Rocket Mass Stove Prep For Winter

Yes. That is a metal drum in our home. And our only source of heat.

We've had our rocket mass stove for over a year now, built it ourselves, and were beyond happy about its performance last year. We would fire it up usually in the evenings about 4pm, burn wood for 2-4 hours depending on the temp outside, and then let it burn out before we went to bed. The grain bin stayed warm (65-70 F) for the next 20 hrs or so. The sticks we burn are all scrap wood from our 7 acres and no wider than three inches so they fit in the burn chamber well. If you like to see more details about our rocket mass stove, the ducts in our concrete floor and how we built our sole heating system, please go HERE.

Of course the system was not absolutely error free, we had some issues with steam leakage between the joints of the stove pipe leading up out of the concrete floor and then outside. You can easily see the drippage on the pipes, on the wall behind the stove pipe, and on the floor.



The wall of course made me sad, being newly painted surfaces, so on a day when the stove was not being used we caulked those joints well. or so we thought. The leakage was less, but did not stop. It was times like that, when we were still in rocket mass stove learning curve mode, that I was very happy for the concrete floor. It was already ugly, so I tried not to fret the additional scarring done with the stove pipe oozing. I'll just paint the area around the pipe, and the wall again, later.

This summer we considered taking all the stove pipe above the concrete apart and reinstalling, but life got too busy when we had to deal with managing two farms. That story is HERE. So as winter is breathing down our necks, we decided to try another approach. I did some internet research and we agreed to purchase this Rescue Tape.

 This stuff is very weird. Not all all sticky to the touch, and you have to pre-stretch it before wrapping the stove pipe joints, but it does stick to itself. Hopefully it will seal up our seepage issues which primarily seem to come from the bend in the pipes.



We won't know how effective it will be until we fire up the stove for the first time this year. Last year Lift Off  Day was Nov. 15 and with the weather still being quite mild here in Illinois, we may even go beyond that day this year. When it is warm outside we open windows and let the sun heat the inside of the grain bin and the concrete floor. Around 4 when temps start to drop we just close everything up and the inside stays very comfortable, even on the nights when we did get a bit of frost.




The area between the rocket mass stove and the wall, just under the window is where I put my winter clothes drying rack, but for now I'm still happily drying clothes out on the line. The metal rack (pic on the right) was found at yet another thrift shop for only $15. Keith raised it another 24 inches by attaching some extra metal pipes he had lying around, so now there is storage on both the four shelves as well as underneath.

Stay tuned for Rocket Mass Stove Lift Off  2016 !