Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Whoever is doing your camera work should get in front of the camera and help!

Nice teaser Rob



I must have missed the shaky part? ... three legs and no arms = steady with the camera but not much help.

The rocket mass heater is up and running and it's quite the inferno! It will be quite interesting to add some enhancements to it in the future. I"m hoping to cover the entire unit and pump the heat under the floor to increase the thermal mass. And, make it so it can burn either wood or pellets!

Great as always, the diagram at the end was especially helpful!

Great video Rob. I have a couple of questions

1. Where is your ash cleanout? Is that where you put your fan when you were starting the rocket mass heater?

2. Any information on how warm your greenhouse got while this was running vs outdoor temperature?

Thanks for posting this.

Good deal man, glad you got that RMH made. And looks like it works well. Kudos on the advance planning of the thermal mass piping in the floor!

Since the building isn't really done, I don't have any official measurements. But for the 1200 sqft of insulated space (and a lot of drafty leaks), I burned a wheelbarrow full (around 50-60 lbs?) for around 16 hours. The sand floor was frozen. It was 18 degrees and windy outside and I got the temp inside up to 43 and the floor thawed out. Considering the conditions, I was impressed!

You do some great Video work Rob.

Awesome Web4Deb. Truley awesome! You must be stoked.

PS thanks for sharing your aquarium video too. Convinced me to get an aquarium

great you have inspired me to upgrade my mass heater this winter
cheers
byron

HI Rob. I have seen other RMH videos and most of them had to have a clean out to get the ash out of the flue part. One I saw had the flue run for a long ways under the living room and then thru the end of the bedroom before exiting out side and up over the roof level. He had a "T" on the outside to do clean outs also. Said he really needed it too cause of the ash fallout in the long horizontal flue. He said he had not thought about the cleaning out part but was really glad he used a long straight flue. He had built it so it was a long seat in the living room and also in the bedroom. To start his he just lit a piece of paper and put it in the clean out and went inside to start the fire. I like your blower idea better. I would hate to try to start a paper on fire outside in the wind on a cold morning.

I also wondered how much it heated the space. Did the poly carb let enough heat through to melt the snow off the roof when you tested it? That was something I expected you to show but did not. You did say it got up to 43 and that was F I expect. Did the floor stay thawed out for a long time or did it re freeze again pretty quick? In other words did the Thermal Mass do its thing the way it was expected?

Don

It did heat the space well enough to melt some of the snow off the dome. The poly carb only has an R rating of 1.8 so it doesn't take much to get it to warm up. The section of the floor that thawed was an area that didn't have the duct work through it so it is frozen again. The "mass" section stayed thawed for quite awhile....but I've noticed that it is frozen again simply because the cold air is back drafting through the system while it isn't running. I'll have to install some kind of damper into it.

I can easily remove the barrels and get to any ash that may build up in that area and it will expose the horizontal vent. With a long chimney brush I could push any ash out to the vertical clean-out (where I put in the fan)

It's all pretty ingenious, if I do say so myself!

Love it! I had ordered the book, but your video has helped me visualize the rmh so much better. Thanks for sharing!

For the startup fan are you going to have to set it in there every time? You might could use an upside down Y to mount the fan off from the flue but still push the air out/pull the draft for starting.

Most likely I'll have to insert it each time.... I was just going to leave it in there buy I'm concerned that it will get gummed up over time. It's no big deal since I really plan on firing the heater for extended periods of time (a few days) and heat up the floor's mass...then draw heat from that mass.