How Fast Can You Get Your Rocket Stove started?

i would love to know what others are doing and learn the creative ways other folks are starting their rocket stoves. share with the forum your times and creative starting methods.

1 what do you use to start your stove?

2 how long does it take to get your dragon to start pulling?

3 how long does it take for you to put in decent size pieces?

first i want to say for the record i do not use paper, accelerants or start up fuels other than wood. I use a draw knife to make wood shavings as starters, then i make a few thin splits and continue adding it to fuller 4'' + logs and stuff my wood chamber completely full and thats how i start my rocket stove in under 3 minutes with no babysitting. yup, i pack it completely full with up to 4''+ log chunks in the chamber before i light it with one match and walk away. no fussing, no tending, and no worries, its started 100% of the time.

I've recorded 0 to dragon in 30 seconds but here is my normal start up process video. dont ask me why but my wife's camera only records these tiny length darn videos and i have no idea if its even possible to change it.

loading



starting with one match

Do you mean something like this?


From letting go of the match (at 16 seconds) to starting the vortex in the riser (42 seconds) just 26 seconds from lighting to full clean burning.

By the way, what's the temperature in the inside of your exhaust pipe after a good burn?

Peter van den Berg wrote:Do you mean something like this?

From letting go of the match (at 16 seconds) to starting the vortex in the riser (42 seconds) just 26 seconds from lighting to full clean burning.

By the way, what's the temperature in the inside of your exhaust pipe after a good burn?

peter i love it buddy. what all do you have in your box to catch fire?

i get 350 F+ at the start of my horizontal, 220 F + at my first bend, 180 F at my 2nd bend and tepid at the vertical stack.

Mr Antone thats awesome, what do you use to start your fire?

may i ask why is your burn chamber entrance that size and what would happen if it were bigger?

F Styles wrote:peter i love it buddy. what all do you have in your box to catch fire?

Wood shavings like you, see through the whole of the video, the second half is the instruction to load it. Not my heater and not my video, by the way.

Peter van den Berg wrote:

F Styles wrote:peter i love it buddy. what all do you have in your box to catch fire?

Wood shavings like you, see through the whole of the video, the second half is the instruction to load it. Not my heater and not my video, by the way.

Peter? well then i am interested in your rocket stove? whatcha got?

F Styles wrote:

may i ask why is your burn chamber entrance that size and what would happen if it were bigger?

If I may, mainly to clarify terms, by "burn chamber entrance" I believe you are referring to the tall narrow "port" at the back of the firebox, the entrance to the "heat riser"?

Notice in Max's video how the gases accelerate when passing through the port, then the gases slow and swirl once inside the more spacious heat riser. That whole action improves mixing of the gases and cleaner after-burn, higher efficiency, etc. There are other details and interested readers may want to check out the batch-box design info. on Donkey's site:

http://donkey32.proboards.com/thread/734/peterberg-batch-box-dimensions

Thank you Mr Campbell. i did not know that was the beginning to the heat riser since i did not have a cross section diagram. i just assumed it went on a bit more horizontally before it went up into the heat riser. i have the rocket stove book, maybe they have a batch box book? ive seen these batch box stove run and it seems they are designed so that all the wood may burn when in the batch box. it has been suggested my design is a batch box but it does not burn like a batch box... its just a rocket stove with an extra large feed chamber and the burning take place at the bottom of the chamber where the air flows through the access port and into the burn chamber. i am very interested in rocket stove startups that people have. batch boxes may be close in design although they are a different animal slightly in my opinion.

Yes, the batch box is a very different animal. It is loaded and sealed up with precisely sized primary and secondary air ports, and burns its entire load in about an hour, dumping all the heat into the mass. A 6" batch box is equivalent in output to an 8" J-tube. They are much more finicky to build, requiring precise dimensions according to the design, but when tuned right can be incredibly efficient and clean (low CO and particulates).

There is no book about batch boxes.

F Styles wrote:batch boxes may be close in design although they are a different animal slightly in my opinion.

Don't mind me saying, yours is also a slightly deviation, isn't it?

Peter van den Berg wrote:

F Styles wrote:batch boxes may be close in design although they are a different animal slightly in my opinion.

Don't mind me saying, yours is also a slightly deviation, isn't it?

this is how my RMH design grew to what it is today. many years ago i saw my first rocket stove and i knew i wanted one so i started my research path. my first design on paper was metal but i quickly threw that in the trash because i could not afford a tungsten built rocket stove to stand the high temps... so after many years and copious amounts of research i had been writing down a list of all the issues, concerns, and inconveniences many rocket stove owners were saying and i came closer to the design i have today. after buying the book i settled on an idea and mostly my system was a 6'' standard system but i couldnt get past a few drawn out issues before i actually build my first unit. 6'' just seemed too small for the size of chunks of wood i desired to feed it so each drawing and thought increased my J core rocket stove wood feed chamber until i just said the heck with it im going to make and use propane tanks for my vertical J part of my feed chamber but i was concerned with smoke back. with that concern i welded an air tight lid with a fiberglass lined tongue and groove. even though my stove has enough draw to suck the smoke down there are puffs of smoke that escape at times and the reason for the air tight lid. at the last moment i wanted an easier clean out, starting and air access port on the front and that is how my J system morphed into what it is today.

no matter what others may call it i still started with a standard 6'' straight through system and enlarged my feeding area to 11+'' with the propane tanks and access port, so i am still calling it a J system with an extra large feeding chamber and front access port. it doesnt burn like a batch box from what i have seen, in that all the wood does not burn at once and it still burns at the bottom as the front access port strongly draws the flame across to the burn tunnel and every once in a while i get a wild flamer and smoker and the reason for the air tight lid.

since then it has merited its own name, Rocket Mag Stove.

we've had our rmh for 2 winters and use a propane torch to start fires.  takes 30 seconds to one minute tops with just regular pieces of kindling

michael carman wrote:we've had our rmh for 2 winters and use a propane torch to start fires.  takes 30 seconds to one minute tops with just regular pieces of kindling

How would you light it if you didnt have a torch?

Just for the record I do not start my Rocket Mag stove like i did when i made this thread. Now, I pack it completely full of regular burning wood and round logs, with about 6 smaller splits in the mix and put a hand full of wood shavings in the front with one match and it sucks it in and starts up in 30 seconds. I will post a video sometime soon to demonstrate. You wouldnt believe it if you didnt see it.

F Styles wrote:Just for the record I do not start my Rocket Mag stove like i did when i made this thread. Now, I pack it completely full of regular burning wood and round logs, with about 6 smaller splits in the mix and put a hand full of wood shavings in the front with one match and it sucks it in and starts up in 30 seconds. I will post a video sometime soon to demonstrate. You wouldnt believe it if you didnt see it.

I would believe it.   But shavings seem so awesome.   Personally I use the same method you just recently described , that's why I would believe it  

I start it now by loading it with full size 8'' logs, split starters,  a hand full of wood shavings in the front, one strike of a match or a lighter and walk away with out baby sitting  a startup because I love not having to touch it for hours. from load to light in seconds and not have to touch it again.

if i didn't have a torch it would be a doomsday scenario which of course is possible.  then i would do it the way most people do.  the slow but sure fire way.  but until that happens the torch is our way to go.  simple, easy, foolproof and extremely fast.  obviously we're not "purists" on this.  when we get up or come home we want to get warm fast and easy.  i would be sad if we could not buy little propane tanks, but we've been starting regular woodstove fires for over 30 years and i only wish we would have discovered the obvious torch method 30 years ago.  we only started using the torch 2 winters ago when we finished the rmh.  we are more than pleased

b/t/w  we have a "regular" rmh per video instructions.  i don't know about the "batch heater" kind of stove.  we don't even have to use "kindling".  just somewhat smaller sticks of wood.  split or not.  i've been paying attention and 30 seconds to a good fire that one can put big chunks of wood in would be about average.  and if we can do it i'm sure anyone could.