I get on these kicks,,,,

and start researching things,,,

In this case, this is likely something that I will be doing here at the homestead. I have not been happy with my heating system since its inception: thats why I bought the propane wall heater. Its not that my stove doesnt’ work. Its that it works TOO well

for a spell, usually driving me right out of the frellin’ house into sub freezing weather. Too many times its been 10F outside and over a 100F inside and I’m there, in my skivvies, with the front door wide open, trying to cool my house (and ME) down.

I have many of the components to make this already. Access to others that will be needed, including the clay (my house sits atop a slab of clay that is 100 yards wide and 40′ deep and about 3′ thick. Just a matter of diggin out what I need from a section of yard I don’t care for) I already have a flue through the ceiling, I already have an old retired propane tank (with the bottom cut off) for the reaction chamber, further flue pipe for the ‘bench’ is more a ‘creative process’ than a logistics one. High aluminite mortar for the main chambers will be about the only purchase I would need to make. (I even have a small dhingie worth of firebrick to assist the build.) (thats also called refractory cement,,,)

In my research, there are two types (more actually, but only these two attract me.) top loading standard rocket stove type combustion, and ‘Batch’ frontloading like a normal style woodstove (but with some modifications to make it not backdrafty.) I am even considering making one section of flue (nearest the outlet) a tesla valve setup to prevent blowback from winter winds. Thats gonna require some serious creative input from my side, but I know the valve and can “figger sumpin’ out”. I already know HARD winds out of the north pile up on my house and have caused my current stove to nearly go out a time or two. Only from due North,,, southerly or even westerly winds help DRAW,,, (and why I really wish I had had more say in where that flue went during the build: dead middle of the peak and that thing would draw no matter the wind direction, thanks to venturi effect of the peak creating vacuum.

Of course, this will be a summer long event, barring major incursions of other facets of my already chaotic life. But I would like to see this thing ‘road ready’ by late September early October. Get rid of this bug honkin’ lunk of steel that takes up way too much realestate in my living room and runs me for cover, er, COLD, fast. I will need to add undersupport to my floor joists in that area, but thats a minor problem; not undoable.

What would I do with my wall heater? Maybe move it into my bedroom or bathroom (always the coldest room in this house) OR Gift it to my Da for his new digs when he figures that thing out. (he’s supposedly going to emulate my place with a ‘tiny home’. Will see. but if so, that wall heater is likely more than enough for his place and a whole lot less headache than a wood burner,,,)

For the record, this won’t be my first foray into Thermal Mass heating systems. When i was at Snakes place in Indy, the workshop we built had heated water pipe ran throughout the slab foundation, and the main stove (in a seperate room from the main) was wrapped tight with block and sand and other aggregates to retain radiant heat from the stove (the stove was also the water heater,,,, rather more complex than I liked, but it worked.) Build a good solid fire in it, let it run for a couple hours and it kept that building around 55F for a full 24 hours. Doesn’t sound comfortable until you hear that was also the year Indy had -22F WEEKS,,, A building sitting at 55F felt like the tropics when coming in from the cold. There were a few nights where Voodoo didn’t want to ‘go home’ to the camper, but wanted to sleep in the shop near the wood stove. Can’t say as I blamed the curr either,,, That camper could get COLD at times.

Other advantages: I could reclaim some of my floorspace (bench space) for comforts. Proper cushioning and the warmed bench (the actual heat sink in this case) could double as a couch, or even a ‘day-bed’ for the really icky kold nights. I am quite certain, Kats will claim that area first and foremost as THEIRS! when the snow starts a-flyin’ outside.

And these things are supposedly running double or better in efficiency over a modern woodburner. Less wood, better stable heat,

Yeah,,, I gotta do this. Take my time, do it in peices, keep the propane heat for the time being, but move that 500# monster the F! out my way,,, (and close off that flue to keep the batty-bats out of my house. I find at least one a year in my stove, that decided to roost in the flue and got turned around trying to get out. gonna need to grate the entrance(exit?) to prevent that in the future.)

and yes,,, this is partly to distract me from thinking about all the OTHER BS in my world currently. Its Sonday, nothing to be done about the other stuff, need something to distract me from it and the ‘real world’ BS that keeps drifting across my views.(I feel like I am watching a major 55 car pile-up on I-5 in slo-mo and can do nothing to stop it. Like we are frog-marching our way into WWIII and can’t hit the brakes nor turn the steering wheel. I could be wrong, but the queasy feels in my gut say otherwise.)

But this is something that CAN be done, and I CAN do, and if it actually works as ‘advertiseed’ will mean less money spent and less toil in my homestead, better nights sleeping when the world is not being nice, etc etc.

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