tony morse

Regarding the persistence of roundup, it’s common here in the UK to spray wheat one or two days before harvesting, it kills the wheat, which dries out and makes harvesting easier. So most straw is likely to have just been sprayed!!!

I’ve been using NIFE batteries in our off grid home for 5yrs now, and they are both fantastic, and not without their own unique issues. They behave differently to LA and are far more robust. The Ukraine factory still makes them to Edison’s design while the China factory welds then so they are not serviceable (mine are Ukraine and my brother in law has ones from China)

There seems to be some mistaken information in this thread, they are not noisy and who knows where the 60% round efficiency thing comes from. Are they perfect? No, but what battery is. They work, you can drain them right down and you can overcharge them as you like, so you’re not going to kill them by being negligent as with LA. Overcharging is helpful in the winter as you don’t back off your production, but they do drink water when overcharging. Set your absorb right and they don’t drink that much water at all.

An issue to be aware of is that they need an occasional drain and equalise, but your set up might not be able to give it a full eq charge, especially when you need it in the winter! If you don’t do this now and again you’ll lose capacity, but you can get it back by doing this again...

Some good summary info on NIFE batteries here...
https://www.bimblesolar.com/batteries/nifebatteries

For efficiency over time have a look at this comparison table...
https://www.bimblesolar.com/battery-comparison

It's a 6" RMH about 8m horizontal run then exits and goes up 3m outside, the first 5-6m is packed in about 2tons of cob and brick. Part of the cob warms up but definitely not the whole thing. It does keep drawing for quite a long time after going out but it's very windy here so we get the odd back draft when it's not burning strongly

So my RMH project is working! Burning ash kindling it works well but when I want to let it go out it starts smoking back into the room. Obviously at this point there won't be the heat to drive the system so is there a good way to deal with this? I'm guessing you're going to tell me to cover the burn chamber but thought I'd ask first

As you can see, a work in progress. The cob will be part of a raised floor between the caravans.

I've just built my first RMH and I'm loving it already, however the steel drum I used is bare (deliberately after reading about the risk of paint fumes), so I'm wondering what everyone does to stop the barrel rusting?? is there some heat proof paint you'd recommend? or something else?

Thanks everyone, I've tested it today having angled the last 2 meters at 45 degrees up, with a noticeable improvement. Sealing the barrel down also seemed to help.
I'm thinking to put 2 meters at 45 degrees, and then a final 1 meter outside vertically (which would take it above the roof), while keeping most of this rise inside the heated area.
Going straight up would not be ideal here but I'll leave that final section uncobbed so it will be easy enough to change if it proves necessary.

Ok guys some advice needed, the rocket mass heater is in place (minus the mass) but something's not quite right (apart from leaking here and there) we burned for 1 hour and while it all heated up nicely (and made a cup of tea) we had smoke coming out the whole time, so it didn't burn the gasses in the barrel as it's supposed to. I've stayed pretty close to E&E's 6" design: It's a 23" tunnel (5" x 6" w by h)to a 47" heat riser (5.5" by 5.5"), with 1.5" gap to a 45 gallon barrel, the flue is 6" and runs 10meters. Now is the time to make any adjustments before the cob goes on.
You can see the layout here... https://www.dropbox.com/s/b00io5x8xf8lggl/Video%2002-10-2015%2016%2000%2018.mov?dl=0