Hi All.
We live in an old poorly maintained and insulated house from 1890/1900 and as it's going to take a while to remodel, we need a "quick" heating fix. The ideas for a RMH are very appealing to us and we've decided to give it a whirl. Not in the last part because we still have a good supply of wood.
However ... the outer wall still needs to have stucco applied outside (the rain has prevented that) and insulation inside, and the house is simply built on sand with a layer of concrete over it. Any heat generated will therefor probably be absorbed by the wall and floor before it is radiated into the room.
Furthermore producing cob is, for us at the moment at least, not realistic and too time consuming. However, the house came with piles and piles of bricks, both simply red bricks, white sand bricks and about 200 refractory bricks.
My question(s):
* what would be the best, and more importantly, cheapest way to insulate both the wall behind the RMH and the floor?
* can the RMH be fitted with a mass heat retaining element constructed almost purely out of brick instead of cob (like a masonry heater)? If so, which brick would be the best to use? Either/or?
* if space is not available length (width) wise to construct a bench, can we go up instead? If so, can the same diameter pipe (8" or in our case, 20 cm) be used?
I know insulation is very important, but we're still searching for a way in which to retain the "breathing" ability of the house, which has been built without a cavity wall, using two types of brick (red brick "length wise"on the outside and white brick on the inside).
We'll have to do everything ourselves, and with money being tight (read: non-existent) and 3 teenagers of which 2 are autistic, time is a valuable item as well. So once we start a project, it needs to be finished either quickly or must be able to be spread indefinitely (I think the latter will almost certainly become applicable to the remodelling of the house, but I'm not complaining ;o)
In the end, once we get to a certain point, we also want to install some form of wood fired cooking stove in the kitchen. I must admit I have almost drooled looking at Donkey's RMH, especially because we have a 150 year wood fired cast iron cooking stove without working innards which I would like to integrate in the new stove. It has a top plate with three cooking rings, working doors. etc.
So, it's a long story, but any and all input will be hugely appreciated. We've done a fair bit of research already, but hearing things from "the horse's mouth" of course is very valuable as well.
