I've been researching and playing with various DIY rocket stoves for a while. I'm trying to figure out something that could be used indoors and vented up the chimney in a pinch if the utilities go down and I don't want or need to fire up the Ideal Steel stove. I'll probably take it camping too. It also needs to be efficient like the rocket stoves and woodgas stoves. The EcoZoom Plancha is one nicely designed option. It uses two manufactured rocket stoves and a cook top similar to an old wood cook stove: But they're $400 (!) and I'm frugal (i.e., cheap) so I kept looking. This week I found the following video on YouTube. It's a table top horizontal rocket stove with a vertical feed made from a 17"x14"x6" stainless steel junction box: He claims to be getting surface temps of 950• over the first segment of the firebox. And it just uses small strips of wood. So I went down into my laboratory to see what I could scrounge up. I found an old heavy gauge 15"x13" steel case that's 5" deep. Should be adequate for the task. I cut up left over stainless double wall chimney pipe for the chambers and used firebrick on the bottom. I cut a section of 4" truck exhaust pipe elbow (which I've been saving for another rocket stove project) for the flue adapter. For now I'm just using 4" galvanized stove pipe. If the temps are too high I'll change it out. I made the vertical wood feed box tube out of a piece of 10"x3" rectangular duct. I'm just using an angle grinder, hammers, pliers and vice grips and a bench vice, no special tools. So far I've spent $0.00 on this project. It's all stuff that was collecting dust in my basement. This is as far as I got in two evenings, it's 95% complete. I'm going to attach the smoke channels to the walls of the box and fill in the dead spaces with ceramic insulation. I'll fire it up this weekend to see what kind of temps I can get out of it for cooking.
I plan to but the firebox is all internal so there won't be much to see. I'm just curious if it will burn efficiently and how hot it will get. The only possible problem I can foresee is that the flue is 4" round but the firebox and smoke channels are only 3 3/4" inch square. I might need to neck down the flue to 3".
I really like projects being worked up at home like this. I am looking forward to the results. I had an idea to use a stainless t connector from a flex kit. I have one to use now that I top vent off the Castine. I just need to make a little grid to hold the wood up in the horizontal run. The top band would have to be fiddled around with too. Add a cast iron skillet, eggs and bacon and there ya go. It sounds like I just laid out my plans for tomorrow morning.
Thanks, WW. I saw another thread with the stove but this is cool too. Ok, here are my thoughts. You want to make sure the double S channel is going to be completely sealed otherwise the gases will get through the cracks and that might screw up the draft. The gases will want to roll along the top of the double ss. Also maybe try to close off the feed tube a little bit while burning. I might be wrong. Just throwing this out there.
Oh ok yes, I did have a pic of an Ecozoom in a previous thread. I was going to use a wood cook stove cook top to build something like the Ecozoom but I decided the design in this thread is cheaper and easier to build with a smaller foot print. But if I find a free wood cook stove cook top I still hope to build something closer to the Ecozoom.
If you can find a used ceramic glass cooktop from one of these newer ranges, you'd be able to "see" that fire pretty well!!!! Gotta be careful with what you can cut and the type you can't cut....
