My two greatest uses f resources are transportation and heat. Heat for climate comfort, heat for water, heat for cooking. Using biomass (i.e. wood) keeps me within the current carbon cycle. Wood heat does have some other issues such as pollution and deforestation. That is why I am experimenting with the rocket stove. It is a highly efficient design that uses a small amount of dropped wood. I eventually plan to work on adaptations for space heating. A number of rocket stove designs are available on the internet by doing a basic search. Here is the one that I built.
Materials: 23 bricks, oven grate, stove burner grate (opt)
1) Clear the space of flammable materials and level the space.
2) Lay out the first course of bricks as shown. 5 bricks are for the stove, the other is a spacer.
3) Place the oven grate on top of the first course of bricks.
4) Place the second course of bricks in a U on top of the grate as shown.
5) Lay out the rest of the bricks to create a chimney of 4 bricks each course. Make the chimney at least 3 courses high. 4 or 5 courses would be better.
6) Build your fire on top of the grate and feed it into the box.
I used extra bricks instead of a burner grate to set my pot on but a burner grate would have worked better. There has to be a gap between the pot and the chimney of the stove for air flow for the rocket stove to work right. It took about 15 minutes to bring 1 inch of water in a coffee can to boiling but the rocket stove did not like damp wood.
