The rocket stove takes our fascination with fire and bends it 90 degrees. It’s a hyper efficient wood stove that uses far less wood to get a far more effective result, whether it’s heating or cooking.
It grew out of efforts in developing countries to build a more fuel efficient, safer cooking stove and it has since morphed into an idea that could eventually replace your furnace. But for Ianto Evans, a natural builder, architect and ecologist from Oregon in the United States who was involved in the development of the rocket stove, that wasn’t enough. He wanted to use the same ideas that were being put to use in the rocket stove for heating.
Enter the rocket mass heater. With a couple of adaptations you get a heating appliance that can comfortably heat almost any space and use much less wood than a conventional wood burning stove.
Do-it-yourselfers can build a rocket mass heater for between $200 to $400 depending on how many of the materials you scrounge. All you need are refractory or fire bricks, regular brick, conventional oil and gas pipe cut to size, a large metal barrel, a large amount of clay and sand to make cob and a bunch of friends to help out.
How efficient is a rocket mass heater? There are only anecdotal comparisons, but, Ianto Evans says in his book, Rocket Mass Heaters: Superefficient Woodstoves YOU Can Build, that when he switched from a small woodstove to a rocket mass heater he went from using four to five cords of wood per winter to about two thirds of a cord with a rocket mass heater.
You can learn more about them in the video below…
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