Fuel other than wood for rocket stoves.

Besides wood, what other fuel has anyone else used with success in rocket stoves or mass heaters?

Hello Paul!


There are lots of options.  
We burn a lot of cardboard.   Walnut shells work great.   Pine cones are good too.  

I also burn just tiny twigs from bushes.    

The smaller the diameter of the wood, the hotter the fire will burn.   Because you are storing the heat in the mass this means you can heat your home with a very small amount of sticks and twigs.  

i have run my masonry cookstove on cut and dried sods of turf ---peat--- more ash created than wood---i have seen old youtube clips on Larry Winiarski  running rocket masonry stove on pellets---maybe made of wood but i think any dried plant matter dried /shredded/pelleted  would be similar---helped my neighbor  shred and hydraulic press ---dried out cut  field rushes ---made a hockey puck sized disc ---they burned well in the wood burning range ---

The Sioux and other tribes used a convenient turf substitute,  the humble buffalo chip. Aged and dried, naturally. Out on the vast arid plains, their only  firewood could have been 200 miles away. Pine and other quality wood often was wisely reserved for tepees, travois, et al.

David C Paul wrote:Besides wood, what other fuel has anyone else used with success in rocket stoves or mass heaters?

It would help to give us some idea of your ecosystem.

What are the plentiful natural resources, or human resources that might be available.

We heat with traditional wood stoves, and I burn all my chicken bones, but they need a really hot fire, so wood goes in with them.

We are near a light industrial area, so still wood, but damaged packing skids are free for picking up. They would work OK in a RMH, but the nails would be a PITA (pain in the ass). A regular wood stove is easier to shovel out, and then I use a magnet and sieve arrangement to get the nails out.

Jay is right that whats available around you is a huge driver. The convenience of your fuel is everything.

If you have animals, their manure can be bricked and dried and burned quite effectively for heat and power. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFHz9G8Ctf0

Probably smells quite bad but I think it's an excellent fuel. It competes with your manure composting process probably.

Other places compress sawdust if they are producing a lot, and burn that.  

Bottom line, whatever biomass is surplus to your operation, find a way to burn that.

I had a vegetable oil drip on my woodburner.
Not a rocket stove, just a wood burner.
 It left a layer of carbon on the bottom of the wood burner.
Basically glued all the fire bricks together. I'm not sure that's a bad thing.
It burns hot. Extends the fire.
And doesn't smell bad.
Would probably burn very clean in a rocket stove.

It's not something that can be grown on the farm.
But it can be found during a trip into town.
Lots of free sources,.. you just got to poke around.

Hi, near my home, a company grows and harvests miscanthus, a giant perennial grass. The stalks dry out each year during the off-season, then are harvested and shredded like wood chips. Its calorific value is quite high, around 4.2 kW/kg.