DIY Rocket Mass Heater DVD

• cheap to run. About a tenth the cost of natural gas, electric or conventional wood heat.
• clean. They emit about a hundredth of the smoke of a conventional wood stove.
• good for the environment. Less than 2% of CO2 emissions of natural gas or electric heat. Can reduce your carbon footprint as much as parking 7 cars.
• sustainable. It uses a renewable fuel which is easy to find and store.
• cheap to build. About US$200 to US$600.
• quick to build. Often built in a weekend
• luxuriant. Like the luxury of a heated floor but without all that standing.

If a person was going to get just one DVD, this would be the one. A cob style rocket mass heater is “the old reliable”. We have two projects to demonstrate this technique. One in a log home and one in a tipi. We put one in a tipi as part of an experiment to test how warm a person can be with a rocket mass heater and zero insulation. We interview the couple that stayed in the tipi for the first winter, with a strong focus on how comfortable they were when it was 26 degrees below zero (-32ºC).

We will show the construction of three pebble style rocket mass heaters. The difference with these is that the mass is usually a wood bench filled with pebbles and rocks. A different aesthetic. These designs are (relative to cob style) easy to move and modify. They also tend to be lighter, thus, better for installing in places that have a wood floor.

The kickstarter from two years ago showed an early prototype. We were certain that by the time the video came out, people could buy a shippable core and plug it in. In the time that has passed, that didn’t happen. We ended up releasing a variety of information on how to make your own – and now, in this video, we supply the “how to” video for a variety of techniques.

Last fall we put on an event where Ernie and Erica invited several rocket mass heater innovators that they thought were the best in the world. Each innovator was provided with the materials to create whatever they wanted. The results were: “the ring of fire” – a rocket mass heater shaped in a circle with glass to show the burn; an outdoor rocket mass heater/cooker/smoker; A “batch box style” rocket mass heater with measured output cleaner than anything we have ever encountered; an indoor rocket stove, griddle and water heater.