"Pocket" Rocket

Wanted to share pictures of the "pocket" rocket my husband and son built Sunday (plan from Evans and Jackson's Rocket Mass Heaters book)It'll be used to heat our small (12x14)winter camping shelter, we'll prob cook on it also using a grate/riser.
amazing the way it burns super hot and clean, so little smoke and ash! We only had wet dead wood around to burn so it smoked for a few minutes before the fire pulled down the feed tube. With dry kindling I believe it would smoke far less at start-up. Once the down draft started there was no smoke - exhaust coming out the flue was clear and the whole thing was hot enough in less than five minutes to burn the paint and labels right off the barrel! The amount of heat coming off of it was impressive. We weren't planning to, but now intend to put some rocks and cob around it to hold the heat and protect kids/dogs/objects from getting burned, but we'll have to come up with a way to clean the ash out..
Also wondering if we can take advantage of all the radiant heat coming off the flue if we turn it on its side and add an elbow to the feed tube to make it L-shaped and run the flue the full length of the shelter? Might just try it and see..

Here's what you need for cleaning

Lin Karcher : Buy the time you reed this you will have discovered just how easily this will set grass and leaves on fire , It will also set fire to blacktop, and cause wet concrete
or stones to spall explosively !Your barrel will last a little longer with some sand in the bottom, because wood ashes contain the caustic Lye you should be very careful to keep
a cold P Rocket from being rained on and never put out the fire with water unless you have a back-up plan for cleaning it out DRY, while you don't actually 'Need' the damper,
being able to close it should help keep the insides dry !

Because of the vast amount of air that gets used by the P Rocket, when the fire is out you have zero retained heat, but if you can find a formation of Flat Rock materials that
you can then stack all around the bottom 3/4-ish in an open lattice pattern and create a reflective back wall your comfort level will greatly improve.

Several years ago A friend introduced me to the idea of putting the P Rocket down in the well drained hole left by a huge wind fall tree, mostly we baked on the p rocket side
while gentle heat radiated back to us off of the up right root ball ! And the wood was pre stacked off of the ground and close by !Wish I was there ! BIG AL !

Thanks for the replies and info. I'm reading all the forum discussions on rocket stoves/ heaters and soaking it up.
We are going to make it with a removable lid since because of the high heat it's going to have to be more stationary than we'd first envisioned. I can definitely see safety issues with how HOT it gets! I like the idea of sinking it in the ground with something to radiate the heat back toward the room. The damper seemed to slow the burn slightly, but we were burning it outside in 38 degree weather and it literally roared even with the damper closed. I'd not thought about the ash being corrosive, but it makes sense and we'll try some sand. Hopefully, we'll be using (and experimenting) with it weekends this winter and have a "real" house with a "real" rocket mass heater next winter!

Lin Karcher : I am glad that your family made making a Pocket Rocket a priority ! Now is the time to find a second barrel just like your first one, or failing in that,a second lid
identical to the one you used to make your Pocket Rocket !

Please go to our sister site, richsoil.com , find and clickon> the Rocket Mass Heater link and watch the whole series of short rocket videos, the one I want you to see is
the one about burning off the paint off of the barrel ( the 6th?-8th? one ?) something you must do before you bring it indoors, while the way shown in the video does not actually
show a Pocket Rocket please due use yours and the paper machee` to burn off/out any nasties ! BIG AL !

Well, needed to burn a barrel, so i did a quicky pocket rocket lid.

Thank and Will do, Al and thanks Satamax! we can't wait to get back down to the homestead and try another one. I will visit richsoil and I'm going to buy the RMH DVD set for myself for Xmas so we can do more building and experimenting over the next several months😀

Lin Karcher wrote:Thank and Will do, Al and thanks Satamax! we can't wait to get back down to the homestead and try another one. I will visit richsoil and I'm going to buy the RMH DVD set for myself for Xmas so we can do more building and experimenting over the next several months😀

Lin, if you want i have more reliable, clean, safe solutions. Better than a pocket rocket, tho, not that far.

Where can I find out more details about the pocket rocket.  I can't seem to find much with the search function, nor google.

Tommi, welcome to the forum!

I am sorry you had problems with the search function.

Here are a few threads that you might find interesting:

https://permies.com/t/60015/Pocket-Rocket-materials-dimensions-questions

https://permies.com/t/29586/gallon-pocket-rocket-barrel-heater

https://permies.com/t/30966/physics-pocket-rocket-wrong-picture

https://permies.com/t/11926/Pocket-rocket-stoves

If these don't answer your questions please ask the questions.

Hey Tomm, I'm kinda of obsessed with pocket rockets,  because they can burn long pieces of fuel without the backdrafting.
I  made an entire playlist of YouTube videos featuring pocket rockets:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUQMDg9HfMjgpbn0ZuwlupYOZzOA_BNL_

I'm building one right now from a dryer drum.
I am planning on leaving it open bottomed, so I can use it to incinerate small stumps or tracts of land.
I am also planning to try adding a grate and a water basin, the idea being to make charcoal as we burn.

The pocket rocket I just built failed miserably, refusing to draft the up the right pipe no matter what I did.
I did take liberties with the design, using a 6" feed pipe and 3" chimney.
Evans and Jackson called for a 4" chimney.
I think I might skip past that right onto a 6" chimney.
Here is a photo of the delightfully ass-backerd burn:

William Bronson wrote:The pocket rocket I just built failed miserably, refusing to draft the up the right pipe no matter what I did.
I did take liberties with the design, using a 6" feed pipe and 3" chimney.
Evans and Jackson called for a 4" chimney.
I think I might skip past that right onto a 6" chimney.
Here is a photo of the delightfully ass-backerd burn:

I had the same problem, fire came out of the feeder and the shimney stays cold.

Feeder is 15 cm pipe and shimney is 11 cm, maybe these need the same.

Did try again.


Both pipes the same diameter. Then it works but I do not be convinced this
is a clean burner because I did smell wood smoke, but do not see it.

Burn of the paint did not work, get not hot enough, but it was also very cold
close to freezing weather with wind, so the barrel did cool off.

Maybe isolating the bottom do help, but making a turbo version do work
a lot better for the temporary heater I need.

regards