by matt walker » Thu Feb 23, 2012 1:58 am
Okay, update time! It's been slow around the board lately, and I apologize for not spending more time. I've been playing catch up since I dedicated so much time to my stove, and on top of that, I just want to sit on the warm bench and stare at the fire. My computer time is WAY DOWN! I think we can add that as another feature in the positive column for the RMH.
Anyway, it's becoming quite dry, no more moisture on the windows in the morning, although I'm sure it's still quite wet inside. So, for quality of heat in the house, A+. I can quickly heat the house to too warm with a relatively small amount of wood, and easily surpass the old box stove's output. I can get it to 80*F in here with outside temps in the high 30*'s. The box stove just couldn't do that, not that I experienced, anyway.
The bench is amazing, sitting on that thing is heaven. I've taken to watching movies from there, and it's like a hot tub. I'm just melted after a few hours on it.
The stove is holding up well, the clay in the feed is kinda taking a beating, but not noticeably deteriorating at any alarming rate. I have reshaped the mouth of the feed with more clay and perlite a couple times. Most recently was yesterday, I choked it down a bit, and the stove is running flawlessly. I now get absolutely not a touch of smoke, or flame creep, or any associated annoyances. I had been having a bit of trouble since my wood is all 18" or so long, and wet. The wood wouldn't drop because the core was wet, before the outsides burned high enough to smoke. I was covering the load often, which worked fine. However, by restricting the inlet, even with long wood, the downdraft is strong enough to keep everything in the feed. I'm very pleased.
Splitting the wood is kind of a pain in the ass, honestly. I am operating under the assumption that this is a temporary situation due to having wood for my old stove, which all needs splitting down to 2" or so pieces to use in the RMH. I believe that next season I will be stocking up on coppiced Maple and Alder and will no longer have to split wood ever, so I am accepting this season's chore of whittling the big wood down to little wood.
It's colder in the mornings than it was with the box stove. Not bad, and I accept it and realize overall it is an improvement, but I'm trying to be honest about the pros and cons. I am waking up to the house about 64* on average, with outside temps just above freezing. Frankly, that's fine with me, but the box stove, set to smolder all night, would have the house around 68* in the am. The difference is if the box stove went out, the house temp would plummet, while the RMH hasn't let it go below 60*, even when it was out for 20 hours the other day. It also picks up the temp MUCH faster, so I'm overall pleased. However, there really isn't an option other than 64* in the morning. It's not like I can stuff more wood in it before I go to bed.
Air quality in the house is greatly improved. People talk a bit about smoke back with the RMH. Let me tell you, one episode of struggling to get the box stove going with a wet load, or fired up from smoldering all night, put WAY more smoke in the house than the RMH has total. I'm sure of that. In addition, the layer of fine ash dust that the box stove put over everything in the house, and the smell of wood smoke, is gone. The RMH keeps the air circulating and doesn't allow any ash out at all. I love this feature.
I dissembled the last few sections of flue yesterday, and they are as clean as can be. I think I've effectively eliminated chimney cleaning/maintenance for the foreseeable future. I'm really stoked on that.
I've discovered that the wood I want, most people consider trash. I've picked up a bale, which my 3/4 ton diesel truck could barely hold, of kiln dried offcuts from a local manufacturing facility, for free. They have bales and bales laying outside their facility, free for the taking. No body wants them. I've burned the stove for three days on a wheelbarrow full, which didn't even make a visible dent in my truck load. Yay!!!!
There's more, but I'll stop fawning for now. I wish I had put this thing in years ago.