You are viewing a single comment's thread from:

RE: Rocket Stove part 3: Playing with clay mixes

in Build-It3 years ago

So the heat is transferred into the house but what stops the smoke from entering, or is any additional smoke burned up in the process? Also, I'm in Australia so don't understand how cold your winters get but my guess is very cold. So, how much fuel is going to be required in a typical year of heating the house? A ton or more?

Sort:  

A cord of wood is 4 x 4 x 8 feet. Roughly half a cord to a level full standard pickup. Weight varies by species but our western soft wood (tamarack and cedar) weigh about 3500 lbs per cord.

I would trust these numbers much more than my guesses!

Ah ok, thanks Tom; We don't use the word cord here much, I've heard of it of course, but it's not commonly used.

Damn that answered my guess lol nice!

No smoke escapes around the larger 'heat exchange' barrel. A little does still escape from the lid of the 'stove' part, but that will be separate from the heat exchange system.

I'm not sure what my fuel needs will be by weight, but I'm expecting to be able to heat the house for a year on about one full cord of wood, which is about 4 standard pickup truck loads. My rough guess at the weight of that, for seasoned ash, is probably a little shy of two tons.

Ah ok, I'm not sure how much that would cost but it sounds like it could be a cost effective way of heating the house considering the cost of energy on the market these days.

My hope is that I'll be able to keep it filled with scraps from my lumber processing. I have wood to burn for YEARS!

That will help. Any way to recycle waste product is a good thing, and if you don't have to buy wood because of it then even better!