7/2/2023 0 Comments Building a rocket stove![]() ![]() ![]() The more I thought about it, the more it became clear that while it’s useful to have a stove that burns small pieces of wood efficiently, wood is wood is wood. The heat riser works flawlessly and well, but I kept finding myself wishing for a larger combustion chamber to fill with larger pieces of wood, and a door to better control the air flow. ![]() It seems like an awful lot of constant fiddling and effort when there are tried and tested stove configurations with a long history (kachelofens, masonry stoves, Finnish contraflow stoves, etc) which can heat mass and burn just as efficiently and a lot more controllably with a minimum of attention. (And if it’s not kept efficient, then no less attention is going to have to be given to cleaning out flue ways on a regular basis …) A well-stuffed feed hole seems to allow the perfect amount of air through the gaps between the sticks and under the grate to support a good burn, but the rate of consumption means that the stove requires almost continual attention to keep it that way if the burn is to be kept efficient, especially if burning softwood. Lighting the stove was simple and, allowing for the temporary nature of the construction, it drew and ran well, but after a weekend of playing with it, I kept coming back to this. Air gaps between the firebricks were sealed with a clay plaster mix. For this, the only critical dimension is that the heat riser above the combustion chamber is at least 2-3 times its diameter, so I built a 200mm diameter heat riser from the ends of stacked firebricks rising 600mm above the combustion chamber. I wanted to see just how practical these stoves would be to use on a daily basis for cooking, so my initial aim was to put together the core of a rocket cookstove – the burn chamber and heat riser – and see how easy it was to light and to run. I started with ideas for a cookstove, based on the L-profile cookstoves developed primarily by Larry Winiarski of Aprovecho Research Center for use in developing countries. With a big push on the main building planned for this year, it was time to start experimenting – constructing different configurations of firebricks and clay and stuff and firing it all up to see what works and what doesn’t. So they were penciled in firmly for the buildings here – for cooking and heating water – pretty much from the start.īut theory is one thing: practice another. But reading about rocket stoves, I was attracted by their low tech simplicity, their apparent ease of construction, how they lend themselves to self-build projects, how they can be made from junk and be fueled with the small branches and sticks that are no more than kindling for more conventional wood-burning stoves, and how efficient a burn they can achieve. Being innately somewhat contrary and suspicious of fads and fashions, even ones I’m participating in, this fact alone would usually send me running in the opposite direction. It seems rocket stoves are as much part of the natural building vernacular as glass bottles in cob walls: de rigeur for any self-respecting stomper-of-mud, stacker-of-straw and fashioner-of-eccentric-curves. ![]()
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