Inexpensive vacuum formed ceramic fiber heat risers here in USA

Gary Ebert wrote:I need a couple of these risers -- is anyone interested in doing a group buy?

I can't organize another group buy right now (due to health & finances) but I want to say these are pretty sturdy and cheap. I was pleasantly surprised. Worth the small investment.

I have a couple of these left over from people deciding not to go this route, so please let me know if anyone is still interested.

And if you received one or two and have any reports positive or negative, please share here. (I'm still recovering from some health trouble so I've been unable to do anything with mine yet.)

Brian
I would definitely purchase 2 of the risers.  Please send me a email or message and I will send you funds immediately.

I would love to get one of these risers. Just came across the thread this morning looking at the update about the rocket project.

Would one of these cope with the intense heat at the base of a batch-box rocket heat riser?

Hi folks,
My apologies, continued health issues and a move forced me to put all the rocket stove considerations on indefinite hold. When I'm able to get back to it, hopefully in another couple months, I'll check back here to see if anyone is still interested.
Thanks,
Brian

Well does anyone have any results to report on the risers. Looks like something I'd like to try.

Brian,

Did you purchase the vacuum formed ceramic fiber heat risers?
If Yes, how did it workout?
Can they still be purchased, or do you know anyone with two to sell?


Scott
srobuck56@gmail.com

Brian, I am a local of Johnstown myself I was wondering what sort of setup (if any) you have and maybe we could get together for a coffee sometime and chat?

I just talked to someone who contacted TemTek directly and ordered some of these risers for their rocket stove build, so if you're looking for some still, you might want to try the company at the contact info I provided in my first post. They were great to work with and very accommodating. They supply high temp insulation and ceramic fiber products for the steel industry around Pittsburgh PA.

Jeffrey Sullivan wrote:Well does anyone have any results to report on the risers. Looks like something I'd like to try.

I have my 6" batch box stove built but I'm still building a masonry bench so I have not fired it up yet. I bought an indoor portable 6'x11' therapy pool for rehab and exercise following strokes last spring, and I'm incorporating 100' of copper tubing coils in the bench with a 12v circulator pump so I can heat the pool with the heat from the bench. It's open ended similar to a thermosiphon so steam should not be an issue. I found a barrel stove cheap on Craigslist so I cut that in half to use the door end on the stove and as a base to build on, and the other half as a manifold for the end of my 8' bench. I mixed a bag of concrete and poured it in half the barrel for a base for the big firebricks that make up the sides of the stove, and used a 6" bimetal hole saw to cut the flue holes in the 55 gallon barrel and the bench manifold.

Jon McLain wrote:Brian, I am a local of Johnstown myself I was wondering what sort of setup (if any) you have and maybe we could get together for a coffee sometime and chat?

I'd be happy to Jon, shoot me a PM and we'll get together. Photos above and below.

I got big 18"x9"x4 1/2" firebricks out of a local building supply salvage yard for 75 cents a piece so that's what I'm using. They weigh 55lbs each and the bench should end up with around 35 of them or 2500lbs of mass. I'm using ceramic fiber blanket insulation instead of mortar between the bricks and to seal the top since my masonry skills are non existent. I'm using two layers of 2'x2'x 2" thick sidewalk pavers on top. I don't know their weight but there's 8 of them in addition to the 2500lbs worth of firebricks.

The bench will be 8' long x2.5" high x2' deep but due to the 4.5" thickness of the firebricks the internal surface area will be a good bit smaller. I haven't done the math yet but I suspect it's well within the limits.

I lined the firebox with 1" ceramic fiber board and created a unique secondary air delivery system out of firebrick and channels in the ceramic board. I haven't fired it up yet but I have no reason to think it won't work. (Correct me quick if I missed something!)

The secondary air will pass under the firebricks, with a path cut in the vertical firebricks to allow air to pass through the channels in the vertical ceramic fiber boards into the vertical ceramic riser burn chamber.

All of the exhaust uses 6" black pipe.  I have two 6" pipes from the initial rocket stove barrel to the masonry bench to give it lots of room to breathe, with a bypass with a damper for start up going directly up the chimney and access to the chimney flue via clean out T to heat it up with a firestarter if necessary.

Brian, lois good son far.

Satamax Antone wrote:Brian, lois good son far.

Thanks Satamax. I just had 4 strokes in March, so this has been a major undertaking and a lot of effort. But it's been good therapy for both my body and my mind.

Has anyone proposed a secondary air delivery system of this type in your experience?

Here's a better detail of the air channels in the finished vertical piece of ceramic fiber board and the firebrick that stands in front of it at the entrance to the ceramic riser. (Similar channels could be made in 1 full thickness piece of insulated firebrick.)

Brian,

Your stove looks like a beast, looking forward to reading about your results,
I'm not sure but that might have been me you refered to about Temtek.
I did send an email, but had not placed an order, just inquired if they still produce the risers.

Being disabled from strokes myself, I don't have the resources to buy minimum quantity.
My town is so small, I don't even know if there is a store to drop off UPS. lol

Anyway, I was seriously hoping you still had some, but that's the way the cookie crumbles, or in my case the perlite refractory of my first attempt.

I guess I'll need to try, try, again.

Continued success with your stove build and rehab.

Scott Robuck

I'm developing an idea for cheap/easy movement/distribution of heat using a body of water as a "heat sink." Please let me know if this idea isn't feasible for any reason that I might be overlooking.

It would be an open system, and would involve using one or more of those 67 gallon galvanized stock tank/troughs from Tractor Supply. You could camouflage one (or not) where you need the heat and fill it with water, cover it with cheap pieces of solar cover to prevent evaporation, then use garden hose,  pex tubing or PVC and a solar/12v circulation pump to run water to a masonry bench, heat it by running it through copper coils in the bench, then return the heated water to the trough/tank. You'd "store" that heat in the trough to be slowly released in the room you need to move the heat to.

Many people run copper tubing coils through barrel stoves next to their pool in a similar fashion to successfully heat their pool, with the water supplied by a separate circulator pump or diverted from the main pool pump/plumbing. The copper is directly exposed to the wood flame but these are open systems, limiting risk of steam explosion. Water temp typically enters around mid 70's and returns heated 30+/- degrees hotter.

I'm limiting my copper tubing coils to the masonry bench to further minimize risks.

The reason I believe this would work is that when our kids were small, I put a 10'x15' oval above ground pool in our basement for fun/exercise. We had an electric heat pump pool heater from a 28' round pool to heat it, and the electricity we burned to heat that pool was way more than offset by the money we saved in natural gas heating costs for our old drafty Johnstown house. The body of water in the pool acted as a big heat sink that slowly heated the house, even though the pool temp was only in the 80's.

I'm using a 6'x11' x4' deep therapy pool for this purpose in my basement with cpvc tubing to run the pool water to the rocket heater bench and back. I'll use a solar cover to minimize evaporation/humidity issues.

A system of several of those troughs/tanks could be heated with simple garden hoses with a 12v circulator pump easily/cheaply, heating various areas as needed. The 12v 3gallon per minute pump from Harbor Freight is only $32.95 right now and has threaded input and outputs for garden hoses and will run on a cheap jump starter battery that's kept plugged in or charged with solar panels or a thermoelectric generator on the wood stove.

Scott Robuck wrote:Brian,

Your stove looks like a beast, looking forward to reading about your results,
I'm not sure but that might have been me you refered to about Temtek.
I did send an email, but had not placed an order, just inquired if they still produce the risers.

Being disabled from strokes myself, I don't have the resources to buy minimum quantity.
My town is so small, I don't even know if there is a store to drop off UPS. lol

Anyway, I was seriously hoping you still had some, but that's the way the cookie crumbles, or in my case the perlite refractory of my first attempt.

I guess I'll need to try, try, again.

Continued success with your stove build and rehab.

Scott Robuck
srobuck56@gmail.com

Thanks Scott. Keep an eye out for an email.

Cutting the holes in the 55gallon barrel with a 6" bimetal hole saw and cordless drill:

Messaged you (purple moosage?) Whatever it's called

John,

Not all mushrooms are edible, and some that are should not be eaten.

"Purple Moosage" lol

Scott Robuck wrote:John,

Not all mushrooms are edible, and some that are should not be eaten.

"Purple Moosage" lol

Scott I found it humorous as well but that is what this forum calls their messaging system. I did get a good laugh about the mushrooms.

I have had interest in these systems for quite sometime. I had thought of putting the main barrel system in a small shed area attached to my garage (insurance regulations about wood burner and garage) with the mass in the garage with a few ducts exchanging the barrel heated air to the bulk of my garage and the mass as an obvious place to sit and enjoy the slower radiant heat.

On a side not i am very impressed with Brians use of barrel stove for the core of his unit! Got me thinking about using a steel 275 gallon oil storage similarly on one side, and you would have enough room on the other half to put the riser and it would be similar to a j tube system with barrel combined into one unit with relatively flat parts to easily connect the exhaust duct. Plus it makes it a relatively small footprint, and thinking more into it, I wonder if I could somehow plumb an extra smaller duct into the exhaust system to use as an exhaust vent for if I'm working on a vehicle in my garage to get the vehicle's exhaust emissions out of the building.

Great job Brian looking forward to seeing this come together

Jon McLain wrote:Messaged you (purple moosage?) Whatever it's called

Thanks. You have a response waiting somewhere in those purple mushrooms now too

Scott Robuck wrote:John,

Not all mushrooms are edible, and some that are should not be eaten.

"Purple Moosage" lol

As they said in my ER rotation, "There are old mushroom pickers, and there are bold mushroom pickers, but there are no old bold mushroom pickers."

“Purple Moosage” could still be traced back to mushrooms, Watching the videos by Paul, Erica, and Ernie it looks like Paul and Ernie are spending a lot of time in the woods.

As for your 275 gallon Rocket/Batch are you think stoke it in fall, and it burns until spring??

Scott

Scott Robuck wrote:“Purple Moosage” could still be traced back to mushrooms, Watching the videos by Paul, Erica, and Ernie it looks like Paul and Ernie are spending a lot of time in the woods.

As for your 275 gallon Rocket/Batch are you think stoke it in fall, and it burns until spring??

Scott

Honestly that idea came to me only after seeing the barrel stove conversion from Brian. I think for me it's be more of a light it an hour or so until I use the garage. I would ideally like to use something like this to assist heating the house but again I am limited based on code and insurance.  Now if I had a mass heat storage I may consider lighting more regularly but it also depends on how often I use my garage.
Brian by using water as a heat storage medium your essentially making a wood fired boiler only your exchange method of the heat is different. This idea is great and I've been contemplating this as well. I am fine on both codes and insurance to put my own wood fired boiler (heater) outside with no problems. So perhaps in another thread these ideas could be discussed further if your idea of pulling heat from the mass via copper coils proves effective.

Jon McLain wrote:
Brian by using water as a heat storage medium your essentially making a wood fired boiler only your exchange method of the heat is different. This idea is great and I've been contemplating this as well. I am fine on both codes and insurance to put my own wood fired boiler (heater) outside with no problems. So perhaps in another thread these ideas could be discussed further if your idea of pulling heat from the mass via copper coils proves effective.

Hopefully by the end of this week or early next week I'll do the initial firing. So I'll know more soon enough.

It just depends on how difficult it proves to complete and seal up the bench and the plumbing to and from the pool. But I have all the parts. Hopefully my brother (a plumber) will give me a hand soldering the copper coils this weekend.

One more view of the firebox (and then a little miracle - it's level!):

John.

Got the proof about mushrooms and Ernie, I just received the email about the various products Erica is offering for sale.
One of the items is "Ernie's Chocolate Truffle Recipe".

I think Truffles are what the French call mushrooms.

Scott

Scott Robuck wrote:John.

Got the proof about mushrooms and Ernie, I just received the email about the various products Erica is offering for sale.
One of the items is "Ernie's Chocolate Truffle Recipe".

I think Truffles are what the French call mushrooms.

Scott

Now that is funny stuff there! Here's looking forward to some test results!

Jon McLain wrote:
Now that is funny stuff there! Here's looking forward to some test results!

Hi Jon,
Did you get my Purple Moosage? If not shoot me an email at docpolycarp(at)yahoo(dot)com

(I wish I could "Hurry up" but after having had 5 strokes, and with these blocks weighing 55lbs and who knows how much the 2'x2' pavers weigh, I have to go very slow and very carefully. I've already had one trip to the ER over this project and I can't let it happen again.)

Brian Kopp wrote:

Jon McLain wrote:
Now that is funny stuff there! Here's looking forward to some test results!

Hi Jon,
Did you get my Purple Moosage? If not shoot me an email at docpolycarp(at)yahoo(dot)com

(I wish I could "Hurry up" but after having had 5 strokes, and with these blocks weighing 55lbs and who knows how much the 2'x2' pavers weigh, I have to go very slow and very carefully. I've already had one trip to the ER over this project and I can't let it happen again.)

Hello Brian, I did just now get to respond. I am curious how your secondary air vents will work. Are you thinking those will work instead of a p-tube? Also curious to your plans for your mass? I was thinking of doing a pebble style with larger top stones myself as it seems Mr. Wheaton had good results with it, not as great as cob but the faster heat transfer may work better in my particular case.

Jon McLain wrote:

Brian Kopp wrote:

Jon McLain wrote:
Now that is funny stuff there! Here's looking forward to some test results!

Hi Jon,
Did you get my Purple Moosage? If not shoot me an email at docpolycarp(at)yahoo(dot)com

(I wish I could "Hurry up" but after having had 5 strokes, and with these blocks weighing 55lbs and who knows how much the 2'x2' pavers weigh, I have to go very slow and very carefully. I've already had one trip to the ER over this project and I can't let it happen again.)

Hello Brian, I did just now get to respond. I am curious how your secondary air vents will work. Are you thinking those will work instead of a p-tube? Also curious to your plans for your mass? I was thinking of doing a pebble style with larger top stones myself as it seems Mr. Wheaton had good results with it, not as great as cob but the faster heat transfer may work better in my particular case.

Yes, the secondary air tubes will replace the p channel/tube. They actually will let in air between the first set of firebricks on each side (where the kitchen knife was inserted to guide the interior holes in the ceramic fiber board) in addition to the air inlets on the barrel stove below the door.

The bench is a "bell" and represents the entire mass. With the pavers on top it should be 2800-3000 lbs total. A bell is different from running a flue through a cob mass. See more on bell theory here: http://batchrocket.eu/en/building#belltheory

Thank you for the link. After reading it again it appears as your primary quick heat release will obviously be the 55g barrel. And it would appear your bell is just going to be a large hollow box of those large pavers? Does it make a difference in how far back your inlet and outlet are apart? It looks like they are right over top one another. Would it be beneficial or mearly a waste of resources to put the initial inlet from the barrel near the back and the final exhaust near the front?

Jon McLain wrote:Thank you for the link. After reading it again it appears as your primary quick heat release will obviously be the 55g barrel. And it would appear your bell is just going to be a large hollow box of those large pavers? Does it make a difference in how far back your inlet and outlet are apart? It looks like they are right over top one another. Would it be beneficial or mearly a waste of resources to put the initial inlet from the barrel near the back and the final exhaust near the front?

Yes, the initial quick heat release during the initial fire comes from the barrel.

You can use a blind ended bell/bench. You just rely on physics - hot air (smoke) rises and as it cools it falls, leading to stratification of the gasses. It exits through the exhaust near the floor.

My copper coils will be right under the top, in the hottest part of stratification. The large firebrick sides and the pavers on top will slowly get warm, then release their heat hours after the initial fire has burned out, during which time their retained heat will also help heat the coils. And the pool, 30' away, will help move the heat to the other side of the house.

In your application you could build the rocket stove outside, run the exhaust path inside and through a similar bench/bell, then vent the exhaust back outside. You'd need two 6" holes from the exterior to the interior. Salvage Haven in Vinco still has a bunch of those huge firebricks for 75 cents a piece. They came out of the kiln in a brick factory in Johnstown in the early 1960s.

Gradually approaching first fire. Another row (of 3 total, 28" tall) of firebricks were placed tonight for the 8' bench.

Frankly, and I'm probably in the minority here, I really don't like that common plans for rocket stoves call for mixing up multiple wheel barrow loads of cob, or clay + vermiculite + water, to build the firebox, riser and bench/bell. I just don't have the time or the patience and physical endurance to experiment with that stuff. I specifically wanted to create a design that uses no cob or mortar, just Craigslist finds and hand tools.

Except the ceramic stuff. But these vacuum formed ceramic fiber risers only cost $36 a piece. $75 for the ceramic fiber boards, $37 for a 1" thick roll of 2'x24' white ceramic blanket insulation, all from a company in Pittsburgh that supplies the steel industry.

A $5 80lb bag of concrete, $75 for the barrel stove off Craigslist, which came with 14' of stove pipe and a couple elbows and a damper, and $40 worth of 75 cent 18"x9"x4.5" firebrick. (Since we're lining the firebox with ceramic fiber board, you could probably just use cement building blocks?)

I spent more acquiring tools and various hardware than I did on the basics for the stove.