Rocket mass heaters should be the central design feature of underground pole shift survival structures. @rev.hodl has there been work done to incorporate an ability to cook food with a RMH? Barrel cooktop or is that chamber too cool?
rev.hodl's avatar rev.hodl
Now that transaction fee storm has passed I'm back to heating my living space primarily with wood in a rocket mass heater instead of Asics. Wood is burned in the small firebox and heat radiates from the barrel warming the space quickly while the fire burns. image As the exhaust gasses make their way to the chimney, they pass through ductwork in a plywood box filled with pea gravel. image The majority of the heat from the exhaust is transfered to the gravel before exiting up the chimney. By the time the gases exit the box, they are cool enough for me to put my hand on the chimney pipe. image After the fire burns out, the heat absorbed by the pea gravel slowly radiates out into the living space until the next fire is burned and the gravel is recharged with heat once again. I built this rocket mass heater for a fraction of the cost of a wood burning insert, with no special tools, materials, or skills. image It has been an unusually warm November and December here at the homestead. Normally we have to start burning wood in the rocket mass heater early November to stay comfortable but this year, the bitcoin mining dehydrator was enough to stay warm and do some food preservation simultaneously. Transaction fees started climbing and I was shocked to see the most efficient miner I had approaching break even at my electric rate. I didn't have the circuit to run it wired yet but this bump in fees was the motivation I needed to get the miner hashing. Coincidentally, the weather also started to get colder finally so getting the miner up and running was a win/win. image It successfully kept us and our guests warm through the holidays, even earning some Bitcoin beyond the cost of power at times, all while allowing us to save our firewood. image We did have to fire up the rocket mass heater a handful of times, but so far we've burned less than half the amount of wood compared to previous years. This is thanks to the combination of the warm weather, and high transaction fees allowing us to stay warm with heavily subsidized electric heat. image This might be the first winter we make it through with wood leftover for the next year, typically I'm scrounging for the last couple weeks. #permaculture #permies #homesteading #selfsovereignty #meshtadel #rocketmassheater #woodburner #bitcoin #bitcoinmining #plebminer #rmh #grownostr View quoted note →
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i think the trick would be to pack a massive amount of mass right next to it that is FULL of powdered charcoal, as i believe it is possibly the best thermal storage material after water but with the ability to store heat above boiling point
my hypothesis is that as it isn't liable to burn until about 4000 degrees, in a metal case it is a massive thermal sink what makes a "thermal store" is about its latency between absorbing and re-emitting the heat it absorbs... the problem with metals is they are conductive, and thus they re-emit fast as the heat goes in, and then goes out a decently packed mass of charcoal powder has a lot of air spaces between the dust and the carbon itself is a poor conductor, but it is not a bad conductor, and it can hold a very high temperature, and thus it acts as a store put it this way, the same thing applies to electricity, i think... a super capacitor is the highest capacity electrostatic store currently known, and is literally two chunks of powdered charcoal interfaced by a thin layer of insulating glass, which can withstand the thermal effect of the electrostatic discharge i think if it holds and leaks electricity efficiently it probably also holds and leaks heat the same way