bob day

that also makes sense in my case since the drainage for my system is marginal at best and a slight tilt could cause it to back up, whatever it is, as simple as these machines appear to be they are more complex than they seem, with more safeguards than I might have expected.

I had an interesting experience(s) with my spinner and for a period of time the spin cycle would not start right away, I would have to open and close the two separate lids several times and hit the side of the machine (often more than once and from multiple directions)and then whimsically it would start to spin, worked fine once it started.

But the whole procedure had me worried and thinking I might have to take it apart, disable safety switches...

Finally one day it was so uncooperative that I pulled it out away from the wall, getting ready to turn it upside down and work my mayhem with it and suddenly it started working fine, switch it on and it goes on, no hitting or multiple attempts, like new.

Only thing I can figure is it may have some kind of leveling safety switch I was unaware of, and it must have been sitting unevenly

or it's evil and sent by the devil to aggravate me

The link to my site shows more, but the first dsr had the exhaust coming out the side of the top box, with the glass cook top as part of the top chamber. I actually had two DSR iterations, one exited right and the other left with the glass cook top as part of the upper burn chamber. The exhaust exited in front to the side

history of my stoves

The first post visible in this link is the latest build, which used most of the original build of the bells, water tank, etc which is more clearly visible in the older - second article at the bottom of the first

This is going to presume some special knowledge of the Double Shoe Box Rocket stoves and their iterations, so I apologize in advance if I don't describe everything thoroughly enough, or if I have fallen behind keeping track of recent developments.  Please note that references to heating water assume you know all about steam flashing and the potential hazards when using home brewed water heating. if you don't know all about it, learn all about it, watch a few scary videos, and still treat that type of experiment with great caution.

I had a more typical DSR first, trying to include oven and water heater in successive bells after the initial combustion chambers, using a ceramic glass stove top and a stray piece of porcelain metal countertop over the water heater chamber.

That first iteration was a mess, a couple failures where pex tubing was too close to the heat, leaks of exhaust hastily plugged with wet clay, and a very shaky bell around the water tank in general.

Still, it worked more often than not, heated water and gave me some general experience with this new type of horizontal "riser", and then last year I decided to do a better overall job, and changed the design a bit, deleted the oven, and reversed the position of combustion and water tank, with a nice solid brick enclosure on three sides, poured concrete wall in back, and one and a half glass stove tops over the whole mess. The ceiling of the secondary (top) combustion chamber was still the glass stove top, and increasingly I started to use a ceramic fiber blanket to direct more of the heat over to the water heater bell.  I bought a different IR thermometer that went to 1300+ degrees , and frequently that top would glow that brilliant amber gold color and scare the crap out of me, but it continues to function well to this day.  Oh, I frequently was reading "HI" on the new IR showing I was over 1300 degrees.

Now we get to the fun part. This year, just a couple weeks ago really, I noticed several bright days in the weather prediction, maximizing my passive solar heating,and figured in a rush i could do the new design, the DSR2.

I always liked the idea of incorporating an actual heat riser in back of the primary combustion chamber, and by lowering the build about 5 inches in side the existing enclosure  of the DSR I was able to  add an interior ceiling to the top shoe box.  So the combustion process continues uninterrupted forward to the exhaust from the top shoe box into the space under the glass stove top.  The way I see it, (encouraged of course by Peter and the Donkey forums, this gives a longer /hotter combustion chamber and eliminates the soot I saw building up on the glass top if I were to put a pot to heat up on the stove top.

That dramatic reduction in temperature from direct contact with a pot, was similar to the loss of heat by the top radiating into open space, so really to get the riser effect of secondary combustion at all, the whole unit would always need to be covered with a CF blanket.. This new internal ceiling is like always having insulation around the whole shebang greatly improving  efficiency of the stove, even while cooking.

One of the things I've noticed, especially with the stove door full open (another nice feature of the DSR2, is that rockety noise that got mostly lost with constrictions on air flow, p channesl, etc.  Yes, I know there were  some intense venturi effects after the port  on the DSR, but with open air flow the DSR2 just burns more like the original J  tube.

A more complete history of my rocket evolution  http://www.permaculturebob.org/category/rocket-stoves/   with pictures

I can assure you, the push of the original  J tube rocketl exhaust is alive and well. I used it for a couple years with no stack,  but you're right, it is not always a given.

When I went to a batch box, I started having issues, and when I eliminated the riser in the double shoebox the push pretty much disappeared all together.

Don't forget, the riser not only has hot gases rising, but the outside of the riser has cooler gases falling. In my case I had a water coil around the barrel, so the push was even more pronounced. Insulation on the barrel would certainly make the push less reliable, especially once the stove got warm

Obviously, a metal stove is going to conduct lots of heat directly away from the combustion area , leading to the creosote formation from incomplete combustion.  I agree that insulating inside the stove could solve that basic problem, with a few details taken care of.

I would size the batch box inside the stove to a diameter about 2 inches smaller than the metal stove exhaust to allow for an inch of ceramic fiber insulation around the bb exhaust, and that insulation should continue up to the minimum height according to the recommended riser length  for that size rocket stove, and from there it should go directly to your bell or bench, whatever you plan to use to extract and store the heat. This allows the same exhaust pipe with the 1"  cf to be used as a liner and expect temps to reach 1000F

note here that using a DSR might be sized to fit inside a larger metal stove and would eliminate everything external to the stove but the bell or bench. But be careful of the exhaust since that again would be much hotter than  a normal woodstove-

The batchbox itself would be made of firebricks held in place by a surrounding matrix of clay mixed with perlite. (at least that is what I pictured- yes I  have thought about this also.) The opening to the bb would be close enough to the metal door to close fairly tight with a layer of cf  or perhaps even perlite clay fastened to the door.

Figuring out where to put the port and p channel/air supply would be a separate consideration depending on the design of the stove.

I offer these ideas only as beginning thoughts, since I have not yet implemented them, and am currently using a DSR, but the idea of containing the whole thing inside an existing wood stove has been quite appealing to me since it solves the door problem which is perhaps the trickiest part (for me) of any batch box build.

Well, thought I should keep things half way caught up here, I'm still around, still having fun,, although a bit amazed at the different complications the outside world has been throwing at me. The latest is a rich vein of gold that is currently being looked at by a pit mining/cyanide extraction type operation--Aston Bay-- and they are currently trying to get a foothold and permission to start.

Just got done getting rid of the pipeline, and now this--if you don't laugh, you cry.

So I just keep on going, having as much fun as possible (maybe the universe thinks I'm having too much fun:-).

My upper pond is full and overflowing occasionally , so far I haven't connected it into the major swale system that is in place, but that will happen soon, and in the meantime everything is protected ,out of harms way.

I keep talking about the earth tube, and have most of the materials ready to go, so that will likely start in the next month. The upstairs is ready to be closed in/ air tight, so the thermal siphon can actually make the earth tube functional as an air conditioner with no extra energy use or machinery once it is set up.

I have decided to spend this next summer starting an out reach program, involving others in using some of the garden spaces my pond excavations have opened up.

I'll probably be putting in lots of blueberries, but no extravagant numbers of diverse trees this year. My new greenhouse is lovely, so far still an experiment, but with luck it will start some plants in another month or so, nothing too fancy, 10'x10', about 100$worth of material--just a typical plastic hoop house, but for the little bit of time I put in it was certainly worthwhile.

Thinking about a bigger one with a pond inside it by next fall, TWT.

Raising koi has become more of a reality, 6 fish I got last spring grew to 8 inches in a small molded pond, and the success motivated me to build a liner pond with wetland filters and waterfall. Everything needs to be off grid, so currently 2 solar panels and one battery power a small 25$ submersible pump.

The two wetland filters associated with the pond (about 15' diameter) along with the waterfall should offer many different  habitats, one  plant I'm thinking about is wasabia japonica (75$/lb-real wasabi) It grows in flowing water, so either one of the wetland filters or the waterfall should work.  I bought about ten roots that should get here sometime soon, so another grand experiment.

I have about 60 butterfly koi now growing out in the greenhouse, and another 9 butterfly koi growing out in an aquarium in the kitchen, and they will go into a setup of ponds that should prove quite nice. Sort of an expanded version of the system I used to grow out the small koi last spring, only the wetland type filter system will be used for them so I won't be constantly changing and cleaning filters, and should be able to get better water quality as well as helping plant growth. I'm especially interested in starting a good stand of horsetail, a very useful and medicinal herb-- often used as a pot scrubber, it is also a primary ingredient in Dr. Christopher's bone/calcium formula.One of those herbs I have been trying to get going  for some time.

Anyway,bigger and better, keep having fun, and all that, I know my website needs work, but pictures and such at www.permaculturebob.org

I saw where this thread had a new comment, and since this was where I got the idea of linux mint, thought my experience might be useful

I had an older hp , and installed linux mint 19.3, and the main issue was the wireless drive wouldn't work. Spent time in the linux chat rooms, lengthy software craziness and still no luck, bought a couple random usb wireless drives with no real luck, although a bit more experience with installing drivers on the system might have yielded results, was told about a panda usb plugin (ebay for about 12$) and after a year using a network cable, finally have a laptop that works with wireless, that was a plug and play with no  hiccups at all.

Since that I bought a refurbished lenovo thinkpad t550 16g ram i7 processor, high definition screen, and after a bit of fiddling with the bios (lenovo bios screen is different so I had to watch some utube tutorials to figure out the settings. I also figured out the hard way it wouldn't boot from the sd card, so had to plug in the usb drive--as it was booting,before the system was even installed it had recognized the wifi card . I had replaced the 256 g  ssd with a terrabyte ssd, and the thing takes about 20 seconds to boot, seems much clearer to look at, and I installed the full version of the 2020 upgrade, so I can hardly wait to explore all the possibilities

So my experience would recommend Lenovo thinkpads the T series, and or the Panda adapter if you get caught in a trial trying to get LM to recognize your internal wi fi card.

I thought it would be a good idea to add a conclusion of sorts to this thread, although the idea of dealing with mega corporations invoking eminent domain continues elsewhere.

Our fight was successful, in the sense that we delayed the project with court battles long enough and the ACP /Dominion finally had it's moment of internal  truth and sold gas holdings to Warren Buffet who agreed to pay substantial debts   --likely from it's legal battles and  numerous operations done anticipating the construction.  Paying me a lease fee was one of them and The ACP has become a company with only the mission of shutting down and restoring disturbed land to it's previous condition--Warren did not buy that corporation..

The lease  fee I was paid does not have to be returned  and my land will not be disturbed by the pipeline.

Hi Bryant, I see this is an old thread, perhaps you might update your herb garden contents for us since you mentioned you were in the process of adding.

My "herb garden" is primarily wild herbs and is likely different because of location, the nice thing about natural cures is the best cure for anyone is the one found in their backyard.

I will only mention a couple additional herbs, red clover is one, easy to grow here, really more an ag crop then a garden herb , but when Dr. Christopher (founder of the school of natural healing) was asked for one word associations with each of 100 herbs, red clover was the only one he said cancer for.  Red clover is a blood purifier, and since cancer is primarily a disease from  environmental toxins, purifying the cellular environment reduces the risk of most cancers  and can even help some  cancer tissue heal and revert to normal.

I know the big C scares everyone into chemo, but the master herbalist that ran that one word association list, Richard Schulz, had a very successful practice when he taught at the school, and his experience taught him that he would not even work with anyone doing chemo. Since chemo puts a severe burden on the liver which should be working overtime to detoxify the blood in the first place.(The liver is the primary organ associated with cancer formation, since it's job is to clean the blood) The actual cancer may form elsewhere, but the origin of that cancer lies in it's toxic environment'

To that end, Garlic is one of the best liver herbs around--fresh and raw is best. that's an easy herb to grow with multiple uses.

The idea of a clean vegan diet just to live and maintain health was paramount, and mono juice fasting was also part of the regime..the three Dr. C preferred were carrot, apple, and grape, fresh squeezed, but Dr. C used to say more people had healed themselves of cancer using Welches grape juice than ever squeezed a grape. (sort of a light humor exaggeration of the point --don't get too obsessed with perfection.

One story told was of a woman with a breast cancer open and weeping, the size of a tennis ball, and the hospitals had not treated her since she had no insurance and was quite poor.  Along with the diet, the specific herbal treatment used a shredded poke root poultice (don't take poke internally experimenting with poke on a non professional level can cause SEVERE vomiting-- I've read that chamomile is the antidote, but if I need to vomit I'd use a larger amount lobelia))   Poke has the power to draw toxins out of the tissues and is quite well known for this effect.  The tumor shrank back down to golf ball size, was clean and no longer weeping but showed clearly several tendrils running off into the tissues. At this point they talked with a surgeon friend of theirs because they thought they could speed the healing if they could just get the golf ball out of the way, so he simply grabbed the remaining tumor , twisted and broke it free of the tendrils leaving a crater with tendrils running back into the body.  They continued the poke poultice  and the woman eventually was free of cancer.

So I would add poke to that list (an eastern  US herb)

Which leads to another herb for the "garden"  although I have yet to be able to coerce it to grow in my garden,  is lobelia, which comes up wild where it pleases.  While not a cancer specific, it has been used as a "lead sheep" in formulas, opening up centers of diseased tissue and allowing other herbal phytochemicals to penetrate more easily.