Jason Speaks

I have my RMH in my basement. Early season burning, if not done right, will smoke out my house. You either have to get the riser really warm before your attempt to start the first true fire, so to preheat the whole system. Or, what I tried this year was where my pipe meets the wall (old existing chimney that runs outside and up 20 feet) I used an electric heater and got the pipe really warm, so to create a draft through the system. Also you need to crack a window when you first start so to draw fresh air into your system. If you don't you will experience negative pressure and you will get back flow. I have been burning for 4 years now. I really don't think the 30 ft chimney will affect the system if it has a straight up run. You just need it warmed up enough to push up a cold chimney.

I use a RMH to heat my basement which in turn helps supplement the upstairs. The biggest investment is insulation. My house was very uninsulated especially in the ceiling. I have did all the insulation fixes myself. This has added the most value to our house. As for the wood heat, it can be a fair amount of work. For instance, my dad has most of his wood delivered and he has a log splitter. The rest of it I help him harvest by manual labor. The way he is set up, it saves him a fair amount of money compared to the propane furnace. My house uses propane also and cost are rising every year. The wood cuts our bill at least in half. Plus I found out our furnace was only burning on 2 out of the 4 ports ( fixed this year). I have not had to run our furnace downstairs this year. I collect almost all the wood off my own land. I had to invest in a proper saw and the other odds and ends. For me, getting out in the woods, cutting and hauling it out and hand splitting is an experience. I use it for my mental health and physical health. Do what works best for you. There is no wrong way! Good luck!

Interesting thread! For myself personally I do get a fair amount of ash. I use paper bags for the typical start up which probably accounts for some of it. But mine comes from what wood I'm burning. I have an abundance of red oak, maple, and ash trees (even though they are all dead standing from the ash bore bugs, sadly) on my property. The ash tree wood, like its name, produces 3x the amount than the oak and maple. The oak leaves, it looks like, a dark bio-char, but not much is left, easy cleaning. The ash wood gets drawn up over the riser and into the first 2 foot of the mass. So I'm interested in what type of wood people are using. I'm in northern Michigan so my heater runs for half the year. This year I'm going to try and not run my basement propane heater at all this year, since my rmh supplements my heat in the house. It's my third full year burning and I still really enjoy the rmh, but I like to tinker, so it fits my personality.

Hard to believe that screen caused all your problems! I get smoke back sometimes on cold starts. I also have a rhm in my basement. My mass layout is really similar to yours. On startup, make sure to have fresh air to draw from, I open a window nearby. It will want to eat allot of air until the hot mass does the drawing for you. Also, I use 12 inch wood for burning, I had coal problems and it would also wick up the wood causing a little smoke. 12 inch wood solved 99% of the issue. On cold start up I always get a wisp of smoke at my cleanouts, but once you get the draw going, which it seems you fixed it, it won't smoke anymore. All I'll say, a rhm is like a friendship, the more time you have with it, you will know every quirk. I love mine, wood stove can be more convenient, but far more dangerous. Even my wife uses it while I'm at work!  

The smoke back is real! My first start up this year was allot of fun. It filled my house as if cheech and chong were in my house! Never force a start up. It's like trying to force feed a child something they don't like. Just pukes it out! Slow encouragement and love is what they need. Running fine now!

I struggled with smoke back for a little while with my j tube rmh. All it took was cracking a window so it would draw enough air till the mass created the natural draw. I would not cover your feed tube because it will start to reverse burn. Give it plenty of air! I found out if the air didn't cool the feed tube enough, the fire thinks the feed tube is the riser. Maybe be able to a mesh screen like used for open fireplaces? Also I would think you might want to use the two barrel design or a really tall riser design if you are using it for instant heat since you have the height clearance. Good luck! Fyi, I had to buy most of my material new, so I feel the pain of cost, but dang, that is expensive in Canada! Wish I could just mail you the fire bricks from Michigan!

Been awhile since I've been on but I'm I the process of doing some repairs to my heater after a 8 month heating with it. I used fire brick in my feed tube and riser. I'm glad I did because it really gets beat up from the fire wood at the feed tube. So it's a easy repair since I have extra split bricks. If you are looking for clay, I bought some from a local compost company. They use clay in the compost mix, so they may be willing to sell a tractor bucket full. I found fire brick and ceramic wool at a fire place dealer. They carry some for their repairs. I was lucky with the ceramic wool since the Phillips energy store carried it for the local maple syrup makers. Hope this helps!

If you have a way to build the heater to the left of the fireplace, run the exhaust to the right, then wrap it back to the chimney, it should give you a nice bench to sit. I would try to run the pipe close to the stone so it will work as part of your mass. Can you take a picture farther back to see the room better? It would help the mass design ideas.

I've built a rocket mass in the basement. It does heat up the upstairs by just the heat from the barrel, but it is supplemental, unless you are feeding it all day. On my days off this winter I ran it all day and held the upstairs in the low 70s. I had vents cut into the floor to let the heat naturally rise plus the stair way. Over all I went from using three tanks of propane to only using just over one, and that's because I ran out of firewood. The basement would start at 69 degrees when I got home, to close to 90 degrees within 3 hours, plus the mass isn't fully complete from the cob. I'll be doing some small changes but overall I'm pretty happy with it.

Gerry Parent wrote:Glad to hear your keeping warm Jason! That mass will be real nice to sit on once it gets finished.
As for the startup issue, do you have a cleanout behind the manifold/barrel area where the pipe goes from horizontal to vertical? If so, have you tried to prime the pipe with a piece of newspaper to get better draft at the feed tube?....or even cheated and used a fan temporarily to get things moving?

I have used a blow dryer to prime the exit pipe going into the chimney, lol. It helps when the system is dead cold. But if I run it within 2 days I don't have hardly any smoke back. Also I don't have a cap on the top of the chimney, so that doesn't help. Over all, I have only dealt with a couple smoky starts. Opening the window to get a good fresh air helps with the initial draw. About 10 minutes and it roaring on a cold start. Any smoke problems have come when I rush the start up process. But I might design a port later on in the exit to help pre heat the chimney or build a bypass for start up.