Weston Moss

i made the mistake of reading the notification email out loud and i'm sure i confused my co-workers when I said "i could win a fokin hoe"

I was recently thinking about what other fuels might be safely burned in a RMH.  We have a bunch of shelled corn that is probably not fit for eating at this point, but should burn, what I'm wondering about is whether it would leave a bunch of clinkers in a RMH burn tunnel in a j-tube configuration.

so i have at least two rocket stoves or RMH's on the docket for this spring, i have all the firebrick I need, i want to make the outside one first before i try to build one inside.

but i'm trying to think up a valid reason to be burning the outside one during the warmer months.  i'm thinking of it more or less like a high-efficiency trash incinerator, but it'll produce heat, and i want to use that heat for something useful.

and so i was thinking, i end up with a bunch of aluminum cans thrown in the recycle.  maybe i could melt those down.  aluminum doesn't rust and i might find a use for those ingots someday.

anyone have experience adapting a rocket stove for this kind of purpose?

so on a basic level you need fuller combustion, and the way most liquid fuel stoves accomplish this, at least for kerosene and similar fuels, is either a wicking action or a pre-heating action, which in either case aids in vaporization before combustion.

my instinct is that you need to have the fuel under a little pressure, which can be generated either manually or as a result of heat expansion.  if you look at how kerosene pressure stoves are designed, it might give you some ideas.  they are manually pumped to get up to pressure, and once it starts roaring, the heat expansion helps continue the process to keep it pressurized.

First off let me say I know this is not a new idea.  Hoping to hear your opinions about what works and doesn't work.

I started thinking about how ships work.  On ships, especially the big ones, the ship's engines are the powerplant for all other internal systems.  They run HVAC, they run hot water, they run all the electrical and mechanical systems.  

I then thought about how much of our electricity goes to produce heat, which is an inefficient way to produce heat, generally.  

Definitely interested in the electricity-generation idea, but then the cold side of the TEG's need cooling, and use of water blocks is one of the better ways to achieve this.

So I'm thinking a pipeline that looks like this:

wood/trash->rocket stove->bell->

1) attached to bell, TEG modules -> water blocks -> home hot water system (with safety valves, mixers, etc) produces hot water and 100-200W/h e/c per day
2) flue output from bell, to thermal mass for long-term heating
3) bell top used for stovetop and to set an oven-box when needed

this is the inside-the-house pipeline for during late fall through early spring.  an outside unit with a different design would probably make more sense for the summer.

that's plenty of power to run some basic electronics and led lighting, but not things like a fridge i figure.  so this would need a few solar panels to supplement, probably.

thoughts?  cautionary tales?

been watching a lot of videos and reading a lot of posts on permies

i have a few questions

1)  i'm having a hard time finding refractory-quality brick locally at big-box stores.  all i'm finding is lower-end firebrick rated for around 1700F, when what I really want is brick rated for 2300F+  i want to build something to last, and don't want it cracking as i assume would happen with lesser bricks

2)  question about routing flue through a mass.  my concern is that somehow, if the pipe run is too long, or takes too many turns, it might slow down the thermosiphon action.  is this a legitimate concern, and if so, what are the practical limits in this respect?  

3)  does the top of a typical steel barrel in the rocket->barrel->mass configuration get hot enough to bring a pot of water to a rolling boil in a reasonable timeframe (or at all)?  

thanks for your time