This could be the cleanest and most sustainable way to heat a conventional home. Some people have reported that they heat their home with nothing more than the dead branches that fall off the trees in their yard. And they burn so clean, that a lot of sneaky people are using them illegally, in cities, without detection.
When somebody first told me about rocket mass heaters, none of it made sense. The fire burns sideways? No smoke? If a conventional wood stove is 75% efficient, doesn't that mean the most wood you could possibly save is something like 25%? How do you have a big hole right over the fire and not have the house fill with smoke? I was skeptical.
And then I saw one in action. The fire really does burn sideways. The exhaust is near room temperature - and very clean. The smoke doesn't come back up because a huge amount of air is getting sucked into the wood hole. Neat! I sat on one that had not had a fire in it for 24 hours - it was still hot!
how it works:
The sticks stand straight up. Only the bottom ends of the sticks burn. The fire burns sideways. Since the heat riser is insulated, it gets freaky hot. This causes a strong convective current. When the hot gasses hit the barrel, it gives off a lot of heat, which cools the gasses which get much smaller and easier to push around. The gasses that exit are usually just carbon dioxide and steam.
The real magic happens with the heat riser. The strong convective current is what makes the air get sucked in through the wood feed so that the fire burns sideways and the smoke doesn't come out. It is also the place where it gets so hot that all of the smoke is burned.
Above is a much better image showing the mighty power of the insulated heat riser, reburning the smoke and powering the whole system.
A quick video I made to explain how a rocket mass heater does what it does:
The first picture below represents the most thorough rocket mass heater design I have ever seen. Followed by the rocket mass heater that was created from that design. These are both the products of the leaders in rocket mass heater innovation, Ernie and Erica Wisner, who have built more than 700 rocket mass heaters.
Is a rocket mass heater cleaner than natural gas heat?
How is a rocket mass heater different from a regular wood stove?
Is a rocket mass heater legal?
Can you cook with a rocket mass heater?
Are there alternatives to the barrel?
How many of these have been built?
How much does it cost to build one
Can it cause carbon monoxide poisoning?
a conventional wood stove uses a lot of the heat to push the smoke out of the house
a rocket mass heater extracts as much heat as possible before releasing the exhaust
I've now given presentations and taught people how to make these. The question I am most often asked is: "If my current wood stove is 75% efficient, it seems the most room for improvement is about 25%. But you say you can heat a home with a tenth of the wood. Isn't that claiming that a rocket mass heater is 750% efficient? Wouldn't 100% efficient be the maximum?" There are two ways to answer this.
Another question is about creosote. In a conventional wood stove, under inefficient conditions, creosote can build up in the chimney and start a chimney fire. The "chimney" in the rocket stove is the same thing as the heat riser. The rocket stove is designed to have a controlled chimney fire every burn.
Here is Ernie talking about how replacing a conventional wood stove with a rocket mass heater and how he now uses 1/8 of the wood he used to use:
This 4-Movie set about rocket mass heaters came out September 2016.
Here's the trailer for the new movie set.
If you sign up for the dailyish email right now, you will get the most popular Rocket Mass Heater design plans on the market, The 6" Annex Variation! Ernie and Erica usually sell these bad boys for 15 dollars but they are sharing this info with you in hopes of building support for their upcoming kickstarter which will bring rocket mass heater knowledge to millions of people!
After years of polishing this article, giving presentations and teaching workshops .... Ernie, Erica and I set up a special workshop to mash in everything about rocket mass heaters, rocket stoves, etc. just so that we could video it and put it all into this 4-Movie set.
Trailer for the 4-Movie rocket mass heater set:
When I first learned about rocket mass heaters, I desperately needed to see a video because what I was told was so .... different. There was nothing! So I now have lots of videos so people can see for themselves, the things that seem so new. This is just a few of the videos.
A short video making the rocket mass heater exhaust aspect really clear:
A general tour of 12 rocket mass heaters:
This second video is a day and a half workshop on building rocket mass heaters compressed into ten minutes:
My first attempt at building a rocket mass heater without somebody to guide me. This is an attempt at a semi-portable rocket mass heater. Plus a nice burn demo.
The latest from Ernie and Erica - complete with some innovations. This video focuses on how efficient a wood burning stove can be.
A short tour of some RMHs at Wheaton Labs with Paul Wheaton and Justin Rhodes.
Paul Wheaton's TEDx talk about REALLY saving energy using rocket mass heaters.
If these rocket stoves are of interest of you, the smartest next step is probably to get a set of plans that closely resembles what you are thinking of designing. These plans are proven designs that Ernie and Erica Wisner, the leading rocket stove innovators, have developed and tested.
These have been the all time most popular plans up to date.They are for an L-shaped heated bench. The '6' refers to diameter of heat-exchange ducting. This design provided the sole heat for an older Portland cottage/apartment of about 800 sf.
These plans are for a duct-heated, small heater that warms an 11 x 11 (120 sf) guest cottage in Portland, OR. A bypass from manifold to chimney allows priming the heater more easily for cold starts. Instead of a bench, the mass makes up a platform for a bed!
With this combo you get huge savings in the ol' money column by getting ALL of the plans above
PLUS chapter 4 of Rocket Mass Heater Builder's Guide
PLUS The Art of Fire
PLUS Simple Shelter ideas
PLUS Double-Chamber Earthen Oven plans
image: batch box innovation built at the rocket mass heater innovator's event, discussed in 3 podcasts in the gob
Several people have been able to scrounge parts over several months so that the construction cost ends up near zero. Here are some of the materials you might want to look for, complete with links to be able to purchase them in case you cannot find them otherwise:
Here is another rocket mass heater workshop. This one is building the rocket mass heater into a greenhouse
Discussion thread at permies: greenhouse with a rocket mass heater
And this one shows the rocket mass heater barrel prep. Complete with an excellent demonstration of the rockety stuff - check out that smoke reburn!
Here is Ernie's conventional wood stove / rocket mass heater hybrid, which gives a lot of info on how a rocket mass heater can heat a space with 90% less wood than a conventional wood stove:
This is my grand video on my portable rocket mass heater. This features four huge innovations: a wood frame aesthetic (a bit rough, but the trail is now blazed for better wood workers); portable (can be taken apart and put on truck in less than an hour; can be taken off of a truck and built in a little over an hour); a heat riser that goes all the way to the ground instead of sitting on bricks; the thermal mass is a collection of pea gravel and river rock (that allows air to pass through) instead of cob. This video has a lot of details of construction.
Finally - a comprehensive book about rocket mass heaters! This should put an end to the freak shows of flaming death showing up on YouTube mislabeled as rocket mass heaters - and put an end to getting the same questions asked over and over again. We can start every answer with,
"Have you read The Rocket Mass Heater Builder's Guide?"
This is a delicious book to read and understand HOW rocket mass heaters work and WHY rocket mass heaters work so well. Ianto is the inventor of rocket mass heaters, and he does an excellent job of telling the story.
As I was designing my portable rocket mass heater innovations, I called Ernie and Erica several times. After all, they know far more than I do. After the great Earth Day success I recorded a podcast with them. Not only to have a podcast loaded with rocket mass heater / rocket stove info, but to gloat a bit about the success of my innovation. This was my very first podcast about rocket mass heaters!
Since then, I have recorded over a dozen podcasts about rocket mass heaters and you can get them in a giant bundle here:
underfloor heating and hot water with a rocket mass heater:
portable rocket mass heaters:
underfloor heating with a rocket mass heater - plus an exhaust bypass:
the original rocket stove and butt warmer thread at permies
pretty rocket mass heaters:
rocket stove water heaters:
rocket mass heater in a tipi:
rocket mass heater innovators event 2014:
Come on out to the rocket stoves forum to talk about rocket mass heaters, wood heat, heating water, and gobs more stuff.
The good artwork here is done by Daniel Van Tassell although Daniel insists that I credit Adriana Stagnaro for a collaborative effort in the permies forums.