Here’s some pics from the local Farmer’s Market rocket stove demo I did in Sept 2009. Photo credits to Freelance Layabout – a doomer buddy of mine that’s really good with a camera.
Here’s the gathered crowd – hahaha
First course of bricks laid on some concrete stepping stones I liberated from being landfilled…
Okay – I numbered all the bricks so I wouldn’t get confused… I thought what the hell’s up with number 55? Oh shit – 22!
I used a thin layer of 1 part clay and 3 parts sand to sorta glue the bricks together… just moosh the brick making the joint as thin as possible.
Second course complete. Notice brick 13 and 14 are cut – so that the joints are staggered and the desired length is met. On the first course the end bricks are also custom cut – in this case 7 1/2 inches so that with mortar joint the core is 8 inches wide. You can get picky and use a mason blade on a skill saw or just chip off pieces of brick with a chisel or rock or an old metal hunk laying around – it’s Rocket Stove… not Rocket Science.
Here’s a photo of the page in the Rocket Stove book with a scale drawing of the core. Homage to Ianto Evans – a true hero.
The book. Order a bunch; they’re cheap in bulk. A much better investment than utility stocks…
Okay, here’s the third course. I use good firebrick here because they are 9 inches long and will span the 8 inch wide burn tunnel. Nice and square and of uniform size so the top of the core is solid and flat.
Slapping together the heat riser. Wildrabbit, our resident doomer at the homestead likes detail tasks – here he’s smoothing the mud in the joints to create maximum airflow. I’m in a big fat hurry – we only have a couple of hours to do this demo…
Important to keep the heat riser plumb and level.
One newspaper crumple and a handful of dry kindling and…
Cooking up a pot full of potatoes for the pigs. The demo here is to show people how well the stove will work as an outdoor canning stove. Gotta get them hooked before they’ll accept the idea of putting this ugly contraption in the house…
Slip the hand crafted out of scrap sheet metal insulation shroud over the heat riser and core…
Pack the space between the shroud and heat riser with perlite and cover the burn tunnel, too.
Place barrel over the riser and…
…wonder why smoke is coming back up from the feed tube.
Not enough clearance between the top of the insulation shroud and the barrel – so I pulled off the barrel, cut an inch off of the shroud and it worked like it’s supposed too.
Now I set up the exhaust ducts.
Roughly stacking bricks around where the exhaust comes out the bottom of the barrel to direct it into the pipes. Slap bang up job with broken bricks I had laying around. If you can make it work with junk in a big hurry imagine what can be done with more time and effort…
Some quick backfill…
…and cob it up!
Here’s my cobbers – the kid thought it was great fun. One part clay, three parts sand and some straw to stiffen it all up.
So I’m telling this guy who’s looking at me like I’m some tree hugging dirt worshiper “Imagine heating your home, your water, and cooking your food without being a slave to the utility corporations…”
There it is – about 2 1/2 hours later a pot full of potatoes cooked up from a truck load of debris on a gravel lot.
Power to the Peoples, man, power to the Peoples!
When I get a copy of the video shot during this deal I’ll put it on youtube – should be up by next week. They also want me to do another demo in October, and this time I’m going to put a 30 gallon water heater tank in a big exhaust chute. I’ll add pics to this post and post an update.
Great pics!
Looking forward to the video
Love it. Seeing it being done sure helps me to understand the concept.
Seeing your picture has me ondering, weren’t you with the RHCP ?
Thanks for the photos, comrade. Will be looking forward the the hot water tank design as it’s the weak point in my grid-down plans.
I don’t think the stove is ugly per se. A permanent indoor installation could be finished up with stain and seal treatments for the bricks, polish for the metals, etc. There’s also some really neat treatments for metal on craft and art sites.
comrade, that looks great!!!
what a good way to maximize your materials and resources.
and like the post before this, it would be easy to pretty it up if you wanted to.
Not just ugly, more like butt ugly – the wal mart fat version hahaha. Cob finishes up nicely with a couple of coats of linseed oil, and barrels can be polished once the paint gets burned off. I got plans…
All I was doing here was slapping one together to promote the design. I’m hoping the water heater demo goes as well next week.
Cool! Fine Job Comrade, who gives a shit what it looks like so long as it works…. You need to eat more man, yer too skinny!
Haha… I eat and eat and can’t break 140. Geez – I wear the same size pants as I did in high school… whereas most all the guys I grew up with are fat and balding. They drive nicer cars, though…
@Mayberry
The reason why he looks skinny is because we are all too fat!
Skinny?!! . . . all I saw were those hunky biceps. This must be one of those times when men and ‘wimmen’ just look at things differently.
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Bare foot brick layer. Probably comes in through the back door.
Thanks for the pics. They shed of light on the process.
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Looks like you’ll be needing a publicist soon. Its a wonderful act, its going to go over very well on the coast circuit, perhaps the whole US Canadian border. I suggest adding music, maybe get those little cobbers on a wooden xylophone.
I’ll call it a success if somebody builds one and turns off the propane. It will, however, be interesting to see if the video climbs towards the top of the list on a google search for “Rocket Stoves”. The teaser clip right now is 13th of 13 at youtube under “rocket mass heaters”. The wife is taking the formatted video to her work today, where she has a T1 internet line. I couldn’t upload from home since you tube is sooo sloooow from a regular connection.
Simba, thanks for the lesson. For what its worth, I think your rocket stove is a beauty. You just have to have the right kind of eyes.
Simba, I hear ya. The pants I wore back in ‘75 in high school sag enough on me today to be “in style”. Guys like us probably won’t be spending weeks with the flu. I spent three hours reading your entire blog here and your work is comendable to say the least. I learned more in three hours than I can thank you for. You are a man of Tao.
Thanks john and RW. The comments are greatly appreciated.
Nice work, great site, I built a rocket stove similar to this with no plans in about 5 hours. I work in Estonia as a mason building masonry heaters but lately have become really interested in rocket stoves. I built my stove with just the junk around the farm, clay from the forest and sand from the beach nearby. Thanks for the interesting info.