These two vids are an awesome learning resource. Thanks loads 😁 The inevitable questions tho- It looks like you used the heavy & hard kind of fire bricks that absorb & conduct heat. Did you consider using the lightweight, soft kind that are designed to insulate? It seems to me the insulating kind would have been optimal for the hottest burn whilst shielding the floor better. What am I missing? I figure if you need the thermal mass you can loosely stack the heavy fire bricks around the barrel?
The exhaust coming out of the heater was only about 3 or 3 1\2 feet up the chimney. Basically went as far up as we could get it through the damper in the chimney. The reason we went with a 4 inch system was because it was the right size to sneak past the damper. The house chimney is a two story so probably about 30 feet or so. Our heater has recently been taken apart and is in storage for one of those "just in case" type scenarios. We basically built ours just to prove that it worked, and it did! We WOULD NOT recommend putting one of these in a house since we scorched our floor pretty bad. And in the event of a house fire (related to the rocket stove or not) we would not have house insurance. So we couldn't under good conscience tell you its a good idea to put one in your home. If you choose to do in regardless of our warnings, use plenty of ventilation around and under the heater and keep safety your number 1 priority!! It would be best to install this on a concrete and far away from anything combustible. Also pick up a thermometer for a wood stove just to keep an eye on it because depending on what type of wood your burning can alter the internal temperature. It gets hot regardless of what your burning so use extreme caution!!
I want build one in a home, I have concrete floor and stone walls, I plan to use a layer of insolating hollow stones, with a pressed ceramic insolation blanked and then a layer of fire sones and build on that, it will be save I hope.
