Jason LaPort

First one I'm building is more for my dad. He wants to save money on wood and add an emergency heat source. The thing I'll need to discuss with him is the mass he intends on using. He has plenty of red brick for a stove so thinking brick bell chamber idea. The one thing we are mulling over is heat storage ideas. I do have a nice length of 3/4" copper pipe for water. The garage is the only suitable place for it since the basement floors. so the next project is how to get the heat from the stove into the house.

The riser I'm hoping will be 6 inches. 1 inch lining of wool inside an 8 inch pipe. So the burn chamber and tunnel need to be 6 inches as well right? I'll look into the book. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.

Plenty of healthy new questions for sure. I ordered some fiber blanket last night. 1"x48"x60". Definitely going with a higher heat riser. I plan on letting the barrel height dictate the height of my riser. I'm reading that 11-1200 degrees is hot enough to consume all the smoke and gases. Not looking for 2000+ degrees. I'd like to shoot for 12-1500 degrees. The cost of the fire brick has me slowed right now. And yes thinking a J tube design that can be modified to burn sticks of wood or pellets. Would the fiber board be suitable for a burn chamber? Not seeing any ceramic fiberboard locally. Should I try for a rounded burn tunnel or is brick square straight to a tube fine? I can already see I'll be building a few of these.

I just recently saw a rocket stove heater using a ceramic blanket for the heat riser. I really wanna try this now and see how it works. I intend to line an 8 inch stove pipe with the ceramic wool and then wire the stove in a few spots with stainless steel wire just as added insurance so it doesnt pop open. I want a 6 inch system and doing the math I would need an 18 inch heat riser. I also noticed the stove pipe and the ceramic blanket are both 24". Would the extra 6 inches in riser length effect the stove negatively? I hear its nasty stuff to work with so I dont wanna mess with it any more then necessary. Anyone have a favorite video on assembling the burn chamber out of firebrick? Thank you for your time.

I'm loving the ceramic blanket idea. I think you just took my project in a new direction. Takes a lot of guess work out for sure. Looks like I'll be buying some 8 inch stove pipe soon.

I got plenty of local clay and I see it can be used with perlite for a heat riser. What ratio of perlite to clay should I use. What are some of the natural equivalents of perlite? Should anything else be added or just water, clay n perlite?

With being a mobile home I'm a little less concerned about thermal mass. I do intend on adding some brick to the barrel to hold some heat. Otherwise I would have posted this question in the mass heater forums instead.

Right now the exit pipe is only 2ft from the floor. If I decided to use all stove pipe for the burn tunnel how long should I expect the pipe to last before it needs to be replaced?

I'm not looking for a hyper efficient system. Just something that can help take the edge off the colder nights. The park I live in doesn't allow wood stoves but pellet stoves are fine. I want to be as safe and smart about it as possible. I intend on buying a 30 to 55g sized barrel. I have a few questions tho concerning the build. I currently have a pellet stove stove pipe system going through the wall. 3in pipe I believe. Does the exhaust pipe out have to be the same size as the pipe going in? The barrel I intend to stack brick around the inside walls. Does the exhaust going out of the stove need to be higher then the feed tube? I kinda want to build a 3in system for now and over the summer work on making a larger and more efficient system. Right now I dont need pretty, just functional. Any thoughts and ideas and plans are welcome. I eventually want to build my own heat riser with local clay as well. Sorry, 500 questions come to mind. I just want a design that works and go from there.