Eric Hammond

William LeMieux wrote:Ok, my bad. Not the manifold but maybe the heat exchanger? I'm new to the lingo so please forgive and bear with me. Whatever it's called, it surrounds the heat riser. I would think that brick could take the super heater air slamming into it better than could a metal barrel, also capturing and retaining the heat instead of immediately radiating it into the room. So I'm curious as to whether the heat riser could be surrounded by brick as opposed to a metal barrel. If there's nothing wrong with doing so I'll start a new thread on the topic. I have many questions.

PS- Thanks for the warm welcome...

Hello William!  As you suspect,  The heat exchanger can be made of any material.  I made the heat exchanger from a 55 gallon drum for several reasons.  

1)  I'm following step by step from the book because I have no idea what I'm doing

2)  The barrel provides instantaneous heat should you walk into a cold house and need to warm the room up

3) I'm very good at working with metal, and pretty terrible and working with brick.

I fully intend to build a shop heater in the future and intend to make the heat exchanger out of bricks like you suggest, now that I have some experience under my belt.  I do wonder about the top/lid, how that can be made of brick without collapsing.....perhaps maybe just a steel plate sealed to the bricks.

I've been using a cut up Busch light can that was required for the building of the heater.  Like staci said, don't use with hot coals!  I would like to purchase one of those ash vacuums/shop vacs, but it also has to be really cool to use.

S Bengi wrote:Mono and Poly doesn't really make a big difference. Mono is technically worse but they are more flexible so it might be worth the tradeoff.

Mono is hands down better then poly in every way conceivable!  Have your tried both? There really is no comparison!

Hans Quistorff wrote:Also check such places for plainsong shavings and sawdust These hard woof materials are most excellent for worm composting  in my experience.

This is news to me...sawdust for worms? I'll check it out!

David Huang wrote:Awesome score, Eric!  That sounds like it will be an ongoing resource for you too!  It reminds me of the free scrap I used to see at a place that made moldings back when I used to do some woodworking.  I may need to look into that myself as it does seem like a fabulous source for easy kindling if nothing else.

I did my inaugural test burn in my rocket mass heater this evening.  It was fantastic!  It lit up beautifully and easily, with a solid draft pulling all the smoke into the burn chamber.  I am amazed at how much heat the little amount of wood I burned put out!  For a cold start in my old wood stove it would have just been barely warming things up.  I decided not to do a long burn thinking it might be easier on the wet cob/mortar sections to more slowly evaporate out the moisture.  I did get some cracking in the cob laid down yesterday to seal my barrel down.  I'm not surprised as I had a hard time envisioning that not cracking as the barrel heated up.  I can't wait to see how this goes once I add the pea gravel mass to the system!

That's awesome David! I'm super happy for you!  We need lots of pictures!!! The more the better!  I'm starting to understand why Paul wants to spread the message of rmh far and wide!

Hey Staci, have you tried opening a window while burning your rmh?  My new wood supply I recieved is really dry and really straight. I've noticed it tries to burn up the pieces of wood if the window isn't open.  It's worth a shot at least!

To build a metal box capable of supporting a floor would be ridiculously expensive.  Why not just insulate under a concrete slab and run flue pipes through the slab?

Jay, you might also try cracking open a window to let fresh air into the house..  air can't leave the chimney without some more air to replace it.  Dryer running or bathroom fan could make the condition worse.

If I were to do it over, I would make the gap as large as I could and still maintain a 36 inch clearance between the top of the barrel and the combustible ceiling. Seems like that gap should be as large as possible.

HOORAH!  HIP HIP HORRAAAY!!!  I have hit the JACKPOT!!!   ROCKET MASS HEATER JACKPOT I TELL YA!!!

I was searching around on craigslist in the free section and found a post advertising free wood, and the size of the wood in the picture looked correct for what I need.   There was an address so I looked it up on google and found out they make church furniture.  Every piece of church furniture I ever saw was oak.

I loaded up the trailer and this is what I discovered.



It's 90 percent oak with some ash mixed in.  Did I mentioned its all FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Here's what the pile looks like





Some of it is quite small and will be great for kindling!




This is how much I brought home, That's an 18 foot trailer



This is where I was storing wood.....I had a nicely stretched out tarp, but alas the wind destroyed it





My pile was already starting to dwindle



I set up a workstation for chopping up wood to usable lengths, and now I'm storing it IN the shed because its dry in there and my wood is bug free!



After 3 FULL wheel barrel fulls, I barely made a dent in what was loaded in the truck!



Some of it is really decent sized pieces of oak!



The guys at the place, said that pile has been there for years and will only continue to grow.  I have an unlimited supply of great sized oak!!!  HOOOOORAH!