A truly amazing system. We live in Central Texas so we don't drop below freezing very often & when we do, it's usually only a few days at a time. I do like the fish tanks & will watch your videos on that set up.
I saw an Amish set up where they dug a trench on both sides and ran vent work from the wood burner to the plants that way. We live in Iowa, so it gets way below zero during the winter months.
Good info. and video. Thanks! Here is a simple, inexpensive suggestion. Weld a flat piece of 1/4" steel plate at a 45' angle in front of the outlet to the stack inside the barrel. Point the top of that plate into the barrel. Leave about 1/3 of the space open above that plate for the smoke to escape. The flame will swirl and make a vortex under the plate. That causes the wood to be burnt down to a powder. The wood lasts many times longer and generates heat over a longer period of time. It is extremely efficient.
I am amazed at how far ahead you are on this. You have really done your homework. The way you and your Father in law have set that up one would think you guys have been at it for twenty years.
The wood burning set up is good but still leaves a couple of unanswered questions. I did something like this in a CMU (concrete) house in Alabama in 2003. Slab on grade, first floor 8" blocks (filled) and 2nd floor 6" blocks (filled) with the suspended wood floor sitting on the ledge created at 8' off the slab. The whole thing enveloped in Polyiso foam panel insulation to make it airtight. Windows and doors installed with foam system and a brick veneer. Two Velux skylights at the highest point of the roof (inside) over the stairs let out hot air when required. On the North wall was a masonry fireplace, 38' high with the combustion on the ground floor only, but all within the envelope until it exited the roof. The firebox had a custom, airtight steel door, like Casey Jone's engine. From outside and under the slab, air was allowed to enter catacombs of space inside the fireplace and surrounding the firebox. It could then enter the room through a row of vents around the mantle. The room was a common area for recreation, reading etc., with two large Bay windows looking out to the forest. The house had a standard forced air electric HVAC ducted air system that drew it's air from that room. Whatever temperature that room was, set the temperature for the rest of the house. With all that concrete thermal mass inside the envelope (180 tons) the house took a few days to warm up and a few days to cool down, but could be done by burning a fast, hot fire for heat in winter, or in summer by leaving the firebox cold and letting the skylights exhaust the hottest air, which then is replaced by cool air from under the slab, because the house is airtight. During summer you leave the windows open for breezes until it's too hot, then close them tight and let the house cool itself off. In Winter, once or twice per week you burn the hottest fire you can, because the flue is cleaner and fewer pollutants are emitted than with a slow burn, and much of the heat is absorbed by the brick fireplace. Over the six months or so that I lived there and the systems were working, the AC compressor and the electric furnace heating element never came on. The Central Fan runs only, but you can't sell a house without an HVAC system, so it's all there.
Very sorry to hear you had to take out your rocket mass. I have both a double barrel and a rocket mass im putting some of my aquaponics water bolding tanks on it and a large seed starter the bench gets up to about 140 but you are right its just a drop in the bucket when its 15 or below. I can just imagine the temps y'all deal with. I'm working on useing it for other jobs instead of just heat Great video Thanks
I Discovered that if you use the asphalt based black fence paint on your heat sink storage barrels the paint provides great thermal qualities. I use a lot of barrels to catch daytime sunlight heat to supplement my compost pile heat.
Hoping this lets a little attention: I'm planning on heating with wood for a season extension, not growing in winter. I'd be looking to heat a ~400sq ft greenhouse in the 20s-30s in early spring/mid-fall. Wondering if its still worth doing a barrel stove, or a J style feed with long submerged pipe? The ideal would be able to use the heating system as a sauna.. maybe a feed-box and barrel in a small structure that would act as a 4-6 person sauna with the stovepipe running through the entire back wall of the greenhouse, perhaps with forced air from the sauna? Wondering if this would be a decent way to get a delta of ~20-25F in the Greenhouse and also be able to have a sauna on the cold spring and cooler fall days.
The problem was the size of the combustion chamber. The rocket mass heater had a much smaller combustion chamber so it was unable to hold large amounts of wood therefore, it required constant feeding of the fire. Having the barrel stove allows for long burn times. It might be useful to run exhaust in a way to keep as much of the heat inside the greenhouse. Something tells me the pipes outside are still hot to the touch. I could be wrong.
I saw something on Amazon - think you can add a second barrel on top to collect heat b4 it actually went out the chimney if you have height to work with. Our basement is too low ... sigh ... 😎
Those old tymers weren't stupid, all that stone for the fireplace was for a reason. Just like your barrel stove with rocks and drums of water, that massive fireplace was for the thermal battery of stones. I am just finishing up my rocket mass heater, a core of fire bricks, about a pallet of bricks and mortar, along with 3-55 gallon drums of water that the exhaust flows under before heading out the chimney. Also a coil of 1/2" black iron pipe in the riser of the rocket burner, piped into the barrels, for helping heat the water. Hopefully percolate like a coffee pot, if not, a low flow pump should suffice. Kinda strange seeing you without the grey highlights in the beard😛😁
Something I learned as a kid from an old man neighbor and that was he told me why he ran his stove pipe why he did. We and everybody else put the stove in and run the pipe out of the house asap to make sure that we all waste 75% of the heat generated by the stove. When I put a stove in the garage I ran the pipe on an angle a foot and half from the wall on wire sloping up tp keep the air flow moving and even 180 it back along the wall until the smoke going out the pipe was just warm. You will be amazed how much more heat you will get. Also hot air going up means cold air coming in creating a natural circle of air in you building. 15 feet of stove pipe will give you more heat than two stoves if you have no draft flap in the pipe. Won't take you long to find out. You can thank me later. A 3" pipe from outside just under the stove will get heated and will take care of your oxygen problem you might have on a tightly sealed building. Piece of cake and great heat for little material. 1/3 choke on the stove.
I wouldn't abandon the rocket-stove mass heater idea, just on Wheaton's word. If a wood stove will work, an RMH will work more efficiently. And yes, heavy curtains or insulated covers would improve the heat retention of the structure. Heating up the ground under the beds will make them more resistant to cold air temperatures, too. You can't get away from warming the air, maybe, but you won't have to heat it as much. Something like 6 degrees Celsius can be trimmed from air temp if the beds are kept warm.
I had the same problem. No matter how hot I got my mass, it simply could not radiate heat out as quick as the greenhouse needed it. Switched to a standard wood stove too. No more problems.
Have you thought about installing a small fan to help push some of the heat towards the other end of the house? have you been monitoring the temperature and if so how warm is it staying? How much wood are you burning each day? Also to help in adding mass you could pour sand over your rocks to help fill the air gaps with more mass. and it might even let you "bury" the stove completely. On the fish, is each tank at a different level of maturity so you harvest one and then start the next batch in the empty tank or are they all at the same development age?
I like what you done here. A mass rocket stove will take time to heat the thermo mass up, it will not happen in a few hours of heating if done right. The drum with an rocket heater will heat up an area fast, but at the end the mass is the one that should give off heat.
Fantastic update, I really like what you are doing here. A few comments/questions. 1. MHP added a box fan above the heater to distribute heat, do you need to do this? 2. How does the temperature at the opposite end of the greenhouse feel compared to the "hot" side? 3. If you are adding a 2nd stove, would you consider placement on the opposite side of the original to create a "heat equilibrium?". 4. Have you considered processing a few fish per week to eat fresh as well as allow the others a little more room for growth rather than process them all at once and have to freeze/store them. Thanks again, I'm looking forward to seeing those fish.
Good questons: 1. I don't think so. 2. The temp feels pretty good throughout the greenhouse even though the stove is at the other end. This is only 40 ft long and I think MHP has a longer greenhouse. 3. I can't, there just isn't room at the other end which is why the first stove is where its at. Plus the water is all mostly at one end and if water is the best thermal mass, then it would be a good idea I think to keep it as warm as possible. 4. We are going to do this. So starting next year, we will begin to harvest and continue doing so until for a few months. But we have learned that you eat seasonally. Certain items are available at certain times. The average American has no concept of this because we can go to any supermarket and purchase food items that should not normally be available. Example:Going to a fast food place and ordering a taco with fresh cut tomatoes and lettuce on it in January. That was not realistic 50 years ago.
Agreed. I would love to have a tomatoes right now, but I can't stand the ones at the grocery store. I guess that's why they taste so good from my garden in August, distance makes the heart (stomach) grow fonder! Keep up the good work, I'm loving it. BTW, on a totally different subject, silver is down almost a dollar today, would be a good time to stock up. I know your an investor.....
many years ago I saw a good trick with a barrel stove a freind had a 40x60 metal wall shop that He heated with just a barrel stove with the upper barrel kit He was a race car fabricator He took muffler pipes bent them in a full 360 with some tails about 4 or 5 if I recall right put them in the upper barrel kit and had a fan one side to move the air through the bent muffler pipe to pull more hot air out. No sense in wasteing extra BTUs up the flue
Yeah - these things have been around since 70's - are you double stacking it ? Just saw the thumbnail - i'll watch -- we put another barrel on top of the other with the chimney coming out of it
maybe just drape a sheet of plastic over all of those blue barrels up top to help hold heat down and into the water more... also is there a way to run a small copper pipe around the stove exhaust or even just coiled on top of the stove and then return pipe up to blue barrels to get thermal siphon hot water action pumping heated water into the system
Continuing to completely bury the stove with rocks would be a great addition to hold heat, halfway is good covering above the stove about 2feet would be much better for trapping and then releasing the heat
Would you consider putting links in the description for people on tablets? I would love to watch past videos that you mention. A link to the past vids would be extremely helpful
Well that's disapointing. I was planning on building an earth sheltered greenhouse, with a rocket mass heater. Thanks for the heads up. I will check out the barrel stove. Cheers!!!
Dont be discouraged you still can! He said it didnt work with no insulation, any earth-sheltered greenhouse should be well-insulated and you can totally use a rmh
it is also great to melt ice in the driveway. We live on a hill and I usually put some about half way up the driveway to get a better grip to get the car up to the house. The rest I use in the garden.
Pretty cool. A great way to adapt . 2 things. Your rocket mass heater probably didnt work because you may not have had enough mass in there to hold the heat. The rocket mass heaters actual mass should have ran under one of the actual vegetable beds. You need more thermal mass. Alot more. Second a green house and a winter green house are built 2 different ways. In the winter the sun is very low in the southern sky. You get almost 0 daylight from the north side. So typically in a winter green house you would run its length east too west match the suns angle to the southern wall of your green house. Make the angle of the southern green house wall 90 degrees total to the angle of the winter sun in the sky. The north wall gets no light so the enire length of the north wall should be the back of your winter green house. The North wall should be built with heavy insulation in a traditional stick wall construction 6 to 8 inches of insulation minimum. A reflective surface on the north wall to bounce the winter sun back to the center of the green house. Stone concrete or slate on the floors to help hold the heat all over the green house. As much heat storage as possible.
Great vid 👍 Have you considered a pallet-tank 1000 litre and make the stove as a boiler boiler circulating the Water (as an open system so it will not explode) with big dimension 2 inch. It will circulate by itself, thereby The water will get a higher temperature ?
Im thinking about the rocket mass for the basement of a very old home using like say coffin style boxes not sure yet as the price of oil has gone through the roof obviously or the barrel stove not a bad idea if I used two barrels one in the basement and one on the main floor like an oven with rocks or bricks as mass still thinking about it
Some thoughts With the barrel stove, do you lose a lot of heat out the chimney? Could you run the chimney at a slope of 30 degrees through the inside of greenhouse (in a rock pile) to keep that heat? ...sort of a hybrid. Also, bubble wrap and a second layer of plastic will let enough light in and raise the insulation of the house. Foam panels on the north side of the house. Light loss is minimal compared the the insulation gained. Vacuum tube solar pool heater (on a thermostat) for your tilapia. ...and insulate the tanks... Including partial lids.
I wonder how it would be to dig into the ground and use the warmth of the inner earth to bring the temperature up to what would be equivalent to a cellar.
Hey, this was a great implementation! We will likely do something similar, although I'd like to use an Arduino wood stove regulator to manage the wood stove's burn operations and allow a thermostat setpoint to be maintained automatically. One thing that would make this an even better video: inside & outside temperature readings. "Cozy" is neither a Centigrade nor Fahrenheit temperature scale, and water tanks freeze at 32F/0C so all we know is that the greenhouse is above freezing. (Much more helpful to give actual temperature readings, and the best diy guys even have continuous temperature logs that show as a graph - hourly, daily, weekly, etc.) Still, your setup is quite remarkable!
Matbe you could plumb in a secondary airsupply and get the exhaust fumes burned. Saving you fuel and burn time when it burns the wood smoke inside the barrel ;)
I am building my green house and was going to heat it with a double barrel heater. I was thinking of running stainless tubing in the upper drum and heat my water for my fish and grow beds. Do you think that will work. Just seen the video and really liked it.
Shouldn't your exhaust pipe on the barrel stove be placed over the exhaust flange you installed on the barrel? Since it is tucked inside exhaust gases could leak inside your structure.
Great job! Success is it's own reward. I was wondering if you are considering making water manifolds to preheat water to pump to your water storage? It might also be used for your home too. I know it's easier to say than do but it's also rewarding in the end. Anyway, I really like what you've done. I'm learning from you and your families videos. Thanks! :)
How long will that barrel last? Did ya just make a fire in it before it went into the greenhouse to burn off the paint? Great job! Im a born and raised ozark hilbilly and Im glad to have y'all living down here in the real world.
Depends on how heavy it is. Dad picked up an old WW2 fuel barrel in '71? - still in use! Did a burn outside b4 assembling it. Hasn't been used much in last 8yr - sorta tell it's getting thin spots now.
Ma4ke double barrel stove. And rock the size of. A single car garage. Then use a furnace fan to circulate hot air. You can insulate the rock storage. Make two story old glad professors will allow 90 degree heat gain to pump into rock storage.
you should add insulated rocket tunnel exhaust coming out of top with chamber with pipe inside of another barrel like rocket mass heater.. you are loosing wood energy if there is smoke coming out exhaust & not as efficient..
How cold did it end up getting inside with the rocket mass heater on the really cold days? Wondering if it could be helped with a big t-mass wall (passive solar)?
Sand and loss dirt are very poor choices for heat retention. All the small particles give up their heat to the surrounding air pockets and quickly dissipates. For the rocket mass heater to work properly you really need a solid mass around the exhaust vent tube all the way to where it ports out the wall of the green hours. This way the solid mass will retain the heat longer and if you burn the fire longer, then even more mass is heated. The heat will continue to radiate out from the vent tube into the mass. You can fix the rocket mass heater by making some cobb onsite and packing it around the exhaust tube. I would think that a minimum of 12' all the way around that vent tube should do the trick.
The flue temp on the stove pipe will be very high vs the mass heater which is low. Allot of energy going out the pipe. (Most). Maybe you could have reconfigured mass heater to vent through water instead of earth. The temps don’t lie. Your going to burn more wood.
I'm curious, did you do a double pane of plastic around the greenhouse? I could not tell from the video and i'm not sure if you made one about how you built the greenhouse. There is a great video on building a greenhouse using fence post material. Using a double layer of plastic will help maintain a warmer temperature and increase the longevity of your plastic. It would also help stop that pesky snow from accumulating on top of the greenhouse. Here is a video of a guy building himself a large greenhouse for cheap. ua-cam.com/video/l89CyvemJAg/v-deo.html
In terms of energy efficiency, this system is a big step backward. You are not getting as much energy from your wood this way as you would from a rocket system. Also, that stove would go out if it were in fact air tight - combustion stops without oxygen.Great that you have found a system that is working for you, but it is not as fuel efficient as a rocket stove system. A batch feed rocket stove would give even better performance than your barrel.
(ken};Paul wheton.... he"s a "issue" with *Me, and my group 0f "former" permiers! anyways My wife has been a messianic for over a year now. & turned me on to your Vids. Nice Job on them! If you ever need help with mass heaters of any type thermo storage I'm available to help out. Peace Out! (toda)!
The down side of the barrel heater is the dirtiness of the burn. Any reason you don't have more mass on and around the barrel? I suspect the ability to burn a lot of wood, slow and dirty, is big reason your barrel stove is better choice for you. Your rocket, the mass was the earth itself? No insulation from the surrounding soil? It was a J-tube as well? If those things are true, I suspect you never heated the rocket mass much at all. A lot of the heat you experienced probably came from the barrel. The J tube is probably not the best rocket for anywhere but a living room. It requires tending, feeding, as you well know. Batch box rockets are cleaner burning and more efficient than a barrel stove, and burner a bigger load than a J tube rocket. Anyone who wants great information on rocket stoves shpuld check out Donkey's Proboards: donkey32.proboards.com/
This is a great video but that isn't a very efficient heater. There is way too much space between those rocks. Air gets in and the heat dissipates much faster than it would if they were set in fire brick cement. Even filling the gaps with sand would make it work better. The mass is under the stove instead of over it. It looses most of the heat quickly. A better plan would be to encase the bottom, sides, top and back of the stove in a cube of bricks. This stove is set up more like an upside down sauna.
I can't believe this video is 6 years old already. I remember watching this when it first came out.
A truly amazing system. We live in Central Texas so we don't drop below freezing very often & when we do, it's usually only a few days at a time. I do like the fish tanks & will watch your videos on that set up.
I saw an Amish set up where they dug a trench on both sides and ran vent work from the wood burner to the plants that way. We live in Iowa, so it gets way below zero during the winter months.
Good info. and video. Thanks! Here is a simple, inexpensive suggestion.
Weld a flat piece of 1/4" steel plate at a 45' angle in front of the outlet to the stack inside the barrel. Point the top of that plate into the barrel. Leave about 1/3 of the space open above that plate for the smoke to escape. The flame will swirl and make a vortex under the plate. That causes the wood to be burnt down to a powder. The wood lasts many times longer and generates heat over a longer period of time. It is extremely efficient.
Is there a vid explaining what you just said? Thanks
I am amazed at how far ahead you are on this. You have really done your homework. The way you and your Father in law have set that up one would think you guys have been at it for twenty years.
Great news! Good to see you are getting some good heat and sustained burn time so you can sleep a whole night.
The wood burning set up is good but still leaves a couple of unanswered questions. I did something like this in a CMU (concrete) house in Alabama in 2003. Slab on grade, first floor 8" blocks (filled) and 2nd floor 6" blocks (filled) with the suspended wood floor sitting on the ledge created at 8' off the slab. The whole thing enveloped in Polyiso foam panel insulation to make it airtight. Windows and doors installed with foam system and a brick veneer. Two Velux skylights at the highest point of the roof (inside) over the stairs let out hot air when required.
On the North wall was a masonry fireplace, 38' high with the combustion on the ground floor only, but all within the envelope until it exited the roof. The firebox had a custom, airtight steel door, like Casey Jone's engine. From outside and under the slab, air was allowed to enter catacombs of space inside the fireplace and surrounding the firebox. It could then enter the room through a row of vents around the mantle. The room was a common area for recreation, reading etc., with two large Bay windows looking out to the forest.
The house had a standard forced air electric HVAC ducted air system that drew it's air from that room. Whatever temperature that room was, set the temperature for the rest of the house. With all that concrete thermal mass inside the envelope (180 tons) the house took a few days to warm up and a few days to cool down, but could be done by burning a fast, hot fire for heat in winter, or in summer by leaving the firebox cold and letting the skylights exhaust the hottest air, which then is replaced by cool air from under the slab, because the house is airtight. During summer you leave the windows open for breezes until it's too hot, then close them tight and let the house cool itself off. In Winter, once or twice per week you burn the hottest fire you can, because the flue is cleaner and fewer pollutants are emitted than with a slow burn, and much of the heat is absorbed by the brick fireplace.
Over the six months or so that I lived there and the systems were working, the AC compressor and the electric furnace heating element never came on. The Central Fan runs only, but you can't sell a house without an HVAC system, so it's all there.
Very sorry to hear you had to take out your rocket mass. I have both a double barrel and a rocket mass im putting some of my aquaponics water bolding tanks on it and a large seed starter the bench gets up to about 140 but you are right its just a drop in the bucket when its 15 or below. I can just imagine the temps y'all deal with. I'm working on useing it for other jobs instead of just heat Great video Thanks
Great work ,love the green house and simplicity of the mass heater
I Discovered that if you use the asphalt based black fence paint on your heat sink storage barrels the paint provides great thermal qualities. I use a lot of barrels to catch daytime sunlight heat to supplement my compost pile heat.
Does that coating smell when it gets warm?
Hoping this lets a little attention:
I'm planning on heating with wood for a season extension, not growing in winter. I'd be looking to heat a ~400sq ft greenhouse in the 20s-30s in early spring/mid-fall. Wondering if its still worth doing a barrel stove, or a J style feed with long submerged pipe?
The ideal would be able to use the heating system as a sauna.. maybe a feed-box and barrel in a small structure that would act as a 4-6 person sauna with the stovepipe running through the entire back wall of the greenhouse, perhaps with forced air from the sauna? Wondering if this would be a decent way to get a delta of ~20-25F in the Greenhouse and also be able to have a sauna on the cold spring and cooler fall days.
LOVE the videos and all you share with us. I'm a big fan!
The problem was the size of the combustion chamber. The rocket mass heater had a much smaller combustion chamber so it was unable to hold large amounts of wood therefore, it required constant feeding of the fire. Having the barrel stove allows for long burn times. It might be useful to run exhaust in a way to keep as much of the heat inside the greenhouse. Something tells me the pipes outside are still hot to the touch. I could be wrong.
I saw something on Amazon - think you can add a second barrel on top to collect heat b4 it actually went out the chimney if you have height to work with. Our basement is too low ... sigh ... 😎
Those old tymers weren't stupid, all that stone for the fireplace was for a reason. Just like your barrel stove with rocks and drums of water, that massive fireplace was for the thermal battery of stones. I am just finishing up my rocket mass heater, a core of fire bricks, about a pallet of bricks and mortar, along with 3-55 gallon drums of water that the exhaust flows under before heading out the chimney. Also a coil of 1/2" black iron pipe in the riser of the rocket burner, piped into the barrels, for helping heat the water. Hopefully percolate like a coffee pot, if not, a low flow pump should suffice. Kinda strange seeing you without the grey highlights in the beard😛😁
Something I learned as a kid from an old man neighbor and that was he told me why he ran his stove pipe why he did. We and everybody else put the stove in and run the pipe out of the house asap to make sure that we all waste 75% of the heat generated by the stove. When I put a stove in the garage I ran the pipe on an angle a foot and half from the wall on wire sloping up tp keep the air flow moving and even 180 it back along the wall until the smoke going out the pipe was just warm. You will be amazed how much more heat you will get. Also hot air going up means cold air coming in creating a natural circle of air in you building. 15 feet of stove pipe will give you more heat than two stoves if you have no draft flap in the pipe. Won't take you long to find out. You can thank me later. A 3" pipe from outside just under the stove will get heated and will take care of your oxygen problem you might have on a tightly sealed building. Piece of cake and great heat for little material. 1/3 choke on the stove.
I wouldn't abandon the rocket-stove mass heater idea, just on Wheaton's word. If a wood stove will work, an RMH will work more efficiently. And yes, heavy curtains or insulated covers would improve the heat retention of the structure.
Heating up the ground under the beds will make them more resistant to cold air temperatures, too. You can't get away from warming the air, maybe, but you won't have to heat it as much. Something like 6 degrees Celsius can be trimmed from air temp if the beds are kept warm.
I had the same problem. No matter how hot I got my mass, it simply could not radiate heat out as quick as the greenhouse needed it. Switched to a standard wood stove too. No more problems.
Have you thought about installing a small fan to help push some of the heat towards the other end of the house? have you been monitoring the temperature and if so how warm is it staying? How much wood are you burning each day?
Also to help in adding mass you could pour sand over your rocks to help fill the air gaps with more mass. and it might even let you "bury" the stove completely.
On the fish, is each tank at a different level of maturity so you harvest one and then start the next batch in the empty tank or are they all at the same development age?
That's totally the way to go.. amazing
great video , glad you found something that works
Do you have double plastic with an air barrier?
Love all your videos
I like what you done here.
A mass rocket stove will take time to heat the thermo mass up, it will not happen in a few hours of heating if done right. The drum with an rocket heater will heat up an area fast, but at the end the mass is the one that should give off heat.
Fantastic update, I really like what you are doing here. A few comments/questions. 1. MHP added a box fan above the heater to distribute heat, do you need to do this? 2. How does the temperature at the opposite end of the greenhouse feel compared to the "hot" side? 3. If you are adding a 2nd stove, would you consider placement on the opposite side of the original to create a "heat equilibrium?". 4. Have you considered processing a few fish per week to eat fresh as well as allow the others a little more room for growth rather than process them all at once and have to freeze/store them. Thanks again, I'm looking forward to seeing those fish.
Good questons: 1. I don't think so. 2. The temp feels pretty good throughout the greenhouse even though the stove is at the other end. This is only 40 ft long and I think MHP has a longer greenhouse. 3. I can't, there just isn't room at the other end which is why the first stove is where its at. Plus the water is all mostly at one end and if water is the best thermal mass, then it would be a good idea I think to keep it as warm as possible. 4. We are going to do this. So starting next year, we will begin to harvest and continue doing so until for a few months. But we have learned that you eat seasonally. Certain items are available at certain times. The average American has no concept of this because we can go to any supermarket and purchase food items that should not normally be available. Example:Going to a fast food place and ordering a taco with fresh cut tomatoes and lettuce on it in January. That was not realistic 50 years ago.
Agreed. I would love to have a tomatoes right now, but I can't stand the ones at the grocery store. I guess that's why they taste so good from my garden in August, distance makes the heart (stomach) grow fonder! Keep up the good work, I'm loving it. BTW, on a totally different subject, silver is down almost a dollar today, would be a good time to stock up. I know your an investor.....
I take heart that you and those like you will survive the coming collapse and maybe help rebuild a better world. Good luck.
Excellent first video I've watched of yours in my feed. Curious to subscribe and see how this has transformed! Thank you!
Awesome, I had been curious about rocket mass heaters for a greenhouse and now I know. Thanks
many years ago I saw a good trick with a barrel stove a freind had a 40x60 metal wall shop that He heated with just a barrel stove with the upper barrel kit He was a race car fabricator He took muffler pipes bent them in a full 360 with some tails about 4 or 5 if I recall right put them in the upper barrel kit and had a fan one side to move the air through the bent muffler pipe to pull more hot air out.
No sense in wasteing extra BTUs up the flue
Yeah - these things have been around since 70's - are you double stacking it ? Just saw the thumbnail - i'll watch -- we put another barrel on top of the other with the chimney coming out of it
Awesome thank you, i definatly think i can survive a winter with this knowledge, btw did ya know benjamin franklin invented a barrel stove design
maybe just drape a sheet of plastic over all of those blue barrels up top to help hold heat down and into the water more... also is there a way to run a small copper pipe around the stove exhaust or even just coiled on top of the stove and then return pipe up to blue barrels to get thermal siphon hot water action pumping heated water into the system
Continuing to completely bury the stove with rocks would be a great addition to hold heat, halfway is good covering above the stove about 2feet would be much better for trapping and then releasing the heat
Going to do that in my shed/greenhouse.
Would you consider putting links in the description for people on tablets? I would love to watch past videos that you mention. A link to the past vids would be extremely helpful
have you done a video of putting up your green house. I have looked and can not find one. I was just wondering since I am putting one up this summer.
Well that's disapointing. I was planning on building an earth sheltered greenhouse, with a rocket mass heater.
Thanks for the heads up. I will check out the barrel stove. Cheers!!!
Dont be discouraged you still can! He said it didnt work with no insulation, any earth-sheltered greenhouse should be well-insulated and you can totally use a rmh
Thank you so much. Question: Do you have heating ducts under your plant beds running from your barrel heater?
I hope your saving the ash for the garden, it's good stuff!
it is also great to melt ice in the driveway. We live on a hill and I usually put some about half way up the driveway to get a better grip to get the car up to the house. The rest I use in the garden.
Pretty cool. A great way to adapt . 2 things. Your rocket mass heater probably didnt work because you may not have had enough mass in there to hold the heat. The rocket mass heaters actual mass should have ran under one of the actual vegetable beds. You need more thermal mass. Alot more.
Second a green house and a winter green house are built 2 different ways.
In the winter the sun is very low in the southern sky. You get almost 0 daylight from the north side. So typically in a winter green house you would run its length east too west match the suns angle to the southern wall of your green house. Make the angle of the southern green house wall 90 degrees total to the angle of the winter sun in the sky.
The north wall gets no light so the enire length of the north wall should be the back of your winter green house. The North wall should be built with heavy insulation in a traditional stick wall construction 6 to 8 inches of insulation minimum. A reflective surface on the north wall to bounce the winter sun back to the center of the green house. Stone concrete or slate on the floors to help hold the heat all over the green house. As much heat storage as possible.
4:50 "water is the best thermal mass you can have"
Not sure this true. Can anyone explain why or why not?
Great vid 👍 Have you considered a pallet-tank 1000 litre and make the stove as a boiler boiler circulating the
Water (as an open system so it will not explode) with big dimension 2 inch. It will circulate by itself, thereby
The water will get a higher temperature ?
Thinking the same
great video man!
Great idea
Great video! You gave me a lot of ideals. What is the tempter in the green house when you have the stove lite.
Some very good ideas! Where did you buy the Barrel Stove Kit?
Shalom, Zack I was wondering how big ( w x l ) is your greenhouse? And any tips on set up for aquaponics would be great. Thanks God bless
Im thinking about the rocket mass for the basement of a very old home using like say coffin style boxes not sure yet as the price of oil has gone through the roof obviously or the barrel stove not a bad idea if I used two barrels one in the basement and one on the main floor like an oven with rocks or bricks as mass still thinking about it
Some thoughts
With the barrel stove, do you lose a lot of heat out the chimney?
Could you run the chimney at a slope of 30 degrees through the inside of greenhouse (in a rock pile) to keep that heat? ...sort of a hybrid.
Also, bubble wrap and a second layer of plastic will let enough light in and raise the insulation of the house.
Foam panels on the north side of the house. Light loss is minimal compared the the insulation gained.
Vacuum tube solar pool heater (on a thermostat) for your tilapia. ...and insulate the tanks... Including partial lids.
I wonder how it would be to dig into the ground and use the warmth of the inner earth to bring the temperature up to what would be equivalent to a cellar.
I miss your videos
I just put up another one today...YT doens't give notifications because they suck
Zach,
Thanks for your time and info. Where did you learn or get the ideas for your entire green house setup? The half barrels and the whole system?
Curious - 7 years ago - is this green house still operating
Thats a awsome idea im gonna build a green house this year thats how im gonna heat it great idea
Hey, this was a great implementation! We will likely do something similar, although I'd like to use an Arduino wood stove regulator to manage the wood stove's burn operations and allow a thermostat setpoint to be maintained automatically.
One thing that would make this an even better video: inside & outside temperature readings. "Cozy" is neither a Centigrade nor Fahrenheit temperature scale, and water tanks freeze at 32F/0C so all we know is that the greenhouse is above freezing. (Much more helpful to give actual temperature readings, and the best diy guys even have continuous temperature logs that show as a graph - hourly, daily, weekly, etc.)
Still, your setup is quite remarkable!
Matbe you could plumb in a secondary airsupply and get the exhaust fumes burned. Saving you fuel and burn time when it burns the wood smoke inside the barrel ;)
Trout? Pipe through vertical barrels, used how?
Awesome! Thank you!
I am building my green house and was going to heat it with a double barrel heater. I was thinking of running stainless tubing in the upper drum and heat my water for my fish and grow beds. Do you think that will work. Just seen the video and really liked it.
Are you saying that the barrel stove doesn't need a vent for oxygen to keep the fire going? Or, do you just prop the door open slightly?
Do you have to reinforce the bottom of the barrel so that the heat does not burn through.
Get another riser installed and another barrel for a hybrid barrel stove rocket stove .
Shouldn't your exhaust pipe on the barrel stove be placed over the exhaust flange you installed on the barrel? Since it is tucked inside exhaust gases could leak inside your structure.
Great job! Success is it's own reward. I was wondering if you are considering making water manifolds to preheat water to pump to your water storage? It might also be used for your home too. I know it's easier to say than do but it's also rewarding in the end. Anyway, I really like what you've done. I'm learning from you and your families videos. Thanks! :)
Very informative. Thanks
Is this a sandponics or aquaponics with clay pebbles system?
Have you tried using compost in the greenhouse to heat it? A guy in Sweden does that
Much the heat is going right up the chimney.
I would make a thermosiphon system that uses an ibc tote. Prolly wouldn't need to run the stove daily then
Where did you get the steel for your building? I would like to be able to build a greenhouse like yours. Thank you and Happy New Year!
Where does the chimney exit?
How long will that barrel last? Did ya just make a fire in it before it went into the greenhouse to burn off the paint? Great job! Im a born and raised ozark hilbilly and Im glad to have y'all living down here in the real world.
Depends on how heavy it is. Dad picked up an old WW2 fuel barrel in '71? - still in use! Did a burn outside b4 assembling it. Hasn't been used much in last 8yr - sorta tell it's getting thin spots now.
Ma4ke double barrel stove. And rock the size of. A single car garage. Then use a furnace fan to circulate hot air. You can insulate the rock storage. Make two story old glad professors will allow 90 degree heat gain to pump into rock storage.
Are you still doing aquaponics?
What source of electricity do you use to run the air pump
Very cool
I'm trying to build a rocket mass heater for my greenhouse but I'm having a lot of trouble with getting the fire to travel sideways in the J-Tube.
What do you use to seal the barrel
Are using a co.bi action of charcoal and wood?
Did You make it with woodprix?
you should add insulated rocket tunnel exhaust coming out of top with chamber with pipe inside of another barrel like rocket mass heater.. you are loosing wood energy if there is smoke coming out exhaust & not as efficient..
How cold did it end up getting inside with the rocket mass heater on the really cold days? Wondering if it could be helped with a big t-mass wall (passive solar)?
Are the fish reproducing? Or are you going to have to restock after harvest?
Sand and loss dirt are very poor choices for heat retention. All the small particles give up their heat to the surrounding air pockets and quickly dissipates.
For the rocket mass heater to work properly you really need a solid mass around the exhaust vent tube all the way to where it ports out the wall of the green hours. This way the solid mass will retain the heat longer and if you burn the fire longer, then even more mass is heated. The heat will continue to radiate out from the vent tube into the mass.
You can fix the rocket mass heater by making some cobb onsite and packing it around the exhaust tube. I would think that a minimum of 12' all the way around that vent tube should do the trick.
yes, sand is a insulator, but high content clay dirt is good!
Why stop with the rocks only halfway up the sides of the drum? Why not completely cover the drum.
Missouri Wind & Solar Turbines?
how will clay cat litter work for t mass
The flue temp on the stove pipe will be very high vs the mass heater which is low. Allot of energy going out the pipe. (Most). Maybe you could have reconfigured mass heater to vent through water instead of earth. The temps don’t lie. Your going to burn more wood.
Using DC or AC pumps?
AN American Homestead is the carhartt keeping you to warm in the greenhouse question
I want one! Where do the supplies from!?
Amazon still has the kits for anyone looking ...
I'm curious, did you do a double pane of plastic around the greenhouse? I could not tell from the video and i'm not sure if you made one about how you built the greenhouse. There is a great video on building a greenhouse using fence post material. Using a double layer of plastic will help maintain a warmer temperature and increase the longevity of your plastic. It would also help stop that pesky snow from accumulating on top of the greenhouse. Here is a video of a guy building himself a large greenhouse for cheap.
ua-cam.com/video/l89CyvemJAg/v-deo.html
thank you for the vidio
Yummy. Nothing healthier. Or delicious.
Enjoy woodprix woodworking Instructions.
Pure awesomeness I think
In terms of energy efficiency, this system is a big step backward. You are not getting as much energy from your wood this way as you would from a rocket system. Also, that stove would go out if it were in fact air tight - combustion stops without oxygen.Great that you have found a system that is working for you, but it is not as fuel efficient as a rocket stove system. A batch feed rocket stove would give even better performance than your barrel.
(ken};Paul wheton.... he"s a "issue" with *Me, and my group 0f "former" permiers! anyways
My wife has been a messianic for over a year now. & turned me on to your Vids. Nice Job on them! If you ever need help with mass heaters of any type thermo storage I'm available to help out. Peace Out! (toda)!
The smoke out of your stack proves you’re wasting a lot of fuel which is what the rocket took care of
Or ' Juthatip Soper '
The down side of the barrel heater is the dirtiness of the burn.
Any reason you don't have more mass on and around the barrel?
I suspect the ability to burn a lot of wood, slow and dirty, is big reason your barrel stove is better choice for you.
Your rocket, the mass was the earth itself?
No insulation from the surrounding soil?
It was a J-tube as well?
If those things are true, I suspect you never heated the rocket mass much at all.
A lot of the heat you experienced probably came from the barrel.
The J tube is probably not the best rocket for anywhere but a living room.
It requires tending, feeding, as you well know.
Batch box rockets are cleaner burning and more efficient than a barrel stove, and burner a bigger load than a J tube rocket.
Anyone who wants great information on rocket stoves shpuld check out Donkey's Proboards:
donkey32.proboards.com/
This is a great video but that isn't a very efficient heater. There is way too much space between those rocks. Air gets in and the heat dissipates much faster than it would if they were set in fire brick cement. Even filling the gaps with sand would make it work better. The mass is under the stove instead of over it. It looses most of the heat quickly. A better plan would be to encase the bottom, sides, top and back of the stove in a cube of bricks. This stove is set up more like an upside down sauna.