Randy Acton

Experimenting with a rocket stove has has had my mind on "fire" for quite some time. To save you the thought process that got me here I will jump right to the questions.

Completely hypothetical, if you had enough firebrick to side a house, would you use insulating or high density brick?....and why?

I have a conventional stick built home that was built only six inches above the grade of the driveway. We are on a creek and in a ravine that is fifty feet below road surface.

I am constantly battling water after it rains. I am installing French drains around the perimeter of the house, which actually makes the gradient problem worse.

I was thinking of doing a partial earth berm, approx 40" up the side of the house and sloping it about 5' away from the house.

The question is, how would I properly waterproof the exterior of the house?

Put the steel drum over the J and was able to maintain 240 f with short spurts about 380 f.

Now its time to get serious and get out the mortar amd insulation.

Assembled the J channel this morning and a black lung later we have sucess.

Had to put an artificial draw at the top of the heat riser and its been burning nearly smoke free for over and hour.

This is gonna be FuN!!

Will post pics whrn i get back the house

If i remember correctly it was a link that was posted in an RMH discussion that was in the alternative energy section.

Thanks I will try there.

Sometime ago someone posted a link about a "super composting system" built with insulated walls and water heating system in the roof.

I cant seem to find the link or article anywhere, does anyone here have it or remember the article??

Good info thank you.

The corruption, arrogance amd sheer stupidity of our government is amazing.

I wonder if somehow, someway, someone will figure out how to get subsidies from a ban on rainwater collection and take the federal stupidity to a whole new level.

In some ofnthe reading i have done itnstatednthat aluminum had a specific heat of .90 and a heat capacity of 90. Granted i know very little about it, just seemed like the numbers supported using alum particularly for the weight savings.

Another reason for its use would be its heat sink capabilities in the summer, drawing heat out of the room.

I also thought that the aluminum would allow greater design flexibility (i.e. Raising the bench of the floor) and possibly reducing cubic footage needed compared to cob.

Currently we heat our 1900 sq ft house, solely with a relatively small soapstone box stove so i figured 5 ton of cob was a little overkill.

New to the forum but have been doing much reading and research.

Here is the question....if money was not an object, what materials would you use to build your RMH?

After test builds in my pole barn, i plan on installing a RMH in the house but dont want a 55 gal drum or cob benches in my Arts & Crafts style house. I have a locally found antique copper and cast boilers that are similar in size to drum. I plan on covering the bench in 1/2" soapstone slabs for decoration and mass. I also have a great source for scrap aluminum and wanted to use that as the bulk of the thermal mass.

I guess the biggest concern would be the aluminum. Would this work?

What would your wishlist be for materials?