I have that stove. The way I found to light it is to take a single charcoal briquette, momentarily dip it in a mason jar of charcoal lighter fluid, put it in the pellet tray below, then dump in the pellets. Lights with a single match.
A propane torch can be cranked up much higher than she showed. I get it going in 2 minutes with the same torch. I may try my old method of starting cord wood. It was a metal bin full of Single Toilet paper cardboard rolls. Just fold each one up 3 times. Save up and dip them in melted Crisco once a year. They make prefect slow burn fire starters.
@@atomicsmith I wouldn't have guessed that would work to light pellets. I've never owned a heat gun though. The only problem I see is that I don't want to rely on electric in any way.
I put a stovepipe damper in mine, crank it almost fully closed when I leave for work, it’s actually been going now for almost exactly 12 hours and I’m guessing it’s used about 20 pounds, cooktop is 400 and stack temp is 180. House is 74. Could not be happier!
@@bandmasterjf I actually did it on both, took a little while to get the feel of it, but one intake is fully closed, the other is about 70% closed all the time and I throttle it extra if needed on the exhaust. I’ve got a really strong draft though.
@@bandmasterjf I think so, but again my draft is super strong. Added benefit to cutting the intake is it pulls more through the pellet hopper so less chance for it to burp smoke in my experience.
I like pellet stoves and have used them in the past, but I foresee a huge future issue with them. At the time several years ago, when I ordered pellets for a workshop by the metric tonn on a pallet, (about 55 - 18.56kg bags picked up by myself on site), the cost was $104.50 came out to be $1.90 CDN a bag plus 12% tax. Burning all day I would use roughly 2 bags a day. So $3.80 /day. I used up about one ton per month, give or take a couple or four bags that's maybe $115.00 a month. Today however, the cost of pellets has risen to $250 OR MORE a tonn, and the cost is set to go up another $60 or $70 a tonn. One of the local pellet manufacturers shut down production, so sometimes there could be a shortage of pellets in the future. What happens if the cost gets too high for the home owner to bear, or availability drops to 0? Pellets are the only fuel you can burn in those units. Now I have a wood burning furnace (basement) and a wood burning stove (main floor). The cost of the wood is whatever it costs me to go into the bush and get it. Typically $150 - $200 a year for 6-8 cords. That includes truck diesel, saw fuel, plus various odds and sods like chains, files bar oils etc. If the winter isn't too cold, I'll have a cord or two left over for the next winter.. The only problem I'm facing now, is that I'm 70...
Yeah, I was wondering about that math too. Also, I don't want to depend on pellets even if they were cheap, like you say, supply can cut off. I wonder if kindling would be feasible instead. Btw, do you happen to know the cost of the stove? I don't see how it's better than a small wood cookstove that you could get used..
A book by steven harris called sunshine to dollars for the days that we get sun to offset the consumption. That being said, one offset usually dont make a dent in ease or cost of operation. Might have to alternate between 3 or 4 systems. Now if we could only get the youngn's to do the leg and back work we'd have it made...
You can burn wood in these too. You can't burn thick cord wood like a normal stove though. What I used to call kindling is what you want for these stoves. A slash pile I'd have burnt in the past is now a "wood pile". We been using pellets at $5/40lb mostly. One thing I love about this stove is knowing I can walk in the woods and fill a 5gal bucket with deadwood sticks to keep warm another night. World is getting strange & I have Shagbark Hickory trees all around here. Free fuel literally falls from above.
My parents are also in their 70s, running 3 sometimes 4 coal and pellet stoves on 3 floors in a very large old farm house. Needless to say, I live here and run the show for them. It's a lot of back breaking work and it takes a lot of time. Maybe you could find someone who would be willing to help you daily with the brunt of the work, for a small fee even. Sending you love, I know aging is definitely a tough time having to depend on someone to give us a hand. Sometimes at 39 I still need a hand myself. I'm looking to install heat pumps here to take some of the burden if I fall ill or something ever happens to me. There's nice tax rebates this up coming year on them and their installation and it seems a viable option for most of the winter nights above -10.
I heated my home with a gravity fed pellet stove I made for about 10 years and it heated it very well. Our furnace went out and I thought it needed to be replaced and didn't want to buy a new one, so we just used pellets and it worked well. Now since then natural gas price was reasonable, and I got the furnace fixed (it was just a cheap part needed to be replaced) but I kept the pellet stove in cold storage just incase we ever need it again!
As a 30 year pellet stove owner/user I would do the following to make your stove more enjoyable. 1) Place and light regular pellet stove fire starter fuel directly under the grate of pellets. The torch fuel is probably more expensive and takes too long to light. You could place the starter fuel in a raised container to get it up close to the pellets. They also sell a liquid fire gel as a pellet starter that might help you. I prefer the dry parafin wood chips for my starter. 2) Your stove needs a built-in ash tray and drawer installed directly beneath the floor of the fire grate. A hole for the ash to fall into the ash drawer would need to be cut. 3) Add a chimney damper to cut off the cold air drafts. The cold air coming down into the metal firebox will eventually cause some heat loss and even rusting when warm air condenses on the metal.
I was going to say the same with the starting process. That seems like a lot of (expensive) propane to be used. Maybe put some little sticks on the bottom and put these on.
hey, it's best to use pellets to create a mini burner for a wood fireplace... with a metal tee and appropriate pipe sections for gravitational suction of air without electricity and a suitably large flame... something like in a kerosene lamp... the pipes should heat up quickly enough, be thin, etc. then it may work... the problem is poor combustion of the pellets and spontaneous combustion of the remains... unfortunately, the pellets or burnt like rice fried in a pan... but the rice is fried in the air... :-( this is impossible with gravity pellets
For greater efficiency, pipe in air from outside for combustion. The stove is sucking air from inside your home - air you've already warmed up - using that for combustion and that gets thrown out through the chimney. Now you have a low-pressure condition and cold, moist air leaks into your home to replace it. Pipe in combustion air and that problem is sharply reduced and overall efficiency goes way up.
Cold outside air for your intake is denser than warm room air and makes for a greater pressure difference between the top and bottom of your chimney which increases the draft. Great video and also lots of useful information in the comments section. Thanks for sharing
Yes! Fresh air intake otherwise it runs on a diminished return by burning air in the house that's trying to heat up. Another gentleman commented on the use of fresh air flue dampeners to control the rate of burn.
the other huge issue in sucking heated inside air up the chimney and ejecting it outside is it lowers the pressure in the house relative to the outside ...greatly increasing the flow rate into the house via drafts...
hey, it's best to use pellets to create a mini burner for a wood fireplace... with a metal tee and appropriate pipe sections for gravitational suction of air without electricity and a suitably large flame... something like in a kerosene lamp... the pipes should heat up quickly enough, be thin, etc. then it may work... the problem is poor combustion of the pellets and spontaneous combustion of the remains... unfortunately, the pellets or burnt like rice fried in a pan... but the rice is fried in the air... :-( this is impossible with gravity pellets
I had an American Harvester stove by US Stove company yes you need 120 to run it but the cool thing was i went to local farmer and bought a bunch of feed corn for the majority of my fuel. Corn needs to run hot kind of like coal, So a 70/30 corn/wood pellet would allow me to turn it down to 3 of 10 for the feed rate control, where 100% corn required level 5 feed rate to keep hot enough. Because i was renting the landlord was supervising the install and the window pass through that i made out of wood using a wall adapter and packed with fireproof insulation. Once the stove was running at temp less then 5 min from lighting all you can smell outside is Popcorn LOL.
We currently heat with a pellet stove, which has been a transition for us. We previously heated with a woodstove for thirty plus years. Loved the woodstove because we could/did utilize the top surface for cooking and would also set up drying racks of wet things to dry nearby. Thanks for the video.
Any woodstove should have the combustion air ducted in directly from the outside. This keeps the chimney from drawing heated room air and pumping it outside. Without a direct duct, the chimney draft negatively pressurizes the room/dwelling and that air is replaced thru every air leak in the building around windows, doors, electric and plumbing penetrations and cracks. This usually makes everywhere in the house feel cold except right near the stove. Direct ducted combustion air makes a huge difference in comfort. To improve heating comfort even more, a second duct with a fan/blower, blowing fresh outside air right against the side of the stove or into/between a heat exchanger plate(plate against a side of the stove with an air gap) makes a huge difference. This blower will positively pressurize the building with heated air which will cause the heat to flow out and away from the stove as it pushes the cooler air nearer the walls out thru any places that can leak air. These simple changes turn cold and drafty wood heated dwellings into warm and cozy. It doesn’t even take much of a fan, a 4” computer fan on the end of 4” PVC moves a few hundred CFM and is quiet and takes little power to operate.
I have 2 pellet stoves in my house and love them. Compared to regular wood, waaaay cleaner and easier to manage. The downside is you have to buy the pellets and prices have gone up a lot lately. We like it because it's the fire heat everyone loves without the mess, and you turn it on and leave it for hours even days between cleanings. I'm thinking of building one of these, like the no power thing.
Just a friendly note, the torch should be running like it was at the end of the light. The tip of the torch should never turn red. Just need to run it with more gas flow.
I made my own pellet stove but it’s about a foot of the ground and hase a large ash bucket built in makes all the difference only having to clean once every week liberator is almost perfect just needs a little tweeking
Hope it works out for you! Had a regular pellet stove but it just didn’t give off the heat I was looking for! Was more like natural gas and two small! Wishing you a wonderful Xmas and a warm winter! Plumb outside air to your pellet burner so it’s not drafting air from everywhere! Good luck!
I would say it would light faster if you used the yellow bernzomatic tank. It has MAP gas in it which is meant for brazing which burns much hotter than the blue propane or butane fuel tanks. Hope that helps. I like the charcoal briquette comment though!
Glad you like your non electric one. I myself bought an electric one, because it is a bit less work. Fill it up, push the button and that is it. Uses 300 Watt to start up (5 minutes), then only the fan (30 Watt max)
Nice stove, but being a rocket stove w/out an outside air intake you'd have to crack a window in an mobile home or in new construction ( the buildings are to tight). I had the Wiseway pellet stove for my off grid cabin and added a hot water loop to the out side of the unit to heat water for radiant heat and dom. hot water.I like this unit looks like you should be able to cook and w/ a bit of additional steel and a high temp fan possiblely convection bake with it. @ $3k+ a bit out of my price range being on a fixed budget.
With this type of burner you can increase the efficiency a lot if you connect outside air to the draft. That will also protect against short incidents of "back kick" that can happen if there are turbulent air. The hight of your chimney protect you pretty well, but it can still happen. Not using heated air for the draft also protect against the effect of outside air getting into connected room when the burner "suck" air out through the draft. Also this is a very nice burner design an I would be itching to place a tank of water on top of that plate. 🙂
Just let the itch go and don't scratch like a bug bite. A pot for coffee or tea may be fine. Something you wouldn't worry about if it goes dry. For the temps you're working with a small pan would go dry quickly. Boiling occurs at 212 F while this can go upwards of 400F. I trust the reason for the tank would be for humidity purposes. For the purpose of replacing a hot water heater a sealed tank could be constructed like a still. Still the condensing coil would have to be larger than that which you might use for moonshine. It might be fun to take a washtub bath like they did in my grandma's time. In the living room instead of her enclosed back porch though? Each to their own I guess. Now this isn't something that is turned off by a thermostat when the water temp gets high enough. I might not even enclose the system at all. Water heaters fail catastrophically with the worse case being a new skylight originating from the heater and/or it's components being launched into the stratosphere through the roof providing it didn't decimate the entire house. Remember what she said about water? Cast Iron and steel may crack if cold water is dumped onto them. And from that comes what I call a potentially existential moment. You will know you are alive because of the pain. What quality of life you will have after that could be telling. If it works don't fix it unless you are an engineer. Or as they say in the contracting business: When in doubt do less. There's a reason she suggested sand and a CO2 extinguisher. You don't want somebody that can't set a VCR or DVR making decisions they don't have the skill set for. As for connecting to the outside air: Now that makes good sense. I think you got something there. If the house was tight it would let in more air. If it wasn't it would suck less cold air (negative air pressure) from the outside. And any back kick as you put it wouldn't blow smoke and carbon monoxide back into the house. I got a feeling we'll get some other people weighing in on this one because obviously as we got some brains, nobody has the market cornered on intelligence. And for this I'm willing to learn.
@@scottdahl1938 " I trust the reason for the tank would be for humidity purposes." The main reason would be for hot water and heat storage. A 30-40 gallon tank would store a lot heat that would be released when the burner is turned of. It will also even out the heat when the burner is used. A source for water so the air do not get to dry is an added bonus. The tank would have to be open to air since you do no want a steam pressure vessel on the top of your indoor burner. 🙂
@@bknesheim I think I saw a variation of what you might have in mind where somebody wrapped copper around the chimney and let rising water flow to another tank as it was replaced by cooler water at the bottom. The guy fed the hot water in turn to a living quarters he had. This set up is different in that the chimney doesn't have the higher temps. Tell ya what. There's a TouTube channel called "Mylittlehomestead" that built a "Dragon rocketstove. They did it with bio mass about five years ago. Just type in the channel and include "Dragon rocket stove". The structure of there stove is about the same except the pipe layout is different. But they made theirs from scratch. Looks Pretty and works great. Then there's another channel called "Keeping It Dutch". Then type in "Masonry Heater" From a video dated three months ago, it's based on a similar system as the rocket heaters. It burns hotter, cleaner and uses 2/3 less wood as a wood stove. With this he has a manufacture actually installing their product. And with that manufacturer comes a website with other models and prices to go with the lights and bells. I think this is available as a DIY project too. Let me know your opinion. Options are a good thing.
@@scottdahl1938 Your recommendation are old news. 🙂 The copper around the chimney have problems since then you have a pressure vessel. You also loose the heat storage. A rocket stove mass heater is great when you have the space, but the only efficient way to build one into your house is when you build the house. "Tiled Stove" or "Masonry heater" do much of what a mass heater do, but can easier be retrofitted to your house. The main problem there is the cost of the stove. They are very efficient, but there are not really any versions that can do low effect.
@@bknesheim Wondering if the the vessel as you were proposing may need some support. Maybe build a stand of right angle steel that the stove will slide under. They sell 50 gallon drums for cheap. Start with 30 gallon fill to start. Be wary of excessive humidity. I know of a guy that had a humidifier under his desk that turned his wall into a Jackson Pollak gallery in black. Maybe the heat from below may disperse it better.
You are suppose to do the initial first burn off outdoors for two hours. After, let it cool down all the way. Then install it indoors. The smoke fumes are toxic.
Been using a pellet stove since they came out AKA corn burner and I store my pellets 3 tons out side every winter till its all used up your right you should not let them get wet and a tarp is all I use but yes you can store them out side for the winter use and I have had half a ton left over that I stored in my pole barn and when I used them the next winter Humidity was the biggest killer of pellets from hot days and high humidity.
I grew up with wood burning stoves. My aunt orma had a wood heat stove, and a lot of our neighbors also heated with wood burning stoves and fire places
Great video. I think these stoves are incredibly efficient and you get a ton of heat for the amount of pellets you burn. I would say the only downside is that they aren't exactly easy on the eyes from an interior appliance standpoint, but extremely practical.
Mapp gas torch with a Bernzomatic torch would lite it much faster than the propane torch you have. Also the higher grade pellets a good bit easier. Great video!
I can understand why you should not expect to be able to finely vary the heat output of a rocket stove and this is why they fit well with a mass heat storage arrangement. Once you have run the fire for an hour or two and heated the "mass", you can cover the mass area with a blanket or two if you want to reduce the rate at which heat escapes into the house.
COnsider plumbing outside air into the intakes that are currently removing warm air from your living space and sending it up the chimney. Also that air going into the intakes has to come from somewhere, so there is a negative pressure in the house that is drawing cold outside air into the living space. For a while now even regular fireplaces have a duct to supply outside air for combustion. It will save you fuel.
Good idea for pellets stove. As an engineer I see some defects in this construction. But I like idea! In Russia the pellets stoves sales in stores and people make their own stoves. I want pellets stove as reserve boiler. Now I use the gas boiler in gravity heating system without electric pump.
Fat Wood is wood that is saturated with pitch...the tree is injured in a way (bugs, lightning, fire, snow) that makes it produce pitch to protect itself...I have harvested 50 foot tall trees that were almost completely Fat Wood... I make my own "matches" by cutting the log into 3 inch lengths, then splitting them into 1/8th inch squares...(if it's really cold, damp wood, or I just want to get it done in a hurry I will use bigger pieces)...I stack my kindling nice and neat, then light a piece of Fat Wood and put it under the kindling... So, what you are saying would make sense; drop a few chips of Fat Wood in first, pour the pellets in on top, then light the chips of fat wood and you're done...you wouldn't have to sit there with a torch for 5 minutes...and you don't have to waste gas by turning your torch up... I like the briquette idea too...just drop in a couple matchlight briquettes before you put the pellets in (for those who don't know what is, or have access to, Fat Wood)...
Oh!!! I was thinking upon you last night. I am excited to see a recent video! I pray you are all safe and sound. Something tells me that the info you are giving here is extremely important. Thank you and your family for all that you do always!
Walker stoves sold a riser/burn chamber on ebay yrs ago. There are many that say never use metal. I know if you do never use wet wood even if it is with dry wood.
It needs a shortcut for the venting to help get that heat going. Say in phases.heat the part that pulls easy to heat the rest then open it up to the rest of the furnace.
To start a draft with only a short chimney available first start a small fire in the chimney to get the air flow moving correctly through the stove. Then start a fire in the main burn chamber and the air should continue to follow the flow through the stove and out the chimney. This method also works well for stoves that have a lot of offsets or chambers that resist getting the draft to start.
A little squirt of briquette starting fluid will give you an instant start. A cheap starter fluid is a mixture of 1 part gasoline to 4 parts diesel. Straight gasoline is too volatile and is likely to explode. Straight diesel is usable, but the gasoline will keep it fluid outside when the temperature drops below -10F and makes for a quicker start.
We had a pellet stove in the nw and we kept the bags on the back porch under the roof overhang on the pallet they came on. Some times you get some mushy ones but they burn too. That stove looks cool.
Might try soaking some of the pellets in Isopropyl Alcohol for fire starting. Been burning pellets for quite a while in stoves/firepits/smokers. A container half full of pellets soaked isopropyl that initially covers the pellets that then is turned a few times over the next day ends up as great fire starter. The pellets swell with isopropyl, light instantly and burn for minutes which is often plenty enough to start any fire. Also so far has been one of the cheaper fire starters I've come across that is instant on.
Even on an electric pellet stove, the igniter only ignites a couple of pellets at first. You can concentrate igniting the pellets on one location. It will spread and eventually ignite the entire bottom of the grate.
I put a small waxed fire starter tab in the front of the basket in mine and I hit with my lighter for a couple seconds and it goes pretty well after that.
Would it be a big issue to design a unit that uses wood chips from an ordinary wood chipper? It seems more efficient, due to the minimal processing needed. Helpful tip: before you torch the pellets, allow your propane "lighter" to blow up the chimney. You'll start a draft in a minute, or 3. Then light your fuel. Works on woodstoves, chimneys, anything.
Uhm.. it simply makes more sense to me to stick in small tinder flame material small kindling to start it. Using a torch is a bit overkill. And thankfully it seems designed for just that as well. I can see their usefulness but it is underutilized heat. It would be better to put water radiators than just its exterior. Stored heat extends way beyond simple burning time only. You will end up with overheating, noxious environments, and up and down time constantly not a consistent long term heat solution from a single or double burn, which is possible. It simply requires extending its operative nature. Water is the best other than beeswax for long term heat storage. So the more it keeps up in temperature the more the burn extends energy availability. And that is because you are using that water inside an area that doesnt absorb deep cold. Thus it will create a more sustained input and balance to the interior environment, with less energy input. Surface exchanges dont match stored energy in balancing.
So few RMH use water storage. I don't know why. My RMH in our greenhouse stores heat in 2500 gallons of Aquaponics water and my RMH in the house stores 160f water in 400 gallons of water. Makes all the difference. We can go 24 hrs without a burn during milder weather and stay toasty in below zero f weather. These massless rocket stoves really miss the mark. I would no more rely on pellets than electric heat. My stoves take full 8" by 30" logs save for our kitchen stove which takes 18" logs. 75 here and no intention of giving up our wood heat. Just the waste slab wood from our sawmill goes a long ways toward keeping us warm.
I seen something similar to that in Tractor Supply in Pennsylvania, it look like it would work excellent but the only thing is they don't sell them anymore. They have the southern design out and it's more expensive than it doesn't look near as good as the first one I was selling.
To move heat around the house, move the fan into the “cold” area of your house and blow cold air towards the stove. You will move more air that way and avoid cooking the heated air. The air density of cold vs hot will automatically move the hot air towards your fan. This didn’t make sense to me originally, but my rooms went up 5-7 degrees hotter just by moving the fans out of the heated room.
Another rocket stove short video on UA-cam shows putting a one paper towel sheet into the grate at the bottom of the shute before loading it with pellets - the paper towel prevents the pellets from falling through the grate. Also, you don't need pellets - you can feed it with broken twigs which is cheaper.
I have a pellet stove. I don't like the fans constantly running. A stove like you have may work better for me. I will say this......the pellets will off gas carbon monoxide right in the bag so storage inside a living space I do not recommend. Here's what happened. I was stocking up bags of pellets in the house around the beginning of fall, 14 bags in the house, when I started getting headaches. I had no idea what was causing the headaches except the only thing I changed was those bags of pellets in the house (I normally left them outside on the deck covered with a tarp). Looked it up and the process of squeezing the medium into pellets can make them off gas carbon monoxide. The bags have tiny holes to let that has out. Just sayin.
Neat stove. Might want to invest in a longer torch tip sold for lighting charcoal bbqs. Its like a mini weed burner or tiger torch and works great with propane. Will get that stove started quickly with whatdver you burn in it.
Thanks for the great information. I was really shocked at how long it takes to light the stove and what would you do if you didn't have a propane torch to light it? I like that it doesn't use electricity to use it. One thing I thought was a big waste was all the burn heat going outside. I thought if it could be run though a sand battery it would be more efficient, kind of like a mass rocket stove, but smaller. The one big factor was the cost of the pellets. I have a friend in Arizona and he said to heat his home it would cost him over $200.00 a month to do it. The one stove I wish was made would be a automatic home furnace run on waste oil that doesn't require an air compressor to run it. Anyways thanks for sharing your stove and thoughts with us. Best Wishes & Blessings. Keith Noneya
Most of the comments on here are from people that think this is a pellet stove; this is not a pellet stove, it is a rocket stove that has been modified with a pellet hopper and burn basket to burn pellets...this stove can burn chips, sticks, limbs, wood chunks, corn cobs,...pretty much anything that is burnable and will fit through the feed-tube... This stove will be efficient enough to pass government regulations in a time when electricity, propane, and pellets are readily available...when the economy, government, collapses there will not be anyone coming to your house to fine you for pollution; there's going to be so much smoke in the air, from the burning cities and forests, that no one will even notice the smoke from your chimney... When you can't get propane, or pellets, or electricity this stove will still be an efficient cook-stove/heater...
I thought this was a update? I believe you showed a bg 50 rocket stove before and this was just a insert. Maybe I’m wrong. Great video!!! Thanks for the review!!!
I am wondering if the pellets will ignite faster if you let the plumber torch to stay in one spot instead of moving left and right across multiple pellets. Then you can move from one pellet to the next after the first pellet has ignited.
When lighting the pellets you will be far faster and more effective if you stay in one place and light three areas the same way. Once you have all three spots lit, then just let the fire spread through out them.
We have a raised floor in the space below floor we have a 4 inch pipe coming from outside to our pellet burner we also burn wood chip dried it is cheaper also soak pellets in kerosene.
I wonder if, after you get the mass heater bench installed and "tuned" to your liking, it would make sense to fill in around the pea gravel with quick-krete. That should give better heat conductivity from the chimney pipe through the bench _AND_ help insure the pipe joints never leak
Full name of stove and manufacturer PLEASE! Going to be buying country home soon. Tyvm, love it! Idea for air inlets would be slip in pipe caps or 2 pcs metal with stove door gasket, fastened in place w bungee staps, cold only application of course
Instead of swinging the stock nozzle on the propane torch back and forth, perhaps instead consider a flat delta shaped nozzle to cover the larger width.
it's best to use pellets to create a mini burner for a wood fireplace... with a metal tee and appropriate pipe sections for gravitational suction of air without electricity and a suitably large flame... something like in a kerosene lamp... the pipes should heat up quickly enough, be thin, etc. then it may work... the problem is poor combustion of the pellets and spontaneous combustion of the remains... unfortunately, the pellets or burnt like rice fried in a pan... but the rice is fried in the air... :-( this is impossible with gravity pellets
2 comments. I’ve got 4 years of burning pellets in a old school pellet stove. Clean burn Pellets from Tacoma are not my favorite pellet. More soot and whitish corrosion to the burn pot using that brand. CHS sells a better pellet. Also, consider taking a tuna can or Sardine can with some alcohol hand sanitizer too start your stove with? The Hot flame from ETOH should Ignite the pellets without you waiting?
Stove needs redesign to accommodate an igniter. Takes way to long to ignite pellets. I have a harman P61A with an igniter. Used pellets on a gas grill for smoking designed for it. Takes quite some time with a blow torch to ignite.
Hold the propane torch STILL until the pellets light, then move to the next grate opening.....repeat. Seems obvious. There's a lot more processing of the wood to get it small enough to work in these stoves, extra time and effort. Some folks don't think about that aspect.
You would think there would be caps for the two Air intakes or damper valves,something, you’re not going to be able to put a plastic bag on there until the stove is completely cold. It would also look nicer than a plastic bag.
If you can create an air intake that supplies the stove with air directly from outside and thus does not take the air/oxygen from the warm indoor air to the combustion process. Then you will reduce the consumption of pellets/firewood for heating your desired area. This is because the air/oxygen used for the combustion of the warm indoor air does not then have to be replaced by leakage inflow of cold outdoor air into the stove room itself, which is thus also cooled during the heating process. A big plus and a smaller minus = a lesser plus in this comparison. Therefore, you streamline the heating of the house. If you also build a jacket with room for air to travel around the warm part of the stove with air intakes in the entire perimeter at the bottom and have the upper part essentially closed but with strategically placed air outlet nozzles angled in a suitable way. Then you will get a stove that self-circulates the air through convection and spreads it around the room in desired directions without electricity and you will therefore have less need of the fan. You seem to be resourceful. So, try it. You might like it.
so.. im intrigued.. but you didn't mention much about how the stove operates, but near the end it seems like the hopper shut-off is basically limiting the supply of gravity-fed pellets.. there's really no intake damper/choke on this thing?!
Esther - Vitamin C would help and strengthen your immune system. Don't use ascorbic it's the most inefficient type of Vitamin C to consume. For it does little to nothing and desecrated mostly in the urine.
My $2 dollars... _(2 cents adjusted for inflation)_ - A Non-Electric Stove is Certainly an ESSENTIAL NECESSITY, especially when the power goes down... which is only going to get worse in the time ahead. So whatever kind of non-electric stove that a person can make work for them, is a Must to have. With that said, the Liberator design is a good concept prototype. But for the near $3000 price tag _(Gen 2 with Pellet hopper)_ the company certainly needs to make some upgrades for selling it as a "finished" stove. *Such as having steel spring tension "sliding" covers to close off the air vents so you don't lose warm air from the house drafting up and out the chimney when the stove is not in use, instead of having to improvise something like the plastic bag. *Also a better fitting door for the grate, and adding a wood stove "spring" style handle to it so as not to get burned. **And it certainly needs a basic temp gauge _(to see what burn temp its running at)_ and a damper to give the ability to raise or lower the burn temperature. All or nothing is not very feasible no matter the size of building you are heating, due to outside temperature changes. Colder temps needs more heat to keep the building warm, and warmer outdoor temps means you have to turn the stove down or it will run you out of the house. I Do Like that the Liberator will burn other wood besides Just Pellets. The Wiseway stove is a pellet stove only, which means I have to store up pellets on hand for when the time comes that I can't get them. I also like that the Liberator can be used to cook on. I have a Wiseway non-electric pellet stove in my house for 2 years, and my Dad has had one for 3 years now. And in my opinion it also should not have been sold as a "finished" stove either. As it too was "rough around the edges" and needs some changes and upgrades. I like the pellet hopper design of the Liberator better than the Wiseway. As it's kind of hard to haul up a 40lb bag of pellets to the top of the stove _(as it's fairly tall)_ and dump them into the narrow hopper on the back side of the Wiseway without spilling them all over the place. This is made worse if the stove is next to a wall, as it makes even less space. But the Wiseway damper, burn basket, secondary burn plate, and ash pan is a better design than the Liberator. And the Wiseway was less than half the $ too. If I built my own stove, I would likely go along the lines of the LIberator hopper and cook top with the chimney at the very back of the stove. But with a similar burnbasket, secondary burn plate, and ash pan design of the wiseway. As well as an even better damper design _(than the Wiseway)_ and some other alterations and upgrades. If I had a plasma cutter 3 years ago before I bought a Wiseway pellet stove, i might have built my own stove. I have built plenty of things, including some large projects, with just an angle grinder in the past before I finally bought a plasma cutter about 6 months ago. But an angle grinder takes a lot more time, difficulty in some cases _(like cutting circles/holes)_ and expense with the cost of cutting disks now days. And I've had a number of disks explode on me too. Even had a sanding flap disc that suddenly blew apart not long ago, which I never expected that one. Have gotten some fairly bad cuts, burns, and pain from them over the years. Plasma can't do everything, but it certainly far reduces the use of an angle grinder. This is all beside the point, but maybe an idea for those looking for a pellet/rocket stove to think about. **EDIT: I will add that one of the reasons we moved from a regular wood stove to a pellet stove was because in 2019 I had two major injuries about 6 months apart that prevented me from being able to go and cut firewood for 2 years, even now still have some issues. We tried to buy firewood one winter, but no matter who we got it from it was never seasoned, and was even really wet one time. I don't like a pellet only stove for the sole reason of realizing that soon we won't be able to just go out and buy more pellets. I do have two regular wood stoves still stored in my barn that I need to clean back up and repair, or build a better one, so that I can reinstall them when the time comes.
If you get a paper towel pour some cooking oil on it stuff it under the pellets then light the paper towel works a lot better I do this to light my bbq
I have that stove. The way I found to light it is to take a single charcoal briquette, momentarily dip it in a mason jar of charcoal lighter fluid, put it in the pellet tray below, then dump in the pellets. Lights with a single match.
You mean you don't like holding a propane torch for 10 minutes? 😆
I would also try an electric heat gun. It would also help kick start the draft up the rocket.
A propane torch can be cranked up much higher than she showed. I get it going in 2 minutes with the same torch.
I may try my old method of starting cord wood. It was a metal bin full of Single Toilet paper cardboard rolls. Just fold each one up 3 times. Save up and dip them in melted Crisco once a year. They make prefect slow burn fire starters.
@@scott1lori282 I would still give the heat gun a try. It’s amazing how fast it works, and it’s nice not having to buy and store so much propane.
@@atomicsmith I wouldn't have guessed that would work to light pellets. I've never owned a heat gun though. The only problem I see is that I don't want to rely on electric in any way.
I put a stovepipe damper in mine, crank it almost fully closed when I leave for work, it’s actually been going now for almost exactly 12 hours and I’m guessing it’s used about 20 pounds, cooktop is 400 and stack temp is 180. House is 74. Could not be happier!
In Florida 20 lbs pellets is about $7.00. So $14 a day for heat.
@@TiredOldMann dang, 40 pound for about 4 dollars here. I did buy by the pallet load though.
Did you put the damper on the stove pipe going out? Would regulating the air going in work the same way?
@@bandmasterjf I actually did it on both, took a little while to get the feel of it, but one intake is fully closed, the other is about 70% closed all the time and I throttle it extra if needed on the exhaust. I’ve got a really strong draft though.
@@bandmasterjf I think so, but again my draft is super strong. Added benefit to cutting the intake is it pulls more through the pellet hopper so less chance for it to burp smoke in my experience.
I like pellet stoves and have used them in the past, but I foresee a huge future issue with them. At the time several years ago, when I ordered pellets for a workshop by the metric tonn on a pallet, (about 55 - 18.56kg bags picked up by myself on site), the cost was $104.50 came out to be $1.90 CDN a bag plus 12% tax. Burning all day I would use roughly 2 bags a day. So $3.80 /day. I used up about one ton per month, give or take a couple or four bags that's maybe $115.00 a month. Today however, the cost of pellets has risen to $250 OR MORE a tonn, and the cost is set to go up another $60 or $70 a tonn. One of the local pellet manufacturers shut down production, so sometimes there could be a shortage of pellets in the future. What happens if the cost gets too high for the home owner to bear, or availability drops to 0? Pellets are the only fuel you can burn in those units. Now I have a wood burning furnace (basement) and a wood burning stove (main floor). The cost of the wood is whatever it costs me to go into the bush and get it. Typically $150 - $200 a year for 6-8 cords. That includes truck diesel, saw fuel, plus various odds and sods like chains, files bar oils etc. If the winter isn't too cold, I'll have a cord or two left over for the next winter.. The only problem I'm facing now, is that I'm 70...
Yeah, I was wondering about that math too. Also, I don't want to depend on pellets even if they were cheap, like you say, supply can cut off. I wonder if kindling would be feasible instead. Btw, do you happen to know the cost of the stove? I don't see how it's better than a small wood cookstove that you could get used..
A book by steven harris called sunshine to dollars for the days that we get sun to offset the consumption. That being said, one offset usually dont make a dent in ease or cost of operation. Might have to alternate between 3 or 4 systems. Now if we could only get the youngn's to do the leg and back work we'd have it made...
This stove will burn wood as well.
You can burn wood in these too. You can't burn thick cord wood like a normal stove though. What I used to call kindling is what you want for these stoves. A slash pile I'd have burnt in the past is now a "wood pile".
We been using pellets at $5/40lb mostly. One thing I love about this stove is knowing I can walk in the woods and fill a 5gal bucket with deadwood sticks to keep warm another night. World is getting strange & I have Shagbark Hickory trees all around here. Free fuel literally falls from above.
My parents are also in their 70s, running 3 sometimes 4 coal and pellet stoves on 3 floors in a very large old farm house. Needless to say, I live here and run the show for them. It's a lot of back breaking work and it takes a lot of time. Maybe you could find someone who would be willing to help you daily with the brunt of the work, for a small fee even. Sending you love, I know aging is definitely a tough time having to depend on someone to give us a hand. Sometimes at 39 I still need a hand myself. I'm looking to install heat pumps here to take some of the burden if I fall ill or something ever happens to me. There's nice tax rebates this up coming year on them and their installation and it seems a viable option for most of the winter nights above -10.
I heated my home with a gravity fed pellet stove I made for about 10 years and it heated it very well. Our furnace went out and I thought it needed to be replaced and didn't want to buy a new one, so we just used pellets and it worked well. Now since then natural gas price was reasonable, and I got the furnace fixed (it was just a cheap part needed to be replaced) but I kept the pellet stove in cold storage just incase we ever need it again!
Do you have plans for the one you made ?
@@cocopella No, I never did. ALot of people asked so I may have to take some photos so I can post them.
As a 30 year pellet stove owner/user I would do the following to make your stove more enjoyable.
1) Place and light regular pellet stove fire starter fuel directly under the grate of pellets. The torch fuel is probably more expensive and takes too long to light. You could place the starter fuel in a raised container to get it up close to the pellets. They also sell a liquid fire gel as a pellet starter that might help you. I prefer the dry parafin wood chips for my starter.
2) Your stove needs a built-in ash tray and drawer installed directly beneath the floor of the fire grate. A hole for the ash to fall into the ash drawer would need to be cut.
3) Add a chimney damper to cut off the cold air drafts. The cold air coming down into the metal firebox will eventually cause some heat loss and even rusting when warm air condenses on the metal.
I was going to say the same with the starting process. That seems like a lot of (expensive) propane to be used. Maybe put some little sticks on the bottom and put these on.
hey, it's best to use pellets to create a mini burner for a wood fireplace... with a metal tee and appropriate pipe sections for gravitational suction of air without electricity and a suitably large flame... something like in a kerosene lamp...
the pipes should heat up quickly enough, be thin, etc. then it may work... the problem is poor combustion of the pellets and spontaneous combustion of the remains... unfortunately, the pellets or burnt like rice fried in a pan... but the rice is fried in the air... :-( this is impossible with gravity pellets
For greater efficiency, pipe in air from outside for combustion. The stove is sucking air from inside your home - air you've already warmed up - using that for combustion and that gets thrown out through the chimney. Now you have a low-pressure condition and cold, moist air leaks into your home to replace it. Pipe in combustion air and that problem is sharply reduced and overall efficiency goes way up.
What would you use to pipe it in?
@@ryananthony4840 basic aluminum flex pipe is the easiest. If you want something more rigid. You could use galvanized steel round pipe.
@@Titanium369 thanks, what's a good diameter?
@@ryananthony4840 same size diameter as your fresh air port on the unit you are running.
@@Titanium369 thanks
You need to hold that propane torch in the same place till the pellets start to burn instead of waving it around
OMG thank you. It was driving me nuts. 😅
Yeah and turn the flame up a bit! That was painful to watch!!
Lolz
You don't know what you don't know
@@michaeljohn8567 Me too!
When using your torch, do not let the end glow red hot like that. Turn the gas up so the tip does not heat up.
right? no need to be afraid
I think I learned something, thanks.
🤣
Yup don't want that tip getting hot enough to blowback seen it happen not pretty...
I was wondering why she didn’t turn the gas up after lighting 😅 I don’t believe it woulda taken the same out of time with a lot vs a little
If you want to get it lit faster, hold your torch in one spot, until it lites, then move down the line.
It was painful to watch.
😂
I felt the same Pain😲
Cold outside air for your intake is denser than warm room air and makes for a greater pressure difference between the top and bottom of your chimney which increases the draft. Great video and also lots of useful information in the comments section. Thanks for sharing
Yes! Fresh air intake otherwise it runs on a diminished return by burning air in the house that's trying to heat up. Another gentleman commented on the use of fresh air flue dampeners to control the rate of burn.
the other huge issue in sucking heated inside air up the chimney and ejecting it outside is it lowers the pressure in the house relative to the outside ...greatly increasing the flow rate into the house via drafts...
hey, it's best to use pellets to create a mini burner for a wood fireplace... with a metal tee and appropriate pipe sections for gravitational suction of air without electricity and a suitably large flame... something like in a kerosene lamp...
the pipes should heat up quickly enough, be thin, etc. then it may work... the problem is poor combustion of the pellets and spontaneous combustion of the remains... unfortunately, the pellets or burnt like rice fried in a pan... but the rice is fried in the air... :-( this is impossible with gravity pellets
I had an American Harvester stove by US Stove company yes you need 120 to run it but the cool thing was i went to local farmer and bought a bunch of feed corn for the majority of my fuel. Corn needs to run hot kind of like coal, So a 70/30 corn/wood pellet would allow me to turn it down to 3 of 10 for the feed rate control, where 100% corn required level 5 feed rate to keep hot enough. Because i was renting the landlord was supervising the install and the window pass through that i made out of wood using a wall adapter and packed with fireproof insulation. Once the stove was running at temp less then 5 min from lighting all you can smell outside is Popcorn LOL.
We currently heat with a pellet stove, which has been a transition for us. We previously heated with a woodstove for thirty plus years. Loved the woodstove because we could/did utilize the top surface for cooking and would also set up drying racks of wet things to dry nearby. Thanks for the video.
This also burns wood
Any woodstove should have the combustion air ducted in directly from the outside. This keeps the chimney from drawing heated room air and pumping it outside. Without a direct duct, the chimney draft negatively pressurizes the room/dwelling and that air is replaced thru every air leak in the building around windows, doors, electric and plumbing penetrations and cracks. This usually makes everywhere in the house feel cold except right near the stove. Direct ducted combustion air makes a huge difference in comfort. To improve heating comfort even more, a second duct with a fan/blower, blowing fresh outside air right against the side of the stove or into/between a heat exchanger plate(plate against a side of the stove with an air gap) makes a huge difference. This blower will positively pressurize the building with heated air which will cause the heat to flow out and away from the stove as it pushes the cooler air nearer the walls out thru any places that can leak air. These simple changes turn cold and drafty wood heated dwellings into warm and cozy. It doesn’t even take much of a fan, a 4” computer fan on the end of 4” PVC moves a few hundred CFM and is quiet and takes little power to operate.
I have 2 pellet stoves in my house and love them. Compared to regular wood, waaaay cleaner and easier to manage. The downside is you have to buy the pellets and prices have gone up a lot lately. We like it because it's the fire heat everyone loves without the mess, and you turn it on and leave it for hours even days between cleanings. I'm thinking of building one of these, like the no power thing.
This one also burns wood
Just a friendly note, the torch should be running like it was at the end of the light. The tip of the torch should never turn red. Just need to run it with more gas flow.
I made my own pellet stove but it’s about a foot of the ground and hase a large ash bucket built in makes all the difference only having to clean once every week liberator is almost perfect just needs a little tweeking
Hope it works out for you!
Had a regular pellet stove but it just didn’t give off the heat I was looking for! Was more like natural gas and two small!
Wishing you a wonderful Xmas and a warm winter!
Plumb outside air to your pellet burner so it’s not drafting air from everywhere!
Good luck!
I have a 2600 sq ft home with lots of windows and sky lights and it does a good job! Love it! Yours that you made must of not been as big.
I would say it would light faster if you used the yellow bernzomatic tank. It has MAP gas in it which is meant for brazing which burns much hotter than the blue propane or butane fuel tanks. Hope that helps. I like the charcoal briquette comment though!
just hold it in one place
Open the valve more on the torch .
Glad you like your non electric one. I myself bought an electric one, because it is a bit less work. Fill it up, push the button and that is it. Uses 300 Watt to start up (5 minutes), then only the fan (30 Watt max)
Nice stove, but being a rocket stove w/out an outside air intake you'd have to crack a window in an mobile home or in new construction ( the buildings are to tight). I had the Wiseway pellet stove for my off grid cabin and added a hot water loop to the out side of the unit to heat water for radiant heat and dom. hot water.I like this unit looks like you should be able to cook and w/ a bit of additional steel and a high temp fan possiblely convection bake with it. @ $3k+ a bit out of my price range being on a fixed budget.
The price is what I was looking for. Not anymore, lol.
With this type of burner you can increase the efficiency a lot if you connect outside air to the draft. That will also protect against short incidents of "back kick" that can happen if there are turbulent air. The hight of your chimney protect you pretty well, but it can still happen. Not using heated air for the draft also protect against the effect of outside air getting into connected room when the burner "suck" air out through the draft. Also this is a very nice burner design an I would be itching to place a tank of water on top of that plate. 🙂
Just let the itch go and don't scratch like a bug bite. A pot for coffee or tea may be fine. Something you wouldn't worry about if it goes dry.
For the temps you're working with a small pan would go dry quickly. Boiling occurs at 212 F while this can go upwards of 400F. I trust the reason for the tank would be for humidity purposes.
For the purpose of replacing a hot water heater a sealed tank could be constructed like a still. Still the condensing coil would have to be larger than that which you might use for moonshine. It might be fun to take a washtub bath like they did in my grandma's time. In the living room instead of her enclosed back porch though? Each to their own I guess.
Now this isn't something that is turned off by a thermostat when the water temp gets high enough. I might not even enclose the system at all. Water heaters fail catastrophically with the worse case being a new skylight originating from the heater and/or it's components being launched into the stratosphere through the roof providing it didn't decimate the entire house.
Remember what she said about water? Cast Iron and steel may crack if cold water is dumped onto them. And from that comes what I call a potentially existential moment. You will know you are alive because of the pain. What quality of life you will have after that could be telling. If it works don't fix it unless you are an engineer. Or as they say in the contracting business: When in doubt do less. There's a reason she suggested sand and a CO2 extinguisher. You don't want somebody that can't set a VCR or DVR making decisions they don't have the skill set for.
As for connecting to the outside air: Now that makes good sense. I think you got something there. If the house was tight it would let in more air. If it wasn't it would suck less cold air (negative air pressure) from the outside. And any back kick as you put it wouldn't blow smoke and carbon monoxide back into the house.
I got a feeling we'll get some other people weighing in on this one because obviously as we got some brains, nobody has the market cornered on intelligence. And for this I'm willing to learn.
@@scottdahl1938 " I trust the reason for the tank would be for humidity purposes."
The main reason would be for hot water and heat storage. A 30-40 gallon tank would store a lot heat that would be released when the burner is turned of.
It will also even out the heat when the burner is used. A source for water so the air do not get to dry is an added bonus.
The tank would have to be open to air since you do no want a steam pressure vessel on the top of your indoor burner. 🙂
@@bknesheim I think I saw a variation of what you might have in mind where somebody wrapped copper around the chimney and let rising water flow to another tank as it was replaced by cooler water at the bottom. The guy fed the hot water in turn to a living quarters he had. This set up is different in that the chimney doesn't have the higher temps.
Tell ya what. There's a TouTube channel called "Mylittlehomestead" that built a "Dragon rocketstove. They did it with bio mass about five years ago. Just type in the channel and include "Dragon rocket stove". The structure of there stove is about the same except the pipe layout is different. But they made theirs from scratch. Looks Pretty and works great.
Then there's another channel called "Keeping It Dutch". Then type in "Masonry Heater" From a video dated three months ago, it's based on a similar system as the rocket heaters. It burns hotter, cleaner and uses 2/3 less wood as a wood stove. With this he has a manufacture actually installing their product. And with that manufacturer comes a website with other models and prices to go with the lights and bells. I think this is available as a DIY project too. Let me know your opinion. Options are a good thing.
@@scottdahl1938 Your recommendation are old news. 🙂
The copper around the chimney have problems since then you have a pressure vessel. You also loose the heat storage.
A rocket stove mass heater is great when you have the space, but the only efficient way to build one into your house is when you build the house.
"Tiled Stove" or "Masonry heater" do much of what a mass heater do, but can easier be retrofitted to your house. The main problem there is the cost of the stove.
They are very efficient, but there are not really any versions that can do low effect.
@@bknesheim Wondering if the the vessel as you were proposing may need some support. Maybe build a stand of right angle steel that the stove will slide under. They sell 50 gallon drums for cheap. Start with 30 gallon fill to start. Be wary of excessive humidity. I know of a guy that had a humidifier under his desk that turned his wall into a Jackson Pollak gallery in black. Maybe the heat from below may disperse it better.
You are suppose to do the initial first burn off outdoors for two hours. After, let it cool down all the way. Then install it indoors. The smoke fumes are toxic.
Been using a pellet stove since they came out AKA corn burner and I store my pellets 3 tons out side every winter till its all used up your right you should not let them get wet and a tarp is all I use but yes you can store them out side for the winter use and I have had half a ton left over that I stored in my pole barn and when I used them the next winter Humidity was the biggest killer of pellets from hot days and high humidity.
I grew up with wood burning stoves. My aunt orma had a wood heat stove, and a lot of our neighbors also heated with wood burning stoves and fire places
Great video. I think these stoves are incredibly efficient and you get a ton of heat for the amount of pellets you burn. I would say the only downside is that they aren't exactly easy on the eyes from an interior appliance standpoint, but extremely practical.
Mapp gas torch with a Bernzomatic torch would lite it much faster than the propane torch you have. Also the higher grade pellets a good bit easier. Great video!
I can understand why you should not expect to be able to finely vary the heat output of a rocket stove and this is why they fit well with a mass heat storage arrangement. Once you have run the fire for an hour or two and heated the "mass", you can cover the mass area with a blanket or two if you want to reduce the rate at which heat escapes into the house.
COnsider plumbing outside air into the intakes that are currently removing warm air from your living space and sending it up the chimney. Also that air going into the intakes has to come from somewhere, so there is a negative pressure in the house that is drawing cold outside air into the living space. For a while now even regular fireplaces have a duct to supply outside air for combustion. It will save you fuel.
Good idea for pellets stove. As an engineer I see some defects in this construction. But I like idea! In Russia the pellets stoves sales in stores and people make their own stoves. I want pellets stove as reserve boiler. Now I use the gas boiler in gravity heating system without electric pump.
awesome i live a half hour away from a pellet manufacturer so this is a cheap option for me thanks
I wonder if you put a little Fat Wood with the bottom pellets for faster ignition on lighting , that may help
Please excuse my ignorance but what is fat wood?
@@campbellkennett7984 flat wood is used to start a wood fire it is also called kiling
Fat Wood is wood that is saturated with pitch...the tree is injured in a way (bugs, lightning, fire, snow) that makes it produce pitch to protect itself...I have harvested 50 foot tall trees that were almost completely Fat Wood...
I make my own "matches" by cutting the log into 3 inch lengths, then splitting them into 1/8th inch squares...(if it's really cold, damp wood, or I just want to get it done in a hurry I will use bigger pieces)...I stack my kindling nice and neat, then light a piece of Fat Wood and put it under the kindling...
So, what you are saying would make sense; drop a few chips of Fat Wood in first, pour the pellets in on top, then light the chips of fat wood and you're done...you wouldn't have to sit there with a torch for 5 minutes...and you don't have to waste gas by turning your torch up...
I like the briquette idea too...just drop in a couple matchlight briquettes before you put the pellets in (for those who don't know what is, or have access to, Fat Wood)...
Oh!!! I was thinking upon you last night. I am excited to see a recent video! I pray you are all safe and sound. Something tells me that the info you are giving here is extremely important. Thank you and your family for all that you do always!
Walker stoves sold a riser/burn chamber on ebay yrs ago. There are many that say never use metal. I know if you do never use wet wood even if it is with dry wood.
It needs a shortcut for the venting to help get that heat going. Say in phases.heat the part that pulls easy to heat the rest then open it up to the rest of the furnace.
To start a draft with only a short chimney available first start a small fire in the chimney to get the air flow moving correctly through the stove. Then start a fire in the main burn chamber and the air should continue to follow the flow through the stove and out the chimney. This method also works well for stoves that have a lot of offsets or chambers that resist getting the draft to start.
A little squirt of briquette starting fluid will give you an instant start. A cheap starter fluid is a mixture of 1 part gasoline to 4 parts diesel. Straight gasoline is too volatile and is likely to explode. Straight diesel is usable, but the gasoline will keep it fluid outside when the temperature drops below -10F and makes for a quicker start.
We had a pellet stove in the nw and we kept the bags on the back porch under the roof overhang on the pallet they came on. Some times you get some mushy ones but they burn too.
That stove looks cool.
The torch has the ability to light those pellets in a much smaller time just open the valve all the way up and you’ll get some heat❤️🔥❤️🔥🇺🇸
Might try soaking some of the pellets in Isopropyl Alcohol for fire starting. Been burning pellets for quite a while in stoves/firepits/smokers. A container half full of pellets soaked isopropyl that initially covers the pellets that then is turned a few times over the next day ends up as great fire starter. The pellets swell with isopropyl, light instantly and burn for minutes which is often plenty enough to start any fire. Also so far has been one of the cheaper fire starters I've come across that is instant on.
Great video, thank you. Would be concerned about he pellet hopper going up - a fire bread feed would be safer.............best wishes, Adam
Even on an electric pellet stove, the igniter only ignites a couple of pellets at first. You can concentrate igniting the pellets on one location. It will spread and eventually ignite the entire bottom of the grate.
I put a small waxed fire starter tab in the front of the basket in mine and I hit with my lighter for a couple seconds and it goes pretty well after that.
Would it be a big issue to design a unit that uses wood chips from an ordinary wood chipper? It seems more efficient, due to the minimal processing needed.
Helpful tip: before you torch the pellets, allow your propane "lighter" to blow up the chimney. You'll start a draft in a minute, or 3. Then light your fuel. Works on woodstoves, chimneys, anything.
Uhm.. it simply makes more sense to me to stick in small tinder flame material small kindling to start it. Using a torch is a bit overkill. And thankfully it seems designed for just that as well. I can see their usefulness but it is underutilized heat. It would be better to put water radiators than just its exterior. Stored heat extends way beyond simple burning time only. You will end up with overheating, noxious environments, and up and down time constantly not a consistent long term heat solution from a single or double burn, which is possible. It simply requires extending its operative nature. Water is the best other than beeswax for long term heat storage. So the more it keeps up in temperature the more the burn extends energy availability. And that is because you are using that water inside an area that doesnt absorb deep cold. Thus it will create a more sustained input and balance to the interior environment, with less energy input.
Surface exchanges dont match stored energy in balancing.
So few RMH use water storage. I don't know why. My RMH in our greenhouse stores heat in 2500 gallons of Aquaponics water and my RMH in the house stores 160f water in 400 gallons of water. Makes all the difference. We can go 24 hrs without a burn during milder weather and stay toasty in below zero f weather. These massless rocket stoves really miss the mark. I would no more rely on pellets than electric heat. My stoves take full 8" by 30" logs save for our kitchen stove which takes 18" logs. 75 here and no intention of giving up our wood heat. Just the waste slab wood from our sawmill goes a long ways toward keeping us warm.
How do you transfer heat from stove to the water mass storage heater?
I have 2 pellet stoves, takes 6 ton at 350.00 per ton per winter & I need electricity! Thanks Joe! FJB !
I seen something similar to that in Tractor Supply in Pennsylvania, it look like it would work excellent but the only thing is they don't sell them anymore. They have the southern design out and it's more expensive than it doesn't look near as good as the first one I was selling.
To move heat around the house, move the fan into the “cold” area of your house and blow cold air towards the stove. You will move more air that way and avoid cooking the heated air. The air density of cold vs hot will automatically move the hot air towards your fan.
This didn’t make sense to me originally, but my rooms went up 5-7 degrees hotter just by moving the fans out of the heated room.
Wow that's a good tip. I have a little fan on top of my stove and it makes a great difference but I'll do what you say and see how that works thanks
Another rocket stove short video on UA-cam shows putting a one paper towel sheet into the grate at the bottom of the shute before loading it with pellets - the paper towel prevents the pellets from falling through the grate.
Also, you don't need pellets - you can feed it with broken twigs which is cheaper.
I have a pellet stove. I don't like the fans constantly running. A stove like you have may work better for me. I will say this......the pellets will off gas carbon monoxide right in the bag so storage inside a living space I do not recommend. Here's what happened. I was stocking up bags of pellets in the house around the beginning of fall, 14 bags in the house, when I started getting headaches. I had no idea what was causing the headaches except the only thing I changed was those bags of pellets in the house (I normally left them outside on the deck covered with a tarp). Looked it up and the process of squeezing the medium into pellets can make them off gas carbon monoxide. The bags have tiny holes to let that has out. Just sayin.
Darn I always start my winter here in Northern MN. With 3 pallets of pellets in the house, I never seen any difference. Been doing it now for 9 years
Neat stove. Might want to invest in a longer torch tip sold for lighting charcoal bbqs. Its like a mini weed burner or tiger torch and works great with propane. Will get that stove started quickly with whatdver you burn in it.
I'm curious above both cord wood and to me feel weird not using a chimney damper. What are the flue temps of this unit?
Another lighting option is to cut a soup can to 2-3 inches, fill it with an inch of alcohol, place it under the pellets basket, and light it.
a very interesting process to watch. Thank you for sharing !
Thanks for the great information. I was really shocked at how long it takes to light the stove and what would you do if you didn't have a propane torch to light it? I like that it doesn't use electricity to use it. One thing I thought was a big waste was all the burn heat going outside. I thought if it could be run though a sand battery it would be more efficient, kind of like a mass rocket stove, but smaller. The one big factor was the cost of the pellets. I have a friend in Arizona and he said to heat his home it would cost him over $200.00 a month to do it. The one stove I wish was made would be a automatic home furnace run on waste oil that doesn't require an air compressor to run it. Anyways thanks for sharing your stove and thoughts with us. Best Wishes & Blessings. Keith Noneya
Open that torch up and it won't take but a minute!
You can put a cover with holes over the air intake so it wil burn slower
Most of the comments on here are from people that think this is a pellet stove; this is not a pellet stove, it is a rocket stove that has been modified with a pellet hopper and burn basket to burn pellets...this stove can burn chips, sticks, limbs, wood chunks, corn cobs,...pretty much anything that is burnable and will fit through the feed-tube...
This stove will be efficient enough to pass government regulations in a time when electricity, propane, and pellets are readily available...when the economy, government, collapses there will not be anyone coming to your house to fine you for pollution; there's going to be so much smoke in the air, from the burning cities and forests, that no one will even notice the smoke from your chimney...
When you can't get propane, or pellets, or electricity this stove will still be an efficient cook-stove/heater...
I thought this was a update? I believe you showed a bg 50 rocket stove before and this was just a insert. Maybe I’m wrong. Great video!!! Thanks for the review!!!
A little bit of kerosene is always a good safe way to assist starting any fire. Pour the kero on BEFORE lighting with a flame, NEVER AFTER it is lit.
A larger flame at start up will cause more heat in the combustion chamber which will cause a draught in the chimney
i 've been waiting and waiting for you to light up the pellets.
I am wondering if the pellets will ignite faster if you let the plumber torch to stay in one spot instead of moving left and right across multiple pellets. Then you can move from one pellet to the next after the first pellet has ignited.
MAP gas is the ticket, mine lights in about 30 seconds.
You can go at it harder with the torch, just turn the knob. Or put pellet lighting fuel underneath and save on the propane.
There should be an airtight drawer on the bottom for the Ashes to fall down so you don't have to keep cleaning it every day
I remember breaking in a valley comfort stove and the smell was strong for a while
Blessings to GOD and you and yours! Thank you for the information on the stove!!!!
When lighting the pellets you will be far faster and more effective if you stay in one place and light three areas the same way. Once you have all three spots lit, then just let the fire spread through out them.
Open the valve on the torch just a little bit more. Works much better when trying to light the pellets.
We have a raised floor in the space below floor we have a 4 inch pipe coming from outside to our pellet burner we also burn wood chip dried it is cheaper also soak pellets in kerosene.
In order to light up more easily, put handful of charcoal before filling with pellets.
Lovely Idaho family. Lovely Idaho spread. Good video.
Maybe instead of a torch you could use a small starter brick?
I wonder if, after you get the mass heater bench installed and "tuned" to your liking, it would make sense to fill in around the pea gravel with quick-krete. That should give better heat conductivity from the chimney pipe through the bench _AND_ help insure the pipe joints never leak
Need to put outside air intake on that.
Good to see content again... noticed the channel name change... hope life is going good for all y'all
Full name of stove and manufacturer PLEASE! Going to be buying country home soon. Tyvm, love it! Idea for air inlets would be slip in pipe caps or 2 pcs metal with stove door gasket, fastened in place w bungee staps, cold only application of course
How about including a flue valve in the stove pipe to cut down on unwanted draft? It would probably work better than a plastic bag. Just a thought. ❤
Hold the torch still and get one spot going. Rotate the bottle so the flame is pointing up
Nice video for people like me who know nothing about these types of stoves
install an exhaust fan in the flue it helps light the stove much faster turn it off when it's burning well
Instead of swinging the stock nozzle on the propane torch back and forth, perhaps instead consider a flat delta shaped nozzle to cover the larger width.
it's best to use pellets to create a mini burner for a wood fireplace... with a metal tee and appropriate pipe sections for gravitational suction of air without electricity and a suitably large flame... something like in a kerosene lamp...
the pipes should heat up quickly enough, be thin, etc. then it may work... the problem is poor combustion of the pellets and spontaneous combustion of the remains... unfortunately, the pellets or burnt like rice fried in a pan... but the rice is fried in the air... :-( this is impossible with gravity pellets
Says Idaho family but John has a serious Utah accent. Thanks for the content.
I bought a Wiseway Pellet Stove, a huge mistake. Found this one later on, regrettably. Live and learn, I guess.
2 comments. I’ve got 4 years of burning pellets in a old school pellet stove.
Clean burn Pellets from Tacoma are not my favorite pellet. More soot and whitish corrosion to the burn pot using that brand. CHS sells a better pellet. Also, consider taking a tuna can or Sardine can with some alcohol hand sanitizer too start your stove with? The Hot flame from ETOH should Ignite the pellets without you waiting?
Stove needs redesign to accommodate an igniter. Takes way to long to ignite pellets. I have a harman P61A with an igniter. Used pellets on a gas grill for smoking designed for it. Takes quite some time with a blow torch to ignite.
All it needs is a damper in the chimney. It would work really well.
Lol my kids loved hearing you kids in the background 😊
Hold the propane torch STILL until the pellets light, then move to the next grate opening.....repeat. Seems obvious. There's a lot more processing of the wood to get it small enough to work in these stoves, extra time and effort. Some folks don't think about that aspect.
Cool! May this technology be used in contemporary urban appartement in Europe?
You would think there would be caps for the two Air intakes or damper valves,something, you’re not going to be able to put a plastic bag on there until the stove is completely cold. It would also look nicer than a plastic bag.
Draw the cold air from the outside of the house and you won't have a problem with air being sucked out through the stove, It's designed to do so
If you can create an air intake that supplies the stove with air directly from outside and thus does not take the air/oxygen from the warm indoor air to the combustion process. Then you will reduce the consumption of pellets/firewood for heating your desired area. This is because the air/oxygen used for the combustion of the warm indoor air does not then have to be replaced by leakage inflow of cold outdoor air into the stove room itself, which is thus also cooled during the heating process. A big plus and a smaller minus = a lesser plus in this comparison. Therefore, you streamline the heating of the house.
If you also build a jacket with room for air to travel around the warm part of the stove with air intakes in the entire perimeter at the bottom and have the upper part essentially closed but with strategically placed air outlet nozzles angled in a suitable way. Then you will get a stove that self-circulates the air through convection and spreads it around the room in desired directions without electricity and you will therefore have less need of the fan.
You seem to be resourceful. So, try it. You might like it.
Good morning why couldn't you put a fire starter in that or even underneath seems like a lot of gas to start a fire?
I guess the biggest long-term expense will be the propane/butane it takes to light the pellets every time you want to heat your room/house.
Small propane cans can be refilled at home.
10:17 Ah real life; is it not wonderful? :D
Love the review and demonstration of the stove. Keep up the good work.
so.. im intrigued.. but you didn't mention much about how the stove operates, but near the end it seems like the hopper shut-off is basically limiting the supply of gravity-fed pellets.. there's really no intake damper/choke on this thing?!
Esther - Vitamin C would help and strengthen your immune system. Don't use ascorbic it's the most inefficient type of Vitamin C to consume. For it does little to nothing and desecrated mostly in the urine.
They could also do a mechanical coil that would slowly rotate a pellet dispensing drum in some future design.
My $2 dollars... _(2 cents adjusted for inflation)_ - A Non-Electric Stove is Certainly an ESSENTIAL NECESSITY, especially when the power goes down... which is only going to get worse in the time ahead. So whatever kind of non-electric stove that a person can make work for them, is a Must to have.
With that said, the Liberator design is a good concept prototype. But for the near $3000 price tag _(Gen 2 with Pellet hopper)_ the company certainly needs to make some upgrades for selling it as a "finished" stove.
*Such as having steel spring tension "sliding" covers to close off the air vents so you don't lose warm air from the house drafting up and out the chimney when the stove is not in use, instead of having to improvise something like the plastic bag.
*Also a better fitting door for the grate, and adding a wood stove "spring" style handle to it so as not to get burned.
**And it certainly needs a basic temp gauge _(to see what burn temp its running at)_ and a damper to give the ability to raise or lower the burn temperature. All or nothing is not very feasible no matter the size of building you are heating, due to outside temperature changes. Colder temps needs more heat to keep the building warm, and warmer outdoor temps means you have to turn the stove down or it will run you out of the house.
I Do Like that the Liberator will burn other wood besides Just Pellets. The Wiseway stove is a pellet stove only, which means I have to store up pellets on hand for when the time comes that I can't get them.
I also like that the Liberator can be used to cook on.
I have a Wiseway non-electric pellet stove in my house for 2 years, and my Dad has had one for 3 years now. And in my opinion it also should not have been sold as a "finished" stove either. As it too was "rough around the edges" and needs some changes and upgrades.
I like the pellet hopper design of the Liberator better than the Wiseway. As it's kind of hard to haul up a 40lb bag of pellets to the top of the stove _(as it's fairly tall)_ and dump them into the narrow hopper on the back side of the Wiseway without spilling them all over the place. This is made worse if the stove is next to a wall, as it makes even less space.
But the Wiseway damper, burn basket, secondary burn plate, and ash pan is a better design than the Liberator. And the Wiseway was less than half the $ too.
If I built my own stove, I would likely go along the lines of the LIberator hopper and cook top with the chimney at the very back of the stove. But with a similar burnbasket, secondary burn plate, and ash pan design of the wiseway. As well as an even better damper design _(than the Wiseway)_ and some other alterations and upgrades.
If I had a plasma cutter 3 years ago before I bought a Wiseway pellet stove, i might have built my own stove. I have built plenty of things, including some large projects, with just an angle grinder in the past before I finally bought a plasma cutter about 6 months ago. But an angle grinder takes a lot more time, difficulty in some cases _(like cutting circles/holes)_ and expense with the cost of cutting disks now days. And I've had a number of disks explode on me too. Even had a sanding flap disc that suddenly blew apart not long ago, which I never expected that one. Have gotten some fairly bad cuts, burns, and pain from them over the years. Plasma can't do everything, but it certainly far reduces the use of an angle grinder. This is all beside the point, but maybe an idea for those looking for a pellet/rocket stove to think about.
**EDIT: I will add that one of the reasons we moved from a regular wood stove to a pellet stove was because in 2019 I had two major injuries about 6 months apart that prevented me from being able to go and cut firewood for 2 years, even now still have some issues.
We tried to buy firewood one winter, but no matter who we got it from it was never seasoned, and was even really wet one time. I don't like a pellet only stove for the sole reason of realizing that soon we won't be able to just go out and buy more pellets. I do have two regular wood stoves still stored in my barn that I need to clean back up and repair, or build a better one, so that I can reinstall them when the time comes.
If you get a paper towel pour some cooking oil on it stuff it under the pellets then light the paper towel works a lot better I do this to light my bbq