cold!

Opinions differ. You could probably bury the pipes deep enough with a plough, rather than having to dig a pit.

That's the OSHA model compared to this one:

Cheers, James

The clean-burning aspect hidden in all the rocket-mass-heater hoo-haw is that the burn chamber is made of refractory materials and insulated, to boost the burn temperature as much as (supposedly) 1,000F. A long hot path ensures full combustion. The heater runs typically flat-out (not damped), and the large thermal mass evens out the resulting heat pulses.

If it's hot enough there is no creosote. And soot, which is mostly carbon, burns as extra fuel.

The crude heat exchangers in RMH's cool the exhaust gases to the 100F range, extracting the full heating power, and recovering the heat of vaporization of the moisture in the wood (a big energy loss, avoided). Regular wood stoves can't--they'd condense creosote in their exhaust flues.

There's *some* buildup deposit while the heater's warming up to full temp. Some sort of pre-heater might fix that, if it mattered.

Cheers, James Arthur

It'll be about -15 C tonight, quite unusually cold for the area. The heat pump has the disadvantage of heating the whole edifice. Individual resistive heaters aren't as efficient heat generators, but let me heat selectively the spaces I'm using instead of the whole place.

A natural gas water heater is hard to beat. Space heating with gas would cost less than the heat pump too, but I don't spend enough for it to matter.

Cheers, James Arthur

Speakign of cold.. here's what happened when I took my iPad out of the trunk last week (when it was really cold outside)- that's condensation on the display:

I kind of doubt enough moisture got inside to affect the temperature sensor- they're pretty well sealed and this was immediate. So either there's a programming bug or they just decided to give the cool down message for any out-of-range temperature.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

We have some double-pane windows in Truckee, with bad seals. I was considering drilling a small hole in the glass to let the condensation escape. Inside or outside? I'm thinking outside.

Den mandag den 23. februar 2015 kl. 19.33.01 UTC+1 skrev John Larkin:

yeh I think outside, if inside the hot inside air will condense on the cold outside pane

but the window will get hazy after a while

-Lasse

Outside, if they're under the eaves. Otherwise you'll pump water into the space in cold weather. Same principle as the vapour barrier in house insulation--it goes on the warm-in-winter side.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs