Has anyone here seen any other stoves in this category that has past EPA certification? I believe this is the first rocket stove to pass EPA certification
Pretty sure the Wiseway GW1949 was the first one of that "class" if you're defining the class as:
• EPA Certified
• Gravity Fed
• Non-Electric (meaning not "Forced-Air" with an electric fan / blower)
• Pellet Stove
[
and yet also as]
• ""Rocket stove""
("That class" of so-called ""rocket stove"" usually doesn't have a very long operating life because it's made of sheet steel rather than refractory ceramics. So it's not all that sustainable, and not truly clean-burning, because it burns away the steel and releases micronized magnetite into the air, which is then inhaled through the nasal passages and accumulates in brain tissue, causing neurologic damage... and the EPA is myopically focused only on the particulates which cause damage via inhalation
into the lungs.)
"Rocket Stove" doesn't have a universally-accepted meaning, but it was originally intended by Ianto Evans and Larry Winiarski to designate a type of woodburning stove which:
• easily operated off-grid because it didn't require the purchase of processed fuel (IE: it burned naturally-occurring solid woodfuel, typically ≤ 2 inch diameter sticks or wood scraps)
• had a high rate of air intake which was driven by Natural-Draft convection (rather than electrical blower to create higher internal air pressure)
• the Natural Draft was driven by a built-in "riser" which functioned as both 1) an insulated secondary combustion chamber and 2) an integrally-incorporated chimney stack
• the riser created a lot of turbulence which rapidly mixed woodgas and oxygen, resulting a fast, thorough burn, with no smoke output (complete [or near-complete] combustion of the wood fuel)
• the high rate of air intake and fast, turbulent, complete combustion created a distinctive roaring sound which was reminiscent of a rocket engine... thus the name.
...so the idea of a "pellet stove" also being a "rocket stove" is a little contrary to the original design intentions, particularly in the requirement for purchasing processed fuel (wood pellets) and the method of combustion.
The need to be fueled with wood pellets typically keeps you reliant on a third-party processed fuel supplier, and requires electrical energy input to create that processed fuel... which means a reliance on electrical infrastructure and some type of binder (usually starch-based) to "glue" each pellet together... and is therefore not quite as capable of sustainable, energy-independent use "off-grid"
Many pellet stove ""rocket stoves"" also don't have insulated secondary combustion chambers. They achieve complete combustion by virtue of the very small size of the processed fuel, which is carefully metered into a single, very small combustion zone. That method of burning "wood" [read:
glued-together sawdust] is very different from the
actual rocket stove method of creating a turbulent secondary burn with a high volume of natural draft air intake, thus avoiding the vulnerabilities to overfueling or extinguishing created by natural variations in fuel wood diameter and the resulting variations in the rate of pyrolysis.
In truth, pelletized fuel made from wood isn't really "solid woodfuel." It's kinda halfway between "solid woodfuel" and "fluidized-bed" of industrially-processed biomass with artificial binder additives.
