Rocket Mass Heater wrkshp in upstate NY April 2015

I have finally gathered all my receipts and figured out how much I spent on materials I had to purchase. $578.85 does not include a few tools I bought. I only used 1/9 of the sand delivered so I prorated that, although there was a minimum order to get the truck here. I think we only used half of the insulation (right, Erica?) so the other half will be saved for the next build (my house!) as will the fireclay, I cut both of those totals in half. Local (read that - free) materials we used included clay from the site, stone in all shapes and sizes. Lots of stone... Water. That cost doesn't include gas for the vehicle or our time to run around and find all these items. This was in the Syracuse, NY area. I think more planning ahead could have brought that cost down some and would definitely have saved on the scurrying, in fact, some items like the insulation and perlite could have been ordered and shipped to the site. When it's time for me to build my next one, that's what I'll do. The site is totally off grid and no generator was used for any of the work so that was another savings. It seemed at the time I was spending a lot of money (I for sure did!) but I don't think the total cost was all that bad considering everything and the heater came out really wonderful!

Awesome build Valerie ! Looks really good. Thanks for sharing all the photos. You're going to love your new RMH ! Be sure to show & tell everybody you meet, how if they burn wood they should also have a rmh in their life !