brandon kellar

The Firebricks Are Only Along the front that you can see in the picture and insulating the burn chamber they arn't actually throughout the thermal mass.the top of the barrel gets up to 600 F but the mass is only heating up within a couple inches of the barrel and on top of the burn chamber. i will update how well its heating in a few days it should be dry by then.

The thermal mass does heat up but only within a few inches of the barrel. The thermal mass was all put in over the past few days so perhaps it is still drying and will operate better in a week or so. But the room is still fairly cold unless im hanging out right around the barrel.

I recently replaced my traditonal woodstove with a rmh, we had to cut some corners due to a lack of space and material and im afraid it may be very cold this winter.

Issue 1. The exhaust exiting the bottom of the barrel only travels 5-10 feet before entering the chimney. I dont think this is enough length to soak up all the heat

Issue 2. We could not find a cheap or close by source for clay so the thermal mass is a mixture of fire brick, large granite stones. Pieces of concrete blocks and a 2:1 mixture of sand and high strength concrete with peastones mixed throughout. Will these materials be viable for thermal mass?

Here is a picture of what we have put together