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Permsteading.com • View topic - Rocket Heretic here...

Rocket Heretic here...

Rocket Mass Heaters, Rocket Ovens, Cold boxes, Solar collectors, etc..
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Rocket Heretic here...

Postby smallhagrid » Tue Oct 20, 2015 5:07 am

Howdy Folks.
It has been quite a while since I popped in to visit here.
Not only has life had its twists & turns...but frankly I have been somewhat down-hearted on the RH subject.
(This is why I titled this thread as I have - looks like making a forced draft RH is heretical ?!?)
((See here, if desired=> viewtopic.php?f=6&t=645 ))

Mind you, I remain delighted with the one I built a couple of years ago.
I learned how to optimize it and make it hold up & truly I am satisfied with it.

The latest development is the arrival of an additional heat source for the apartment here - a pellet stove.
This is in process of being installed in the relatively unheatable front room, which also has the very seldom used old box stove.
That old thing is only ever used if/when it is desperately needed - like if the power goes out and it is really cold.

Now I am considering coming up with some very simple mod to add pellets to the existing RH.
Seems like a simple enough concept and having both vertical & horizontal burn tube openings on my RH should make it easy to impliment.
Of course, just dumping some on top of burning wood will be easy enough if manually adding some now & then is desired.

Of course I searched here and found just about zero mention of pellets in RHs.

Brief internet searching brought very little in the way of results, mostly just close duplicates of this effort:


I have some ideas as to what I may try on the cheap - but I'd also love to see/hear any ideas anyone here may have that they are willing to share on the RH + pellet subject, please ?!?

Best Wishes to All.
smallhagrid
 
Posts: 72
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:08 am
Location: Vermont

most peculiar ??

Postby smallhagrid » Tue Oct 20, 2015 6:50 pm

I woke up thinking that I posted here rather later than I should have - and noticed some errors I would correct in that posting...
If only I could ?!?
There is no 'edit' button - I wonder if I remember one being here incorrectly ??
(Correction - yes, the edit button DID appear in this reply - so it must be time-limited, I'm guessing ??)

My ancient (but preferred) KB has sticky keys - and I had meant to say how I was surprised how the subject of pellets was curiously absent here when I searched here 1st - but I botched that up.

A confession, of sorts:
Yes, I do know that pellets are not usually home-made by many folks and so do not really fit the profile for real permsteading very well;

At the same time it seems that any heat source which is home-built cheaply, by hand & that is able to keep most of the heat inside the dwelling DOES fit the profile quite well.

Lastly - for those of us who must buy any & all their heating fuel (except maybe for paper waste that is free and sticks from out back...), doing the best we are able to do is quite literally our very best.

I do hope some folks will have some thoughts on all this to share.
smallhagrid
 
Posts: 72
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:08 am
Location: Vermont

Re: Rocket Heretic here...

Postby mannytheseacow » Wed Oct 21, 2015 7:55 pm

Great to hear an update on your situation, SH, and great to hear your heater has performed well. I know it's frustrating when you can't find the information you're looking for. I'm guessing that you hit the nail on the head thinking that the general perspective of people building cheap stoves isn't buying fuel. If I had a pelletizing machine nearby I'd have limited interest in it, but..... seems like it would be easy enough to do though.
"Knowledge is power. Arm yourself."
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mannytheseacow
 
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Re: Rocket Heretic here...

Postby Nirky » Thu Oct 22, 2015 12:41 am

Smallhagrid, never let anyone dissuade you from what you want. And you did indeed come to the right place, for I myself had the same idea some time ago.

What you'll need is a motor from a pellet stove & the auger to release the pellets. You can find the slow 2 RPM motors on eBay like this one:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pellet-Stove-Sh ... true&rt=nc

Love to see pictures if you go this route!
I don't think I'll ever get over Macho Grande, those wounds run pretty deep.
Nirky
 
Posts: 42
Joined: Sun Sep 29, 2013 7:40 am
Location: N. Idaho

Thanks !!

Postby smallhagrid » Thu Oct 22, 2015 3:04 am

Thanks for the replies Folks.

As it stands, I'm thinking to test pellet burning via the utterly simple & cheap route just to start with.

Since I've got some leftover bits from the nasty box stove I cannibalized and some stovepipe pieces, it seems most likely that I'll make a chute that partially fills the vertical feed tube and some kind of basket to catch 'em down below, or:
Maybe omit the basket and just let pellets fall slowly on top of burning wood for now.

Mechanizing it may come later on a very small scale -if- the way it burns seems satisfactory.

As of right now, by sheer coincidence - our new neighbors include a logger who is selling us some cut & split wood for a very nice price.

On top of that we'll get a ton of pellets - and we still have about 1/2 cord left from last winter besides.
Should be ample to get us through unless we get weeks & weeks of -20 & -30 non-stop here.

I was hoping that with pellets being ~$250/ton that other folks like ourselves who already enjoy their RHs might be inclined to try pellets too, and share their ideas here.

We have no choice but to buy our fuels with the small exception of being able to collect bags of tree drops out back - but that is not enough for a whole winter's heating by any stretch of the imagination.

Having just bought a single bag of pellets tonight, they will be used soon to test the Englander I've got semi-installed and also in the RH just to see how that works.

More as things progress...

Best Wishes to All !!
smallhagrid
 
Posts: 72
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 2:08 am
Location: Vermont


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