@@Coppretta especially this one! It's chilly and I'm waiting for a chimney inspection so can't use my woodburner (only source of heating) - I've got a hot water bottle and I've persuaded my border collie girl to snuggle up on my armchair 🤣
I love the way you made cutting the hole in the wall look easy... I know what a pain it can be! Love what you're doing with your place Kris; it's fantastic!
@Ben T. I live in an equally old house, the bricks are made of cheese though so I have to use long fasteners or the face of the brick just pops off, repointing takes up a fair bit of time every few years.
@Ben T. I'm repointing with opc like a scumbag I'm afraid, going half a brick deep, what I've done is not coming out again but because previous owners have only put 1/4"of opc mortar over the dusty lime mortar, I'll decide that bits solid and move on then a month after I painted it'll pop off and ruin my pristine paint. Eventually I'll get to a point where it's all solid... Hopefully. I've found the hammer in fixings from timco to be really good in the soft brick because they only expand at the tip, or chemical studs, short rawl plugs are the worst, needles to say my home improvements end up looking a bit industrial! Occasionally I'll find the original fixing methods where the builders have chased the mortar between the brick, hammered some wedges in then then fixed onto the wedges but life is too short to dig away at lathes every time I want to put up a shelf!
Nice work Kris! Just a thought - extend the work surface, put a few pump handles on there, brew your own beers, invite a local folk group and voila! The U.K.s first Eco Pub! I'll be one of your first customers.
The mass on the side is very cool. I built a RMH in my residential garage years ago. It works. They're finicky. The greatest value was the radiant heat off the bell, honestly. When I build a house it will have a Russian style fireplace.
You can make a basic wood stove that is a rocket stove. And it can be made to be a batch burn rocket stove. I built Peter VanDeberg’s (not sure the spelling) batch burner. It puts out tremendous heat and does not need a mass to function. There are many designs for batch burn rocket stoves that are not rocket mass heaters so you could go that route if you want to. And they are cheap to build and easier than the rocket mass heaters. I built a rocket pizza oven as well and it works more like a masonry stove, stays hot for 4 days. Seems like you would like those designs, self built and really efficient, but glad you have heat for winter.
Excellent work Kris, should make for a more comfortable working environment over the winter! Looking forward to seeing the bandsaw mill, it's something I'd like to do at some point. Keep up the good work!
Dear Mr Harbour, with All this political shit taking place in the States it gives me solace to watch folks like yourself and a Mr Chickadee do your Amazing work. The Art of woodworking and mason work takes me back to a long forgotten time. Your an inspiration, Keep it up Fella!
Kris, you keep surprising us, that build around the stove is gorgeous, I would love to have that in my sitting room. Looing forward to the timber frame videos communig up! keep up the good work, Kind regards from the netherlands!
Really nice mate, just an idea but I reckon you could put a nice biiiiiig lump of slate upright between the fire and the seat and maybe bolt it to it and you could use it like the back of the seat, it would also warm up and you could probably chuck your coat on it to dry it out
Been watching you since all but the first 15 or so round house videos. I can honestly say that you may once have been a novice learning as you go but now have become a craftsman and teacher. You have shown this old dog many new tricks over the years. The pride you have in what you have achieved is more than well earned. Thank you and cheers from down under.
I've spent 50 hours this week bashing away at spreadsheets and attending Teams meetings, and not accomplished a fraction of what you've achieved. It often feels like a waste of life, but it is edging me closer to a simpler lifestyle. Thanks, as ever, for the inspiration.
Meanwhile back at Cottage HQ Dot's having a nice hot bath, martini's and listening to Bach...enjoy yur tea. ;-) Stunning work, look forward to all your future ventures.
Excellent job Kris, the whole workshop/mancave is coming along nicely. I'm looking forward to seeing the bandsaw mill build and subsequent use on the greenhouse...bit of advice....make the bandsaw mill bigger than you need now, then when you want to cut up something bigger (which you will) it might just fit...although I think Matt Cremona's is a bit too large lol Mind you...he does have a tidy little business selling large boards for table tops...just saying :-)
Im going for quite a different approach to be honest. there isnt to many really big trees around these parts. For me mobility and length are more important. so im making it really long. 7.5m long and on wheel so it can to towed. Its going to have a diesel engine running on veg oil and an electric motor. Im going for versatility. I always try and make these tools so that i could use them to make a living from in the future if needs be. So mobile and long is the key for me. But im still planning on being able to cut 700mm or so boards.
How cool. Kris has a nice old Norwegian cast iron wood stove... Ulefos is one of the best you can find. The factory has been operating since the late 1600s but production today mainly consists of only one antique "marquee" model and parts for this, as most of the other models have been discontinued. Norway have lots of different cast iron oven manufacturers, and the biggest ones almost have monopoly, so the manufacturers with only older models suffered less demand after the late 80s.
Chris B Wales was visited by the Norse, as were various parts of these islands, such as the north east. In many of these places the local language has Norse sounding words, phrases and dialects.
Jøtul also have a very similar model to this. 45cm deep and one cook plate on top. I have two of them... No fancy features, just a solid cast iron box where wood goes in, smoke comes out :D Norwegian stoves are excellent indeed!
Hi Kris, have you ever thought about building a wood gasifier along with tar seperator, gas cooler&filter, etc. to run a generator in winter to help your battery while working in the (future metal) workshop and maybe for when you want to charge a future electric van?
Love your videos Kris. Interested to know about any workshops you lead. I'm up the road in Carmarthen! You passed through my village a couple of months ago...
I love your videos, but get a glazed look in my eyes when you have to keep modifying the hydro thingy.🤣 As a woman the varied domestic stuff and garden are far more riveting. I look forward to your videos and wish it was me messing around in the muck, mud and being so creative. Keep on doing what you're doing 😍
Nice work Kris, just awesome to see all you've achieved. Thought about a peltier stove fan to move the heat around the workshop? (You definitely have! I guess my real question is, are you going to use one?)
My husband would like to know why you did not build the slate wall/structure behind the stove? We both really enjoy your videos and admire your handiwork!
You should look into the "batch box"-style rocket stoves. You can load those up instead of having to constantly feed it. I think the major advantage is the efficiency -- not losing all the energy as unburned smoke and heat flying up and out the flue. Less time spent chopping wood.
Great job Kris. I'm curious to see how you do the mancave. You asked for some suggestions and ideas a while back. Did you get anything suitable coming in?
Hi, yes i had lots of nice ideas and i am actually using a lot of them. Im going with a bunk bed type thing with desk and storage under it. A big curved desk near the big window and the kitchen just to the left of the new slated surface.
Wow I had the exact same burner when I lived in turkey, produces massive amounts of heat and easy to clean. You’ve done a smashing job there kris well done mate 👍
Great stuff! That burner is amazing. How does the flue run outside and on the roof? Another vertical section to add draft! Fencing and sawmill sound great. Good to see the post basher being put to use.
Couldn't agree more about using a cast iron stove because of the thermal mass that you already have. We have 2 small ones in our cave house, it took 3 or 4 days of use to heat it up & it now is a regular temperature to within a few degrees with 4/5 hours of top up by using just one of them. In the other house ( which is half cave, with a stone built top) we have lined the fireplace with slate and refractory cement to stop the lime behind it getting damaged. ( Nice to see you don't get your lime mix spot on every time either! Our mixes seem to be a bit of a lottery! )
Man, I can feel how rewarding it is from here! I've got the same burner you have in your house (£200 off ebay), the logs have to be rather short indeed! What is the model of your new stove? (For a cabin im building)
easy with the lifting mate, you get away with that in your twenties but after that it will slow you down... i know you're a man that wants to get things done quick but just take an extra min or two to think about the safest way to lift when you've got a heavy job on the go. lovely workshop by the way
Standing a piece of sheet metal behind that stove will help reflect the heat out into the room. Also, a larger diameter metal pipe around the stove pipe would allow you to blow heated air into the room through the space between the pipes. Capture some of the heat going up the chimney.
Used polished aluminium or stainless as reflectors, kept them about 20mm off back wall, 20mm up from hearth to get air flow behind. Could use strap on reflector for chimney also.
The metal sheet behind the stove is an excellent idea. You do have to be careful with extracting heat from the chimney though. Too much cooling can reduce the chimney effect, reducing air flow, which can then lessen the efficiency of the burn and create more creosote in the chimney. The chimney effect is also responsible for avoiding back draft on windy days.
loved this! I built an outside kitchen from the stone on my land in Italy, loved every minute of it. Looking forward to the grrenhouse frame. Well done Chris. : )
With all that stonework, you could have made a stone wood-burning stove, which would'be been much more effective heat accumulator. Another alternative would be to put stone work around the metal wood stove. Or at least put the exhaust of the metal stove into a slate heat accumulator to have it both ways - to rapidly heat up the place and to accumulate heat. The way you got it now is just too ineffective for storing heat and takes way too much space.
