Hello.

I have recently built myself a rocket stove out of a 16 gallon grease barrel. I am using it to heat my shop while I am in there working. I tested it outside before I installed it with no problems. Now that I have it installed, I have discovered one problem. Being a rocket stove it has no mass to retain heat. That makes start up much more difficult. I was not smart enough to build anything into the system that would facilitate startup when the system is cold. Before I (finally!) got a fire burning, I actually had a draft coming out of the feed tube.

Does anyone have any tips, short of a system redesign/rebuild, that might help me out?

I made a short video of the stove in operation. Please don't be to critical of me :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQASNwDAScg

Scott Farrell :So you built a Rocket stove out of metal, and it works- For Now! There is an old saying, for the guy with a hammer all problems are nails! I had a neighbor who drove
dump trucks for years, He was convinced all problems could be solved with a load or two of gravel. I certainly could not match your welding job- unfortunately, all Metal Rocket Mass
Heaters are doomed .Regardless of how many other Rocket Heater Type devices you have seen on U-Tube, You have not seen any recent pictures of 2-3 year old rocket Mass
Heaters RMHs because they don't exist !

With your present Mass-less system about 60% of your heat is going up the chimney, and you don't have a good idea whether you really want to proceed farther !

The first thing you should have done was go to Richsoil.com, clickon> the RMH/Energy Icon, and watch that whole series of videos, one of them about #6-#7-#8, will show
you how you should have burned the paint off of your barrel be for you made a Rocket -type heater out of IT !

Because you have some catching up to do, PLEASE! go to > rocketstoves.com, to download your PDF Copy $15.oo, of Ianto Evans' book 'rocket mass heaters", With
~100,000~ built world wide, Most of them have been made following 'The Book', and 95% of All the First Builds (that Worked) followed 'The Book'

You need to take down the tin that you have fastened to the wall completely and rehang it with a 2'' - 4'' air gap, other wise you will eventually have a fire behind the tin sheeting !

You can always take a Lit Bernzomatic Propane torch, and stick it down your feed tube, into your burn tunnel and warm things up that way Then use newspaper as you start your
fire ! For the Good of the Craft ! Big AL !

Al, thank you for the reply.

I was thinking of a small propane torch as well. Just wondering if there were any other ideas out there.

The stove is built of metal because that is what I had on hand. I don't plan on this being a permanent installation so I see no need to build something up out of brick, mortar and/or cob.

I realize I am losing heat out of the chimney however, I also stated that this is just for heating a shop while I am in it. It was not built to be a rocket mass heater, just a rocket heater or rocket stove.

Yup, I know the paint should be removed. However, is burning it off really the best way to do it? Doesn't seem very eco-friendly to me. The plan was to find someone to media blast it for me but, well, that plan didn't happen. Read the comments I have on the YouTube video. I realize I have made many mistakes on this build, not removing the paint being just one of them.

The 'tin' is old road signs and is quite thick. Also, hard to tell in the video, there is a gap.

You really, REALLY like pushing 'The Book' don't you. Are you sure you are not getting some kind of commission for it? Anyway, the build, flaws and all, works. It's not pretty, and it is far from perfect but, it does the job. My plan is to learn from my mistakes and eventually move on to a much prettier and effective rocket stove.

Again, thank you for the reply Al. Seems that the propane torch may be the way to go.

Scott Farrell : Paint on the barrel, Leaving it there is the worst thing you could do !, You are burning it off and then trapping the nasties to be breathed in, or transported
on your clothing back into the house.Burning it off a incinerator temps will break most of the compounds down into elemental Atoms, instead of the noxious compounds
You are releasing now! After The burn, you can scrape up the remainder and use your local mushrooms to further breakdown and lock up the dross, or you can pay
someone to deal with your problem and trust that his disposal plan is somehow better.

I harp on 'the book', because it allows us to use a standard language, so that you know what I mean when I Talk about Height:length:Height Ratios, And Constant cross
sectional areas, I make nothing for Touting 'the book' except knowing that If everyone used 'The Book' A great deal of time/trouble and wasted money would be eliminated!

Congratulations on your metal brake work, if the tin is made up of old road signs you are a pro ! Get a second opinion from a volunteer fireman that you trust. Because of
the closeness to the wall, and the amount of heat being radiated off of the barrel and pipe, It really really looks like you need to improve the standoff distance considerable!

Keep coming back here to Permies.com, you can always find someone to talk about what you want to talk about, hopefully by next spring we can convince you that for little
more space that that of a work bench you can have a rocket heater with mass that will more than double the amount of useful heat you can get out of a load of wood! Big AL