Rocket Heater for the Shop?????

11/20/2011

The truck pictured at the top of this blog is inspiration for the 41 Chevy COE I went to pick up last month. For the moment I've parked the 41 Chevy in my old shop and will tackle that project in due time. In the mean time we have plenty to do.

I've been mulling over and over in my head about what kind of heat to have in the shop. It is beginning to get cold and I'm going to need some heat in there. I want to move the New Mexi-Can into the shop to work on it this winter, and will need some warmth.

Last week after seeing them on the internet and researching, watching videos on youtube, I decided to build a rocket stove heater for the shop. The concept is that the air draws in at the top of the J-tube, pull the air and flame into the bottom of the J and up the chimney. It sort of gives it a blow torch effect which in turn, heats up the top of the outside barrel and radiates the heat to all the surrounding areas.

The cool thing about the rocket stove is that the exhaust gas out of the bottom of the heat chamber and out the exhaust tube is fairly cool, which makes the fire hazard from hot gases and sparks negligible.

The above is the J-tube I built. I added the barrel (which was an old piece of casing a friend had given me. Below is the j-tube with the outer barrel (casing) installed.

The only problem was it didn't work well enough to heat up our huge shop. So back to the drawing board.

After studying more, I decided I didn't make the chimney large enough. I probably should have used 8" pipe. But I don't really want to tear this one apart or make a larger one, so I'm trying to figure out how to make this one work. When I figure out a way to make it work for our needs I'll post it here.

Last week I also had to finish planting all our tulip bulbs. I had planted 200+/- tulips on the hill I built this past spring and had another 100 or so to plant. I thought I'd have some left for another bed I'm preparing but I used all of them on the hill. I think I've got 50 daffodils planted on the hill also. So, this coming spring it should be covered in blooms.

Patsi was in Hobbs last Wednesday when I was planting them. Realizing I would need some more for the other bed I'm preparing, I called her and asked her to stop by Lowe's to see if they still had some tulip bulbs on sale. They still had some and they were still on sale, only now they were on sale @ 85% off. So, she picked up another 200 tulip bulbs and another 100 daffodil bulbs.

Hopefully, we'll have a splash of color on the east side of our house come this spring.

It's Sunday and we just returned from a day trip to Albuquerque to visit with Patsi's brother, Stanley and his family. We had a great time visiting with Stan & Suki and even got to visit with Kiichi in Socorro on the way home. Kiichi is enrolled in New Mexico Tech studying materials engineering. This is his second semester and it has to be a killer one. He is taking 18 hours. I don't think he has any spare time at the moment.

Today I went to Hobbs to look for a burner so I could test the rocket stove out and see if it would work with a different type of fuel. I ended up buying a plain old weed burner. Got it home and had to go buy some propane so I could test it. When I got it all hooked up and lit the burner, it roared to life. The burner put out tons of heat. I had it blowing fire into the bottom of the j-tube and after 30 minutes the thermometer I had on top of the stove was at 550 degrees and climbing. The bottom of the j-tube was cherry red, so I believe this will heat the shop fairly well. I'll work on getting my waste oil burner built and try it also. At any rate, I should be able to have some heat in the shop when it really gets cold. Yea!!!!

We plan on spending Thanksgiving with family and more than likely eat toooooo muuuucccchhh!!!!

We wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving and all those that have to travel we pray you have a safe journey.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Until next time.....

Overthehump