Tim Connell

Thanks everyone. I will do some careful thinking and probably go with the dogs and hope my wife can keep from turning them into pets. Bears have been controlled with electric fences pretty well around here and the forest overflows with abundant food for them. Lions will have to be controlled with a gun if the dogs can't deter them. Its really odd. In town there are sheep and cows and goats in 50 acre fields that rarely get bothered, but any of us that live on the outskirts just a couple miles out get preyed upon. One method I have thought of is to have a compound where they all come into at night and are let out of during the day, but it takes so much more work each day especially if trying to rotate pastures.

Here is my issue. I have about 5 acres on the coast of Northern Humboldt County, CA I desire to fence. I want a permaculture garden, grow crops (no, not the classic variety this county is known for), and have goats and other live stock. My problem is deer, small chicken killing varmints, bears and mountain lions. Deer and small varmint fencing has been covered in other forums and I have read them. Mountain lions are the biggest issue. They will eventually eat all live stock if not protected and they do this in broad daylight if they have to. If I have to get a guardian dog or two I will, but I also run a B&B on the property and don't want dogs barking all night or potentially endangering the clients.

Byron, I have not corrected the flew pipe to double wall and straight up. I will do this next. Can I use galvanize pipe or do I need to go black pipe or heaven forbid stainless? I think you mentioned making my own double walked pipe from 6" insulated inside 8". What do you use for insulation?

My Rocket stove is working fairly well, but I have a few problems.
1) I still get a bit of smoke in the room upon lighting and at various times during the burn. My house smells like smoke most of the time if I am using the stove daily. Is there a way to catch the occasional puffs of smoke? I do have a cap which allows air through but makes kind of a chamber which catches a lot of the smoke. Is there a modification on this which would work more efficiently. If I can't fix this, my wife is going to make me take the RMH out in favor of a traditional wood stove.
2) How long should I wait before I do the final sealing layer and what is the best medium for this? I have been using the stove fairly consistently for about a month. It no longer seems wet, but it may be deeper down.
3) The area around the burn chamber gets warm and maintains warmth for at least12 hours, but the bench really doesn't get all that warm. I have about 20 feet of flew running 2 directions through it in an L shape. I also have a bypass which was recommended in one of the posts I read here to use after the burn is out. Is too much escaping this direction past the baffle or am I not burning long enough. I have a hard time getting and maintaining flow through the bench due to the smoke issue mentioned in (1) above.

I tore out the J tube area and put in metal pipes to help disipate heat better. I packet this area in an average of 6" of stabilized
Perlite and increased the length of the heat riser to get a better length ratio as suggested. I haven't vented straight up through the roof or insulated the flue yet, but I plan to. I didn't try a burn yet, but will once I have a hair drier in hand to help start the flow. The cob is still wet being only a few weeks old. I was hoping to get the beast going to help in this process.

Thanks everyone. Boy I thought I'd read everything, but you guys have increased my knowledge 10 fold. I won't say too late, but in order to institute all of your suggestions, I would have to start over, especially on the insulation parts. I don't have any insulation around the J tube, only cob. I insulted the redwood floor with 4 inches of perlite stabilized with cement and the wall with standard foam wall insulation. I guess I figured that if you can sit on the bench, the heat given off can't be great enough to start a fire. Taking the J tube apart and replacing the cob with stabilized perlite won't be hard. Replacing the riser with a stabilized perlite tube I can do also. I couldn't find 10" pipe and 8" was impossible to pack uniformly. I can replace the exposed flue pipe with double walled pipe. I don't want to wrap it in glass wool insulation being too ugly. If going straight up is the answer I'll do it, but it's a hole in the roof I didn't want.

I built my RMH to the spec.s I got from you free download. I tried it for the first time yesterday and it wouldn't draw at all. The space between the top of the bell and the heat riser is about 2.5 inches and it got a bit off center. Could this be the problem. Also it was windy outside and I haven't installed a cap at the end of the flew which comes out horizontal. Should I try to center the bell better or get rid of the bricks and make a stabilized perlite riser? Or what. Please help. I want this to work.