Jeff : I am sending you to you tube to type - '' a look at Chelle Lindahl's
rocket mass heater '' into the You Tube search tool and then click on to it ! This was a professional
job,
the working core of which was created over a 3 day weekend as part of a rocket stove building
workshop ! Prior to the Construction of this rocket stove she heated her whole
house with a wood cookstove that had a fire box approximately the same size as yours ! When you watch this,you will see an exterior shot of the House, at 2:26, this is a new
owner built home and this very well made and insulated, And the upstairs is heated via an open stairway ! The cookstove was her sole heat source up until this Rocket Stove
Build and she kept her house warmer with that than I keep my house ! ( Because this was a
video about the new Rocket Stove, the cook stove was not included in the video !
I have already told you that a similar heater to your find can heat a well isolated house, but if you look at the size of the fire box that you have to work with, you will see
that your cookstove would need near constant feedings every 15-20 minutes with very small diameter short wood to perform such a big stroke of work ! to Insulate the
original fire box on this cook stove, which is where ALL Rocket Stoves get their high efficiencies, would shrink the fire box down to the size where it will no longer WORK !
It is possible that this stove is fixable and is worth making the effort to do so, it may be that you would end up selling the thing outright to a rebuilder who would then fix
it and
sell it to a yuppie to put in a Ski Lodge somewhere, the final choice on its fate would be yours !
If you are still thinking of making a Rocket stove out of pieces of this stove, then you need to learn about three different types of Rocket Stove
Mass Heaters while
I only know and understand J Tube Rockets, there are very similar stove that load their fuel horizontally from the front and are called horizontal Rockets ! And batch loading
stoves that have their creators looking for wood stoves just like yours - they just want to steal the oven door off of your stove, but might be prepared to show you how to do
that for yourself ! Again, I am not qualified to talk to you about understanding the last two kinds of Rocket Stove Mass Heaters, or directly about any kind of conversion! Though
if you were closer I would
volunteer to help with ANY part of it ! ! !
I am leaving you to chew on this post while I go see a man about a donkey ! For the good of the Craft ! PYRO AL - all comments welcome !
I