Gryphon Corpus

I'm late to this party, but if you don't sew at all yet, I would recommend finding a shop near you that has some basic classes. Books are very helpful once you have the basics down, but they can't teach you how to handle a sewing machine and fabric, how to place pins or hold the threads, or any of those little details. A couple classes should be enough to get you started to a point where you can navigate a pattern on your own. If your daughter likes loose, desert-style clothes, that's good - not much shaping involved! Here's a really nice example:

http://www.miklagard.nvg.org.au/costume/rus/trader/kaftan_pattern.htm

Next question - do you or she knit?? Endless possibilities there...

That's not clutter, that's very high-end luxury yarn! But yes, it's moveable

Sorry for the sideways photo; here it is turned.

Okay, here are photos of the chimney inside and out, and the little cleaning flap at the bottom. My landlord says I can just attach the exit duct to that hole in the chimney, which is 8" in diameter.

Thanks. The more I consider it, I am forced to conclude that wrapping it in straw bale is probably not a sensible thing to do. I think it would take me something like 200 years to recoup the cost in energy savings. But I do still want to redo the walls in an earthen plaster, or maybe papercrete, and the kitchen and bathroom counters. Eventually I'm thinking a straw bale and cob addition.

Ooh, very helpful bit in Erica's post at the end about reducing the weight of the bench - after I figure out this RMH in my studio, I want to build another for my house, which has wood joist floors.

I'll get a photo of the space where I want to put the stove in the studio, maybe later today.

So much to think about! Window-hole is not an option - we only have overhead glass doors and just got brand new ones today (yay!!), so no cutting holes in those. I'll have to investigate the chimney - it used to have a great big boiler attached to it, so it's huge, with just a big round hole in the side to attach the pipe.

I like the idea of not mixing a ton of cob! Pea gravel with a slurry? What kind of slurry? And in what would the pea gravel contained?

Satamax Antone wrote:Gryphon, check this http://donkey32.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=experiment&action=display&thread=511

They last a smidge more on their wood.

Thanks, I'll read through it! So much information out there; it's all a little overwhelming at this point.

Book downloaded.

That makes sense that one as to be able to get into it, and to have enough heat to drive it up the chimney. I don't think my landlord would care for me punching a huge hole in the wall, especially when there's a great big chimney in the middle of the building already. But it does go up a good 15-17 feet, if not more. Will that be a problem? Will I lose too much of my heat up the chimney? And how does one make a pipe inside a cob bench accessible, even if it's straight?

The fire inspector has never been by, so I'm not worried about that. Our insurance guy probably won't love it, but he's also pretty relaxed and has never inspected anything. We have massive open flames all the time anyway.

So the Ianto Evans book is the way to go, not the Erica/Ernie plans?

I saw that video and was thinking something like that. But what keeps the wood from catching fire? Can I build a sturdy insulated wood platform and then cover it with cob and surround it with a cob bench with the flue running through it? I'm envisioning a bench that wraps around the stove rather than sticking out away from it, just to use the space better.

A handy friend... I'll see what I can round up. One of my employees is good at that sort of thing; I'll ask him. I was just kind of hoping to find someone who had actually built an RMH before.