How Much Water Is in Your Chimney?

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StokerDon
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Post by StokerDon » Sat. Apr. 25, 2015 8:20 pm

A few years ago I did a lot of playing around with Rocketstoves. A Rocketstove is basicly an open firebox attached to a chimney. It is a draft machine! That makes it sensitive to chimney hight and chimney insulation.

Last fall I removed the 6" stainless chimney from my garage and installed an 8" stainless chimney. So I had this 6" just lay'in around since October. My current Rocketstove had a concrete block chimney, no insulation and only about 6 feet or so high. I today I removed most of the block and set a 9 foot section of 6" insulated pipe on top of the block.
RocketSteamer 004.JPG
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I needed to burn some leaves ( I always need to burn leaves where I live!) so, in they went and I lit it up. I was not expecting to see this!
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That's NOT smoke, its STEAM and lots of it!
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The steam was hissing and pouring out of every seam in the pipe! This went on for over 2 hours until it calmed down. It looked like a Saturn 5 Rocket fuelled up and ready for launch. Somehow the insulation must have gotton wet? I wonder what my 8" pipe is like?

Oh, the Rocketstove works great with this chimney!
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Hard to believe there was that much water in it!

-Don


 
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windyhill4.2
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Post by windyhill4.2 » Sat. Apr. 25, 2015 9:11 pm

I despise the smell of leaves or grass burning !! I wish you were closer,you could just dump them near our garden,leaves make a wonderful mulch,great soil improver,we generally put our leaves on our asparagus patch.

 
grumpy
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Post by grumpy » Sat. Apr. 25, 2015 9:24 pm

Hard to believe there was that much water in it!
There is a saying and it apply's to everything.. water always wins..

 
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McGiever
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Post by McGiever » Sun. Apr. 26, 2015 9:43 am

SD, now you only need to whip up a "leaf stoker" to feed into the rocket stove. :P

 
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StokerDon
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Coal Size/Type: Rice, Chestnut and whatever will fit through the door on the Harman
Other Heating: Noth'in but COAL! Well, Maybe a little tiny bit of wood

Post by StokerDon » Sun. Apr. 26, 2015 7:37 pm

Hummm,,, leaf stoker, I like that! I killed about 10 Billion leaves today, and some junk wood. This thing drafts like WOW! It's a lot of fun. I will try some Chestnut coal in it at some point. If I could get Bit around here I would like to try that too.
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The neat thing about the Rocketstove is it burns everything at such a high temp there is no smoke left, burns nice and clean. If you over load it with leaves, it will belch black then white smoke for a few seconds and then, back to clean!
I tried to catch some of the black in this photo.
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I put on a few more corses of block to support the chimney today. There is no morter or anything, just gravity.

-Don
Last edited by StokerDon on Sun. Apr. 26, 2015 7:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

 
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lsayre
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Post by lsayre » Sun. Apr. 26, 2015 7:39 pm

The real question is: How did you get water between the walls of your double-wall chimney sections?

 
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StokerDon
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Post by StokerDon » Sun. Apr. 26, 2015 9:05 pm

AND, is there any water in my current chimney? I don't know.

-Don


 
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StokerDon
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Post by StokerDon » Sun. May. 03, 2015 7:53 pm

Today I got to try some Chestnut coal in the Rocketstove. I loaded about 30 pounds in the bottom, put a coffee can full of charcoal in front of it. Then I started a wood fire on top of that.
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You can see the fire rocketing tward the chimney.
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Once it got going, I put about 30 more pounds on top.
CoalInRocketStove 003.JPG
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It doesn't have a grate or anything so I filled it up to block off the hole as much as possible. Then I put on my combustion blower.
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That's a lot of hot coal in there! I through in a bit more anyway.
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After about 5 hours I through a few logs on. It's still going now 8 hours after I started it.
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My combustion blower didn't fair to well.
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All in all, it was a good time!

-Don

 
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Post by Lightning » Sun. May. 03, 2015 8:00 pm

Why did you wanna burn coal in it?

 
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StokerDon
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Post by StokerDon » Sun. May. 03, 2015 8:20 pm

Because it was there!

And it was fun. And just to see if I could. I don't think I'm going to make a habit of it though. It doesn't burn very well in this thing but, it does burn!

-Don

 
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Post by davidmcbeth3 » Sun. May. 03, 2015 8:22 pm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combustion

I wonder where all that steam came from hmmm....LOL

Nice pics ... I would move it closer to that oil tank though ... a chunk of burning leaves, whoosh! Bam, Ka-bam, thank you ma'am.

 
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Post by freetown fred » Sun. May. 03, 2015 9:54 pm

Don, ya got no cap on that abortion do ya????????????????????

 
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Post by davidmcbeth3 » Sun. May. 03, 2015 10:41 pm

freetown fred wrote:Don, ya got no cap on that abortion do ya????????????????????
fred is feeling a little but better LOL

 
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StokerDon
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Coal Size/Type: Rice, Chestnut and whatever will fit through the door on the Harman
Other Heating: Noth'in but COAL! Well, Maybe a little tiny bit of wood

Post by StokerDon » Wed. May. 06, 2015 7:46 pm

freetown fred wrote:Don, ya got no cap on that abortion do ya????????????????????
No way Fred, no cap on this one. With this thing it's all about DRAFT!

At some point I'm going to build one with a LOT of insulation in the chimney. That will draft even more!

Hummm, I guess one of these days I need to hook up a manometer to this thing and find out how much draft it has?

-Don

 
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StokerDon
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Post by StokerDon » Wed. May. 06, 2015 7:50 pm

davidmcbeth3 wrote:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combustion

I wonder where all that steam came from hmmm....LOL

Nice pics ... I would move it closer to that oil tank though ... a chunk of burning leaves, whoosh! Bam, Ka-bam, thank you ma'am.
Well I guess its not in the picture but the propane tank is less than 6 feet from the Rocketstove. Once in a while, burning stuff comes shooting out the chimney and sometimes it goes over that way. That could make life a little more interesting!

-Don


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