Jon Piper

I thought the folks here might enjoy the project I just finished. It's an ecological calendar of the year. I designed the layout, but really I just did research on twenty native tree species for my bioregion, and nature determined the shapes and colors.  Let me know what you think.

Here's the text from the poster:

The living Earth—Gaia—is constantly spinning, experiencing day and night, over and over, as it makes a sweeping revolution around the sun. And because Gaia spins on a tilt, in the north and south, we experience changing seasons. Over millions of these revolutions together, plants in higher latitudes have evolved to come alive and go dormant, come alive and go dormant, benefiting from the growing light and warmth, and conserving energy in the dark cold months.

In recent centuries, humans have mostly put ourselves, our holidays, and our accomplishments at the center of our annual calendars. But in the process we have forgotten that nature marks time far better than we do: with the running of maple sap, with the eruption of skunk cabbages, with the emergence of fireflies, and the falling of acorns, and then leaves, before the cycle begins again.

This calendar conveys the essence of our local ecological rhythm in southern New England. Each band of the circle swells and contracts based on the timing of natural occurrences. The outer band represents precipitation, then moving inward are bands for the leafing, flowering, and fruiting of 20 key tree and shrub species as tracked over the past 30+ years by the Harvard Forest. Bands thicken as more species enter each phase, expressing the collective ecological pulse of the season. Finally, everything revolves around the central sun, with its rays signifying the amount of daylight received by this region of Earth, the Northeast Coastal Zone (Level III Ecoregion 59, according to EPA classification).

We hope you find both inspiration and enlightenment from this new way of looking at a year, and that it makes you pause and examine the fragile flowers of a shadbush, the unfurling of a new birch leaf, or the gentle fluttering of a maple seed as it spins to the ground, and notice the cycles of Gaia all around you, all year round.

More info at: CyclesofGaia.com

This is a wofati-like structure with soil on the roof, so I think I have to go horizontal with the exhaust at some point.  If I need to let more heat out of the chimney to speed it along I guess I can do that with the bypass.

Vermiculite is harder to find around here so maybe I'll go back to building the core from firebrick and I can use kiln shelves for the flat surfaces. I think I'll build a core like this, and then put it inside a 55 gallon drum.  What should I use to hold the core together so it doesn't just topple over?

Very cool, thanks Fox. I'm very inspired by you and am planning to try something very similar. I think I will put it in a steel drum like you do. I worry the file cabinet thing would be too thin, and also that the metal is often galvanized.

I'm thinking I'll try lining the barrel with bricks like in the "Minnie Mouse" design on these forums so I can have less clearance to the walls and to retain heat longer. Also a bypass to make the starts easier.

This should work right? Is there any problem with having a horizontal run in the chimney like this? probably about 4ft horizontal.

Your videos are excellent! Thanks for making them, and sharing the failures as well as the successes.. very helpful.

Is there a particular type of screw you use in the vermiculite?

I can't seem to find a source for Skamoenclosure glue here in the USA. Any suggestions for an alternative for gluing vermiculite?

So it sounds like one of these two options might be best:

1. Save space by sticking with the 4" system (same box measurements as in previous post), but do away with the bench. Have a bypass chimney which vents directly out the top, or one could close that off and use the "juicebox" chimney pulling cooler gases from below. I could stack a bunch more bricks around this file cabinet box to add more mass if desired.

2. Scale everything up 25% to a 5" system and run it thru a mass bench. Still keep the bypass for easier starts.

What do you guys think of these options?  Would the top of the file cabinet get hot enough to boil water?

Thanks guys. Your help is invaluable.

Is your concern that the 4" stove wouldn't put out enough heat to keep the space comfortable, or that it wouldn't create a powerful enough force to drive the system?

Does a standard file cabinet have thick enough steel to withstand the heat that comes out of the core?

Would this work if I build a 4" vortex core according to Fox's measurements, put it inside a metal file cabinet box, and then pipe it thru some kind of mass bench?

Glenn, thank you. All of those measurement references are very helpful. Just to be clear, the masonry bell/bench should have 6" thick walls, and then 4" of air gap around the outside before combustible materials? It seems a bit awkward to have a 4" gap between a bench and the wall it is next to. Plus isn't there a risk of something falling back into that gap and not being seen by the person starting the fire?

Fox, the vortex stove is incredible! And it's nice and small. Can the exhaust gases from one of these run thru a masonry bench to create a RMH? Or would that end up slowing down and ruining the vortex effect?

Thank you all for the replies. You've given me a lot to think about.

I do want to get this thing to be as small and unobtrusive as possible. Glenn, I like the sounds of the 4" batch box you mentioned. Previously the impression I had gotten from pouring through these forums and videos is that anything smaller than 6" is too small. I don't mind cutting bricks, and I'm good at following directions - if I could only find directions for my specific situation!

If I was to put it closer to the walls, what is the general rule for how far the core has to be from combustibles? I found some things that said 36" if there is just air in between, and that distance can be cut in half with sheet metal and spacers.   But how much distance between the core and the combustible wall if I fill the space with mass such as brick or cob like several of you suggested? In other words, how thick should that mass be to protect the combustibles?

I also got the impression that a tall riser is desirable. Anything above table height seems like it would disrupt the space and feel like a wall jutting out blocking lines of sight when people are seated. That's why I thought it would be nice to keep it low if it is going to take up space. Fox, you mentioned riser-less cores. Do you know of any good examples? I did look at the Walker Stoves Tiny cook stove and even that is 40"x40" which is still too big for this little space.

Thanks again everybody for sharing your knowledge!

I've been trying to come up with a design for a RMH in my small, 8'x12' Wofati-like structure I use as a guest house and art studio. After being generously helped through a few questions in some other threads, I've realized that my biggest challenge is simply finding an unobtrusive spot to place thing.  It can't be too close to the longer front and back walls because of door openings, combustibles, and vinyl windows. With such a small space, it seems that the barrel will need to sit somewhat awkwardly toward the middle of the room.

So I have this idea of sinking the core down into the ground under the floor about 16 inches, and using the barrel as a kind of coffee table during the off season, and when not hot.  Glenn rightly warned me of the danger this design could pose both from heat, and from the feed hole in the floor.  I drew up an idea I have for deflecting the heat and making it less dangerous by building a kind of tabletop cover for the barrel. Also with this being a very private space, I am not overly concerned about it being mistaken for a typical, "non-scalding" coffee table...

Anyway, I would like some feedback on the possibility of this design. Are there other concerns about going underground?  Would the moisture from the ground be a problem? Would too much heat be lost into the earth? What else am I missing? First time building one of these. Thanks