I just discovered rocket stoves and rocket mass heaters, and am in love with this idea. My wife and I are making plans to get a bit of land up North, and setup a cabin to eventually be our retirement home. It will serve as a vacation spot in the mean time. We are looking at ways to do this efficiently, and as sustainable as possible, so it will last generations, and remain inexpensive and low impact on the environment.
Anway, I was thinking of the annual temps in Northern AZ, and how the winters are cold and snowy, and the summers can still be pretty hot. Instead of a big bench for the heating mass, what about an entire floor? If the structure is one big room, say a 20x20 cabin, would it work effectively to build a Cob type floor? I'm envisioning running a network of the exhaust tubes across the entire floor space, then covering with Cob or something similar that will hold up to walking on it etc.
My thought is, that way, it heats up the entire place in the winter, with the whole big room getting radiant heat. Then during the summer, that nice cold clay floor should keep the whole place cool. Is that kind of configuration for an RMH possible and as efficient as the big bench design?
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