RMH quest...any suggestions, please ???

[smallhagrid]

Thanks for the greeting and welcome Pa_friendly_guy !!

Oddmar I have looked as carefully as possible at your most recent diagram and it seems quite wonderful as a design idea for the situation I am trying to accomodate - thanks very much for sharing it !!!

Also, try as I may I cannot seem to wrap my thoughts around a couple of details - so I wonder if you might be kind enough to educate further about these things, please ??:

- Obviously there must be a structure joining and sealing what appears to be the smaller barrel with the larger barrel - would you please elaborate upon that idea ??

- It would seem likely there must be an open area as well as a thermal mass/battery in the 2nd, larger barrel - but these are also not obvious to me olde eyes - would you please elaborate upon this as well ??

Thanks !!

[pa_friendly_guy]

Here is a commercially available unit that you still build yourself that uses regular flue lines for the Bell. They were at the Mother Earth News Fair. I thought of Matt when I saw them. What they sell you is the basic flue liner with the proper size holes cut in them and some metal connectors, you purchase all the rest of the flue lines locally to save shipping. The design is a basic rocket stove with 2 bells for added heat. The weight is good, I would say no heavier than a Refrigerator on the same floor space. You can cover the flue lines with what ever you wish, they used fake stone for their demo, but stucco, cobb, stone, brick, any thing would work for the mass, or you can just leave the flue lines uncovered. Here is the link.

http://www.dragonheaters.com/6-rocket-m ... build-kit/

I know posting a competitors produce line here might be sacrilege Matt, but the basic design is good, it seemed to work well in a small space, and the weight is good for someone putting it on a wooden floor. And since your stove is not available commercially yet they didn't seem to be much of a competitor. At least not yet. any way it is an alternative to look at, modify, or consider.

[smallhagrid]

Thanks Again Pa_friendly_guy !!
At $800 + $140 fixed shipping, that is way, way, WAAAY beyond my means.
Neat site and I'm glad that folks are going commercial with the RMH idea - but for me 100% BYO/DIY is the way.
(If someone wanted to gift me such a thing I sure wouldn't refuse it though - hahahaha !!!)

Oddmar's idea looks quite promising - and I could still possibly do something with the old trough here too - but before I can proceed I also need to have a meeting of the minds with the boss lady of this place when she takes a break from running the roads for a day or three.
That will determine which direction I will proceed in, as no matter how it is done alot of changes need to be made to this place and I am the help - not the owner.

Thanks.

[pa_friendly_guy]

Since that unit is built from common chimney flue lines I think it would be easy to copy and build a DIY stove. It was the idea and the design that I thought you might be interested in seeing. It works for the weight issue and it is fairly compact so it may work for your space requirements as well. It does not have a huge mass, but the flue lines do provide a bit of mass and the double Bell design seems to be a way of dispersing and holding the heat. I think it should be easy to incorporate the flue liner idea into your bell system. Just a thought,

[smallhagrid]

Thanks Pa_friendly_guy.
I'll take more time and examine their site more carefully as I must admit that I was in a hurry before and after seeing the $$$, I just gave the site a quick once-through and then I had to go out for a while...I'll look harder now.

Addendum:
OK, I confess - sure, folks need to make a living and all=> but seeing the plans alone at that site for $50 puts me off, and then all their other stuff being up in the hundreds...meh.

Their 2 designs are interesting - the castle one which comes as an incomplete kit and must weigh tonnage when finished; and the steel one with no thermal mass which looks very nice, but is not what I want at all.

I hope more info is forthcoming about the ideas already shared by Oddmar, and between that and other ideas it will likely be possible to work out a 100% DIY & inexpensive solution for this place.

Thanks.

[matt walker]

It's a neat heater, and design. Guy, you are more than welcome to post that info here, I am a big fan of Dragon Heaters and think that for most folks their cores are one of the best ways to just get going on one of these things. I have spoken with Sandy in the past and consider Dragon Heaters more of an ally than a competitor, they are doing a lot to promote these wonderful heaters and are doing it right in my opinion.

The design of the heater you linked to there, Oddmar's bell design he posted for Hagrid, and my barrel/bell, are all pretty much the same thing. Slightly different approaches and materials, and some differences in the details, but the same basic concept.

[DevilsBrew]

***A side note***
Once you become familiar with rocket stoves and masonry designs, it will be easy for you to pick up on the quality of a product. Dragon Heaters and Matt offer the high end products. They are also the only ones to offer horizontal burn tunnels, which is an amazing feat. Their cores are more than worth the money.

I'm broke so I am going back to playing with my bricks now...

[Oddmar]

[Oddmar]

I imagine this is what the "Drakon Heetaur" (lol) looks like inside. It would allow you to avoid using the outer drum and building the plenum, but according to Ernie Weisner the final stage of combustion occurs in the top third of the outer drum, after the hot gas exits the heat riser. This design might produce a bit more ash and some creosote.



Referencing Peter Vandenburg's work, it might be good to reduce the length and size of the burn tunnel as much as possible, to speed up the gases and create more turbulence where the burning gas enters the bottom of the heat riser. If you had a 5" ID heat riser (19.6 sq in), i'd make the burn tunnel 2" wide by 5" high, (10 sq in). This would suck air through the burn tunnel much faster.

Peter has a design which is a bulk loader, with a 4" long but quite tall burn tunnel. The burning gases squirt through like mad. He has a fresh-air injection tube coming down through the ceiling of the feed chamber in that design.

[smallhagrid]

Wow - my old head, he's a spinning !!!

I live in noplaceville, Vermont - a very pretty place, and the nearest valid sources for ordinary stuff are a 45 minute drive.
Presently not in possession of great metalworking tools; and as already stated, quite on the poor side, financially.

So=> I'm going to embrace the concept of KISS for this project, and seek common materials to combine with what I've got on hand already in order to get this done, in place and in use with some expediency.

Looks like it's going to be bricks (not on hand), stones, barrels, perlite, some kind of mortar (not on hand) and whatever stovepipe bits I can scavenge and/or get cheaply & locally.

That will have to do for this season, and rather than studying this more deeply BEFORE getting me olde hands dirty - I will do what another poster here suggests and JUST GET STARTED.

I'd like to be out collecting the copious wood around here right off the ground before the snow flies - and having a heater to burn them in is the goal for the VERY near future here.

Time to warm up the foon and find who has them bricks & mortar for the best prices, and for me to get to work !!!

Thanks for all the great & inspiring ideas so far - I intend to keep learning more about this and all the goodies shared by the good folks here are VERY appreciated.

Thanks.

PS:
A side project I must complete soon is removing a bunch of waste fiberglass batting from the barn here - is that anything that can be used in helping to make a RMH ??