LOOKS LIKE IT WORKS! 45º Top Lit Up Draft Dragon Stove Concept (TLUD), Biochar
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- Опубліковано 2 лют 2024
- Testing a weird woodstove idea for proof of concept. The idea is to have an externally placed and fed angled TLUD (top lit updraft) stove. The burn chamber pierces the wall of the building and the stove pipe transfers the heat. There are some possible disadvantages along with the advantages of this woodstove, and a lot to think about and work out. But the concept seems useful and appears to work in principal.
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Excited to see how this pans out. Keep us updated on the build
I appreciate you sharing your stream of consciousness. Inspires me to work on my ideas
I love watching you think. To me you're a genius.
I'm definitely not a genius. Just better at thinking outside the box and thinking associatively than most people. To the detriment of other things though lol.
I love the concept of using tluds for space heating!
Carbon Conscious Creations is a channel that has done great work in this field, but Garry Gilmore, father of the modern drive on wood movement , built a tlud heater that resembled a sawdust stove.
Secondary air entering the exhaust tube above the burn chamber will create a cleaner burn.
You used a 6" ID double (hollow?)wall stainless steel pipe, right?
If so, you can make a superior tlud by adding holes around the outer circumference at the bottom and the inner circumference at the top.
This will turn the empty space between the inner and outer cylinder into a delivery system for preheated combustion air.
It's the same principle that a solo stove works on.
Starting the run of flue pipe with a tee capped on one side could keep the entire indoor portion of the run lower down in the space, benefiting from convection.
You could run it horizontally, have it exit the other wall, into a second tee, with the bottom capped.
The two tees off easy access for cleaning or adding paper to induce draft.
If you don't like using paper, a featherstick might work.
You could even experiment by adding walking sticks into the horizontal run, to torrify them.
If the horizontal run is bigger than the vertical runs, it should act like the barrel on a rocket stove, dumping heat like crazy.
If the grate that holds the fuel is held in place with twigs or twine, or another slender flammable item it will fall when the the combustion zone reaches it.
Place a trough of liquid under the tlud and the char could be doused automatically.
Dr Tlud has an article talking ways to play with the fuel of tluds.
It mentions packing twigs into the tlud vertically and adding whatever "pelletized" fuel you are using around that.
It also mentions adding things that won't burn into the mix, including previously made charcoal, since it won't ignight during the initial downward burn.
One build I've seen for processing tlud fuels is a tree limb lopper with a stop block strapped to a sawhorse.
It seemed to work pretty quickly.
I use 3.5" chuncks of pallet wood in my tlud firepit, but it's huge.
Here is the link to that manual wood chipper build : ua-cam.com/video/wU5xzijGGHg/v-deo.htmlsi=yktILABeUoJnXICI
Great thoughts. I figured there must be someone out there experimenting with more diverse uses of TLUDs. they seem to have a lot of potential. I've been thinking about the heated air delivery. My idea was stainless tubing running through the burn chamber, but that solution sounds simple and elegant. I think the double wall stuff is full of insulation, but it might still pass air or maybe deconstruct it and add air ways. I was thinking of a twig bundler that compresses twigs and sticks into a cyclinder which is then bound. I definitely like the lopper idea. that could probably be scaled up to so some pretty big stuff, especially if the wood is cut at an angle instead of straight across. thanks for the thoughts.
awesome project, looking forward to more of this. the parameters set really make it an interesting thing to tackle. Also very enjoyable to see some other little spaces of the homestead. (what is up with the area with all the stakes(?) in the background). the scrap depot is deeply gratifying to me, will help me plead my case to my partner, haha. So yea, Show us your Junk, lol... that soda keg fitting perfectly was such a high five moment too.
Yeah, gotta have the junk around lol. It's the hardware store. Rarely do I have to run down to town for hardware or materials unless it's some big planned project. I'm glad you recognized the parameters and context, not everyone does.
@@SkillCult for sure. I've been tearing down a house for materials on a remnant homestead property in a pretty urban area, finding an absurd amount of useful junk treasure. been sitting derelict over a decade and the hidden drop ceiling treasures were still there. every now and again free section on craigslist still throws a winner... The idea that there is one fire set up that is best for all things gets a big eye roll, but whatever, being passionate about fire is 🔥🔥🔥! I hope the sauna is a lasting health solution!
and i'm glad i'm not the only lunatic saving all their nut shells for shit like this.
A rocket stove water heater feeding an old fashioned cast iron radiator might be more efficient. There is the upfront cost of some flexible copper pipe, of course.
genius, simply genius
Your proposed room would be small enough that you wouldn´t need to jump through hoops to get it nice and toasty inside. If you had extra roof tiles you could really insulate the sauna. The concept is totally doable in my view. You just need to get started so you can relieve some of your energy issues. Good luck!
It's a catch 22, need sauna to have more energy, need energy to make sauna lol. I think it will work, it is going to take putting it together to start to illuminate and grapple with any real life problems.
Awesome! I guess another benefit to this if your goal is charcoal creation would be as the hot gasses run through the charcoal it should also continue purifying the charcoal.
I have a TLUD powered sauna stove design ready to go if you are interested.
My TLUD design burns super clean and leaves no soot deposits on pots when used for cooking.
Soundas inreresting!
I picked up a knock-off version of a Solo stove a few years back new on Ebay for around $20. I wonder if you could use something like that as the heart of your system. Mine burns smoke-free and only produces clean white ash once the draft is established, especially with wood pellets. It is a TLUD design and it creates a secondary burn that makes it burn clean. Good to see another video, Stephen.
I was thinking of running stainless tubing trhrough the burn chamber, that vent preheated air at the top. I think that would be similar, but without taking up a lot of extra space around the outside of the burn chamber. I've never seen one of those in person, but I think i have some idea of how it works. Preheated air creates turbulence to mix with gasses and flair them off. I'm not sure if that would be much use though in getting rid of that first little bit of smoke before it heats up.
Check out wood gas TLUD. If you add another inner layer with holes at the top to bring pre-heated air from the bottom to burn off the smoke and gases, you would have a wood gas stove that would burn even cleaner.
Funny that is what I was thinking except my version was stainless tubing that runs throught he burn chamber and exits at the top where any gasses might be escaping the system in order to flare them off. I know there are similar systems that create turbulence near the top, probably what you are talking about. I'll google that. thanks.
@@SkillCult I don't know if a tube through the centre would work as a gasifier. Stoves with centre tubes, I believe, are the ones burning sawdust and other fine material. Though not very familiar with that type, I suspect the tube is perforated to bring air to that dense material, similar to how a perforated pipe would aerate the centre of a big compost pile. With the gasifier stoves the outer wall and the tube for the burn chamber are connected at the top so the air comes through the holes drilled in the top of the inner tube. The bottom is open. The large surface area in contact with the burning material then brings hot air through the holes making ignition of gases easier. Turbulence can be created by denting the holes slightly on one side so the air is pushed out at an angle. There are lots of different types of wood gas stoves, but this is the basic principle of a simple TLUD gasifier. You can get little camp stoves made like that. I have one, and they are very impressive. Easy to light, clean burn and with the batch system, no need to constantly feed it.
@@SkillCult I was thinking there might be a way to add spaces in-between the fine fuels. Fine fuel burns wonderfully if it gets enough air. Perhaps a mesh tube through the center? or a layered system, walnut shells alternating with a nest of sticks, then more shells, more sticks, etc.
Another idea would be to put some thermal absorbing mass into the system somewhere. This would mean something like bricks or ceramic tiles to absorb the heat, so that you can keep the heat going longer on less fuel.
Any way you do it, fun project!
@@judyofthewoods I'll have to look that up and see if we are on the same page, but I think so. I've seen those stoves in videos and stuff, but not in person and haven't tried to make one yet. My tubes are not perforated, but just air tubes that are preheated within the chamber and vent out at the top of the system to flare off any unbunred gasses.- Instead of preheating the air with a space around the outside of the burn chamber. So imagine, stainless tubing, maybe three of them, slightly coiled up the inside wall of the chamber, then vented in some kind of spiral that creates that turbulence and mixing. If it is not needed at any point, it is just hot air running throught, the system, no harm done. I dont' think I want extra air coming through into the burn zone.. I thought there would not be enough, but those walnut shells burned like a mofo once it got going, so plenty of air from the bottom sifted through the fuel to burn it off. Extra air at the top is probably not necessary, but I thought it might help with that initial smoke at the beginning while it is getting established.
@@paintedwings74 I didn't really end up having a problem with air getting through and those walnut shells, even though packed pretty tight in there let enough through once it was going. I'm only concerned about that initial smoke right now, so delivering a little extra air at the top, even past the top of the chamber might help fix that and get it off to a faster start. once the burn zone begins dropping that extra air might not do anything, which is fine, but it is also there to help flare off any unburned gasses if that were an issue. that is the thought anyway. Just have to try it to see if it fits into the real world.
The reason I don't want mass is that I'm looking very quick heating for short term use. If I were running a sauna all day, or continually, I'd probably be a lot more about mass. My saunas are under an hour usually, If I can preheat for 20 min or less hopefully, I might be done with the whole process from lighting to extinguishing in an hour. Or I might preheat with a short burn, then reload for the main event. Mass is about storing heat, It takes time to heat then to release that heat. That is why people like mass heaters like rocket stove benches and masonry heaters, is the slow heat release. I really am after the opposite. An advantage to those mass systems is that they suck more heat out of the system before it leaves into the atmosphere. My problem is getting that heat out of thin walled metal and heating the air with it before it leaves. That is why I'm looking at more exposed surface using longer pipe, or some kind of heat exchanging box. Another possibility might be using air to carry heat away from the pipe and bring new air across it to get out more of the heat. I will probably rather do that without covering the pipe though so that I can also get the radiant heat from the hot pipe. You basically have the hot stove or pipe radiating heat, the hot air, and the room walls etc heating up and re-radiating heat. the first two will be what is important in this context. I may be wrong and there could be some balance with the use of mass, but my initial thought is I dont' want much, if any mass in the system for this context.
Loving it. I too have turned to dry saunas in my mid life as a broad mental/physical/health benefit and to help with various worn out body part/surgery rehab. I’m not sure how I want to build one on our land, but I’ll be watching your experiments closely.
For me, it will be a permanent installation and I want it super insulated and relatively fast and easy to get up to heat. I would like a sauna most days, perhaps 4-5 days a week whenever I can manage it, so if it takes a lot of fuel and many hours to heat, it won’t fit the bill.
I also want a nice double or triple glazed window to be able to gaze out of😅
I love the idea mentioned elsewhere about being able to shut it down at the point of biochar, and then use that for soil application-or have the chance of damping it down and letting it run longer and burn all the char.
I think for the experience of the sauna, the main trick will be good control, and being able to shut it down and restart it pretty easy. A warm sauna is just OK, and a too hot sauna is pretty punishing. I’d also be interested in looking at solar options. Perhaps a good large array of cheap used panels hooked up to a heat pump and a large very well insulated heat storage tank which can then be cycled through into the sauna.
Many different ways I suppose.
Hope this develops well, and like all your longer term followers, i really hope you find an awesome place to move to (and stay) soon and continue the excellent breeding experiments.
Thanks as always for the content.❤️
As far as I know, up to at leas an hour a day, there is no limit to the benefits of sauna. It is very well studied and very common worldwide. Probably one of the more effective ways to detox too. for sure it has to heat fast. Even if I were to ever build a large sauna, I still need the super fast small personal one. For solar, just simple solar gain is plenty. Make a tiny insulated room with big south facing windows and it will heat up really fast. I have used my car before lol. I will probably use a glass or sone other roof that has solar gain too for mid summer.
@@SkillCult thanks.
Yeah, I usually aim for 1 hr a day, in 3x 20 minute sessions, usually with a cold plunge after or a natural cool down. I go through 3-4 litres of water and feel it is a great detox, but have found it better to also have some electrolytes in my water. The fast small sauna and a larger group sauna would be ideal. I’ve not tried an infra red sauna yet but hopefully will soon as it could fit the needs for the fast small one which could run off our excess solar power. A wood burning stove would probably make sense for the larger group sauna if I ever get around to it, as we have 10 acres and a fair bit of eucalyptus on it (Australia).
Looking forward to any updates on this.
Cheers
Interesting concept for a stove, I like it. I am not quite sure I would call it a sauna though, more of a hot room. Up here in Finland we love sauna, and the steam generated from hot stones is at the heart of it. Will you be maybe surrounding the pipe with a cage of stones? Personally I think a small Harvia (or similar) sauna stove would be better suited for you. I have the smallest one they sell that heats up a room of about 12m3 and I can get a good sauna session from less than 10 small logs of Birch (30cm long). Even when it is -30c out. Running hot pipes through a confines space just sounds like a danger zone to me. But as I said before I like the concept of your idea. I will be eagerly following this project to see where you end up. Love the channel, I have learned so much from you in relation to axes.
Words often change meaning when they leave their home of origin. Here if you get in it to sweat it is a sauna, unless it is traditional native american, then it is a sweat lodge, or a steam room. I have done all of them I think, but I'm happy with dry. Having the option to dump some water on is nice though and I might use it if I built it in. Certainly not necessary to be effective though. Sauna stoves look cool, but quite expensive.
Fair points. I hope it´s a fun project, wet or dry the benefits of it are totally worth the effort invested in setting it up. I am very much looking forward to see what the Frankensauna looks like. Love the channel.@@SkillCult
Seems like you are building a sweat lodge. Sauna has the steaming stones. Greek steam room is also a different system ;D
I'm about the dry sauna for the most part. I guess I could put in a slab of soapstone to pour water on, but I don't need it. The classic sweat lodge is water on hot stones. Many sauna types around the world are just dry though. Here in California, navite saunas were just heated with fire and not the hot rocks of the plains sweat lodges. Steam rooms are a little more sophisticated and advanced. I'm not a huge fan personally. I go to a place every week that has one and almost never use it. I just use the dry sauna.
@@SkillCult Cool. Seems like the infrared sweat room is becoming popular these days also. We also have the smoke sauna here in Finland, without the gimney. I think they are the best. Gives a very smooth heating. But those tend to burn often. Electricity driven stone heater is the most common, but it has a sting when it heats. Usually it's better if the room is heated, not just the air inside. But I have also seen sauna that had like wood screen as floor, so it's much easier to breath inside and have longer sessions.
@@Kangsteri I have used infrared. I like it okay when they work well. Even red heat lamps are good. I am off grid, so that is only possible during very sunny periods.
If you make a small pine wood cabin (can be on wheels) you could simply heat up stones in an outside smokeless fire pit and bring them in a double bucket into the cabin (pick the heated stones with fire tongs out of the fire pit and into the doubled bucket). In the cabin you can pour water over the stones. That's the old sweat lodge principle.The best bit is that you then can take your sauna with you wherever you go.
The problem with that is the inefficiency. I've done those kind of sweat lodges and they require huge amounts of wood in an open fire. If might be possible to come up with a design of some kind to heat the rocks or steel balls more efficiently, but it also requires planning ahead. once they are hot, it's nice though.
@@SkillCult The trick is to put the rocks in with wood in a smokeless fire pit. You can put that just out the door of your seat lodge next to your outdoor shower. Afterwards, you can pick up your warm towel and bathrobe from next to the fire pit and roast some bread dough on a stick over the embers.
Thought about perhaps doing a sweat lodge? A Tee Pee with canvas tarps over it. Much cheaper than a building.
I would consider something super fast and tent like just to get someting going fast, if it works well enough. Not a traditional hot rock sweat lodge though, they require way too much wood and time to fire up.
I love prototyping. I wonder if you could put a small diameter perforated pipe in the center of the fuel charge to facilitate more oxygen flow? I’m thinking of the solutions people use to keep compost aerated when the material is small/easily compacting. The air in the pipe would get super hot and potentially pull fast moving air beyond the fuel. That could increase pull in the exhaust pipe while providing oxygen for a secondary burn of any escaping combustible gasses. Or it might let the heat bypass the fuel entirely and kill the fire. Might be worth trying?
I know, I wish I could just spend a week with a good shop and any materials I want lol. I've thought about that stuff and something I want to try. I don't think I probably want the pipe to be perforated. the oxygen flow turned out to be fine with the walnut shells, it was really ripping along. I'm more worried now that other fuels might admit too much air flow, but I can probably control that from the outside by aperture adjustment. My thought was to run stainless tubing through the chamber, preheating air, that is delivered to the top fo the chamber only. It could flare off any hot gasses that make it that far and if the hot air is not needed, it will just vent out the stove pipe. the air would be delivered through some kind of small vents to create mixing and turbulence.
Im pretty obsessed with your apple content but the first video of yours I stumbled across was the one about lime burning. Another cool video in the combustion category!
Looks like your test was a roaring success, but was thinking about other ways you could do this and make charcoal. What if you made a retort that you could load, get burning, then close the air supply. That would create a bunch of woodgas that you could then start burning to keep heating the retort. Have all this outside the sauna for carbon moxoxide safety. Then just have all the heat from the combusting woodgas run through the stove pipe going through your sauna?
Been thinking about that as well. I think the way to do it would be very similar and still top lit. So I'd have a decent amount of fuel round the outside of a mostly sealed cannister that vents out into the burn area somewhere (not sure where would be best. Maybe just very small hole up and down the cylinder would be enough to outgas, without letting enough oxygen back in to maintain burning.). The problem is you are really stuck with a very specific burn time. With a regular TLUD, i'm somewhat limited by how much time and I'd like it to burn all the way to the bottom at least before extinguishing, but between when the burn zone hits the bottom and when it burns to ash, you have a window of time to put it out, or not. A rocket stove is an open system, so there would be no time limit as long as you keep feeding it, but I'm still thinking on a way to make them produce some charcoal. They are designed to burn like mad at the bottom and combust everything completely. Maybe a rocket stove, wtih a retort in line, inside the combustion zone. A retort would produce more and more dense charcoal. There are advantages and disadvantages to everything I've thought about so far. Flexibitility is something to think about though. With this system, I could already be looking at a pre-heat, then changing or recharging the canister. A lot of these issues might best be experienced in real life use rather than thought out on paper. I think this idea is super cool and worth having a play date with to see what happens. I used to lay awake at night thinking stuff like this through and trying to anticipate everything., Now I'm more inclined to think a little, then start experimenting, then go back to thinking. The trinity of knowledge is information / contemplation / experimentation Not in that order necessarily and each revisited through the process of learning.
Could also use a radiator type system that attaches to the "heat pipe" to help dispatch heat more efficiently to the environment needed
I second that. Some fins off the sides might help radiate heat away from the pipe.
Good idea.
I like the fin idea, like a reverse purpose heat sink.
If you burn the biochar down to ash you will mess up your burner because the char burns incredibly hot. Even stainless will suffer when doing this.
Interesting. I have not experienced that. that might throw a wrench in my plans. I think I have some old clay stovepipe sections sitting around.
I think youve got it just fit as much pipe in there as you possibly can and see how it goes...i think they sell heat exchange boxes that go in stovepipes too might work
Right, they have square boxes. I don't know if they have baffling or if they just open out and close back down. I still like the idea of a custom, stainless flat heat exchange box with a large surface area facing out into the sitting area of the sauna, but it would take some doing to make that. Maybe an off the shelf solution would be enough.
@@SkillCult keep us posted on the build your an interesting dude to follow!
Are you set on having the fuel cell go through the wall? Would you consider resting the stove on the ground and passing pipe through the wall?
No, but I think it is a neat idea that could be useful at times. Either way, you have to insulate whatever goes through the wall just the same, so this eliminates an extra run of insulated pipe. Got something in mind?
Similar to what’ll be cut for the chimney. My concern is only about having the stove rest on the wall. I think it’ll make it harder to access or work on.
It will be interesting to see how this works! How are you going to heat rocks for making steam? I saw a guy who just put a stove pipe horizontal on the floor in a rock filled trench...
I probably won't. I usually like dry saunas just fine. If anything, I could run the pipe thorugh a pile of rocks, or heat a piece of soapstone.
@@SkillCult you should try that... steam is at the very core of sauna... it is the ancient hack that allows you to get a burst of heat and keep the air from getting harsh and dry. I look forward to seeing your build! Will you use logs?
@@pigetstuck I've done plenty of saunas of all kinds. Like I said, I'm generally happy with dry saunas and that is about all I do anymore. It is nice to have the option though if it is not too complicated. I am planning to move, so I want to build something fast that I can either take apart or put on a trailer and transport. I also need it to be solar heated in the summer. No need to burn wood when the sun is out.
Do you have a laser thermometer? That could be really helpful quantify stuff.
I don't.
What if you capped it off with an exhaust turbine on the exit? That would ensure you burn cleaner more consistently, right?
the clean burning should be decided in the burn zone. If the fuel is clean and dry, enough oxygen, enough pull, hot enough etc. Anything upstage like that would be about creating pull to acheive that. Do you mean those spinny things on vents? not sure if that would help or not. Might depend on if there is any wind? I don't know much about those.
I tried an 18" piece of 6 or 7 inch stovepipe, filled with sticks and with homemade loose caps, inside the wood stove and it worked great. The pipe lasted about ten burns. Olive oil 3L tins with one end on each cut off and the two jammed together lasts about 3 burns. This was for home heating and char making, where it was the last fire of the day and the timing was tricky, but for a sauna might be easy to get that sucker red hot and not worry. Put sticks in first and fill the spaces with shells instead of fussing with it. Have a blower or foot bellows that forces air at the smoke exit end instead of at the fire end? Cheers.
Stainless is expensive, but it lasts forever.
@@SkillCult I can only dream of such things. Regarding the Venturi effect, not sure about this but there's drag next to the inside pipe wall so when the diameter is reduced to achieve the effect, I think the energy is transferred to the fluid in the center of the pipe (from the fluid next to the wall) and in the smaller diameter the effect is noticed more.
@@SkillCult Had to think about this more, the difference is there's heat in the air going out the pipe which will cause the pipe to get red hot if there's a venturi in the pipe, since the potential energy next to the pipe acts as a conduit (because of the metal) rather than a buffer or insulation. Might be good for a sauna where you put water on the red hot pipe.
I would suggest a rocket “Mass” stove, that pipe travels through a mass of stone /cob before exiting.
The problem with that for me is exactly the benefit people use them for. Remember the context is short term, fast heat, then being able to shut it completely down and produce charcoal. I'm looking at probably max an hour in there, 30 to 60 minutes and I want to heat it quickly. Rocket stoves burn everything to ash as they go, so no charcoal. The mass in a mass heater takes a long time to heat, then releases heat gradually. That is great if you are heating a space all day, but not at all what I need. The only major problem I'm seeing right now is how do I get the heat to exchange with the room before it goes out the end of the pipe outside. Like I mentioned, maybe a heat exchanger of some kind, and also just making it longer so there is more surface exposed. A rocket stove could still be used instead of the tlud, and may have some advantages. It can still be put out, to conserve fuel and stop the burn when I'm done, and we know a rocket stove is capable of driving a lot of pipe, even horizontally. It is also clean and efficient like a tlud. I'm open to that possibility (minus the mass), but I think I'd like to put this concept into application and find out more about how it functions and what the unknown limitations and benefits are.
It's hard to get the charcoal to go out at the end. If you want to keep the charcoal you might want to quench it in water
It's just a matter of cutting off the oxygen well enough. It doesn't have to be perfect, just enough. I'll cross that river when I come to it, but I don't expect it to be a very difficult problem to solve.
I design things that are cut out of metal. If you need some parts I would draw them for you and you could have them cut out of stainless near you - gratis@@SkillCult
When I was 19, a friend and I went to the Holiday Inn, indoor pool. It was cold even in the summer, so they needed a sauna. It was a dry heat, somebody didnt fill the water bucket. So the brain child I was, we thought, well, we had extra fluids in our bladder, so why not contribute what we had to make steam with? BAD IDEA! It stunk to high heaven and drove us, and a bunch of other people out of there. That was the last time I went into a sauna. They should have had a water fauset in there to fill the bucket with. So make sure you have a water source inside the Sauna.
sounds like a 19 year old idea lol
You need the hollow concrete blocks, and solid bricks. The solid bricks are on the inside of the fireplace. The hollow concrete blocks are used as the hollow heated air conduits. Place a base of solid brocks on the ground surface. You are going to make a rocket stove design of the bricks, with mini-air holes between the bricks to intake air for combustion. Rocket stoves will make so much heat with minimal fire and fuel that you can make a small rocket stove brick and concrete brick design and then make your outer sauna housing. The rocket stove will have a chimney brick or metal pipe, with the ancestor's wind louver controlling the exhaust heat and airflow. The inside bricks are like a brick kiln keeping in the heat, which passes to the outer hollow concrete blocks, which act like heated air ducting.
If you want to have the Roman style of underflooring heating, then lay down the hollow concrete blocks as the flooring for the sauna. You then want to align the interior rocket stove hollow blocks to control the upward heat, while the flooring cooler air will feed the rocket stove, while the upward (now heated) hollow blocks act as the heated air circulation around the rocket stove. If you make a closed-circuit of hollow concrete block, but then open at the flooring, the heated rocket stove air will flow up and then down under the flooring and provide you Roman underflooring heat of the sauna.
If you put in copper or steel tubing into the hollow concrete blocks, and put sand between the air spaces, then you can create a "C" piping with the open end under the flooring and above the rocket stove. The heated air will be forced out and down upon you. If you have an enclosed water-in-tubing tubing, then run an entire coil lengths under the flooring and this will heat up the flooring and heat upward into the sauna. The circulating water and tubing system heats from the rocket stove, and then moves the heat under the flooring. If you have the same closed tubing circuit alongside the rocket stove, then drill out holes in the underground tubing, and the heated air will spew upward from the tubing and flooring, while other drilled holes at 4-6 inches above the flooring (pulling in cool air) this will superheat, flow up and then downward into the flooring and escape.
So many ways to solve this problem, with minimal fuel, maximum heat, and underfloor heating, and overhead air spewing down heat.
If you need a diagram, reply, and will draw up these multiple designs for you. Don't waste extensive brain cells, money, and efforts with over-thinking the problem. It is far easier to have a modest sauna than having an industrial community Finnish/Swedish sauna ... and take care of your personal needs - and still save on your fuel, or extra apple cuttings etc....
@@johnlord8337 The context is an hour or less, of fast heat. heat it quick, then put it out when I'm done and hopefully be left with some charcoal. Any time hot air goes through a mass, it heats the mass, sand, concrete block, bricks etc. then that mass has to release that heat slowly. Great for heating a house all day, but not for quick heat. The only very significant problem I'm seeing is exchanging enough of the heat in the bare stove pipe into the air of the room before it exits. Some kind of simple heat exchange like I mentioned or just longer pipe will probably be adequate, but it likely won't ever approach the efficiency of slurping out the heat into a mass, as in a rocket mass heather or masonry stove. Maybe using forced air to pull more of the heat away from the bare stove pipe could help, but it is bound to be somewhat inefficient, though still better suited to my uses. I'm not sure how all that heavy, complicated stuff is going to benefit me in this context and no charcoal.
@@SkillCult Then like other metal pipes put into the brick and chimey of a fireplace and bent outward in a "C" with directional airflows, one could attach the same to your metal chimney piece and that should give you some great heated airflow and air pump circulation.
You wouldn't have charcoal, as that is an oxygen-deprivation technique, not a burning stove. You would need to have some pressure cooker canister type of locking mechanism, with an external heating arrangement to have the internal hot air circulation and degassing and carbonization of the internal wood fuel. That means this is an external fire, and not an internal (per se) heated sauna (unless proper exhaust chimney of that fireplace (which uses a second load of firewood - to get the original firewood as an end product of charcoal. Not sure if that hybrid situation is possible. EIther have a heating unit making a sauna, and have a different heating kiln making charcoal.
If you really want to make charcoal as a singular issue, then acquire an old or new pressure cooker. Place all your herbal, wood, shrub, grass, etc organic matter into the pressure cooker. Leave off the weighted pressure valve, and hot air fryer - hot air convection fry out the moisture and oxygen from the cooker. After such ends of noticable exhaustion from the cooker of gasses etc - put the pressure valve back onto the cooker, and take off the heat. ONE MUST put the weight valve back onto the cooker, as any cold or fresh air (oxygen) put back into the cooker from its cooling down will literally oxidize and burn up any charcoal or carbon made in the process. When the pressure cooker with valve has returned to ambient heat, one can then remove the pressure valve, and open up the cooker, and have all the charcoal and carbom one desires. Repeat as necessary. This is actually the easiest of methods, versus the charcoal firewood kiln, underneath fire, closed heating hot air convection, and leaving until the external fire is burned off, and the whole inside charcoal fuel returns back to normal temperature. But that is a massive industrial operation - like with larger solid fire brick kilns etc.
@@SkillCult check you r thermodynamic laws again and let it simmer
While I'm certainly no expert my understanding is yhat the purpose of the barrel in most rocket mass heaters is to create a large amount of turbulence when the burning gasses go from the burn chimney diameter to the barrel diameter reburning the last gasses. The barrel has decent heat conduction and acts as a heating bell. My suspicion is that would be the most efficient fuel and heat output wise but i doubt there's any chance of harvesting charcoal. I believe Paul wheaton was planning on making a rocket heater spa/sauna but I'm not sure if that was completed.
My experience of burning wood chips in a small tlud, coffee can size, is it doesn't work well at all. The oil content of the walnut shell may have been why this worked so well.. i would maybe look at a hookway charcoal retort which uses a burn barrel a piece of black iron plumbing pipe with a valve that runs from the bottom of the barrel through the burning layers up to the chimney. When the burn is complete the pipe is closed using a plumbing valve and the charcoal self extinguishes.
I had knocked around the idea of a retort, but I probably wont' go there this time. I'll just have to see how woodchips do in it. I may try running some stainless tubing through the burn chamber to deliver air to the top of the system, like these small tlud stoves everyone is talking about. Another idea I had was building a jig to compress tight bundles of sticks, wild sticks or prunings to make an instertable bundle. I'm not opposed to using a rocket stove if that turns out to be the best, but I think this idea is worth experimenting with to find out what happens and what the limitations and possibilities are. But I could see a very similar system with a retort chamber just added into it. I was wondering if just putting very small holes in the retort chamber might let the gas out under pressure, but not let enough air back in to combust. I'm not sure where the holes would best be placed though. A lot of this stuff you can't really think through. Just have to play with it and see what happens.
@@SkillCult yeah the reason I was mentioning the hookway was mainly for part of using the plumbing pipe with a valve for air control.these tluds are really cool for sure. One of the more awesome setups I saw a while back was a tlud show bottom would be held close via a thin stick so that when it burnt to the bottom the chat was dumped into a bathtub full of water.
@@davidpritchett855 man that is a great idea with the stick thing. I was trying to think of maybe a grate system for a rocket stove, where you have a large spacing grate that the fuel rests on over a deep chamber, so that any char that becomes small enough or broken up falls through. But it seems iffy that it would work at all and would require very specific sizes of fuel to not fall through. there is probably a better way, like a retort chamber inside the burn zone of a rocket stove.
@@SkillCult I'm guessing you've watched the video from living web farms on biochar where they show their "tin man" setup, basically a 30 gallon drum inside a 50 gallon drum with some vent holes so that as the biomass in the inner drum chara the flammable gasses are released and burned. It is also apparently self quenching and doesn't need to be minded. Something like that could work well. To scale it down maybe a 30 gallon drum. And a propane tank or similar
@@davidpritchett855 I have not, but that sounds like other similar set ups I have seen. and they are self limiting.
Maybe you could do a more controlled version of this: He said it worked for his tent. So you're basically running an air pipe THROUGH a larger container of flame , you could rig a fan into it. ua-cam.com/video/QeHGDr81XwM/v-deo.html. Another concept I saw recently that I thought was cool was a guy put an air intake vent right under his stove's door , coming out of the floor . He argues that woodstoves suck oxygen through all the cracks , doors, pipe holes etc. Otherwise, the space would be devoid of oxygen. By doing this, he says there are no longer drafts of continuous cold air seeping in, defeating the whole purpose. And his pipes no longer freeze. Hmm. And the fire gets enough healthy oxygen. (put screens in the vent pipe to thwart mice, of course)
Interesting. I'll throw that in the pot and stir it.
@@SkillCult Another tweak for the external feed pipe thing. Run the pipe through a steel garbage can full of cut wood, like that rocket stove stump he's using. To preserve your precious leftover charcoal when done with the sauna , just dump some water in it , then open it later and let it dry out. Remove the fully charcoaled pieces as needed , and just keep re-burning the leftovers , adding more fuel if even needed . That guy's channel is addictive BTW
Це я пошуткува..😊..не ображайтесь...
You might check out a pallet structure for your stove checkout video Wineberry Hill Pallet Wood DIY Sauna Build + ACTUAL $ Amount Spent.
I picked up some pallets in town a few days ago for something and was thinking maybe I should build my sauna with them. My friend built a 7 story treehouse in a ring of redwood trees out of mostly pallets. I'll check it out, thanks.
@@SkillCult It's pretty neat and I'm glad you found something that helps with your health.
In reality, all you need is use a stainless steel Walmart kitchen caddy with all of the punched out holes for the actual rocket stove. I use this in all of my John-designs. The heat, with a small cut out at the bottom to in-feed small sticks - no big sticks ! ... like a Hibachi with the same intense heat ! ... and you can fry yourself, your next 2 successive meals inside that sauna. No need to go industrial with a big heater and big stove pipe. A small rocket stove, even for a 1, 2, 3, or 4 person sauna, a rocket stove properly designed will fry your eggs (and you know what I mean) - and you will take care of all your pains, ills, disease, and fry out any bad bugs, toxins, and dangerous drugs from prior life ... and be better off.
I would consider a rocket stove for sure, but I'd like to mess with this concept. A rocket stove would most likely drive a longer pipe, but I won't know until I play with this more. Hard to get a lot more simple than this concept though. It is pretty straight forward. There are potential issues, but I won't know how those play out in real life until it is tried in real life.
Stainless steel: it doesn't like reducing atmospheres at high temperature. The protective oxide layer gets reduced, flakes off, and exposes a fresh layer of metal to be oxidized (either during random fluctuations in local reducing potential, or at shutdown), gradually eating away at the metal. I don't know if plain old carbon steel holds up better in this zone under some conditions. I've been considering firing a ceramic firebox for my similar "projects".
Fans: beware of an overpressure in the room-side system. If there's a leak, you could end up with CO in your poorly ventilated room. That could end your apple-breeding career.
Never heard of that effect. I just know I won't buy stove pipe that isn't stainles anymore and steel barrels burn out really fast. I'm pretty sure there is an old section of clay stove pipe around. but it would waste a lot of space and it is very heavy.
My safety bone is screaming you better seal that exhaust pipe well. You don't want CO gas ending up inside with you.
It should be no worse than any woodstove set up with stovepipe. Typically gaps in the stovepipe are pulling air from the room, not the other way around.
Too many constricions, like multiple turns in the flue-pipe, would cut your flow and help form creosote. YMMV...
I understand that is a potential problem, but I'm not willing to write off the possibility. If the burn zone is efficient enough, there will essentially be no creosote to deposite. Keeping it very hot, adequate draft, the fact that it is burns from the top and isn't smothered by fuel on top might make it more possible. It is done in rocketstoves all the time, with even long horizontal runs. I've even seen someone do a downhill run with a rocket stove. I've also got an idea to pipe pre-heated air into the top of the fuel tube to flare any unburned gasses off. We'll see. But I get it. It could cause major problems.
Це мiномет ...😂120мм😂