Rocket Stove

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!