There are two types of rockets, rocket stoves and rocket heaters. They get their name from the roar of the natural draft through the core of the stove at the height of a burn. Wiki gives good brief definitions for both: “A rocket stove is an efficient and hot burning stove using small-diameter wood fuel. Fuel is burned in a simple combustion chamber containing an insulated vertical chimney, which ensures almost complete combustion prior to the flames reaching the cooking surface.” “A rocket mass heater is a space heating system developed from the rocket stove. Its fundamental characteristics are an insulated combustion chamber where [wood] is burned with high efficiency at extremely high temperatures, and a large thermal mass in contact with the exhaust gases which absorbs most of the generated heat before the gases are released to the atmosphere.” The technology of rocket stoves has gone mainstream, with lots of mass produced designs commercially available. Rocket mass heaters, however, are still mostly diy or home built designs and there are few commercially available options in America. Current designs often employ 55 gallon steel drums as heat radiators, but custom masonry heater builders are increasingly adopting this technology because of their efficiency and ease of incorporation into masonry heater design. Rocket stoves Do-it-yourself Rocket Stove designs are common and numerous examples can be found on YouTube and elsewhere. There are multiple rocket stoves now commercially available and they can be found via a simple search on Amazon, eBay, Craigslist (sometimes) etc. Probably the best designed commercially available unit for simple outdoor cooking is the Silverfire Survivor Rocket Stove: Survival Stove | Backpacking Stove | Portable Wood Stove One of the Traeger brothers makes a pellet or firewood fueled cookstove/oven/grill loosely based on rocket stove principles: Best Wood Fired Grill - Open Flame and Oven Cooking Another interesting design is the EcoZoom Plancha: Zoom Plancha Rocket heaters When it comes to rocket heaters, the single best concise resource on the internet is Batchrocket.eu - Introduction by Peter van den Berg. This site has the best, most concise explainations of basic principles, design parameters, sizing, materials, etc. And a corresponding forum for discussions/developments is: Rocket Stoves for heating | Rocket Stoves.. Experimenters corner.. Answers questioned! Our own Matt Walker (NW Walker) is a leader in rocket heater design and development and his website with some excellent design plans is Walker Stoves Home. His YouTube channel is worth a close look: broaudio. He has also written a book on the use of ceramic fiber board on building a traditional “J” tube: https://m.barnesandnoble.com/w/rocket-stove-ceramic-fiber-core-plans-matthew-walker-remine/ There are a few commercially available rocket heaters in the USA: 1) Wood Burning Stoves, Heaters and Appliances - Dragon Heaters 2) Zaug Stoves 3) Liberator -Safety Tested for Indoor Use! (A non electric pellet conversion is available) Regarding all three options, these only represent the rocket heater itself, not the ‘mass’ (cob or masonry bench or “bell”) necessary for the rocket heater to heat up and which releases heat long after the rocket heater fire has gone out. The latter two are also all metal designs, and among the rocket heater community a common saying is “metal is doomed” due to spalling of the metal in the high temps developed in a properly insulated rocket heater core (2100-2200•F.) Also, these represent “J” tube configurations, which are being eclipsed by “batch box” designs (with a small traditional firebox and door) which can be seen at Batchrocket.eu - Introduction and in most of Matt Walker’s designs. Mass The mass in a “rocket mass heater” is usually made out of masonry or cob, and the weight of a proper mass for a rocket mass heater often precludes their construction when there is a basement underneath the proposed location of the rocket mass heater unless a foundation is built from the ground up to support the mass. Examples Here’s a masonry rocket mass heater I helped design and build in North Carolina last week. Fortunately we were building on a concrete slab foundation directly in front of an existing fireplace. The homeowner sent me this brief video yesterday to show the waves of heat rising from the rocket: And this is a rocket heater I recently designed and built based on straight sided 55 gallon steel barrels: And here is Matt Walker’s remarkable kitchen rocket:
What is the little grate to the right of the firebox door? I didn't see that in the pics on your fone
Very Cool Brian!!! I don't know very much about these stoves and heaters but I'll be watching and learning! I do have a some training on heat transfer and thermal dynamics so I'll find this interesting.
