Kristaps Vinogulajs

Glenn Herbert wrote:That sounds excellent. If you make a bell around the chimney, with a RMH core next to it inside the bell, you would want to have the heat riser on the opposite side of the chimney from the cleanout door, so the gases must flow around both sides of the chimney and give up heat evenly. If the cleanout is in room 1, you would want the riser on the room 2 side of the chimney as in my crude sketch, just keeping the cleanout door open for the bell exit to the chimney.

You say a masonry heater will have metal doors; I presume they have an adequate sealing system so they don't leak when they heat up or cool down.

Yep.
Im in for searching correct measurements and ratios for rocket-bell heater to sketch proper plan for it.
But that is kind of hard to find in "one piece".
If anyone has link to rocket-bell heater plan with measurements/dimensions ill be grateful if you share it.

Thanks all for your replies!

Glenn, i checked out your suggestions and im liking the idea of building bell heater around the chimney(leaving some space between heater and chimney).
About metal plates- they are not needed, because there will be some kind of metal doors in bell heater(which is absent in RMH).

Room1 and room 2 are bedrooms, i did not post whole house plan just to not make a mess.
Upstairs is a small hallway about 7 sqm (75 sqft) with the doors to other rooms. The second floor is roof-floor. space is smaller.
The main living area and kitchen is located below main entrance in the plan. Just as you enter house doors on the right. Main entrance is one on the left side of the plan.
So as those rooms are bedrooms, i do not want to bring any wood in there. Looks like the hallway is the only one option from where to fire heater, as for storing wood too.
Chimneys start at floor level- there are cleaning doors at the floor level. Chimneys are old, condition is satisfactory for the part that is inside of the house, but the part what is on the roof needs to be rebuilt.

And i want to keep existing masonry heater between the rooms for now.
I will tear it down just after the new RMH will prove itself as a stable and good heater.

Thanks for the idea Glenn. I never thought about batch box.
Actually its only a sketch for RMH, just to see where i plan the placement. If anyone have any other simpler versions of ducting- you are welcome. Plan without my RMH sketch: Here
My friend last year built standard 8" RMH, but I have no experience with bell type heater, so i doubt about it.

The inner walls in house is from vertical wood logs.
My construction man said that main support wall is between room 1 and room 2. (That vertical one in the middle of the plan above).

Thanks for replay Allen!
It took me a while to make this plan.
First of all i want to say i do not want a barrel and bench in this particular RMH design. Bearing that in mind i could go narrower and higher for the exhaust-thermal mass part by stacking ductwork vertically. Any thoughts?
So i might building heat riser straightforward from bricks. And all outer shell as well from bricks. Inside the thermal mass made from clay,sand and stone.
As for immediate heat radiation i could use custom made plates(from steel or cast iron) placed in the heat riser walls.

A small correction: the other masonry heater i have in the hallway- it is built later, so its not in the house plan and i draw it with the blue stroke(see pic).
As i see by default the hallway was not provided by any heating. And it blocks door to room 2 so it will be removed anyway.

The hallway and rooms floor is from wood(sand beneath it) and im going to replace it, so its easy to put in a concrete base for RMH.
The inner walls is from wood beams stacked vertically, except around masonry heater- there are bricks.

Im planing to place RHM in between the rooms and the hallway underneath the wall that separates rooms from hallway. (see pic , planned RMH is marked red)
And i do not need that space in the hallway between stairway and the wall. Main house entrance is at the left side of the hallway, the secondary entrance is on the right.

No dimensions for RMH at this point.
And im not sure about heat efficiency in the room nr 1 by this design/placement of the RMH.

So thats about it. Heres the plan:

Larger image here

Hi,
were planing some hard reconstruction works in our old home. There are two rooms and one big hallway about 60 square meters (645 sft) all together.
And there are two old masonry heaters for heating all of that space, but they are very old and needs restoration, which costs a solid money.
So i thought about RMH placed in between those rooms and hallway.
But the question is- how do i calculate the thermal mass size or the RMH size for the space needed to heat? Any suggestions?

BTW we are located in Eastern Europe, kind of a cold winters are here.
Masonry heaters size we have is about 1x1x2,5 m (3x3x8ft). And yes- they are pretty old and weak in heating.

Has anyone cut stone whithout using special equipment or using regular homestead equipment? Any tips and tricks ? I am trying to cut stone for pathways, i think its granite or something similar. Its from old house precut in block shape. I thought if i could cut them in ~20 cm thick plates it would be nice material for a pathways.

Thank You all, i will try those methods. What about soybeans? Soybean pods seems harder to break, even with me stepping on some of them remains in pods... or maybe i should dry them more? Anyway we do not have much of them, hand labor will fit this year.

Our raised bed at the root cellar's south wall(cabbage,onions,tomatoes etc.), the concrete wall is accumulating heat, releasing it in cold nights:


Peas bed:


Potatoes harvest:


Experimental round bed with zucchinni, pumkins, beans and corn:


And our chicken tractor:

I am not sure is this in the right forums.
Anyway we have harvested our beans and peas(all plants with pods) dried them in our shed. And now its the time to get the beans out of the pods. It is time consuming process to peal each pod with hands. Maybe there are some easy-peasy ways to do that?
Please share your podding/treshing techniques!