10/1:
It was the best of days..... and it was, well, the best of days! Spent the first half of the day preparing for the arrival of event attendees and instructors. There are certainly some interesting folks here, but it was a pleasure meeting them and hearing about their interests and backgrounds.
I got placed im charge of starting the rocket mass water heater for the showers. I made it my sole duty to get the water above 140° F to make sure it was safe to use. It took a steady effort but I got it going very efficiently and burning cleanly!
You likely can't tell but this fire is burning laterally! Burning through an "L" shaped burn chamber leading into a water heater chamber that coils around the water supply heating up cob material to create a thermal mass! It's pretty amazing! It uses such little firewood to maintain and produces no smoke from the chimney stack! Truly incredible low tech!
Chamber leading to the stack:
Vertical stack leading to the heating barrel:
Water heating barrel insulated with cob and wrapped in metal to protect from the elements:
The smokeless stack that exhausts almost like a dryer vent actually:
Finally the connections of water feeding into the heater and the temperature gauge to evaluate it's safety:
It will be my duty during the event to maintain this equipment and make sure it gets drained in the event of a freeze. The LAST thing we want are frozen water pipes! 😬🥶
Aside from the pyrotechnic fun times, I upgraded my camping game!
Probably should have started setting it up a little earlier, but I had to grab a bite of goulash that our cook, Emilia, prepared for us!
I also snagged a queen size cot; complete with blow-up mattress! However, I think I'll just blow it up tomorrow to tired to worry about that now 😴
But before that I needed a shower and to stop off at the Duke of Permaculture's "Duke Cave" (A.K.A. the library)
Anyway, that's all for now!
Catch ya next time!
- Will