Rocket Stove Mass Heater
Dirt in the Dining Room
In the city, like most people, we lived in modern homes located in neighborhoods with similar houses. The last thing we would do is bring in a wheelbarrow full of dirt into the house to build a mud structure in our dining room. This is one of the pluses to living in an old country home of let's say, less than normal standards. It's like living in an old fort where you can do anything you want to it and it will neither improve nor degrade it. We have the freedom to do any experiment we want. This is our kind of place! With this freedom comes the desire to live outside the box and what better way to add to it than build our own rocket mass heater. We needed a bench in our dining room. And heated? How fun is that! The creativity found on the Internet is never ending.
Research and Build
YouTube has several Do-It-Yourself videos on this subject. We found an efficient design and morphed it to fit our needs.
We were not entirely new to the rocket stove concept. We experimented with a portable rocket stove. (If you are interested in seeing it click here.)
Learning Something New
We had some challenges in working with the fire. If we used sticks that were too long the fire began to crawl up the stick and smoke came into the room instead of drawing into the stove. We found that using short wood pieces work the best for us, especially when they fit horizontally in the firebox.
Review & Update
It has been three winters since we have installed our rocket stove. Click here to for the review/update :)
Shelly
April 2013
Partners
Resources
www.greenhomebuilding.com/adobe.htm
www.earthbagbuilding.com/articles.htm
www.earthbagplans.wordpress.com
We moved from the city to the country in 2005. Since then, we have been building structures, raising livestock and growing some of our own foods. We are crazy about family, nutrition and want the best for our growing family.
