Rocket Stove Wood Kiln

Hi all, Ernie, Erica and myself have been experimenting with a Wood Kiln made with a Rocket stove. My company paid them to do a design (which I promptly argued about lol ) which has been a great help. The kiln is now working, this morning the kiln was significantly warmer than outside, which is impressive, it is also meaning the cob we poured in is finally getting dry. I figure first wood load will go in early next week.

We started off with a six inch system, Ernie and Erica recommend 10 inch. The truth was somewhere in between. The biggest danger on a kiln is too much heat, not too little, so I went with the smallest possible.

The final product looks similar to what Ernie and Erica recommended, but with two barrels, instead of one. One of the issues here is that you can't get 8 inch chimney, so I had to work with 6 inch. It has been fine, though. It takes no longer to feed two systems next to each other, as one. And starting the second system is merely using gloves to move some burning wood over... Two six inch systems end up generating roughly the heat of one eight inch, if my math is right. We have lots of drums so there was no extra cost in the drums.

Burn time tends to be 1 hour, so we feed it every 45 minutes or so. My office is about 200 meters away, so it gives me a break from sitting. Also, I have a worker who works in the gardens we have, cuts grass, clears brush, etc for this part of the plantation, he checks it when I can't.

Our business is wood, so scraps I have, more than I can use most likely. So far, for the two kilns, they use about 1 sack (think feed sack) of waste wood every two days. The mill can produce all the wood needed for a week, in one day. We burn for 10 hours, and let it rest over night. This produces a much better result in drying, because the danger in drying is to dry the outside of the wood too fast, resulting in case hardening. Sort of like when you sear meat so that inside stays moist. Same idea, but that is a problem with wood, you want the inside to be as dry as the outside.

The plan is to build three more once we finish a complete cycle with this one. My current cost per board feet in drying wood is 20 cents. (we have a kiln that runs on electric). Each kiln should hold roughly 2500 BF, which means a load which should dry in about 3 weeks, will save us 500 USD, in other words, more than it cost to make. With 4 kilns running, we will save about 2,000 dollars a month - and I get rid of scrap wood, which can be an issue at times.

Kiln dried wood is very much in demand here and our own factory consumes a lot.

Your description lacks photos. They were worth a thousand words when I last checked.

I will follow your progress on this since I will soon need to KD some maple and alder. I've decided to solicit milling business for hardwoods as a profitable way to bring materials for hugelkultur wood to my door. Bark and other scrap will go into the beds.

Hi Dale, hopefully I will find some time to post some photos, but nothing special really. I have the barrels outside of the kiln, behind a concrete wall, to reduce the danger of fire. Since you keep the fire going for so many hours, and you aren't sitting around while it is burning, it is very important to protect from fire.

Remember too, I am in the tropics, during your winter, we don't have to get up to freezing point first, if you know what I mean.

Is there any way you could post some pictures or some sort of diagram describing your design? I have been really interested in a rocket heated kiln design. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Gabriel Leirbag wrote:Is there any way you could post some pictures or some sort of diagram describing your design? I have been really interested in a rocket heated kiln design. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Ernie and Erica helped in the design and I have been evolving it since then. It started with a RMS system, using six inch chimney with a straight run under the floor. (the floor is around 5 meters long). One of the things I have been working with is how to have a longer burn, since we keep it lit for 10 hours a day, and more. Wood has a lot of mass, and of course, the temperatures are higher. Yesterday we made a firebox as the input using metal. Now we can go 2.5 hours (we estimate) without adding wood, which is a great improvement over 30 to 40 minutes. It uses less wood as well and the temperatures are higher overall.

When we finish our testing, I will be more than happy to post pictures and designs.

Fred, are you aware of this thread over at Donkey's forum?

http://donkey32.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=experiment&action=display&thread=511 May be another way to load the thing.

What exactly is the process for drying wood with this type of kiln? Vs the process of a solar kiln it seems like it could be more efficient.

The process of drying is the same for solar, one thing we do is let it rest overnight. If you dry wood too fast, you get case-hardening, i.e. the outside dries, but inside isn't and the outside becomes sealed. Much like when you sear a piece of meat to hold in the moisture.

Kiln drying wood is easy, but complex. (okay, a contradiction). If you have never done it before, you should do a lot of reading. Slower is better, what is complex is drying fast with good quality, the faster you dry, the more you have to know.

Gabriel Leirbag wrote:What exactly is the process for drying wood with this type of kiln? Vs the process of a solar kiln it seems like it could be more efficient.

Solar kilns don't work in the rainy season.

The side-by-side 6" systems sound like a great way to control the system--a high/low switch.

Do you run your vent air around the barrels or is that just waste heat?

I built adobe ovens on top of the barrel, and put a chimney at the top of them, this takes most of the heat from the top of the barrel and sends it into the kiln. It is also a great place to cook!

Fred Morgan wrote:I built adobe ovens on top of the barrel, and put a chimney at the top of them, this takes most of the heat from the top of the barrel and sends it into the kiln. It is also a great place to cook!

Hey Fred, Just thought I'd bring this to the top since it's closely related to a plan I'm formulating for a solar assisted RMH to even out diurnal issues with solar kilns. Did you get any photos yet ?

Here's the link- http://www.permies.com/t/19518/stoves/Solar-Powered-Rocket-Mass-Heater

Now that I have a near final design, I will get you some photos, and perhaps better, a sketch up design. Learned a lot in the process, and the kilns work incredibly well. Not sure how adaptable to a greenhouse since my goal is lots of heat, like 125 F, and cool down over night.