Matt Todd

thomas rubino wrote:
Do you try to do your own repairs?
Know how to change the timing belt at home yet?

I used to do most repairs. Then I had a bad experience replacing a half axle. New one just WOULD NOT quite fit. Turns out I'd pulled it apart inside the rubber boot. But that took so long to figure out I got a bit jaded and now I pick and choose the suspension repairs I want to fool with!

The new mystery is a popping noise deep down inside whenever there is a momentum shift. Possibly a motor mount. I can't find it, my wife is tired of hearing it, and it's going to the shop soon.

Also can't figure out why the gas gauge is stuck at 3/4. I tested the sending units at the wire harnesses on top of the two sides of the tank and they seem to be working (they change resistance when rocking the car back and forth.) So it might be the cluster itself.  

Welcome to the second engine Subaru club! Guess we have that in common too. Our 2003 Forester is on engine #2. Much cheaper than buying a whole new car these days.

Matthew LeVan wrote:
Nice! Thanks for the quick reply. How about the “frost pocket” problem? I’m in Minnesota where growing season is already short, and was hoping my Hugels could help (not hurt) that!

If you overfill the trenches with wood and cover that with soil, you'd have hugle mounds rather than a depression that would "attract" frost.

Or maybe you're worried about the space between the two rows collecting frost? With open ends I don't see that being an issue.

I don't see how this would be a problem. If you had more slope there might be a problem with washing out, but that yard looks flat enough. I'd fill those suckers up with wood to at least two feet above ground level and cover that with the dirt you've dug out and you'll be good to go. They will sink over time but you'll be left with some great soil in a low mound. I dug my hugles into the ground and they work just fine.  

Jackson Bradley wrote:How does this do in the room the heater is in verses the room on the other side of the window? Does one room have higher temp than the other or does it even out well?

The dining room where it sits gets most of the heat. The approximately 2x4 foot opening into the living room does get some, but we haven’t re-arranged furniture yet to get things fully open to receive heat.

These heaters work best in line-of-sight. So if I’m sitting on the couch in the living room, I can feel those long infrared beams hitting the back of my head/shoulders through the hole.

Time is a factor as well. At first you are only feeling the heat beaming directly from the bricks, but by the next morning the heat has had time to soak into all the surfaces and you feel a more all-around sense of warmth. Since I didn’t finish the build until mid-March, there hasn’t been much chance to burn on consecutive days to really feel what it can do. I’m pretty impressed so far though!

thomas rubino wrote:
In my opinion, bricks look better, but it's all in the eye of the beholder, and in their wallet!
A stone or tile facing would improve the look.

Beige lime wash for now. Just close enough to my wall paint color. Maybe something even more decorative in the future.  
I designed the bell with the concrete block size in mind and only had to cut ONE SINGLE BLOCK (to accommodate the cleanout door.)  
That made for a very quick and sturdy base for me to then fumble with brick laying. Mistakes were made in brick laying but it all came together in the end.

I can't tell yall how my times I went back and looked at previous build posts to visualize how this could all work!

William Bronson wrote:This photo makes it look like the riser exhaust is pointed almost directly at the  by pass opening.
Is that actually the case?
You mentioned a hot spot on the back of the bell, maybe this has something to do with that?
Also, can you please tell us about the  chimney bypass damper?

The riser exhaust is indeed pointing at the bypass. Granted, the bypass opening itself is slightly higher than the core exhaust. I almost used standard single wall stove pipe but I had the stainless T on hand and felt it was safer to use stainless here directly in the 700+dF exhaust path.

The hotspot on the back of the bell is simply because the riser exhaust is pointing that direction. The inner chimney/bypass T is taking some of that exhaust blast, but it's off-center in the bell so some of the back wall is still taking a direct hit. Even so, the bricks in the exhaust path are only reaching 320dF on the inside and 240dF on the outside so I'm holding hope that they will be alright. The cleanout door makes a good inspection point that will allow me to keep an eye on that back wall for any brick degradation.  

The bypass design is copied directly from Thomas Rubio. A standard cast iron chimney damper with a scrap of ceramic board cemented to it. Plus an extended handle to stick up high enough to reach above the bell ceiling. I suppose I didn't photograph this very well. Here's a shot looking up from the cleanout door with they bypass open. You can just barely see the two layers: cast iron inner with the ceramic board stuck to the outside.  A 90 degree turn of the handle is all it takes to operate.

A low tech solution may be roof snow cleats. My long north-facing roof would collect snow and ice that would sluff off in a big icy mess over the gutters. To prevent this, I bought a box of Snow Guard cleats that screw onto the roof about 2 feet up from the edge. This holds the bulk of the snow and ice up there so it can slowly melt and flow into the gutters, rather than slide into them all at once. No issues since installed.

And as a bonus, they were essential in giving me footing to install a chimney for a rocket mass heater!

thomas rubino wrote:
Shorty is just a wonderful addition to the awesome first-generation Batchboxes.

Indeed! And the "no thermal runaway" with Shorty is an excellent new feature. On the second burn I still didn't have a full firebox just yet (in the spirit of taking it slow and letting materials dry out.) But as the burn went on, I wanted to add one more log for the cold evening ahead. Shorty graciously took it in stride and calmly consumed it.

Last time I tried that in my DSR2 things got real scary real fast as it flew into runaway mode. Shorty has truly tamed the power of flame.

Second burn was an absolute dream! Perfect draft, easy start-up. I pushed her harder with more wood load and had no issues.
Back wall bricks in the core exhaust hot-spot made it to 185 dF on the exterior. Long wall bricks 140 dF.
Pretty soon I’ll have the confidence to just load it, light it, and walk away.