Why Are Rocket Stoves Superior?
A quiet revolution is taking place in the world of wood burning stoves. In recent years firebox design has improved enormously due to more restrictive EPA rules on efficiency and emissions. To compete in the modern market a wood burning stove has to do a lot more than just burn firewood!
Unfortunately modern wood burning stove designs simply can’t get past the fact that a simple metal wood stove only throws out heat while it is lit. Once that fire is out temperatures rapidly fall and the winter chill sets back in again. To stay nice and snug you need to keep that fire fed continuously, an impractical proposition for anyone with a day job.
Fortunately there are some very clever people out there coming up with some equally ingenious (and simple!) ways to improve on the traditional wood stove. Cue thermal mass and the cob bench rocket stove.
The principals behind using thermal batteries to help smooth out variations in household air temperature are straightforward to explain and understand Generally heavy things can hold more heat than light things thus when a heavy thing gets hot it stores heat, which it can later release into its surroundings. You are used to this from on a summers evening – stone or brickwork which has been in the sun stays hot for a long time after hours later.
The larger the thermal battery you can heat up, and the hotter it gets, the more heat it can store. By incorporating thermal mass into the design of wood stoves we can store the intense heat provided by a hot wood fire and release it gradually over many hours into the home. This basically ‘smooths out’ temperatures – your living area stays warmer while the fire is out and doesn’t get uncomfortably hot while lit.
Even better than that, because we can let the fire burn at its fiercest, for short periods of time it also burns at its cleanest. This in practice ensures that no smoke will ever be produced.
Various different designs of wood stove that include thermal mass have been developed. These include large brick structures with a central firebox core, soapstone stoves which include relatively small pieces of soapstone around a firebox, and rocket stoves with a large cob bench.
While they each have their merits rocket stoves are my personal favourite – with some enthusiasm, a long weekend and a few dollars worth of raw materials you can make a rocket stove that will heat your home, reduce your demand for firewood and also be a unique piece of furniture or even part of the very fabric of your home.
Cob building is a type of construction where damp clay, sand and straw are hand moulded into place. In the case of a rocket stove a large mass of cob is constructed around a long length of horizontal flue. This cob mass may be built into the floor, part of a wall or even a comfortable bench or sofa in your sitting room. Your imagination is the limit as cob can literally be sculpted into any shape you and think of!
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