how do we tell more people about rocket mass heaters

The most effective conversation starter I have for Rocket Mass Heaters is that my double wide trailer cost me $1000 per month some months to heat with propane in 2005 and now costs me less than $100 per season to heat with rocket mass heaters and hardwood flooring scraps from the mill down the street.

Along these lines, there can be people resistant to learning about rocket mass heaters because they have a perceived limitation.   A few months ago, somebody said

If you live in an apartment, what good is a rocket mass heater going to do if you cant produce the fuel to run it?

and I wrote a thorough response here:

https://permies.com/t/174825/live-apartment-good-rocket-mass

There's also a massive amount of the population who does not want to build one, or doesn't feel like they can, or some other version of folks who tend to buy stuff more-or-less ready-to-use.

There possible are a massive amount of people who never heard of one.

Like me before I found the forum.

Before finding the forum, I frequented a survivalist board.  I never remember reading about them there.

When we bought our property we bought a wood stove.

If I had seen one I might have said that it was impossible to put one in a normal house until I saw one in the Fisher Price House.

I would suggest posting pictures where ever possible of RMH in conventional homes especially smaller ones.

Beau Davidson wrote:There's also a massive amount of the population who does not want to build one, or doesn't feel like they can, or some other version of folks who tend to buy stuff more-or-less ready-to-use.

All fair.  

And, at the same time, 99% of those people have an understanding of what a nuclear reactor is, but have never heard of a rocket mass heater.  They don't want to build a nuclear reactor either.

And when there is a big "oh shit!" about heat, can we at least get a little brain space about rocket mass heaters?

Anne Miller wrote:Before finding the forum, I frequented a survivalist board.  I never remember reading about them there.

And that seems like a very key place for them.

I am trying to pitch a story about this to Business Insider where I work. Would anyone here be able to help introduce me to people living in typical suburban homes that have installed one? Or even better, someone living in Europe where energy rationing is coming and shit is about to get REAL!

Honestly, I have been following along on rocket mass heaters off and on for 4-5 years off and on and I still don't feel like there is a go-to, one stop, this is how you build one, type of article. I know there are books but if someone posted a step by step this is how you build it the easiest way with home depot parts, I would likely do it. God bless cob and everything, but meet me halfway with conventional building materials and get me hooked with a basic functional model and steps to build it

13 years ago I saw my first rocket mass heater.  I took shitty video and put it on youtube because I thought people gotta learn about this.  

The whole concept is stunning.  This is a world changer.  

And the world just can't seem to be bothered.  

And when I see resistance to the idea, the resistance is psychotically dumb.  So we set about to prove they work well and focus on the points made by the dumb stuff.  Crickets.

I have hosted rocket mass heater events and we have collectively built soooooo many.   We have measured their crazy efficiency so many different ways.  

I'm exhausted.  

And now people are facing some serious, serious shit - and we still can't seem to get a spec of information in front of them.  

We did a kickstarter on "Free, earth friendly heat" and it was one of my lowest performing kickstarters ever.

13 years I have been trying to infect brains with rocket mass heaters.  

I think the real question is...

How do you convince a homeowner who probably put a good bit of money and effort into installing a well-functioning and efficient (albeit expensive and unsustainable) heating system, to throw that out the window completely - and put in a rocket mass heater instead?

Might be simple and straightforward for a small house or a trailer, but what if you're tackling a more complex heating installation in a multi-storey (and not open plan) family home?

Most people don't want to build their own heating system. Researching it alone is giving regular people like me a major headache Most people just want to call a "heating guy" who will tell them exactly what they need, how much it will cost, and how fast they can install it.

In my opinion, the future of RMHs does not lie in telling more "regular" people about it - it's all about convincing professionals (installers, consultants, insurance companies etc) of their benefits - and ideally get governments to subsidise them, like they've been doing in many places with solar panels or heat pumps.

daniel thomas allen wrote:I am trying to pitch a story about this to Business Insider where I work. Would anyone here be able to help introduce me to people living in typical suburban homes that have installed one? Or even better, someone living in Europe where energy rationing is coming and shit is about to get REAL!

Here is me in a double wide:



Which is the same rmh you see on the wikipedia page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_mass_heater



Here's the "beautiful rocket mass heaters" thread which includes some europe builds

https://permies.com/t/40573/beautiful-rocket-mass-heaters


We could make a thread talking about what you are looking for and send something out the dailyish calling for peeps.

Aldo Caine wrote:Honestly, I have been following along on rocket mass heaters off and on for 4-5 years off and on and I still don't feel like there is a go-to, one stop, this is how you build one, type of article. I know there are books but if someone posted a step by step this is how you build it the easiest way with home depot parts, I would likely do it. God bless cob and everything, but meet me halfway with conventional building materials and get me hooked with a basic functional model and steps to build it

The trick is that everybody wants something slightly different.

Have you looked into pebble style?  A wood box filled with pea gravel is the mass.

If it were commercialized and there were businesses that installed them at a reasonable price...I would buy one and have it installed.  No way do I think I could build one.

If wood stove installers and masonry stove builders got on board, maybe RMH adoption would advance a bit faster.  How can we convince them that getting into this market will make them lots of money, save the world, etc?

Sandrine Coosemans wrote:How do you convince a homeowner who probably put a good bit of money and effort into installing a well-functioning and efficient (albeit expensive and unsustainable) heating system, to throw that out the window completely - and put in a rocket mass heater instead?

Instead of "instead" howzabout "in addition to"?  

The fisher price house had a propane heater.  We added a rmh and used it so much that the propane heater didn't come on.  But if the house were to be empty for a week or two, the propane heater could do its job.

Might be simple and straightforward for a small house or a trailer, but what if you're tackling a more complex heating installation in a multi-storey (and not open plan) family home?

It's been done.

Most people don't want to build their own heating system.

True!

And most people don't want to build their own nuclear reactor either - but that nuclear reactor stuff is taking up about a thousand times more brain space than rocket mass heaters.

Diane Colboch wrote:If it were commercialized and there were businesses that installed them at a reasonable price...I would buy one and have it installed.  No way do I think I could build one.

You could buy a UL listed liberator and have it installed by anybody that installs wood stoves in your area.

Mike Haasl wrote:If wood stove installers and masonry stove builders got on board, maybe RMH adoption would advance a bit faster.  How can we convince them that getting into this market will make them lots of money, save the world, etc?

I think for them to get on board there needs to be market.  And for there to be market, people have to be aware that rocket mass heaters are a thing.  

We need rocket mass heaters to have as much brain space as nuclear reactors.

I think it's about focusing on the people who will learn about it and take action straight away, and then work backwards from there.  

This person is
--somewhat of a DIY-er, but maybe they'll hire some help for the building to make sure it gets made safely
   --(who can they hire? we don't yet have an army of clones of Uncle Mud, Erica and Ernie, Matt, Sky, or Peter.) (That I know of from this forum.  Maybe there's another forum where they do know how to make clones asking themselves how they can get the word out to more people, who knows).
--has the money to invest in the project, and the time, but not enough to pay for oil heat all winter long
--lives in a cold climate area (obvious one, but let's remember to spell out the obvious too)
--has minimal building code obstacles/insurance obstacles/or maybe it is a matter of being technically illegal on the books but the agreement in their area is that as long as it isn't harming anyone else, it's fine.
--is a proactive person; they will take action when they get good information, even if it's not a sure thing until they've experienced it and lived with it themselves.  So, not too risk-averse
--but also cautious enough they wouldn't just throw togethers something really flaming-heap-of-death, as unfortunately some people have done in my town here in the past, I am told
          --would take the time to read a bit
--open to learning about new-ish ideas, even if "everyone knows you can't build an airplane that can fly"
--open to taking _action_ on the new idea even if all their neighbors are going to say snide things about them maybe (I'm thinking of the farmer that Sepp Holzer met who was losing money each year, but wouldn't change what he did because all the other farmers did it that same way)

I'm not a typical example.  For me, it was a matter of ethics.  I couldn't live with myself if I didn't keep making forward progress on reducing my carbon emissions, which I have reasonable concern are an act of harm to humans and other life.

For other people, it could be the savings of money.

I have told people about my RMH in the neighborhood but so far people have not taken action.  They have started talking about heat pumps.  In Massachusetts the heat pump seems to be the most tempting solution.  And it has some advantages for insurance and code purposes and utility (thermostatically controlled, also cools in summer).  But, as the guy who was giving an estimate on it for us said, "Hold onto your fossil fuels. In the winter here you'll need them."  And he pointed out that it takes 3 weeks to get one repaired if it breaks, whereas everyone and their cousin can repair an oil burner that same day.

Again, start from the end result of "person actually built a RMH and uses it" and work backwards.  

Dare I say a targeted adword campaign that involves some of that data aggregation stuff that supposedly can tell more about people's personalities than they themselves know...?  

Or a more structured in form informational presentation (structured in the ways that direct sales marketing works, tupperware parties, etc.)

Lastly, it may  be helpful to normalize this by making it sound boring.  A professor at my school once said that professors could evade opposition by making their lecture titles sound boring, so the administration wouldn't hassle them.  But they could then be subversive and make change.  For example, instead of "heat your home with 1/10th the wood" you could say "a wood stove uses 10 times the wood of a modern, efficient woodburning appliance, as well as causing other environmental problems and costing the user more."
--
The other pain point Chris Mud had pointed out was that you have to refill your wood stove at 3 am.
--
One last point on "working backwards from the person who's going to take action"--it's a matter of who will do it, not who needs it the most.  It's tempting ot see a person complaining or suffering from the $1000-a-month oil bill and think, Logic! you NEED a rocket mass heater!  But logic does not make the world go round.  Emotion does.  Who is the person who will actually build a RMH?  Might not be the person whose economic self-interest is most served.  Might be the person who needs it the least, in fact, the person who already was keeping their thermostat at -40 degrees (or, as they call it in Winnipeg, room temperature), and already has a pretty efficient wood stove and already has large cauldrons of water sitting on top of the stove and around it.  Working backwards means starting from who's actually interested, not who should be interested.  

Seems to me that you need to apply some "diffusion of innovation" theory, where each fase needs specific kinds of communication


(Not my picture)

Most information out there now is aimed at the very first and maybe the second fase of innovation. You'll never reach masses with only communications like that.

Also, a marketing survey would be a good tool, for the people who have actually built a RMH:

--how long have you had it?
--how much has it cost you per year?
--why did you go ahead and do it rather than merely thinking and reading/waiting for it to be more widely adopted first?
--how did you pay for it/scavenge parts/get materials you needed?
--how did you ensure it was safe?
--how did you get past any legal or insurance hurdles?
--(how many people have you managed to join to the hoard of RMH owners since building yours?)
--...

It would have to be an anonymous survey, I believe.  And people would have to have a fairly good level of trust that it is anonymous.

This would give more real information than logic alone, though logic gets some way toward clarifying the way forward.

Reading through this thread, and thinking of a post on Twitter this past week...

Somebody was lamenting their skyrocketing energy and heating costs, and somebody said "Have you considered a rocket mass heater? the people at permies have lots of info on it."

the response was (paraphrased) "Yeah, but my wife thinks they're ugly."

Which made my eyes pop out my head a little bit, because... a lot of reasons.
1. They can be made to look very beautiful, and don't even need to use the metal barrel.
2. You're staring down the barrel of MASSIVE heating costs, threatening your ability to provide for your family and keep them warm and safe, and you're worried about ESTHETICS?!

Anyway, made me think we need to show people how they can look and function in a conventional home. You don't need to be all about ecobuildings, upcycling, and permaculture living to have a rocket mass heater. You just need to wanna be warm, at a low cost!

Some of the above points that stand out to me:
- There isn't a one-stop "here's how you do it" place that made me feel FULLY informed, and ready to take the plunge.
- It would be great if there were people you could contact who could make one for you, or make the process really easy

I've also thought it would be great to have a template for petitions to local govs to make them legal, and encouraged. Would get people curious, and rallying around the idea. Nothing like being denied something to light the fire in somebody to start DEMANDING it!

Very apt.

Can you clarify what's in the "chasm"?  I see a shark...and not a tiny one.  But I'm assuming there's something that does get across that chasm, and some clarity about what's actually going on there?  

Henk Lenting wrote:Seems to me that you need to apply some "diffusion of innovation" theory, where each fase needs specific kinds of communication


(Not my picture)

Most information out there now is aimed at the very first and maybe the second fase of innovation. You'll never reach masses with only communications like that.

paul wheaton wrote:

snip

I'm exhausted.  

And now people are facing some serious, serious shit - and we still can't seem to get a spec of information in front of them.  

We did a kickstarter on "Free, earth friendly heat" and it was one of my lowest performing kickstarters ever.

13 years I have been trying to infect brains with rocket mass heaters.  

DON'T GIVE UP!   YOU HAVE AN ACTIVE ARMY but an even BIGGER inactive army being built!  

I particularly like two ideas from above,    if we can combine, them I think it would be awesome - apartment, and plans.  How about plans for a simple small RMH for an apartment?

Sandy

Sandy

Joshua Myrvaagnes wrote:
Lastly, it may  be helpful to normalize this by making it sound boring.  A professor at my school once said that professors could evade opposition by making their lecture titles sound boring, so the administration wouldn't hassle them.  But they could then be subversive and make change.  For example, instead of "heat your home with 1/10th the wood" you could say "a wood stove uses 10 times the wood of a modern, efficient woodburning appliance, as well as causing other environmental problems and costing the user more."  

THIS is something I can run with... Love this. Very smart.

S Smithsson wrote:about plans for a simple small RMH for an apartment?

free rocket mass heater plans:



https://permies.com/goodies/7/tprt

paul wheaton wrote:
You could buy a UL listed liberator and have it installed by anybody that installs wood stoves in your area.

I get that video is private when I follow that link.  Is it somewere else?

Sandy

S Smithsson wrote:

paul wheaton wrote:
You could buy a UL listed liberator and have it installed by anybody that installs wood stoves in your area.

I get that video is private when I follow that link.  Is it somewere else?

Sandy

https://rocketheater.com/

a list of rocket mass heater builders

https://permies.com/wiki/122347/List-Rocket-Mass-Heater-Builders

How about partnering with Peace Corps Volunteers?  They participate in really cool extension projects. As a PCV, I lived and worked with farmers in rural villages in Senegal. One popular project was the build of mud stoves - made from clay, sand, dried manure- for safer more resource efficient cooking. It may take thinking  outside the box, especially for some of the parts, but rural folks are so resourceful. Now, I’m not saying this project is perfect for Senegal, considering the climate and all, but PCVs serve in countries all over the world!  

Wishing for more won't help anyone, especially in Germany.
Is there a Journeyman system?

I'm going to suggest a build in my local community centre here in the UK. A place for folk to retreat to while builds get done — where possible — in private homes.  Perhaps an invitation to experience the warmth of working RMH first hand will be key.

Folk are trained to be dependant on state and "experts." This winter is going to be a stark education for many reasons.

I agree that emotions are what rule even the most logical people. If the wife thinks an RMH is ugly you won't get one. ( In fact, that's the major reason I didn't build one years ago.) I think a successful masonry guy can adapt a masonry only design meant for small spaces and make a good profit without too much difficulty, since the footprint is small. The marketing side of things mentioned in these previous texts is brilliant, but I think it'll also require on-boarding the right talent who has that entrepreneurial spirit. Who knows, maybe if enough local folks get going across the country it'll reach critical mass and go world wide. That's the plan, right?

And most people don't want to build their own nuclear reactor either - but that nuclear reactor stuff is taking up about a thousand times more brain space than rocket mass heaters.

Nuclear also has more than 1000x more money behind it than RMH.  marketing, lobbying, propaganda.  Yet most people don't sit around thinking about nuclear power - they sit around taking cheap heat for granted.  

But that is currently changing.  I think RMH has an emergent advantage in the midst of crisis. People are making space for alternatives where the status quo is failing.

So we've kinda arrive at a confluence of:
1) educate the commercial designers and builders to create supply and knowledge
and
2) educate the masses to create demand

But how do we do that more, better, or different than Paul has been for the last 13 years.

Write RMH into a blockboster film?  Write pop music about being toasty warm on the freaky cheap?  

paul wheaton wrote:

Aldo Caine wrote:Honestly, I have been following along on rocket mass heaters off and on for 4-5 years off and on and I still don't feel like there is a go-to, one stop, this is how you build one, type of article. I know there are books but if someone posted a step by step this is how you build it the easiest way with home depot parts, I would likely do it. God bless cob and everything, but meet me halfway with conventional building materials and get me hooked with a basic functional model and steps to build it

The trick is that everybody wants something slightly different.

Have you looked into pebble style?  A wood box filled with pea gravel is the mass.

Yes, and that would be exactly the type of design I'd want to do. I enjoyed the build video, I remember watching it when it came out. But it struck me as more of a promo video, which is great, just not a "how to" video. Or maybe if I need this much spoon feeding, I am not the dude to be building these. I guess it's just not something I feel like messing around with - I would really like it just to work when I build it, with minimal tinkering so long as I follow the build instructions

Kill the "building codes" "question" first. Maybe then the "insurance question" follows...
a.) systematically pick states/cities where wood heating is common, and pair up with "fanatics/early adopters/guinea pigs" to establish and document more state/local "code compliant" examples.
b.) try to find existing RMH installs, and document their "code compliance" efforts.
c.) gather/tabulate some data for structural estimation: weights of materials, weight of a sample RMH, weight per additional lineal foot of sample RMH bench. This would allow an engineer/architect/inspector to calculate the loading and support required in the case of retrofitting a home.
d.) material selection guide: refractory material types, names, weights? (for c. above), recommendations (performance/code acceptance), substitutions, common supplier options (pottery supply, furnace supply, home center, online sources, local sources, salvage), sourcing from your land (and how, is another question).

Back in the winter when I was trying to sell my landlord on a Liberator, he said “oh yeah, like in the 70’s when everyone got a wood stove”. The Liberators have been sold out for months in advance.  It is catching on, in a way, maybe with a mass or maybe without.  

With huge respect to the Liberator folks, it isn’t as strong a heater as a full-on traditional rocket mass heater.  But the change is happening and people are being proactive.  So maybe now Sky will be able to afford the time to upgrade the Liberator, maybe more people will put in a mass, etc.

I think the aesthetics of making a more beautiful, fair, clean world are a strong inspiration too.

Beau Davidson wrote:

And most people don't want to build their own nuclear reactor either - but that nuclear reactor stuff is taking up about a thousand times more brain space than rocket mass heaters.

Nuclear also has more than 1000x more money behind it than RMH.  marketing, lobbying, propaganda.  Yet most people don't sit around thinking about nuclear power - they sit around taking cheap heat for granted.  

But that is currently changing.  I think RMH has an emergent advantage in the midst of crisis. People are making space for alternatives where the status quo is failing.

So we've kinda arrive at a confluence of:
1) educate the commercial designers and builders to create supply and knowledge
and
2) educate the masses to create demand

But how do we do that more, better, or different than Paul has been for the last 13 years.

Write RMH into a blockboster film?  Write pop music about being toasty warm on the freaky cheap?  

I think another issue that is being ignored is the argument for installing a RMH has to be pretty strong for people not only CHANGE the way they heat but convince them that more work is worth the change.

Convincing people to replace their current "turn the thermostat and pay the bill"  to not only find and replace it, but also to keep buying fuel and lugging it home and feeding it, even with a pellet stove its still lots more work than a gas furnace, or even a propane one where you call the guy to fill the tank once a year.  

That said I have no ideas on how to convince people it's worth it. Heck, I believe in it and yet still have gas furnace heating my home.

and the money. you have to have money to make the switch.  

Aldo Caine wrote:Honestly, I have been following along on rocket mass heaters off and on for 4-5 years off and on and I still don't feel like there is a go-to, one stop, this is how you build one, type of article. I know there are books but if someone posted a step by step this is how you build it the easiest way with home depot parts, I would likely do it. God bless cob and everything, but meet me halfway with conventional building materials and get me hooked with a basic functional model and steps to build it

This sums it up for me.  I have been reading about rocket mass heaters for years and I LOVE the idea, and I want one, but I want to build it once by following very clear instructions and have it work.  I don't want to mock it up outside and tinker and tweak until it works, then tear it back apart, move it somewhere else, put it all back together, and hope it still works.  By all means, once I build one successfully and have a working, viable RMH, I'll probably tweak it, change it, play with it, build 3 more of them.  

Meantime, I'm holding out until Thomas has a workshop and I can participate with someone that I know knows what they are doing.

That aside, the absolute best way to tell more people about RMHs, in my opinion, is being able to show them a beautiful working one and being able to tell them, straight -faced, that I built it in 3 or 4 days, and then demonstrating to them how it works.  I could probably convince a dozen people I know right now to build one if I had an attractive working one in my house that I could show them.

S Smithsson wrote:I think another issue that is being ignored is the argument for installing a RMH has to be pretty strong for people not only CHANGE the way they heat but convince them that more work is worth the change.

Convincing people to replace their current "turn the thermostat and pay the bill"  to not only find and replace it, but also to keep buying fuel and lugging it home and feeding it, even with a pellet stove its still lots more work than a gas furnace, or even a propane one where you call the guy to fill the tank once a year.  

That said I have no ideas on how to convince people it's worth it. Heck, I believe in it and yet still have gas furnace heating my home.

and the money. you have to have money to make the switch.  

I think there's an "all-or-nothing" mindset, assuming they MUST heat only with wood henceforth... or a "well, I'm keeping my gas/oil/electric system anyway, just in case..." mindset, detracting from adoption of RMH... which is simultaneously, conveniently, ignoring that they currently have no backup plan if the utility or that equipment fails... Or maybe it's a fireplace that they've used once or twice, which informs their entire wood heating knowledge.

There may also be a perceived (although it's probably real, since it's based on people's perception...) of a lessening of home value by installing a RMH. Especially considering the "oil drum" look, or possibly some other funky sculptural or material choices built in. It might also be how a prospective owner might want to use a room differently, without the restriction of a built-in MASSIVE thing. We haven't even sold many people on RMH, but I'm sure more than a few will think of resale value.

Beau Davidson wrote:
So we've kinda arrive at a confluence of:
1) educate the commercial designers and builders to create supply and knowledge
and
2) educate the masses to create demand

But how do we do that more, better, or different than Paul has been for the last 13 years.

Write RMH into a blockboster film?  Write pop music about being toasty warm on the freaky cheap?  

I think I said it a few years ago, that there needs to be an off-the-shelf option. Right now, you could go buy a stove, hearth, pipes, etc... fill out a permit, and install a conventional woodstove, or a pellet stove, or just hire the stove shop guy.
For a RMH, you can buy plans, or a pre-cut kit of ceramic fiberboard, or maybe a "shippable core" but the rest is up to you. Bricks, stone, clay, sand, barrels, pipes, appeal to your inspector for a permit, DIY...

"how do we tell more people about rocket mass heaters?"
Tell them there is a product, that they can buy.
That they can choose a design/layout, and install it like any other furniture or appliance, without any more permitting hoops than a woodstove, or gas furnace.

Dig a clay pit in your backyard, and hoard your junk mail all year, is not most people.
If "wheel three carloads of RMH kit out of IKEA" was an option (which means they'd also be free on Craigslist), anybody and everybody would or could have one.