Heating home with Rock-it with pic

Weather took a dive here in Mi 19 tonight

congrats on the free heat joe! what is your flue pipe temps on that stove?

Don't know but I can wrap my hands around pipe and keep them there just barely lol. Yes FREE heat is a godsend.

Wrap hands where it exits through luann

Do you have a 6" J tube? The feed looks that big, as does the exhaust. I was thinking you had built it with a ~4.5" core. Adding something to pull some more heat off the exhaust before it goes out the window would boost the heat output.
Might want to take down those curtains

Satamax Antone wrote:http://donkey32.proboards.com/attachment/download/622

Max-
You are just an endless source of referencing off the wall cool ideas.

John Adamz wrote:

Satamax Antone wrote:http://donkey32.proboards.com/attachment/download/622

Max-
You are just an endless source of referencing off the wall cool ideas.

I don't know if it's cool or else, but that my workshop stove. Started to build it when Peter was finishing developping the batch rocket. What i need to change, is the workshop now!

I thought it would ilustrate the possibility to have more heat extraction by having a bigger bell

i was thinking the same thing as john. maybe another tank, or two, inline to pull more heat from it?

A barrel bell?

http://donkey32.proboards.com/attachment/download/668

http://donkey32.proboards.com/attachment/download/667

I'm going to throw in a note of caution re the idea of pulling out too much heat before venting the exhaust - we've got a fairly short barrel/heat pump here, so I would imagine the exhaust is delivering a fair bit of pull through the system - obvs you can work a trade-off with the height of the exhaust, heat in the gas, and a nice clear linear flow. Not sure I would put that through a significant mass, or do anything to slow it down. That said, it's a sweet little unit - looks really neat. It's great to see what folks are putting together. Agree about the curtains - they have to go

cant see your links, but yes another tank/barrel. or maybe fins on the pipe and tank?

if you loose draft from cold flue, why not rout it back next to the tank to heat up? are you still robbing heat from it all by doing this?

ronald bush wrote:cant see your links, but yes another tank/barrel. or maybe fins on the pipe and tank?

if you loose draft from cold flue, why not rout it back next to the tank to heat up? are you still robbing heat from it all by doing this?

Theses links are from this post on donkey's board.

http://donkey32.proboards.com/post/8368/thread

if that was your thread, can i ask why you let it die in dec.? that was a nice read on your progress. great trial and error info.

thanks again for link

ronald bush wrote:if that was your thread, can i ask why you let it die in dec.? that was a nice read on your progress. great trial and error info.

thanks again for link

Well, in the winter, i work at for a chairlift company, and i admit, i haven't used the stove much then, because in my days off, i've done a fair bit of tossing. And worked on my crane. Knee deep in the snow, to get it ready for the spring. Plus, that thing is a chore to start up every time, because of the lack of proper chimney and being underground! If i get it hot and run everyday, the flow doesn't reverse. But if left 5 days in a row cold, i need at least a pint of denatured alcohol to start it up, and it gets tiring.

Now a rocket powered chairlift - THAT would be something!

Shane McKee wrote:Now a rocket powered chairlift - THAT would be something!

Well, electricity from the two nearest dams is plenty good enough for me I've worked 5 years on a lift which had a 400kva generator, with a 14 litre cat D6 engine! What a stinkin beast that was. We start to have diesel/eletric snow cats. When i was saying that we would have electric cats one day, to the mechanics here, twenty years back, they were thinking i was mad

been thinking about the cold start up deal. could a guy attach a shelf with a hood to the flue pipe, to set a small candle on. light the candle long enough to warm the pipe and get things started. or you could just use a small propane torch to warm it up faster.

For cold startups, i use denatured alcohol!

Stuff the sticks in the feed tube, pour alcohol on top, set light to it. Normaly, within seconds i have the flow reversing the right way if my system is still lukewarm.