RMH and floor plan integration

Hey folks- just looking for ideas/ experiences to be shared on this thread. How did you (or how do you dream of) integrate an RMH into the floor plan design layout of your home, garage etc? What area Of the house is it in? What rooms or areas Of the house are in closest proximity? Is that an advantage or disadvantage?What functions does the rmh perform? (Primary vs auxiliary heat, water heater, cook top etc?) in an ideal world, how would you integrate the perfect RMH into the perfect floor plan? Dream big, but maybe stick with existing proven technology (rather than theorizing how an RMH may able to do something that no one has yet tried), so that we stick with ideas that could actually be put into practice today.

A part of the reason I’m asking is because I have purchased the Walker Full Masonry cook stove plans (this will be our first RMH build) for the house we hope to begin building this spring. I’m still working through how we should lay everything out. I am happy to design the house around the stove so long as I can meet our other restraints. So I’m looking for ideas of what others have done, or what others have dreamed of!

Thanks!

Hi Eloise;
As you are in Alaska I would suggest two RMHs.
A Peter Berg design batchbox in the center of the house and the Walker Masonry stove in the kitchen area.
This way you have options no matter how cold winter gets.

Hi Eloise,

If I had to design from scratch and also lived in a colder place I would put:
-a heating/cooking combo on the kitchen/bathroom wall: two separate fireboxes, one classic batch box rocket and  something else for cooking; the living room would be located by the kitchen area so it would also get heated
-the second batch box would be on the wall separating two bedrooms

Hey Eloise, glad to hear that you guys are planning on building next year! We are in Nikiski, and I'm planning on putting a large batch box in the center of our home, with a Walker cooktop near the north wall. I'm planning on a large opening window, or maybe even a door to a deck near the stove so that I can vent the heat out of the house during the summer. Depending upon your build a celestory window above your cook area could vent heat quickly perhaps, something similar to an earthship? Maybe it could even work as a natural hood vent if things get smokey?

Eloise, do you already have blueprints for the house you will be building?

Maybe that or a sketch of the layout might help our experts suggest the location that would be best.

I like Thomas's suggestion about two RMHs and one being centrally located.

For thinking about plans in a very general sense, it is most helpful to have had some experience living with radiant heat sources previously. I thankfully had a good half decade with a wood stove in a small cabin, but thinking back even houses I stayed at with hot water/steam radiators built an intuitive awareness of how to lay out a living space around an RMH. A full heating season of experience will alter the understanding one might been indoctrinated with having growing up with forced air heating.

The barrel/bell will be similar to a stove box/fireplace- the mass will be more like a radiator, though you will have the option to shape it to your own desires.

I plan a walker style kitchen in my near future, but have not selected specific plans yet. Seems like implementation of that would be pretty straight forward though?

I built my first RMH in a yurt. I had the tepee at Wheaton Labs as a source of inspiration, but a yurt is differnt enough that I needed to innovate to best utilize the space. I did shelve a few ideas for further innovation and implemented as many conventional aspects as I thought would be appropriate as it is my only viable heating source for getting me through the winter.

So bottom line advice here would be to draw on your own relevant experience if you have it, or to seek out a friend who does to walk through your space and share their observations/advice. And this forum is extremely valuable as a reference for what is out there on RMH specifics...

Thanks for taking time to respond everyone! I’ll try to respond with relevant info to make for a helpful discussion for myself and others.

Anne- we don’t have blueprints for the house yet, so I’m actually trying to nail down the best way to design the house around the stove. This means lots of options! But hard to know what’s best with out experience.

Here is a little more relevant information for our scenario, tho happy to discuss things that apply to other situations too as it may shed light on ours.

We think our foot print will be about 600sqft give or take, plus a 1/2 or 3/4 loft. We hope to design in a way that allows additional bedrooms to be added. Prior to the addition the main floor will include kitchen (and hopefully a decent sized pantry), dining, bathroom, living area. Open concept seems best. Sleeping area in loft.

Construction is to be log.


What I’m hearing from you all in summary is:

1) 2 stoves is better than one.
2) one stove in close proximity to any plumbing.
3) one stove centrally located in the home
4) adequate ventilation for the cooking stove.

A couple questions that come to mind:

A) those of you with an RMH- do you have, or do you wish you had, a heater with an alternative fuel source. I agree that 2 stoves is better than one, but am wondering if having the 2nd heater be something other than wood fired would be better? It would be more expensive but I guess I’m viewing it mostly as a back up in case the RMH needs repair. And the home had to be left unattended this heater could keep things above freezing. In our case it would have to be either electric or fuel oil. Any thoughts on that? In that case seems like you’d want that heater close to plumbing… so maybe okay id RMH is not as close? Hmm….

B) anyone have experience with venting the cook top and if it affects the draft on the stove? I liked Jacob’s idea of a window or door close to the kitchen cooker. I had been thinking a hood vent (Ive been known to smoke up the kitchen making bacon, popcorn, searing steak- I like a hot griddle) as well as the option to open a window to cool it off if need be. But then I had the question of if that hood vent interfere with the stove? It’s kind of a 2nd chimney in a sense. Anyone have problems with this?

If anyone else has some key things on how they’d design their home and RMH please speak up! In the mean time I’ll try to get my act together and put up a couple preliminary drawings of ideas I’ve had for the house. But no promises on when haha!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Forgot to address Coydons point about radiant heat! A very good point in deed.

I grew up with forced air and have experienced various systems since. Right now we have a gas boiler and baseboard radiators. I like it other than the fact that there is one under the bed and I just can’t sleep when I’m hot! Which leads to this question- those with an RMH- what does your heat cycle look like? As in how long after the burn does the room/ house reach max temp? If the RMH shared a wall with a bedroom, and I lit a fire before bed to carry us over to the morning (the heat not the fire would carry over), would i be hot when I went to bed? Wake up hot in the middle of the night? I’d prefer it to be cool when I went to bed (low 60’s), but not much colder than that when I got up in the morning. Or better yet, warm in the morning. Obviously that may not be possible. But any experience you have would help me understand how close or far to have the stove from the bedrooms (these would be an addition to the house- Initial bedroom will be in the loft).

Maybe I’m not being clear with the thoughts in my head so let me know if you need clarification! Or if I’m just over thinking it all

It will be a lot easier to cook with gas or electric.
You should consider where the chimney will be situated as in an ideal rocket mass heater world, the all so important chimney, will have a direct vertical route  straight up and out of the roof.