Rocket Stove

Madrone house has a rocket stove, it is a special kind of wood stove, not a regular metal box stove, nor a fire place. It is way more efficient and heats the bench as well as the air in the room so it stays warm longer, plus you can sit on a warm bench.

The way it works is air is drawn in through the top of the barrel used to put the wood in, the fire is in that barrel and in the tunnel between it and the larger barrel, then the heat rises up inside the larger barrel which has two layers with insulation around the middle one to keep the gases very hot which makes the stove draw air in better and makes the burn cleaner, then the hot air goes down between the outside of the inner tube and the barrel then out a pipe running through the bench then up the stove pipe out of the house. We ran it once, it has been pretty warm, Michael who had a stove like this in the past helped me start it, it is quite fussy. When we went out to see what was coming out the stove pipe you couldn't really see anything, no smoke, which means it was burning very well and cleanly. Not only does it burn very efficiently and cleanly it keeps the heat inside the house, most stoves need to let lots of heat out up the chimney to make the stove draw air in and burn well, the rocket stove uses the heat riser inside the large barrel to do that instead. Since it heats the bench which has a high thermal mass so keeps the heat for a while, you can keep a room warm for a lot longer then the stove it running. Also the clay and sand mass around the barrel gets warm and radiates heat into the room, and the barrel gets hot enough to heat water or cook on.

It is really strange, you expect smoke to rise from a fire but although the top of the small barrel surrounding the fire was open no smoke went into the room, and the flames burned sideways, towards the channel going into the other barrel and the heat riser, not up. For more information on Rocket Stoves check out www.rocketstoves.com