Paul Ely

There is a major difference in how the wood is loaded in a RMH vs other wood stoves.  With a RMH the wood is external to the combustion chamber and exposed to the heat of the stove.  This allows the wood to dry prior to being burned.  With other wood stoves the 'charge' of wood is internal to the stove and all of the moisture must be cooked off in order to burn.  The phase change from water to steam requires gobs of energy.  

An older lady told me about 6 or 7 years ago not to put out my tomatoes until the blackberries bloom. The blackberries have been correct for the past 6-7 years. Last year they got it down to the day...they bloom the day after the last frost. I’m in SW Virginia.

You could put wheels on one end. Depending upon the tractor you may be able to pick up the non-wheeled end when moving.

I do something similar with pallets and let the wood dry where it fell or where I unload it from my pick-up.

I have a masonry stove so need to split my wood more than a convential wood stove. I get used feed sacks from folks who farm that way. After splitting the wood it goes straight in a feed sack which then get stacked. As they breath the wood still drys well. When I need wood, just grab a feed sack. It's removed some on the wood handling. I was thinking of using hardy kiwi vines to tie bundles before I 'developed' the feed sack method.

Well done on the wood shed. My civil engineering background agrees that some cross bracing on the walls would be a smart investiment. There are bound to be some 'interesting' forces towing this across uneven ground.

Cheers...Paul

Jean pain plus? What if you ran an extra hose next to the water heating hose? This extra hose would have holes drilled in it so that you could add air and or water to the compost pile. As you can't turn a Jean Pain pile (easily) this would appear to let you simulate turning.

I don't have access to much composting material currently so figured I'd 'put this out there' for others who may. Cheers...Paul

Here are the clean up instructions for a broken CFL. The first direction is to open the house up and air out ....any small energy savings are out the window.

Before Cleanup

Have people and pets leave the room.
Air out the room for 5-10 minutes by opening a window or door to the outdoor environment.
Shut off the central forced air heating/air-conditioning system, if you have one.
Collect materials needed to clean up broken bulb:
stiff paper or cardboard;
sticky tape;
damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes (for hard surfaces); and
a glass jar with a metal lid or a sealable plastic bag.


During Cleanup

DO NOT VACUUM. Vacuuming is not recommended unless broken glass remains after all other cleanup steps have been taken. Vacuuming could spread mercury-containing powder or mercury vapor.
Be thorough in collecting broken glass and visible powder. Scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard. Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder. Place the used tape in the glass jar or plastic bag. See the detailed cleanup instructions for more information, and for differences in cleaning up hard surfaces versus carpeting or rugs.
Place cleanup materials in a sealable container.


After Cleanup

Promptly place all bulb debris and cleanup materials, including vacuum cleaner bags, outdoors in a trash container or protected area until materials can be disposed of. Avoid leaving any bulb fragments or cleanup materials indoors.
Next, check with your local government about disposal requirements in your area, because some localities require fluorescent bulbs (broken or unbroken) be taken to a local recycling center. If there is no such requirement in your area, you can dispose of the materials with your household trash.
If practical, continue to air out the room where the bulb was broken and leave the heating/air conditioning system shut off for several hours.

Butter mayonnaise.

http://www.ketogenic-diet-resource.com/homemade-mayonnaise-recipe.html

http://www.ebay.com/bhp/used-parachute


I've always thought of getting a used parachute. Don't know how water proof they are, but they are cheap for the size.

Science and Math are our language for ATTEMPTING to describe reality. This language is not fully developed. I’m an engineer by schooling and once I understood this fact it helped me considerably. RMH work – now can we figure out how to make the math describe this reality.

Yes, if the steam is condensing inside of the house then that heat would be realized inside of the house.

Just listened to this podcast and happen to be a civil engineer. When building any structure the first thing you want to know is the strength of the soil where said structure will reside. Maybe Sepp was digging around at the bottom of that property to assess the soils capacity to support the dam? One of the first steps in designing is getting the soils drill rig on site to see what you are working with...

I liked the conversation about installing a crown on the dam and not planting trees on the structure.

I've seen 'discussion' about the efficiency of the RMH. The moisture content of the wood may make the math work better for the number crunchers out there.

With all other wood burning stoves (for house heating) you insert the wood and then burn the stove. If the wood has 10% moisture and you put 10 pounds of wood in the stove you have actually placed 9 pounds of wood and 1 pound of water. It takes a considerable volume of energy to boil water and that energy is taken out the chimney in the form of steam. This is why it is so important to have dry wood. It takes almost 1000 btu’s to boil 1 pound of water plus the energy to get it to the boiling point. That is the amount of energy in ¼ to ½ pound of wood. Our 10 pounds of wood is now down to 8.5 pounds of heat producing wood. I'd guess that boiling off the water also decreases the efficency of the burn.

With a RMH the wood feeds into the stove. As the wood feeds towards the stove it has a chance to dry out before going into the combustion chamber. If the wood completely dried out then the preverbal 10 lbs. of wood would actually be 10 lbs of heat producing wood and would give RHM a 15% advantage in this theoretical comparison.

I’ve seen a few threads where people are trying to get their heads around the efficiency differences between RMH and other wood stoves. I haven’t seen this topic discussed.