Making them pretty

Is there anyway to build a RMH where you can hide the barrel? It's just not attractive.

Sure. You could tackle that from several directions.

1. You could build the RMH as usual, then put a beautiful screen on it or around it. I've seen pictures; I'll see if I can find this and add them later.

2. You could use something besides a barrel. Any other airtight metal container will do, whether built just for this purpose or repurposed from somewhere else.

3. You could forgo the barrel and make the entire thing of masonry. You'll sacrifice some immediate heating ability, but you might or might not miss it.

You mean aesthetically pleasing?



Zaug stoves



Leyland Stoves

My masonry stove uses a J-tube but is not a RMH in the usual style. I will eventually have a thick metal plate at the top of my riser, above where the frying pan and kettle are sitting. Water being heated there, will cool the gases and help them move along.

I have posted this before but... this is the barrel covered in clay slip, or the dirt from under the shed which is mostly clay.the top has a scrap piece marble. Still could be more polished but you get the idea.

That Leyland stove is amazing.

A Leyland costs about $7600 US dollars. I've spent $50 on mine so far.

Jd Gonzalez wrote:You mean aesthetically pleasing?

Zaug stoves

Leyland Stoves

This is perfect!!! Thank you!!!

Dale Hodgins wrote:A Leyland costs about $7600 US dollars. I've spent $50 on mine so far.

Sometimes it's just not about the money!

So what if, instead of a bench, you used some kind of masonry material to make a tube around the bottom of the room to radiate up heat (like baseboard heating)? While I'm sure it would not be as efficient as just heating the person, I can't imagine myself sitting in one place that long. Combine that with the Leyland type design and it might look much better. . .

And there is this;



http://www.dragonheaters.com/6-rocket-masonry-heater-castle-build-kit/

Steve Harvey wrote:
And there is this;

http://www.dragonheaters.com/6-rocket-masonry-heater-castle-build-kit/

Now THAT looks great!!

Steve Harvey, that is beautiful.

One of the reasons I asked about distributing the heat through a device like baseboard heating, is I am hoping to add one on the first floor (over the basement) and it would be a way to distribute the weight.

Also, another reason I like the rocket mass is it looks like I could use it without worrying about asthma with so little smoke.

Carefull, the castle build is nice looking, but there's a few who have complained about it, or similar looking builds, either here or at donkey's. The bells bypassing downwards and not getting hot nough. And also not having enough mass.

The idea of the castle build is excellent. You would have to make sure that you had large enough flue tiles (if you were going to make it the same way as they show) for air to stratify properly and not short-circuit as Max mentions. You would also want to be sure you used enough total mass to hold the amount of heat you are generating for as long as you want.

Sherri, there is a lower limit to how small you can safely and effectively make the duct surround, and an upper limit to how long you can make the duct.
You need at least 4" and in hotter (earlier) sections maybe 8" of cob/mass all around the duct, so the surfaces do not get dangerously hot. You also need some air gap between the mass and combustible floor/wall materials.
For a house-heating system, you probably need an 8" diameter duct and combustion zone. You can't reliably split that 8" duct into two smaller ones; it all has to go in one run, and every elbow reduces the total length of horizontal duct that you can have. So running around the walls is not a very practical plan. It can perfectly well run along one or two walls uninterrupted.

Thanks for the info. Has anyone ever experimented with under the floor?

The wall is directly over the basement wall, so maybe that would work. Do you know of any types of supports people have used effectively on a second story? It just seems to me that the whole mass would be awfully heavy to put on a second floor. If I were going to keep it easy to use in the main living space, that would dictate placing it in the living room. I also rely on the basement for natural cooling, so I wouldn't want to put a source of heat there.

Sherri

You wouldn't want to put an RMH in the basement anyway; the fuel feed needs to be conveinent to your living area so you can monitor it and add wood as needed.

Running the mass along an exterior wall where the floor joists are perpendicular to the wall would spread out the load, possibly enough that you wouldn't need additional reinforcement. It would have to be looked at on an individual basis. If your floor can support a king-sized waterbed, it could probably support an RMH safely.

The underfloor type of system has ancient precedents; the Romans used it, as did/do the Chinese and Koreans.

I too was thinking about this and was planning on placing a metal screen around the barrel between 1 and 2 inches away, maybe capped. It will still be there but rather than try and hide it it would accent it a bit . check home depot or lowes for metal screen and there are several decorative patterns.

elle, at the Denver repurposing here in Denver they have these large metel sheets that might be cool to wrap around the barrel ?

http://www.repurposedmaterialsinc.com/store/products/flat-panel-steel-skeleton/

I am curious if anyone has ever thought of making a sandy cobish plaster, filled with metal dust and shavings, would this work to sculpt the outside of a rmh barrel?

In love, with a succulent planter nearby. http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=metal+barrel+art&go=&qs=n&form=QBIR&pq=metal+barrel+art&sc=6-16&sp=-1&sk=#view=detail&id=1C26C15826C2D6FB3B7901E1585EC65D4A8C19EE&selectedIndex=11

Wrap it like this, http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=metal+barrel+art&go=&qs=n&form=QBIR&pq=metal+barrel+art&sc=6-16&sp=-1&sk=#view=detail&id=7C88BBC2E742B681E169826644AAFDCB00082DD4&selectedIndex=175

Embrace the barrel and add some furniture such as, http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=metal+barrel+art&go=&qs=n&form=QBIR&pq=metal+barrel+art&sc=6-16&sp=-1&sk=#view=detail&id=D8A2A4143CBFB8C323A2EA7B0DDDF95A62C4C212&selectedIndex=263

Or have an artist make a screen like this, http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=metal+barrel+art&go=&qs=n&form=QBIR&pq=metal+barrel+art&sc=6-16&sp=-1&sk=#view=detail&id=ADE40E2B07E6ECEE1449251C680FD3190BF592D5&selectedIndex=502