my homemade wood stove

Lyle Miller : Congratulations on hearing the Roar of the Dragon living inside your Rocket burner ! This does qualify you as a Rocketeer !

For many reasons you are going to have longevity problems with this build, and at some time in the future you will look back on this build and Vow to use this
build as a good example of a bad way to start !

Right now I want to talk about your exposures ! You are too close to the wall, with this unit and the materials from which it is made 30'' is close enough. If
You wanted to you could half that distance with a reflective barrier with a 2'' - 4'' air gap between itself and the existing wall!

You need a proper Thimble/Jack to protect your exterior wall from your stove pipe, Yes I know you have seen other Stove pipes 'just run out through the
window before- but in those cases the exhaust had been cooled down close to Body temperature, having given up its heat to the Cob Thermal Mass !

I suspect that the Strings I see on the left hand side of the window go to a 'Venetian Blind,' Please remove the whole 'Venetian Blind', it and its strings are
flammable even if the individual V.Blind Slats are not the Cheap Plastic / Flammable I think they are !

With in 10 minutes of burning Nylon strings dripping flaming Plastic into your tinder/kindling box you will have a fire that could not be put out with a 10 pound
Fire Extinguisher !

To the Right of your Rocket-type Burner you appear to have set up a bed, with a sleeping bag or comforter cover ! Again this is much-to-close And The Petro-
chemical materials that the bedding is made from are a potential Bonfire of Flammable Materials, or if properly treated to reduce flammability Likely fatal to
breath ! As bedding that slides off of the end of the bed is sliding toward your heater, I expect that 4-5 feet is a minimum safe gap !

As I have no view of the ceiling in your room I cannot speak to any potential Unprotected Exposures There !

That Just leaves the floor ! It appears that you have used pieces of Broken Cement block placed directly down onto a new laid Perigo-type floor treatment.
Generally the finish coating on this material is very thin and needs to be protected from being scuffed by surfaces as Rough and cheese-grater coarse as an
unpainted/sealed CinderBlock ! Also the Concrete pieces have two other main faults, their internal chemical bonds within the block will Fail within the temper-
atures they can be exposed to, and they will Transfer a Lot of heat energy through themselves into the floor !

Perhaps you were confused by the common history and similarities of the Rocket Cook Stoves, and the Rocket Mass Heaters, While a clay sand mixture, or
better sand, or wood ashes can be used as insulation in a Rocket cook stove, in a Rocket Mass Heater RMH, the Clay sand combination can't be called insulating.
Perhaps you were thinking of Structural Cob !

With no use of any Thermal Mass to store the Heat of your hot Exhaust Gases, Approximately 60 % of your heat is being vented to the outdoors !

Please address these issues, they were raised for your safety as well as the safety of other new Members here at Permies who might see this build and proceed
to Emulate your mistakes! Come back here often, With over 21,000 members world wide, you can come here 24 / 7 and find someone who wants to talk about
what you want to talk about ! For the Good of the Crafts ! BIG AL !

Late Note : In most Residential Dwellings- Code says that there will be one working 'Smoke/Heat Detector' per Floor level within the Structure, If your building
meets that minimum code, The Smoke heat detector is in the hallway outside your door and will alert The Other People that there is a fire, after your room
becomes fully engulfed !

You should take it upon yourself to test all of the detectors in your dwelling and add a Smoke/Heat Detector, AND Carbon Monoxide detector to your room, if only
to protect the other members of the house ! ( This is coming from an E.M.T. Fireman with 35+ years paid and Volunteer Service !) A. L.

To address your concerns, no there is not a bed next to the stove so no worries there, the stove is in the living room under constant supervision. It is a rental and I'm not concerned about scratching the floor when the floor in the bathroom is seconds from falling through, however the two broken pieces of block were temporary and have a full size paver under it. As far as the vent pipe is concerned, I'm not worried by it cause after two hours I can still put my hand on it where as the stove itself I can not. As far as wall distance, the wall does not get any heat either and the picture may be misleading, for it is 24" from the wall, the vent piping does not go straight down and 90° in to the stove it's more of a 45°. And the wood box is not right under the string either.
I did many test burns in the shop before I even brought it home to the possibility of endangering my family with an untested piece of equipment. It was hard enough telling my wife and father- in-law I was going to build a rocket stove/heater.
As for the design and materials I used, I used what I had on hand and could not build a conventional size/style rocket mass heater. Knowing metal like I do, and being a rather decent (certified) welderI am confident that my little piece of crap will get me through the winter very well (and has through "Hercules")
Came to this site because I have heard Paul on TSP and really like his interviews with Jack, and heard all he was doing with rocket mass heaters and was extremely intrigued and was hoping to find more help/info on ratios of feed tubes, burn tubes, risers and such or that my little piece of crap might help someone else in my position build something a little better on a small scale... But I guess unless it is made out of a 55 gal drum and fire brick and cob, one is going to get attacked by fire marshal bill and be told how useless their time and effort was... May be I should have just listened to my father-in-law and gotten an old fashion wood burning stove.
No worries, I may lurk about in the different forms and see what ideas there are on other projects but I damn sure won't post anymore builds, projects, ideas or help

That didn't go very well. One of the dangers of posting photos of unfinished projects is that others may assume that you're done.

Drop in some updated photos with some info on materials, and let's try this again.

I pulled this little stove out of operation last fall when I moved, I did not install it in anything for last winter. I did do a thorough inspection through the clean out doors and the fire box and there is no sign of mettle spalling, I think I have been able to keep that from occurring by limiting the air flow into the fire box once I get the stove hot and I would hear the fire popping and making a helicopter sound until the sound stops.
anyway now it is sitting in my garage just waiting for me.

I have an ideal take a 3/4 inch thick steel an set build you a bakers box take out the top of the stove an set the bakers box onto of the stove with snap latches an make sure you put at least 20 holes in bottom of bakers box an have a thicker piece of steel on inside were you can move it back an forth to cover up some holes an it should regulate temp to we're you can bake about anything would like  love to see if my ideal works an by the way your stove looks amazing an also  you can weld flat metal on inside of bakers box to set your racks on


Sincerely joe