Ryan Sleep

So I'm thinking about making a rocket mass heater for my garage but I thought wouldn't it be cool if you could double the burn chamber as a forge I thought about this and considering i wasn't even trying to make an excessively hot rocket mass heater and my first one reaches temperatures the better part of two thousand degrees without even trying why not simply make a slightly modified batch box with a place to slide in some metal and an inlet for some forced air and use some either coal or pine and see what kind of temperatures are achieved.

I would like to hear some of your thoughts on the matter I'm sure someone has tried it

Finally got around to pouring the concrete countertop the wood in this picture has since been removed it was still drying at the time  I don't know how hot it will get I won't light it for another week or two I want to make sure the countertop is 100% dry before exposing it to extreme heat

craig howard wrote:Where did you get the LEDs?

 

Think I got the leds for I want to say they were twelve bucks on Amazon and yes acclimating plants from indoors to outdoors in Michigan is always a challenge as the Michigan weather is like a bipolar ex-girlfriend one day it's 70 degrees warm and inviting 12 hours later it's 30 degrees with crazy wind shears and your balls have retreated into your abdomen

So I live off-grid in northern, Michigan. And I want to be able to get my seeds growing early But we get rather harsh Winters. So it's too cold. For a greenhouse nor is there enough light between daylight savings and  cloudy time of year Which means indoor grow  lights but they use of a lot of power. Even the lower powered LEDs take a respectable amount of power. For anyone living off grid So, I believe I came up with a solution  

I figured out how to start about 90 plants. 4 between 30 to 35 Watts And it's a pretty cheap build.  Just wanted to hear people's thoughts on it. I'm using a simple Rubbermaid tote. And an LED grow light string that runs on 12 volt DC. As well as a USB powered. Dual stick light which is not necessary. I just happen to have it. And a PC fan for air circulation and to strengthen the stems. The string light actually gets fairly warm which keeps the inside of incubator also at a respectable temperature between 70 to 80 degrees. Even when it's only 40 to 60 degrees in the room

Just wanted to get everyone's opinion and hopefully this helps someone else in a similar situation.

As someone experienced with Towing you're going to want to Center your weight between the axles as well as balance the load from left to right ideally you would put it in the middle or you could put it off to one side with some type of counterweight on the other side
No matter how you go about this your mass is going to be considerably smaller you should also take into account the weight of at least some wood
But a bus is not the most ideal thing to use as you're essentially in a big soda can and aside from having a small heated bench for the comfort of sitting on it's not going to keep said soda can warm very long

Not saying it's impossible just not the most ideal vehicle for the job I've always been partial towards enclosed utility trailers or travel trailers possibly fifth wheels I always thought an RV with its own motor it's kind of is short-sighted way to live on the road for a number of reasons

Yes that was another concern of mine I am still getting quite a bit of smoke out of the exhaust which makes me wonder if I'm reaching the proper temperatures however my heat gun maxes out at 900 to 1000 degrees and it Max is it out every time quite easily and my Barrel has reached temperatures upwards of 800 so I find it hard to believe that I'm not reaching high enough temperature but the fact that I have smoke makes me doubt that I am

On another note I finished my bottleneck and it does seem to be adding to the rocket effect which seems to be solving the backflow problem I was having as I'm now able to turn off the fan once hot no it does not seem to have done anything for my soot or smoke issues
I bottlenecked my six inch riser with a bit of castable fire brick around a 3 in cardboard tube which is the center of a commercial roll of toilet paper LOL

Where there is a will there is a way  I also live up on top of a rather large Hill not sure I would call it a mountain but I have a well that goes down almost 300 feet and a girlfriend crazy enough to put up with me and our off grid living so I feel your pain and love to at least some affect that said I would suggest a addition type room off the side of the house something like enclosed gazebo to be used as a Jacuzzi house I'm not sure what your climate is like where you're at though homemade solar water heaters are fairly easy to make as well if you have the climate for it  I personally would suggest using a secondary miniature rocket stove just for heating the bath or some kind of dual exhaust where you can swap the exhaust of your rocket stove on the fly to move between your conventional bench and you're jacuzzi or some combination thereof that would allow you a little more control over the water temperature but I definitely suggest a separate room for a Jacuzzi as moisture issues can become a problem very quickly     also if you have the space for a big awesome shower you could do a small one or two person jacuzzi inside the shower with a retractable granite lid allowing the jacuzzi to double as a shower bench

Phil Stevens wrote:Have a close look at the evolved and tested design of Peter van den Berg's batch box. The secondary air channel and port are critical to success in this breed of RMH. Just putting in a restriction may give you even more draft issues.

Where can I find this newer batch box design

For the moment the fan is a must as it stops backflow. I just slaped a pc fan on it lol its goofy but works wonders till i can figure out a more solid fix "witch might be the same fix as the soot problem