David Date

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Before electricity, farmers here used a simple immersion heater in their stock tanks. The heater was a heavy cast iron tub that sat right in the water, with a downdraft design and a chimney of adequate height to maintain the draft once established. Both wood and large lump coal could be burned. I'm sure the idea could be adapted to modern materials.

I believe the primary concern with emersion is sucking too much heat away from the combustion area and not getting a smokeless burn.

Also we would lose the ability to run a thermo syphon to cycle the water...

thomas rubino wrote:Hi David;
1. You have a very tall (too tall) feed tube.

2. The "chimney" seems like it is the third wheel... why is it there?

3. What is your plan to move that water thru the riser?
A pump?    Convection?

Thank you for your reply.

The current drawing is 4" .25 wall.
1. The long feed tube idea came from the Liberator rocket heater.

2. I believed the The Chimney height was important to create  draft through the system. 3" tube.

3. Water conveyance was thermosiphon.

The liberator stove attached has these heat fins on the burn chamber, attempting to dissipate heat build up. Is there any reason the burn chamber can't run cool and let the heat build up in the riser?

I'm picking up an old project and needed some guidance!

I wanted to design a portable rocket mass heater (26"x18) to heat up our horse trough tub.

There is a riser bypass for easy ignition, and the slider pushes in to activate the ceramic riser.

Wrapped around the riser is 1/2" stainless tube heat exchange.

I am mostly curious in ball park heat riser and chimney dimensions so I can slap together a prototype (considering that it's short)

also, would 1/4" 304 stainless survive the the horizontal chamber or should that be plated in ceramic as well?

Any help would be much appreciated!

Hello there. I've been on a rocket stove kick for about a month now and have found this forum to be an incredible resource.

A close friend just bought 40 acres in the Sierra foothills, complete with gold mines and massive tilling piles of round river rock.

The plan is to build a river rock hot tub and heat it all with wood!

With a conventional RMH construction, I thought I'd have the radiator submerged in water, or nested into one side of the tub for heat exchange.

Is it possible to skip the riser and radiator all together and run a refractory tube through the floor or seat, and exhaust out the other end?


Here's a quick sketch I did on Fusion 360.

Any Help is much appreciated!

David