roy
New Member
Posts: 38 
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Post by roy on Oct 18, 2011 0:25:29 GMT -8
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Post by canyon on Oct 18, 2011 9:40:17 GMT -8
Do you live in an area where the "Par-Char" is available? Very interesting web site, thanks for the link!  |
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Post by Donkey on Oct 18, 2011 9:49:51 GMT -8
I don't know anything about their stove.. It looks like it could operate under similar principles as rocket stoves, though with less mass for storage.
I QUITE like their concentration on coppice woods. I agree with their stance on this completely. It's a direction I'm moving in here at home. In fact, I need to get out there in the next couple of days and trim back the tan oak hedge.. There are a few out there that can be pollarded, a few larger sticks that just need to come out to encourage growth of the rest.
Rocket stoves do quite well with coppice wood. Small sticks do GREAT and cord-wood almost always needs to be chopped into smaller bits, which is quite a lot of work.
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Post by hinotama on Dec 10, 2011 4:29:15 GMT -8
I started doing coppice about 5 years ago. It is one of those things where, if you wait for it, it will take forever, but if you plant and forget, you will have plenty of wood in about three years.
The problem with fast growing coppice like willow is that the water content is quite high. I would think that a rocket stove could dry it out quickly ... say in a week... and then it would be useful. Just put a stack next to the stove so one stack dries while you use the other.
I planted 300 willow and about 200 of them died. About 50 of the remaining ones have really taken off. I cut them two years ago and they have all grown back.
The other aggravating bit is that you get a lot of ... twigs. Sure you don't have to chop and saw, but you break off all the feathers and there ain't much bone left, if you know what I mean. That is why most large coppicewood projects shred it all and pelletize it , or use it for cogeneration with coal, etc.
Thanks for posting this. Donkey is right. I also think coppice would work better with rockets than big wood burners.
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Post by hinotama on Dec 10, 2011 6:06:57 GMT -8
OK. I looked at the site a little bit. One of the most attractive things about RMH to me is that it can handle a wide variety of fuels. It burns hot, and it does not have a cool vertical chimney creating all sorts of problems. I have a wood burning stove that is good standard technology, but with no frills such as fans, catalysis, etc. I like it, but it does require pretty standard wood to work correctly. It can't use charcoal or coal well. It would not use biomass briquettes well, etc.
Of course, an RMH is also extremely efficient. It burns the smoke. Wow.
So a rocket stove is what I really expected when I planted my coppice willows. For a regular stove, the willow is just too wet, and it gets to about 1 inch diameter. So storing it for a season or two is kind of a pain because it is not chunky and stackable.
Just today, playing around with this rocket stove I built, I could see how it would burn all kinds of things, and the smaller diameter was really the key for airflow. Temperatures are so high that even if it is a little wet, it still goes up... shoom....
The website you refer to makes some opaque claims. Par Char is a brand of some chipped and formed wood product, I am guessing. Kind of wood spam. It is not clear why that is better than burning any old thing, other than moisture content. Of course I have never bought firewood either, so maybe it is a nightmare, I don't know.
Anyway, that is all beside the point. If you have a good RMH built you can burn whatever. I will definitely be using charcoal, some pine, oak, willow, cherry, plus bark, twigs, sawn lumber scraps, pallet wood, biomass briquettes, etc.
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Post by Donkey on Dec 10, 2011 16:53:35 GMT -8
I think you will find that in order to burn charcoal, biomass briquettes and stuff like that, you will need to modify the feed and maybe the air intake as well. The classic rocket stove arrangement is quite good at eating small diameter, straight(ish) sticks. Smaller, chunkier pelletized fuels are more likely to stop up the intake and will probalby need a different configuration (like rectifier's Riley stove-esque modifications) It might be possible to make some kind of insert to place in the feed (of a standard downdraft model) to accommodate different types of fuel. |
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