Yen Yus

Yes the substrate is for the plants to grow in. And the water has to pass through the roots of the plants and out of the bubbler to get filtered. The heavy clay sand mixture would be too heavy for the water to pass I think. So I will go for a 50/50 sand gravel mix. I think the plants would be OK.

Hi. So I'm building a swimming pond. David Pagan Butler mentions that a substrate of subsoil and sand mixed in equal parts is good enough. But, my subsoil is clay. So if I mix that with sand I'd get cob right? And that would be too hard for the water to pass through to the pipes and the plants to grow. Should I just use crushed rock gravel (20mm) and crushed sand mixed 50/50 instead?

İt was expensive, but worth it. Now the system is working. I like your idea about putting the exhaust lower. I also thought of making an oven, not sure how that would work though. As is it will do the job but I just feel bad knowing I can do more with the energy from the wood. Thank you for all your help and input.

Hello everyone

I installed the 200 mm exhaust pipe over the weekend and fired it up.

The draw was instant. The paper I put in to light the fire was drawing towards the riser. I lit it for an hour and in that hour the water temperature went from 35 C to 55 C. I filled up the feeder 4 times with roughly 2 cm X 3 cm sticks. Not densely, I could have fit more.

The only problem I had was that I measured 200 C at the top inside of the exhaust pipe. This seems like a lot of heat energy to be losing out on. I'm thinking of blocking off the exhaust pipe inside the barrel at the top to prevent the heat from shortcutting from the riser, but I'm not sure. What do you think?

Other than that the 4 cm rockwool is doing a great job. I stopped the fire at 1430 yesterday and this morning it was 50 C ambient temperature is around 18 C .

Next I will connect it to my underfloor heating.

Most aircons are split units here but they must have specialized installers for hotels etc. I'll look into it and post once I've made some progress. Thank you again.

Fox James wrote:There should be plenty of 8” air con pipe in Cyprus?

You mean the flexible ducting?

Thanks guys.

Now my next problem is where to find it. All our exhaust pipes here in Cyprus are 150 mm or smaller . I have never seen a bigger size. Hopefully I can find one or I will roll it from sheet metal.

The water tank is 50 cm and the outside barrel is 61 cm. There's about 10 cm space on top and 15 cm between the riser and water tank.

Not sure how to solve this problem except make the flu at the top maybe. Or at the bottom. İf I make a bigger exhaust hole at the side bottom the heat out of the riser may take the shortcut out.

What do you guys think?

thomas rubino wrote:Yes, I'm afraid so Yen.  Much too small.
Is your J-tube a 6"?  whatever size it is your chimney needs to match.

Yeah, I recycled the 3 inch pipe you see.


My J is 20x20 cm . The problem is even if I put in 6 inch the top of pipe would line up with the riser . Would this be a problem? Would the air take a shortcut from the riser to the exhaust pipe? What if I put two exhaust pipes on each side?

thomas rubino wrote:Hi Yen;
What size is your exhaust stack?
It appears to be 6" when horizontal but looks to be smaller when you go vertical.

İt's 8 cm (3.15 inches)

Now that you point it out, I'm guessing it may be small?