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Post by Donkey on Mar 8, 2012 8:21:05 GMT -8
I'm not familiar with that book. Do you have an image, or link out?
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cone
Mar 8, 2012 8:14:10 GMT -8
Post by Donkey on Mar 8, 2012 8:14:10 GMT -8
Right.. That's the video of Ernie and Erica over at Permies.com. They use stove-gasket.
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cone
Mar 7, 2012 10:46:42 GMT -8
Post by Donkey on Mar 7, 2012 10:46:42 GMT -8
Odd.. My folks were boat people.. Oakum, since forever back, was tarred hemp fiber, used between planking in boats (and ships). The term "devil to pay" comes from calking the seam at the waterline which was known as "the devil". It was reserved as a punishment, sailors were lowered on a rope and had to do the work at sea, half submerged in freezing ocean, shoved against a barnacle crusted hull by waves.. Crappy job.
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Post by Donkey on Mar 7, 2012 10:39:19 GMT -8
I present to you Murphy's laws, beloved of engineers, supported by the laws of physics. Learn them, love them, live by them. ----------------------------------------------------------------
If anything can go wrong, it will Corollary: It can
If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong Extreme version: If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the FIRST to go wrong
If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway
If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which something can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop Corollary: It will be impossible to fix the fifth fault, without breaking the fix on one or more of the others
Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse
If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something
Nature always sides with the hidden flaw Corollary: The hidden flaw never stays hidden for long.
Mother nature is a bitch Addendum: and not an obedient one at that
Murphy's Law of Thermodynamics: Things get worse under pressure.
The Murphy Philosophy: Smile . . . tomorrow will be worse.
Quantization Revision of Murphy's Laws: Everything goes wrong all at once.
Murphy's Constant: Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value
Murphy's Laws of Research: Enough research will tend to support whatever theory. Research supports a specific theory depending on the amount of funds dedicated to it.
Addition to Murphy's Laws: In nature, nothing is ever right. Therefore, if everything is going right ... something is wrong.
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Post by Donkey on Mar 7, 2012 10:25:44 GMT -8
Well, It's certainly worth a try. I don't see any problems with it at this point. Except maybe, you need to remember to NOT take heat from the riser, insulate your pre-heater from the riser and get yer heat from the barrel side only. It might be good, for experimental purposes to have a shutoff or (better yet) bypass in it somewhere. To compare how it burns with or without preheated air. Nice to be able to select different air, but deliver it through the same port into the fire. I know it will add complexity to your comparatively simple design, but it will give you a better idea of what is working or not.
I'm looking forward to your results.
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Post by Donkey on Mar 6, 2012 18:55:21 GMT -8
There have been several attempts to do something like you suggest.. The results have been (so far) lukewarm at best, designs usually cause more headaches than they solve. Nothing wrong with a new set of hands on the idea...
The air input to the stove should be as high in the feed as possible or it will cause smoke-back, air needs to flow over the sticks and into the fire from above. If you want to preheat ALL of the air, the tubing should have a cross section area of between 1/4 and 1/3 of system size. 1/4 area is easy, it's half of system pipe diameter, an 8 inch system needs a 4 inch air intake. My intuition says that if incoming air is hot, you may want to go with the larger size (1/3) as the air density will be low. 'Course, you don't want to pipe barrel contents back into the stove, there's nothing to burn left in it, so you'll need to bring air in from a different location and as low as possible or it will effectively reduce the height of the heat riser.
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Post by Donkey on Mar 6, 2012 15:58:26 GMT -8
Well.. I tend to agree. And you sound like me in private. But here, where millions of kids can read about it and try it themselves, I feel it's wise to be a little cautious. There are very strict rules among steam fitters, for a reason.
I apologize if I offended, it wasn't my intention.
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Post by Donkey on Mar 6, 2012 8:16:49 GMT -8
lets walk through the steps.... everything is constructed.. you place the "box" on top of the barrel and attach the in and out to the lines you have plumbed. you open the valves and turn on the pump. so... if you are not getting any water through the "box" then you might have to check three things.... two valves and one pump... You go on vacation and your brother in law (or aunt) is watching your place.. You told him a couple of times the scenario above.. But for some reason, he doesn't understand how critical getting it wrong can be, or his mind wanders a little. On the second day, he's had a couple of beers and want's a shower. He goes though the steps that he can remember, but forgets to turn on the valves to the coil. Somehow, he fails to notice the strained sound of the pump.. You get a surprise call at the hotel that night... On one hand, you're right. Respect for each other and differing ideas is important here. On the other hand, when certain kinds of safety issues come up, it is understandable to disregard someones feelings to get the point across. Understandable, though perhaps unnecessary.
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Post by Donkey on Mar 6, 2012 8:01:31 GMT -8
I'm not saying that there aren't safe ways to go about it.. Of course there are. There are also unsafe ways to go about it and it's important to know the difference.
The consequence of getting it wrong is pretty high, and I don't want some starry eyed kid (or adult) reading these forums and deciding to go build his first rocket hot water heater without at least SOME concept of the risk. I personally would feel absolutely awful if someone got pasted because they tried some half cocked idea taken off of these boards.
Hot water done right is a joy. Hot water done wrong can kill! Don't forget it.
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Post by Donkey on Mar 5, 2012 16:09:50 GMT -8
#3
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cone
Mar 5, 2012 15:38:08 GMT -8
Post by Donkey on Mar 5, 2012 15:38:08 GMT -8
Umm.. I'm not sold on secondary air for the J-tube design. I AM (already) sold on the Peter Channel, which IS technically secondary air. (Isn't it?) Seems like the best injection point is just downwind from the pyrolysis zone, which is where the Peter Channel is.
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Post by Donkey on Mar 4, 2012 16:27:53 GMT -8
Ok.. I gotta jump in this.. Heating water with an unregulated heat source is DANGEROUS. It's bad enough when you know what you're doing.
Steam explosions are nothing to fool around with! Here's a classic mistake:
All it would take is to forget to open BOTH valves, just once! A design like this is like putting a bomb in your house and beating on it with a hammer. I don't mean to put anyone down here, but this kinda thing can get someone killed. EASILY. NEVER put shutoff valves on a coil, EVER!
I want to encourage people to experiment but you HAVE to know that fooling with hot water devices is a dangerous thing to do, one screw up can blow off a large part of your house, taking you or your family members with it. BE CAREFUL.
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cone
Mar 1, 2012 18:58:35 GMT -8
Post by Donkey on Mar 1, 2012 18:58:35 GMT -8
It could be tried, though I'm not sure how it would help. It would mean you would have to raise the barrel to allow for proper gap up top..
Oakum will burn out (assuming we agree on what oakum is), how about stove gasket?
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Post by Donkey on Mar 1, 2012 8:58:37 GMT -8
I don't have any of that fancy (or otherwise) test gear, so I won't hazard a guess at numbers.. I rely on my nose and ears to tell me when to fiddle with the fire, when it's not running at it's peak.. The word "efficiency" is one of those that gets tossed about a bit too much and without qualifiers, can mean little to nothing. Here we're talking about how efficient the stove is at mixing wood-gas with air and how efficiently the stove can turn that mix into fire. This process seems to work best (in my horizontal feed) when the wood is packed in tightly. The air flows in and is forced to go around and through all of the wood, as the wood burns and the pile settles, more air goes directly over the top and less goes through the pile, reducing it's ability to mix completely. I can (and often do) go outside and with my nose, judge when the wood needs an adjustment. You can smell a difference even before any visible smoke is exiting the chimney. I have noticed that while the stove in my house seems to need adjustment less often than (say) the one in my shower house (standard down feed, smaller box, smaller wood, burns down quicker) it will dwell in a less efficient mode for longer. There is a "period" of burn for a load of wood, early in the period when wood is placed in the stove (even a hot stove) there is a little ramp up time where the wood is heating and beginning to burn, there will be some smoke and poor efficiency. Then there is a period of clean burning, the wood is in the right place, air is flowing through, mixing is optimal, clear sailing. Towards the end, the fire will disarrange, airflow and mixing will be hampered, the exhaust will dirty up again, smoke a little and finally (if not re-stoked) die out. With a down-feed, the middle, clear sailing time seems to be rather extended and you don't see that final, dirtier ramp down till almost the end. In my horizontal feed, that dirtier end bit can sometimes be the extended period and the thing will need an adjustment to finish it's burn cleanly. I hope that was understandable. Once again, don't get me wrong, I LOVE my stove.. It is rather convenient to feed the thing regular cord-wood rather than smaller stuff, it's nice that I can pack in a whole lot more wood in one setting and there is less fiddling with the fire in general.. There are trade-offs. As to the specifics of bells, Peterberg is FAR better qualified to go into that than me. Speaking of bells and Russian sources, have you been to Kuznetsov's site?
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Post by Donkey on Feb 29, 2012 21:20:28 GMT -8
berko, Have you built a rocket stove before? If not, you might want to build a by-the-numbers, standard rocket, lash together in the yard before trying any innovating. Doin' it the tried and true way first will give you a good foundation to work from. Best to make a low risk jobbie that can be modified easily in a safe place first.
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