Howdy there, so recently fired up a RMH built out in North Western Montana.
Good news is it works seemingly well. Been running it since Friday evening - it's now Sunday evening. Now it' isn't terribly cold and next winter will be it's real test but the furnace hasn't come on since we fired it up.
Big thanks to Thomas Rubino for the guidance to me as a young guy and for the batch box door.
So like I said it seems to work, we're reading temperatures of the high 800s at the top of the barrel and our heat exchange bench is warm and we've experienced yet no issues with smoke going anywhere except where it's suppose to.
My question revolves around my single concern at this point. We have a thermometer about 4 feet up the chimney pipe sticking out the flue to collect the temperature for learning data. We're stable at about 110 degrees F - this is the concern for me; for now it works well but from my current understanding we'll need a hotter exhaust exit temp if it's to draft sufficiently during colder months. Something more like 180-200 degrees, according to my current knowledge?
Looking for ideas how to make it, 'less efficient' or to not capture so much heat that we can achieve hotter exhaust temperatures. My current thoughts are 1; insulate cleanout caps (we fabricated a decorative metal cap - this is a place where we could reduce heat escape) 2; shorten chimney? our chimney top sticks out nearly 8 feet, I'm thinking if we reduce it down to the minimum of 36inches it'll give us better draw on colder days.
Any and all other suggestions are welcome. Hoping to not have to get in there and redesign some of our duct work to shorten the system.
Attached a couple pictures and here's a video link.
