Permsteading.com

Sounds awesome 4seasons. I can't wait to see the flame crasher!

Matt you type so much faster than me as you put up 2 post in the time it took me to organize my thoughts and post one. Glad to here I am not the only one that has thought about the offset riser as a possible innovation. If I decide to go with a batchboxbox design for my house I will probably go with standard PeterBurg dimentions although I may add a bit of length to the front to add outside air inlet. For right now I am just playing with mud trying to test the outer limits. Kinda standing on the shoulders of others work until I fall off. While I may find that the middle of the road is the best way I always like to stretch the limits until I find something that just doesn't work and then back off a bit to get the best results.

I just wish I would not have stretched the limits of my thumb so far. For anyone who was thinking about it one thumb between a 5 pound piece of iron traveling at approximately 15 MPH and a 20 pound cinder block results in pain, blood, trip to a nurse, possible passing out, and a tetanus shot come Monday. I do not recommend this experiment.

So what's the elevator pitch on batch box vs j tube? Am I even making a legit comparison here?

Again I am not fully up to speed on the J-tube design but became fascinated with the development of the batch box design after reading about it on Donkey's board here : and the further refinement here: To quote Matt with the Batch-box "The idea to enable a larger firebox, to be able to load more wood"
I think it lets you load all your wood as normal sticks as opposed to longer self feeding sticks into a J-tube. It can be built to look similar to a traditional fireplace insert or wood stove while performing much better. At least that is my take on it and the reason that I am pursuing the batch box line of rocket stove over the J-tube.

Ok got it. I had seen the term but didn't know what it was all about.

I'm really on the other side of the fence. I'm more intrigued with the J tube approach because I have an infinite supply of long thin mesquite branches that should self feed beautifully, burn really hot, and require no chopping or splitting. (We call it widow's wood for a reason!). But I can see how the batch approach would be nice because it it nice to see fire. The vertical feed tubes hide a lot of that beauty.