Vertical Storage Anyone?

Has anyone built a RMH with a vertical mass storage? I'm thinking of zigzagging up inside a cement block rectangle, filled with pea gravel. It would be a six inch pipe system with about 25 linear feet of pipe to heat a 700 sf building.

By the way, I have already purchased and read the RMH book, and purchased design plans from E&E.

Lua Sage : I have spent most of today misunderstanding what other people were trying to tell me, and I may be doing it again ! Of the three forms of heat energy
Radiation travels out from the hot surface in a straight line, as does Conduction, The only form of heat energy, that actually acts like we have always been told it
does i.e. 'Heat Rises' Is Convection !

Starting from there, I'm not sure why I myself personally would want to give up the benefit of nice warm built in Furniture for a wall that moves most of my heat
energy closer to being trapped at the ceiling, even if I had ceiling fans ! If thats not what you meant I'm sorry, it has been one of those days !

When you are calculating the distance your 6'' R.M.H. can push gases horizontally you have to ADD ~ 5' ~ for every Round Stovepipe Elbow to equal the increased
Friction losses at that point! You Have to add ~ 10' ~ for the Friction losses of two Round Stovepipe Elbows making a 180 degree turn and add a fudge figure greater
than one Elbow for every clean out 'T" that you have ! Doing a wall be comes much harder !

The pea gravel due to its many small air pockets would be slightly insulative, and would slow the travel of heat energy through to the surface ,which could work out
for you after you learn how to use your R.M.H., but would create a 'gap' between the quick heat off of the barrel and the heat energy from your wall!

For the Good of the Craft ! Be safe, keep warm ! PYRO Logically - Big AL - As always, all Questions and comments are solicited and are Welcome ! A. L.

Lua, i think there's way simpler than zigzaging for vertical mass storage. A bell.

Either a thick massonry bell, or very thick massonry bell. I'm thinking either shutered concrete walls of about 20cm, or bricks used side by side or else, concrete blocks upside down, filled with concrete. If there's no rooms above, insulate the top i'd say or stop before touching the ceiling. Tho you could have the ceiling insulated above and conduction heating all of it too. If you don't need quick heat, you can use pozzolan chimney elements or firebricks bell and fit your rocket inside it. Peter dug a nice one lately for us.

http://technologieforum.forumatic.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=27

there's also a few drawings i've made with sketchup in this thread.

http://donkey32.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=experiment&action=display&thread=511

HtH

Allen, your points are valid and I will consider them. It isn't that I want to do it this way. It's because I have very little room available for the RMH. The house is 2 rooms, with one two steps higher than the other. The only area where the foundation will support this stove is in the lower room, which has built in cabinets on every wall, including a wall bed that folds up, thereby eliminating the potential of a bed heat storage unit. I have a space 4 ft.X 4 ft. where I can build an RMH, in the center of the room.

I am handicapped and walk in pain on crutches. Building with cob is impossible. My attempt with the pea gravel was an effort to create the heat storage without as much physical work. Your point about creating insulation instead of heat storage is especially disheartening. Have you any suggestion to offer about a heat storage medium that an elderly, handicapped, financially challenged woman might manage? The issued of collecting enough firewood each winter is becoming a problem and the RMH seems like a wonderful solution. But, it needs to be something I can put together.

Satamax, so far I haven't managed to get my I-pad to link to the sites you posted. Will try later on the outer. But, what do you mean by a bell?

Lua, here's the explanation of a bell

http://www.stove.ru/index.php?lng=1&rs=16. I know there's another one somewhere, but can't find it.

I think the best way for you would be a two barrels above each other. With the rocket inserted inside, and mass around. If carefully laid, you can have half mass half barrel exposed. Or an air channel between the two, which coold the barrel making the rocket a smidge more efficient. And permits the heating of the mass by the raising hot gasses and radiation. A 3cm gap between bricks and barrel should be suficient, with ports below and above to allow for convection.

Check this thread too, plenty of good ideas at the end.

https://permies.com/t/24658/rocket-stoves/Advice-needed-rocket-won-draw

The pea gravel is insulative. You could also use fist and above sized rocks for your mass, into which the hot gasses go through. Fist sized and above should allow gas flow and not be too insulative. Or you can fit your tubes through this. Not best but possible to work.

Check Peter's two barrel batch box.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpsGO9tY8rY



You could embed the back in concrete, or a bit more. And leave some bare metal on the front for quick heat.

Thank you, Satamax. I've watched the video, visited the other forum, and read the bell stuff. You probably ought to know that another disability of mine is reading and understanding directions. (lol.)

I've been thinking pretty hard this morning about exactly what it is I am trying to accomplish. What matters the most is more efficient use of firewood so we don't have to cut as much. It doesn't matter as much if I have to keep it running throughout the day as it does using less wood. I'm here all day anyway most of the time.

I've got the idea of the firebox, burn tunnel, insulated heat riser inside a barrel, and that this configuration burns the wood more efficiently. There was a series of six videos in YouTube from Peter van der Berg, where he built a small rocket stove without a shred of heat storage, and the temperature coming off the smoke stack was only 140 degrees - indicating a pretty efficient burn in the stove itself.

So, now I'm thinking maybe I need to compromise a bit between the full fledged bench heat storage system and the limited space I have available. What would the draw be like if I were to build the J shaped system (firebox, tunnel, heat riser) having the exit of this unit going into another 55 gallon drum which is filled with a latticework of bricks, and then a stove pipe going out of the top of that into the regular stove pipe out the roof? The critical question here being whether or not the smoke would not flow upward through the bricks because it wasn't flowing through a pipe, but was simply going into the barrel at the base, ambling up through the bricks (hopefully depositing heat along the way) and then out?

Just trying to be creative here, with a severely limited understanding of draw, flow, BTU's et al.

Lua Sage wrote:What would the draw be like if I were to build the J shaped system (firebox, tunnel, heat riser) having the exit of this unit going into another 55 gallon drum which is filled with a latticework of bricks, and then a stove pipe going out of the top of that into the regular stove pipe out the roof? The critical question here being whether or not the smoke would not flow upward through the bricks because it wasn't flowing through a pipe, but was simply going into the barrel at the base, ambling up through the bricks (hopefully depositing heat along the way) and then out?

This is a creative idea, that would be a J-tube rocket heater built into one barrel, exiting out the side close to the floor. If I understand correctly, you are thinking it over to place another barrel beside that first one and place the mass in there as brick lattice. The entrance low at the side, exhaust at the top.

Try to digest this idea: not only the entrance of that second barrel low at the side, but also the exhaust. Not beside each other, but opposite each other, in that case the barrel would act like a true bell. You have to stack the bricks inside the second drum very open to allow the gases to pass. This could be done, being a method to introduce mass in a very simple way. Keep in mind: the space left inside the barrel between inlet and outlet should be 4 times, preferably more, the cross section area of the pipe leading to it. Building the rocket and fitting it inside the first drum would be not very easy but it can be done as well.

May I suggest you look into the possibility of using a Dragon Heater Core to this end? When you are not in a hurry, Donkey is busy to evaluate the 6 inch version. This evaluation could take some time, and I am very curious about his conclusions.

Lua, it needs to be a bell, as otherwise, the stream of air going through the stove when not lit would take the heat away from the bricks. But i quite like the idea. Thought; you can do that above the first barrel, and make another column bell next to it. You could fit aproximately 0.4m3 . Myself i'd go with concrete, you fill each barrel dedicated for mass with another tube, like air con, old bins, gas bottles of 40cm diameter, and pour concrete in between.

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-d_429.html

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/density-materials-d_1652.html

It's easy to mix in small quantities in a bucket with a cordless drill. It can do some air tighting around the pipes you fit through the sides of your barrels. It's cheapish. You'd have about 1T of mass with three barrels. With a little help, you could even do this yourself, may be, if you find barrels with removable tops. As no heavy lifting would be needed.

Lua Sage : Of the last three ideas, Yours, Peters, and Satamax's, there is a workable compromise, with two 55gal barrels close together Your foot print will be
a Vitamin capsule shape very close to 24'' by 50'', you need to rework your building site plans, and then the four of us need to come up with some thing that
you can live with !

For the Craft ! b.s.,k.w. ! PYROLOGICALLY Big AL - As alway Questions/Comments are solicited and Welcome ! A. L.

Sorry it has taken me a couple of days to reply. I've been offline. I'm trying to understand what a bell is. My brother, after reading the links, thinks a that the J unit - the firebox, burn tunnel, and heat riser inside the larger barrel - is a "bell" and that creating two bells is essentially creating a second J unit for air to flow through. Is this close?

lua sending you private message now ! Big Al !

Lua Sage wrote:Sorry it has taken me a couple of days to reply. I've been offline. I'm trying to understand what a bell is. My brother, after reading the links, thinks a that the J unit - the firebox, burn tunnel, and heat riser inside the larger barrel - is a "bell" and that creating two bells is essentially creating a second J unit for air to flow through. Is this close?

Nope, the bell is a hot gas container. One intake, from any stove, with hot gasses, as they enter the bell at the bottom, hot gasses; being lighter than heavier ones; rise and stay stuck there untill they cool down, kind of, then they get replaced by hotter gasses, and get pushed down and out the exhaust side. It's as simple as this.

A J tube rocket can work on the same principle, but isn't always. The barrel hasn't enough space to store the gasses, it's used as a radiator, to quickly cool down the gasses which exhaust the J tube, via the big surface area of the barrel, and in turn, create a draft, well i'm not completely sure about that part. It's how it's suposed to work, but i haven't done the calcs to verify it. Nor am i able to But some others have increased the "barrel gap" by lots, and then it acts as a normal bell. If you keep the side gap tight, it can be a bit of both worlds too. A bell "slows" the volume flow. I mean, let say there's a six inches tube entering a 40 inch bell, the volume which is in the tube takes a lot of time to fill the bigger bell, as well, the gasses, cooling, take less space, so it slows the volume flow down. Then thoses gasses go out the exhaust side, which is a six inch too (both of theses tubes being at the bottom) re gaining their speed to fit the six inch tube, tho, being more dense, you can push even more gasses "mass" through that tube, being more dense, they might have a little more friction on the tube wall tho. The bell gives time to thoses gasses to exchange their heat with the surounding mater, would it be metal, quickly cooled by the surounding air, or any other material, which if dense and thick can store energy (heat) too. And release it slower. HtH.

Max.

Lua Sage wrote:
So, now I'm thinking maybe I need to compromise a bit between the full fledged bench heat storage system and the limited space I have available. What would the draw be like if I were to build the J shaped system (firebox, tunnel, heat riser) having the exit of this unit going into another 55 gallon drum which is filled with a latticework of bricks, and then a stove pipe going out of the top of that into the regular stove pipe out the roof? The critical question here being whether or not the smoke would not flow upward through the bricks because it wasn't flowing through a pipe, but was simply going into the barrel at the base, ambling up through the bricks (hopefully depositing heat along the way) and then out?

Just trying to be creative here, with a severely limited understanding of draw, flow, BTU's et al.

I wonder if you could have an exit going to a wall w/oven. A hybrid of a russian stove.