue liner for the rest of the run, primarily to save money and cut down on joints and so that I can wrap copper pipe within the grooves of the flue liner for further heat collection, to be used for DHW...

Then I will fill with mass, the type of mass is yet undecided. Though maybe sand and rocks.

I saw a picture with a RMH that had an oven on top of the barrel, I will be pinching that idea too... And maybe adding in a hot plate or 2 if possible as well...

That is about where I'm up to so I wanted to run it by the experts first and see what advice you can offer me. Oh and it will be situated outside in the uk

Btw I plan to use other forms of energy along side this too, such as solar heaters and solar panels for summer use...

Thanks everyone, look forward to thrashing out some ideas with you all.

Baz...

So I guess this forum doesn't have many participants. No bother, I can be patient (sometimes) lol.

I have been thinking on the heat exchanger a bit and in another blog someone raised an important issues about water flow and air bubbles etc... Which got me thinking about conventional gas boilers and their heat exchanger, most notably the size of it... Can it be that small (remember it heats the whole house) because the temps are so high? Or is it that not THAT much heat is needed to do the job? I'm sure the burn chamber of a rocket mass heater can easily rival those seen within the burn chamber of a gas boiler.

So I thought to myself why not use the product that is designed to do the job? And on top of that I learned they are pretty cheap too! So that is a possibility, any thoughts guys/girls?

Oh and BTW today I contacted the local council to find out about building regs etc, the guy had never heard of them but said he would look into it and get back to me, he seemed very interested, so we will see.

Howdy Baz, welcome to permies. Yes please be patient as you can see there is tons of stuff here to read so it may take a while for those who can answer your question to find you.

In the meantime have you seen this thread?

https://permies.com/t/21882/tnk/Wood-Burning-Stoves-Kickstarter

Paul is going to put out a set of DVD's that may help you a lot .

baz, welcome to Permies!

Ernie and Erica Wisner are sort of the "rock stars" of RMH design, and I've seen Ernie on this forum a few different times making the recommendation to build a "stock" RMH before experimenting with windows/baffles/water/radiators/ovens. It's hard enough to get the basic setup correct before complicating it with "add-ons". The Wisners sell plans on their site for $20, there are many other RMH plans that can be found for free. If I was building my first RMH, and every time I changed or adapted the design, I'd want to do it outside, away from anything that could burn.

The Wisners and Paul Wheaton are working on a precast shippable RMH core that will solve much of the complexity of RMH design, and be cheap and easy.

You may want to connect with fellow Permie Dale Hodgins, he has some combo-RMH ideas that incorporate a good number of secondary uses and "add-ons".

Wyomiles Hogan wrote:Howdy Baz, welcome to permies. Yes please be patient as you can see there is tons of stuff here to read so it may take a while for those who can answer your question to find you.

In the meantime have you seen this thread?

https://permies.com/t/21882/tnk/Wood-Burning-Stoves-Kickstarter

Paul is going to put out a set of DVD's that may help you a lot .

Hey, yeah it's cool I was only joking... I was gonna say "hey it's not "nice" to ignore me! You may face the ban!" But thought better of it as my sense of humor is not known yet! lol

I did see the video for that not too long ago, I'm sure there is a wealth of info on the DVD's, I may consider it...

Thanks for your welcome...

nathan luedtke wrote:baz, welcome to Permies!

Ernie and Erica Wisner are sort of the "rock stars" of RMH design, and I've seen Ernie on this forum a few different times making the recommendation to build a "stock" RMH before experimenting with windows/baffles/water/radiators/ovens. It's hard enough to get the basic setup correct before complicating it with "add-ons". The Wisners sell plans on their site for $20, there are many other RMH plans that can be found for free. If I was building my first RMH, and every time I changed or adapted the design, I'd want to do it outside, away from anything that could burn.

The Wisners and Paul Wheaton are working on a precast shippable RMH core that will solve much of the complexity of RMH design, and be cheap and easy.

You may want to connect with fellow Permie [url=https://permies.com/forums/user/profile/87169]Dale Hodgins[/url}, he has some combo-RMH ideas that incorporate a good number of secondary uses and "add-ons".

Thank you for the welcome nathan and for your sound advice. I do hear you and don't worry there will be plenty of experimenting and planning going on and I wouldn't do a thing unless I am sure of it. I may well just keep it simple for my first but I might also just put something in so it leaves me the option to play with it.

I do understand the fears but at the end of the day I got gas lines running into my house and that stuff tends to be a bit explody! lol

Thanks for the heads up on the other chap, I will be sure to get in touch with him.