My hoop house rmh project

Hello all,

I have been building a hoop house and plan to use a rmh to heat during the winter months. Below are some details of my set up.

Hoop House size: 16"x 16"

RMH core dimensions: 7"x 7"x 22" refractory bricks

Heat riser: Insulated 7"x 7" refractory bricks stainless casing filled with clay/perlite

Exhaust dimensions: 8" pipe roughly 30 linear feet to a vertical exhaust

55 gallon drum bell: 22ish inside diameter

The barrel and the wood feed will be outside of the hoop but close enough that the heat from the barrel can be used. The ground will act as my thermal mass. Looking for any and all feedback!

Hey Amos, have you fired up the rmh yet? I am also busy with a heating project and my system is very similar than yours. My only headache is the thermal mass. What to use! My rmh is on top of the ground so I am building a box around the exhaust that I need to fill with mass. I do not have access to clay so cob is out. I was thinking 13mm stone aggregate. Give some feedback on how the soil works as mass.

Cheers
Marco

Marco Ernst wrote:Hey Amos, have you fired up the rmh yet? I am also busy with a heating project and my system is very similar than yours. My only headache is the thermal mass. What to use! My rmh is on top of the ground so I am building a box around the exhaust that I need to fill with mass. I do not have access to clay so cob is out. I was thinking 13mm stone aggregate. Give some feedback on how the soil works as mass.

Cheers
Marco

I have fired it up. It burns great! I was lucky ( or unlucky for my back's sake) that the ground I am digging through is neary all clay. Being so close to the river there is a lot of sand already in the clay. I will post some more pics or videos to see the final results. I back filled the duct in the ground with a paver sand. It is sometimes sold as manufactured sand. It has the consistency of crushed pea gravel mixed with sand. It packs well is doing a good job of holding the heat. That was then covered with clay that was left over. The final floor will be covered with a weed barrier then pea gravel.

It is worth noting that until the greenhouse is covered with plastic it is hard to tell how well the "mass" is holding heat. One thing is for sure by the time the exhaust reaches the exit point it has lost all of its heat to the ground and only emits some steam. After the ground fully dries out I will have some better data to refer to.

This video shows some of the duct work being covered in.



I will shoot another video over the next few days to show the progress.

Looks fantastic! Thanks for the info and reply. All the best with the rest. Will start covering my exhaust this weekend with mass. Will see what I come up with. Also need to cover the growing area with plastic this weekend. We are also located next to a river, gets real cold. I have a second hoop house as well that will need a heater soon!

How is this project going, I'd love more pictures and details!

Amos, I just subbed to your YouTube channel.

How much do you love Bela Fleck?