Building a house - where to put the RMH??

Just found this site tonight! New user here. I live in the lakes region of New Hampshire and I'll hopefully be building a new home for our family soon. With a blank slate, where should I plan to locate the RMH? My first thought is right in the middle of the basement to allow the heat to travel up through the house. Probably staying around 1500 square feet upstairs. Would having a chimney stack going up through the house add to the thermal mass, or would the heat dissipate to quickly in that? Any thoughts or advice would be great! Thanks.

Tawes

Hi Tawes;
Welcome to Permies!
Great question!
Your RMH will be the most enjoyable on the floor you are living on.
If your basement is a daily living area, then it would be a fine location; however, if you hang out on the first floor, then that is where you want your mass.
When operated as intended, an RMH is only burned once or twice a day.
You heat the bricks with the super hot fire and then enjoy the heat that radiates off them.
It is quite different from burning wood in a metal box, trying to heat your home.
With a box stove, it is generally hot right next to the stove and cooler the farther you get from it.
With an RMH and a brick bell, your home will feel like it has central heat. The difference between them is truly amazing.
I built one in our 100-year-old home this year, and it is the best improvement ever!
Once you go, Brick, you will never go back!

Tawea,

With area of your house I would recommend building two:

The first one in the bedroom area of the house, preferably the heater would be shared between the rooms.

The second one would be for cooking/baking and would be placed in the kitchen with the small bell (turned on on demand with a damper) heating the bathroom wall. It was a popular solution n Europe in older times - cooking stove with additional small heating bell.

The interior of a properly built Batchbox stove can run over 2000F
The gasses exiting the chimney are 140F- 220F
The difference is being stored in the bricks.
Your stove pipe can be a regular single wall up to your roof.
For safety's sake, install a Class A roof jack with insulated pipe up and out.

What a fantastic opportunity to pick  your house design AND stove design, at the same time.  Something very few get to do.   I would like to say, that I think you would love the effects of Radiant heat (stove in living area)  vs transferred heat if the stove is in the basement.   I have the latter,  I have a 7" stove that absolutely works as planned but again it is in the basement.  I can heat the basement very well, and transfer this heat up through open registers and the like, but it is just not the same.

Of course the plus of in the basement, is Keeping a winter supply of wood there (before winter)

The comment about perhaps two stoves, I think is a good one. Such fun it would be.

Because of what my grandfather thought would be right ( midwestern large square house)  my stove would struggle to heat the entire house, not because of the stove design, but because of the heat transfer ability from basement to living space. There is so much mass in the basement already. Of course with a new structure, you could have all of this mass insulated 100% better than mine.

Remember, during your research, that the facade of any single bell stove, or bell/bench is endless, by simply adding a second bell wrap of what ever you desire  (stone mass not wood)  This includes, granite, marble,soapstone ( would be a great choice) and every good quality tile.   With my stove out of sight to 99% of visitors, I experimented on all 4 sides of the 7" stove. This facade covering (2nd layer to your bell) is simple, the choices to cover with are endless, so I think you have a great experience ahead of you.

Best of success.

Hello Tawea, welcome to Permies!

Heating preferences are personal, and it's always interesting to discuss the different views.
Our take on heating was to get rid of the old (old! and broken) wood cookers (providing radiating heat) and to replace them with two rocket stoves.

The first rocket mass heater has been built, it's in our kitchen, the largest part of the mass is under the kitchen table. We'll be improving it this coming summer.
We'll also be building a second rocket mass heater, possibly a batch box heater, that will heat the living room and bathroom.

Also check out this floor warming rocket heater solution!