|
|
Post by etownandrew on Nov 16, 2018 9:28:45 GMT -8
I fired up my new 8" Batch Rocket Heater last night for the first time. A month of work coincided with an ice storm a couple days ago that knocked out power for myself and thousands of other homes in my area of Elizabethtown Kentucky, USA. I hadn't finished the door but quickly proped an insulated board up as the temporary door to get it going and heating the house. So I don't have great pictures yet of the finished work since I don't have proper lighting. So far with having fired it last night and this morning it seems to be doing OK. I'm still drying it out some as this mornings burn was noticeably hotter than the first burn.  First burn with a temporary ceramic board placed as the door.  The bell here is about 1/3 done. It's clear that an amateur did this as my main interest was in making it tight with clay mortar and not making a showpiece. I had never before done anything with bricks before this.  Looking inside the fire box.   View inside the finished bell just before putting the top on. About 73" tall.  Picture of the double barrel wood stove that I had used to heat my house for 15 years. It worked fine but I knew it was inefficient as it never got up to a high burn temperature. Which is also why it lasted for 15 years. This stove gave quick heat but also cooled down so you had to keep burning wood all day if it was in the 20s Fahrenheit outside. |
|
|
|
Post by drooster on Nov 16, 2018 9:38:00 GMT -8
The bell here is about 1/3 done. It's clear that an amateur did this as my main interest was in making it tight with clay mortar and not making a showpiece. I had never before done anything with bricks before this. That's an interesting shape of bench there, why the funky two directions? |
|
|
|
Post by etownandrew on Nov 16, 2018 10:08:06 GMT -8
The right hand area is the bell. At this point of construction, it is about the height of a bench with 3.5 more feet to go. The offset did two things for me. First, it increased the interior surface area of the bell without running into the right-hand wall. Second, It also kept the 6-foot tall bell from being wobbly. The back wall did not have that feature and so I connected it a couple times with a custom long brick as shown in this picture. From watching the progress of my clay mortar drying it appears that not so much smoke is going back into the recess since it is not in a direct path. So I don't know if it will be effective.
|
|
|
|
Post by wiscojames on Nov 16, 2018 13:42:50 GMT -8
Looks good! What did you cap the bell with?
|
|
|
|
Post by etownandrew on Nov 16, 2018 15:45:52 GMT -8
The top is 1" ceramic board which stinks the first couple times it is heated. I had heard that but am experiencing it. I put loose bricks on the top to help hold it down. I also used 1" board as the firebox top. So far the firebox top is not getting hot and stinking. I guess that the flames curve toward the back exit and don't seem to go straight up.    Shown here with a ceramic board in place temporarily as a door. Our electricity came back on this afternoon and so I was able to get a current picture. |
|
|
|
Post by wiscojames on Nov 16, 2018 20:29:36 GMT -8
Thanks for that picture, and glad the power is back on. Nice to have the fan there. Let us know how it's working. Looks like it should produce and hold lots of heat. It's in the basement, right? You have a nice, interior, brick chimney?
|
|
|
|
Post by Dan (Upstate NY, USA) on Nov 17, 2018 1:21:32 GMT -8
Sometimes we get so caught up in the technical side we forget about the one important thing... does it heat my house when I need it!
Nice...
|
|
|
|
Post by etownandrew on Nov 17, 2018 2:21:54 GMT -8
Thanks for that picture, and glad the power is back on. Nice to have the fan there. Let us know how it's working. Looks like it should produce and hold lots of heat. It's in the basement, right? You have a nice, interior, brick chimney? Yes, it is in the basement. I do have a nice massive interior masonry chimney. The chimney is the main feature that the rest of the house was built around. The original builder/homeowner also heated with wood and built the chimney with that in mind. I added the fan as a temporary thing during construction to help dry the clay mortar. The brick rows started to get wobbly if they were not dry. So I got into a pattern of laying up two rows each evening and letting the fan blow on them all day. I will try and run the fan to move the stove heat upstairs but if it does not help I'll take it down as originally planned. |
|
|
|
Post by coastalrocketeer on Nov 17, 2018 13:46:09 GMT -8
Nice Andew! Are there any vents through the ceiling to allow heat to rise by convection? I have seen that done wirh multi-story buildings where a wood stove is on the lower floor.
How is it doing heating the house?
|
|
|
|
Post by etownandrew on Nov 17, 2018 14:06:23 GMT -8
Nice Andew! Are there any vents through the ceiling to allow heat to rise by convection? I have seen that done wirh multi-story buildings where a wood stove is on the lower floor. How is it doing heating the house? Yes there are a couple long vents in the floor directly above the wood stove location. In the past, to force the air to go up through those vents, I hung roofing sheet metal panels around the stove about 18" away from the stove on all sides. The previous owner had done something similar with his wood stove. I expect that I will need to do the same for this masonry stove. The power came back on and so I could back off on the urgency to keep it going so I don't have a final answer on how it will do. I took all the ceramic fiber boards off this morning and cut them small enough to fit in my pottery kiln to cook out the stinky organic binder. My family was complaining and I didn't think it was pleasant either. I'm going to try and finish the door frame this evening and put the ceramic boards back on and maybe fire it up this evening again. |
|
|
|
Post by coastalrocketeer on Nov 17, 2018 14:53:35 GMT -8
To create the convection powered thermosyphon circulation you presumably want, I would think you would want an additional vent of similar total CSA, for return of cold air... and could use that sheet metal (or even just drywall) to create a duct to bring your your returning cold air right down to the area near the bottom of the stove. Let the cold air return collect at floor level, and use ducts to bring the “heated air” entry a couple of feet above the floor upstairs, if they aren’t already.
Heavyweight vinyl shower curtains could also be used downstairs to segregate the heater area like you were thinking of doing with the sheet metal panels but easier to get around/under. Put them far enough away that you have space to walk around the heater easily.
Overlap them a foot or two for the a door, and tape the seams with decent quality clear packing tape.
You want to create a “Bell in reverse” with the cold air returning low, and the heated air exiting high, with the motive to move heat from the space to your main living space, by maximizing passive convection.
My ideas about how to do that, should you find you need to/want to, are just that, and may or may not be applicable to the way things are set up. In a house with no insulation between the basement and the first floor, it might just create warm floors for the first floor and not even be noticeably beneficial to try to enhance conduction.
|
|
|
|
Post by josephcrawley on Nov 17, 2018 14:57:01 GMT -8
If you turn some bricks in on the course before the top you use those to brick over the top and use that fiber board on something else. Just a tip. Nice looking stove!
|
|
|
|
Post by etownandrew on Nov 18, 2018 2:20:47 GMT -8
To create the convection powered thermosyphon circulation you presumably want, I would think you would want an additional vent of similar total CSA, for return of cold air... That is an interesting suggestion. I have been living with this situation for 15 years and it never occurred to me to add cold air returns for the wood heater. As I thought about that, it occurred to me that an easy way to try this out would be to disconnect the flexible HVAC ducting from the floor vents in the exterior rooms that tend to be about 10F degrees cooler when I heat with wood. That would provide a cold air return to the basement and might promote the warm air going to the bathrooms and bedrooms. |
|
|
|
Post by coastalrocketeer on Nov 18, 2018 9:45:29 GMT -8
Remember to think how you can use “bell theory” (in reverse) and “stack effect” to your benefit... that is where the ideas of ways to promote natural convention of the warm air up, and the cold air down led me, and I think there could be some added efficiency in getting your warmth from the heater to those cold parts of the house.
Here’s to a nice warm winter without being dependent on fossilized sunlight!
|
|
|
|
Post by coastalrocketeer on Nov 18, 2018 9:47:44 GMT -8
Another “active” way to use that old furnace ducting would be to use it in “fan only” mode (if it has that. Would depend on where the return air for your furnace is, as it would need to be sucking the air from a “warm” part of the house.
|
|
