Hi Folks.
I am delighted to join here so I can ask some questions, there's just not too many places where folks discuss RMHs !!!
After reading, watching and asking around about RMHs for over a year I am finally in a place where I need to set up something better for the winter's heating.
It is an old house and the chimney is quite far from the center of the house where the wet walls are and that is where the heat is very much needed.
Presently attached to that chimney in a distant & closed off room is an older, no-name box stove.
One of the thoughts I'm having was stimulated by the hybrid stove + rocket video made by Ernie and Erica - but I've found almost no other info along those lines...I wonder if there even is any more info to be found about that idea ??
Two ideas are rolling around in my mind, both involving using a small central room with no chimney for the heating location:
1. Make some sort of brick & barrel 100% home-made rocket mass heater.
2. Make the old stove into a hybrid for this season so as to more easily use the prepared cord of wood that is already on hand without needing to split it into slivers.
The problems I need to solve are...:
A. The room is quite small so any mass needs to be very compact.
B. Getting the exhaust as cool as possible so it can easily/safely be vented out.
Besides the old stove I have 30 & 55 gallon metal barrels, some stovepipes, a big bag of perlite and a length of that accordion stuff I was going to use for the exhaust at my previous place where I had better space for a thermal mass.
There's also lots of odd rocks around here too so I could also use those as part of a thermal mass.
I'm assuming that no matter what else I'll likely have to buy some bricks, mortar and other smallish stuff.
One other pertinent fact is that my situation is one of being a caretaker with no income presently due to previous long-term illness, so I am trying to be as frugal as possible here.
Thanks for any help & pointers.