Bill Rutherford

Gerry Parent wrote:Hi Bill,
Seems like your idea is very doable to me.
If you have the exhaust from the batch box entering the bottom barrel about half way up and extend the (insulated) outlet pipes close to the bottom on both barrels, they will act as effective heat stratification chambers.
You could also line them with bricks to retain some heat as well.

I'm happy to hear that!    Its late in the year for major reworks, but we have a few days coming up that I can use to mortar some bricks effectively.   And I just happen to have a spare barrel and some stove pipe on hand!     I'm really not sure how best to line 2 lifted cylinders with brick, tbh.     I would if I knew how to get a good heat transfer out of it...   but I dont have high hopes for that one

I'm wondering if it would make any sense to just build a batch box style RMH with another barrel and some brick right next to my current double barrel stove and just pipe my exhaust gasses into that since its already connected to the chimney?    I attached a very crude drawing below to help picture it.  The purple shows the exhaust path.     But I figure that will add a little extra surface area to radiate heat from at least.    I'd like more masonry, I think,, but I've got limited space to work with and I really don't want to move the double barrel situation as the flue is a royal pain to deal with when not supported from the bottom.  

Does the inclusion of the existing double barrel setup in the design really add anything or, more importantly, will it cause any problems?

Yea, I can to an extent.   Its partitioned into thirds, with drop down tarps from the trusses lol.   Thick ones, though.    I'm thinking about adding some barrier to the bottom of the trusses as well, as only the middle third has that now, and my chimney is in the north section.  That should cut a few cu ft out and provide something of an air barrier.  

That's good to know about full combustion - I didn't realize that was the goal with the rocket design.   I think I'd feel much better about that in general.   I'll pop over to that forum section and see what I can learn.

Thanks!

Hey!   Its taken longer than I'd hoped to get back to this post, but I'm here again!

I attached a pic of the burner below just for reference.   6" flue - probably 18' long up to the top of the chimney outside

My shop area is about 2800 sqft with 16ft ceilings.    The farmer that lived here before me parked his equipment in here, and apparently never saw the need to insulate it.  Its a little drafty tbh, but nothing that cant be shored up, for the most part.   That's on the to-do list this weekend.  I'd love to throw up some reflective barriers but I expect it'll be prohibitively expensive, this year, unfortunately.  

I've seen "brick bell" mentioned several times, and just to confirm, I understand a bell is like a primary exhaust chamber in place that soaks up heat before the exhaust exits via the flue?   Would this increase creosote buildup if my flue is staying colder?     I do have a place in town where I can get free bricks, luckily.    I've never tried mortaring bricks together, but I s'pose I'm up for the challenge.

I've also seen j-tube mentioned a few times.   I looked it up and got kind of an idea how what it is and how it works.     Would it actually put off more heat?    It does seem like it'd save on wood.    

If I were to come up with some brick, what exactly would I want to do with it?

Hey all.  I've really been enjoying the site, but this is my first time posting here.   I've got a small problem that I'm hoping someone here can help me with.

So, I recently built a standard double barrel wood burner using 2 55gal steel drums (horizontally oriented, one atop the other - bottom is the burn barrel).  I was hoping to use it to take the edge off the cold in a large uninsulated pole barn this winter, but I'm a bit disappointed in the results.   It only seems to get above 300 degrees F if I toss in 5+ logs and keep all the vents wide open and its not actually radiating out that heat more than abt 5 feet in any given direction.   I tried pointing a fan at it, with marginal success.  I'm also burning mystery wood, at the moment.   I got 2 cords of dried, half-split logs for pretty cheap, but it seems to be a random assortment of type and size.

My question is, does anyone have any ideas for upgrading one of these?  Or troubleshooting, if that ought to be my first step?