Hello all,
I'm a Peace Corps Volunteer in The Republic of Moldova working in an organization that specializes in agriculture consulting. I have recently been working with a woman that is looking to build another green house on her property and would like my help in implementing a new technique in green house technology. So I have been scouring the internet for different techniques in greenhouse heating because the winters here are very rough on farmers that rely on their fruit and vegetable crops during the summer. I looked at different techniques, but was very intrigued when I came across the greenhouse construction + rocket mass heater technique. It intrigued me because this is actually very similar to the way that many people heat their homes in the winter.
The woman that is interested in building this green house now has 2 that are approximately 100 ft. X 20 ft. and the 3rd one will more than likely be the same size. I am wondering if anyone can share with me any of your resources that you have on the topic and also get your thoughts on heating a green house of this size with this technique.
Also, a few other questions:
1. What is the average cost of one of these stoves? (I assume very cheap)
2. There has been concern from some local farmers that this heater would cause very high condensation with use of the single film that many farmers use for walls/cover of their greenhouse. What are all of your thoughts on this?

Thank you all for any help!

Matt

I think Ernie has said that the cost somewhat depends on your scrounging ability... Some can't find barrels in their locales.. I can get them free if i look around or can get them all day long for a few bucks.

Wood heat is dry (as long as the exhaust goes outside). The wood heater will draw cool dry air in  and gaseous  moisture out through the exhaust.

So, if they were heating with gas and exhausting the fumes inside the green house, they probably did have big condensation problems. The rocket mass heater (exhausted to the outside) would make moisture less than if they used electric heat..

You can look around the internet for years and i doubt if you will find anything that will heat more efficiently than the rocket mass heater...

Great topic!  I'm in the process of designing a 24x24' green house with an 8x8 chicken coup off the side.  I want to share a wall between the coup and house to let passive solar heat it for the chickens during the winter.  After reading about the rocket stoves, it makes sense to me to put one of these in instead.  Since I will be doing a lot of ferro cement work on a water tank, can I use the same ferro material for the rocket wall?  Is there a formula for maximum efficiency of the fire box opening / size / horizontal draft pipe / chimney length / diameter / etc?

Also, has anyone done any test on the steam coming out of the chimney?  How much is there?  Whats in it and could it be condensed on a plate over the pipe opening and run back to the plants or else where?

Thanks for all the experience on these forums

Randall

Mattbl wrote:
Hello all,
I'm a Peace Corps Volunteer in The Republic of Moldova working in an organization that specializes in agriculture consulting. I have recently been working with a woman that is looking to build another green house on her property and would like my help in implementing a new technique in green house technology. So I have been scouring the internet for different techniques in greenhouse heating because the winters here are very rough on farmers that rely on their fruit and vegetable crops during the summer. I looked at different techniques, but was very intrigued when I came across the greenhouse construction + rocket mass heater technique. It intrigued me because this is actually very similar to the way that many people heat their homes in the winter.
The woman that is interested in building this green house now has 2 that are approximately 100 ft. X 20 ft. and the 3rd one will more than likely be the same size. I am wondering if anyone can share with me any of your resources that you have on the topic and also get your thoughts on heating a green house of this size with this technique.
Also, a few other questions:
1. What is the average cost of one of these stoves? (I assume very cheap)
2. There has been concern from some local farmers that this heater would cause very high condensation with use of the single film that many farmers use for walls/cover of their greenhouse. What are all of your thoughts on this?

Thank you all for any help!

Matt

i'm contemplating the same thing and hadn't seen this thread yet. clearly, it appears that what i'm brainstorming about is a smaller scaled project than what you're maybe thinking about.

it sounds like you're looking to build a large greenhouse.  mine will likely be smaller.

http://ourcalories.blogspot.com/2010/11/greenhouse.html