Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2007 00:45:52 -0800 (PST)
From: John Fisher <fishermasonry(at)yahoo.com>
Subject: Rocket stove
To: Norbert Senf <mheat(at)heatkit.com>
Hi Norbert,
(snip)
Have you met Antoine Guerlain? He worked with me
for a month here in Sweden. He's a smart kid and a
good worker. A real wood-burning nerd.
While he was here we went to Denmark to meet
Sjang van Daal. Sjang is a Dutch expatriate who is
developing a masonry heater kit around the principles
of Ianto Evans' rocket stove. It looks quite
promising.
As you and I discussed at Alex's, if you
keep the fuel stack cool by running the combustion air
down over it and only combust at one small throat
where all the gases must pass and therefore mix well,
it seems that combustion is pretty clean by nature.
Gravity keeps the fuel arranged for this
point-specific "cigar burn".
Then there is an enhanced
short stack which Evans calls "heat riser". It is at
least half again as high as the woodbox (fuel loader).
In my ideal world this would be a thin chamotte tube,
superinsulated with very little mass. Then , only
after this super-controlled, optimal combustion
chamber, are the gases (by then clean) allowed to dump
heat into a contraflow mass and eventually a bell or
two.
Sjang and Antoine are both super guys who I hope you
can someday meet.
greetings to Leila,
best,
john f
Sjang van Daal loads the firebox of his prototype, Denmark. Antoine Guerlain observes.
Facing is a clay and hemp parge 20 to 30 mm thick.
