This Video is not the Caliber of Jurassic Park or Avitar but it kinda helps a little to give insight as to how the rocket stove works and a really good material to use in the fabrication. The intense heat generated by the Rocket Stove is in the range of 1,500*-and 2,000* F at the elbow of the J Tube. This causes the steel to burn up over the course of a year or a little longer. I went to a local Firebrick supplier and tried several different products and here is My second attempt. A lot of people I see are using 1/4" schedule 40 steel pipe to make them out of. Once they are encased in cob they are very hard to replace, so I figured I'd do it this way and avoid that. The second half is the one I built out of a very lightweight furnace insulation board. It works famously, although I have to change out the upper part of the exhaust with a heavier cast pipe, due to the board delaminating.
nice project! where did you get the refractory clay? so your fire is outside and the barrel and chimney are inside the greenhouse?
If you talk to any brick supplier they should be able to point you in the right direction. It cost about $40 a bag X 7 Bags. They have many different types from the super heavy duty concrete type, all way to extreme lightweight, On the next one I'll do a 50/50 mix. Yes the fire is outside. When you build one of these inside you have to install a fresh air supply pipe from the outside to the opening where you build the fire, otherwise its will suck air through every crack in your house and it will be warm immediately around the stove but cold everywhere else. When I have the plastic on it I didn't want to fill it up with smoke.It smokes a little sometime when you first get it going. Next time I will build it in place and use the earth as most of my forms.I have the clay sand to make my Cob heat battery here already, all I lack is the time and energy to build it.I'll post pic's when I get to that point. I took temp. reading yesterday on a small fire and the top of the barrel was right at 650* F and the exhaust pipe was at 320* , all that extra heat will be absorbed by the cob and then released slowly throughout the night. I have had a few really high temp fires going in there already and that barrel temp will probably get substantially hotter as will the cob tower. The goal is to keep the edge off my plants during the winter not to raise tropicals, I have a heated shed for my fruit plants. This project cost me around $400 I used a old large propane tank for my heat barrel.The temp on the top of the barrel can get up to 900-1000* so i have 1/2" thick cold rolled steel plate on top.You can boil water or cook on the top as well. There are a lot of really good videos on this subject and many different approaches to building these. I have been playing with this over a year now and this really seems to be a long lasting approach that will require the least amount of maintenance,
I truly love doing experimentation like that. You can learn so much more than by simply purchasing a product. Gopherman that's just cool - uh except in this case, it's rather hot.
I unfortunately am a little (lol) ADHD, and tend to start a bunch of stuff and finish it in stages. As I get bored with this, I go and work on that..... The good thing is I usually end up finishing them all around the same time and I end up with a lot of cool stuff. I am however trying to change that about myself a little, I really want to get this Cinva Ram welded and start making a Barn for my animals out of Stabilized Earth Bricks. But I am an Old Dog (Gopher)....!