Care and Feeding of Rocket Mass Heaters - HD streaming (30 minutes)

Great teaser video and progress post! Happy Thanksgiving back to Wheaton Labs. Better Thanksgiving enjoying the progress and hope of RMH progress, development. YAY!

So, the new rocket stove that Ernie is lighting - where is that?

I really like this video, it's a great anticipation builder!

Julia Winter wrote:So, the new rocket stove that Ernie is lighting - where is that?

Here at basecamp.

Ernie is lighting the new rocket kiln.

Rocket kiln!!

For firing pottery?? If so, I want.

Pottery and more.

Wow. I wonder if it will make stoneware (cone 10)?

I've done a fair amount of wood fired pottery, but it's usually a huge kiln that needs to be fed massive quantities of wood for at least 24 hours, round the clock. I'm actually drinking tea from a wood fired mug right now. Of course, almost all of this experience was over 20 years ago. . .

Julia, It might do cone ten in some parts of the kiln. As noted above I was involved in building the kiln. When I came home, I talked to a life long potter, now in his 60s, and a college degree ceramacist about the project. I was really excited about it.

Cone 10 is about 2500 degrees, for I don't know how long, but it seems you know that part. The well built rocket easily attains that temperature. Not that you could load a batchbox for a 24 hour burn, but a batchbox certainly makes things convenient for situations where you can't tend the rocket continuously.

We built the kiln with brick inside, and my friend the 40 year potter says it won't hold up over the long term for the high cone 10 temperatures. He said something about heat stress, and if/when I build one I will follow his advice and use fire brick to line the inside chamber.


Everybody:
I still have not found a live link to watch the Care and Feeding 30 minute video.

Was it a short interval availability?

and now I have watched it and I loved it. And I am going to find one of those cool propane guns!

Hello, all!
I have been reading these forums for awhile and this will be my first post.
I recorded a video of how i start and load my 6" batchbox. I just use a match
At 0:42 you will see a flash and hear change in burning sound - this is when the flames reach port and heatriser. Usually this is even faster to come by....



If the thread seems wrong, just move it somewhere else...

For fun i added my voice to recording. It is funny how decent is my english when reading and writing. But it is obvious that i don't have many english conversations I sound like some german guy...

Have fun watching!

Klemen

I just added to the first post:

You can get this video if you sign up for my patreon account for $1.  https://www.patreon.com/paulwheaton

A really good question was asked on youtube and I thought I would copy my answer to here:

Al, lots of good stuff.  As to kickstarter content:  that was made available at the $1 level.  And was provided to the kickstarter supporters over two years ago.  The people at the $1 level got a lot of other candy too.   Next up came the whole thing about how there are some huge an important points in that video that were sorely missing in the general permies.  Further still was the stuff in the microdoc where the supporter names are shown.   Those are the people that supported the kickstarter at $10 and higher.  I thought it would be good to get those lovely names into more eyeballs - especially since a lot of those were mighty clever.  

Further, I am pissed that the world has not jumped on rocket mass heaters 50 times more than it currently has.   So I think "what's the hold up?"  As I ponder and scratch my chin, I think a big part of the hold up is misinformation, combined with a lack of information on some key pieces.   So I think that it is possible that making this video public could turn out to play a critical role in this angle.

Next comes the angle of patreon stuff.   I kinda didn't think a lot of patreon when folks convinced me to sign up.   But in the last couple of months, it became clear that patreon solves some problems in getting content out there.  In a few places I made it clear that I was releasing this in the hopes of getting more patreon support.  The result was one more supporter at $1.   Not a big win.  But, as I'm sure you know, my philosophy in this space is "try 100 things.  2 will work out, but you never know in advance which 2."

So, yeah, not a slam dunk.  But I did weigh it a long time.   In the end, I made the decision to put it out there. It is a roll of the dice on whether it was a smart move.   I suppose we will find out in a few years whether it was smart or not.   I suspect that if you were in my shoes, you would have done the exact same thing.

we should put this clip in the above microdoc:

I haven't found my cold RMH to be hard to light at all [caveat] except when its warmer outside than inside.  Paul's use of a propane torch seems like too much tech-- like using a chain saw to cut butter, or nukes to make electricity to heat your house.  It suggests that lighting one is complicated.  If I didn't already have an RMH the idea of needing to use a torch might put me off.

Lighting my cold RMH  involves crumpling up one sheet of newspaper and loosely stuffing it in the base of the feed tube, adding about 6 thin sticks of kindling, then lighting (kitchen match or BIC lighter) and dropping it atop the kindling.  The smoke and fire are drawn down, ignite the kindling and I add more and more as it quickly begins to roar.  Too easy.

If its warmer outside, as with an 11 AM lighting on a cold sunny day (sunshine on the top of the black chimney) it'll light just fine, then after about 20 minutes it starts to burp before filling the house with smoke.  I have to cover the feed tube with bricks to keep the smoke out.  Then I open the upper clean out, and let a little damp, sticky, partially burned smoke into the house and stuff several crumpled sheets of newspaper in to the flue, trailing to the clean out entrance.  Thats when I need a propane torch.  The downdraft is so strong that I have even failed to ignite an ounce of gasoline-soaked newspaper. (NOT recommended)   Its a miserable experience, last time it happened I decided to just wait until evening to build a fire.  

FYI, my RMH was first fired October 2017, is 6"  with (only) 12 feet of horizontal run and 22 feet of chimney rise.  I believe my run is too short because the chimney riser gets too hot to hold your hand on it, maybe 150˚F.  It draws beautifully.  

My son will be ecstatic. He loves pottery

Thank you for this informative video. After watching, there are a couple of changes I’ll make in my routine.

I made a video on how I cur strips of the parphine soaked boxes that they pack wet produce in.  because of the lighting it was dubbed the worst video on YouTube.   It is till a viable option; The parphine burns like a candle for a long time without smoke; It reuses somthing from the wast stream because it can not be recycled so otherwise goes to the landfil.