Hi All!
It's been many months since we last updated our blog... Lots of pics showing the progress we've made on the interior this summer.
http://www.home-n-stead.com/about/blog.html
We're getting very excited about moving in! It's going to be kind of a weird experience at first, I think... :)
Andrew
Hey, I can see why you're excited about moving in! Looks wonderful! You should be very proud of your accomplishment.
Thank you! Yes, I think we all feel a deep sense of accomplishment after this project... We've learned a lot, but the house is still turning out OK in spite of it. ;)
Really looking great, Andrew.
Were you happy with the amount of heat you got from the rocket stove?
When it works, it seems to be capable of kicking off a lot of heat. :-/ Been having some real issues with the draw, possibly because of the way we routed the pipe down and through the floor. The more energy the stove exerts pushing the gases down like that, the less powerful of a draw you'll have, I'm assuming. Anyway, if the wind is at all slightly against me, I can't keep the thing from backpuffing tons of smoke in the house to save my life. I redid the feed tube and part of the burn tunnel with firebrick this summer, and we still have to put a permanent stack outside. Right now we just have couple chunks of stovepipe on the east end of the house. I'm hoping that the addition of an insulated stack, plus a good wind cap like a vacu-stack or something will take care of our problems. Those wind caps aren't cheap, though... They look simple enough to fabricate on your own if you had a pattern to follow or something..
How's your rocket doing? :)
I have the same problems as you - works OK when it works but not reliable enough for me to want to fool with it. I decided to take it out and put our Franklin/woodstove combo down there and put a smaller antique replica stove in the bedroom.
How high was your stack? The other factor could be outside temperature.. It probably won't perform as well in 80 degree, humid weather as it would on a -20 degree winter morning. But then, who's brave enough to find out? ;)
I haven't taken it out yet though. We will use the cob chunks in The wall around the root cellar probably- like adobe bricks and not far to move them.
It was a fun experiment though. :)
Outside -about 10 feet -- could have used more to get it high enough to clear the highest point 10 feet away, but IMO it was using all of the heat to do what it was supposed to do - heat the cob bench - and not enough left to creat a draft and keep it going through everything without a lot of tinkering. I just don't have time for the tinkering.
It could have evolved into a full time job just to keep the fire going - efficiently burning the wood - if not fighting back drafts and smoke, but having to constantly feed it.
It could work with a powered exhaust fan I think but that was not how it was supposed to have to be.
I also had about 10 feet of interior pipe plus the bench.
That sounds a lot like our situation... I sure hope we can figure out how to make it work, though.. I've spent so much time on this thing that it's not funny... I just don't want to give in. :) We've also spent a ton of time on the bench...
I'm kind of agonizing about the stack, though.. It would cost us about $300 to build it, and if it doesn't work, it's in a very inconvenient place for a normal wood stove. At the same time, though, I'm not sure if I'm giving the rocket stove a fair chance without the chimney. :-/
The way I see it, the longer chimney cools it more and even insulated I don't think it will gain enough to overcome the cold air wanting to fall down the stack.
The original rocket stove didn't have a stack. It burned clean with no chimney. The fire rushed through it and burned up all the carbon etc, I think adding all the stack - bench etc is working against the free flow needed to make it work properly. It is possible there is a combination there that will make it work reliably - maybe your insulated stack is the answer, but expensive to try if it fails.
Maybe you could get ahold of an old automotive squirel cage fan to temporarily put on your exhaust -duct tape it to the end of the chimney? wire and aluminum foil? and see if the added draft makes the rest of it work satisfactorily?
We used a small exhaust fan at the end of the pipe all last winter, and it worked great... Unfortunately, it really isn't a permanent solution. By the end of last winter our fan was pretty ready to bite the dust, and we really want to be electricity-free as much as possible.
That is my concern also. To be a real success it shouldn't need the fan.
I just found this rocket:
http://ilovecob.com/gallery/rocketstove/
Have you seen this site before? I was surprised at how long the burn tunnel was. You would think that'd kill the draw. I contacted them to find out more about it and how well it works..
Haven't seen that one before. Looks like an Evans design using all brick and tile.
It will be interesting to see what they have to say.