Gerry Parent

Just received my care package of fine smoked cheese. Even before I opened the package, there was a light whiff of Smokey goodness permiating the air.
Couldn’t wait to actually add it to a proper meal so I had some fresh garden radishes, snapped a photo then savoured both bounties while grinning the whole time.
The cheese was creamy in texture and had just the right amount of smoke flavour.
Planning on spaghetti tonight and know it’s going to be the star of the show.
Thank you again very much Thomas!

Am fortunate to be one of the southern testers for the upcoming new smokey flavour. Tom is certainly a craftsman when it comes to making his products just right and am REALLY looking forward to its arrival.
In just over a month I will be going on a ‘factory’ tour of his whole operation from cheese to RMH production.
Really looking forward to that!

Just assuming here but I would think it’s very similar to why burning a lot of newspaper and junk mail is not a great way to go because of all the ash and particulates it produces.

Dissimilar materials expand/contract differently which means this constant movement will always be wanting to shift the joint. To accommodate for this using a flexible material like stove gasket rope, ceramic ‘tape’, or even rock wool would help keep the joint properly sealed.

From my experience of heightening the heat riser beyond roughly 4x the height of the feed tube, there wasn’t any noticeable or significant improvement.  At the time of experimentation, I had a 6 inch batch box with a double barrel surrounding the heat riser so there was lots of space to play with riser heights.

Hi Kiran,
From your picture, it looks like your heat riser is short. Minimum height should be at least 3x the height of the feed tube, preferably closer to 4x.
Also, with no downdraft or mass to add to the slowing of the exhaust gases, an open test is not going to be
super accurate -  only enough to show you that it works and to have a bit of fun experimenting with before going any further.

Hi Douglas,
Before delving into the complexities of your plan, have you ever tried a much simpler bucket compost method?
An internet search for "humanure” willbring up lots of good information.

Yes Michael, this is exactly what I did for several years and it worked out just fine for my needs.

Hi Dave and welcome to Permies!
There are a few things that I see that are contributing to your moisture problem.
The  first thing is that burning wood produces a lot of moisture and if allowed to cool enough, it will condense  forming the water you are seeing.
 All of that exposed pipe is where this is happening.  As soon as you cover it up with mass, your problem should go mostly away.  Question: is the vertical stack on the roof insulated or single walled?
If you are not yet prepared to fill your bench with mass, then perhaps you could temporarily cover it with some batt insulation or dry sand to help keep your exhaust temperatures higher and prevent the condensation from forming.
Another source of all that moisture is also coming from your RMH being newly built.  In other words it’s all drying out and that moisture needs to go somewhere.
This is a good learning lesson so please don’t give up!

Hello Jip and welcome as well!
Any wood stove that I grew up with always needed to have a pot of water on the top in order to humidify the air since the woodstove always took a lot of moisture out of the air.
A rocket mass heater is no exception to this. My RMH always kept the windows dry and mold-free where air was allowed to circulate.