Thermal mass for rocket stove/heater

[Gareth0123]

A friend has asked me to make a rocket mass stove/heater for the boat he and his girlfriend live on.

So, has anyone any ideas of a cheap and readily available thermal mass filler media for a woodburning rocket stove made from an old 13kg propane gas bottle?

Crushed storage heater bricks would be ideal, but it is going to be a horrendous amount of work breaking them down with a hammer into pieces the size of peas and smaller.

I have tried vermiculite in the past, but this is an insulator and absolutely useless for storing and radiating heat after the stove has either gone out or been extinguished.

 

[Parm]

how about some kiln dried sand ??

Also please post up some pictures of the build

 

[rtbcomp]

Maybe glass? It can be bought in all sizes, try http://www.stacey-processing.com They may even have some other suitable material.

 

[gaz1]

forget the gas bottle route you can build them it will move enough but 13kg is too small for a rocket the mass of air is ackward to move

what you can use is pea gravel and t2h rocket stove small but good enough if you want to make it better you need radiator fins or even tubing inside of it so more air is moved around

built for a narrowboat

t2h system

just needs vents to make it better my new system is based on that design but will have internal tubes and also vents to further transfer the heat to moving air

alot of us are pushing at better wood burning at start of the firebox preheating the primary air is the way to go by getting near the purple flame off the wood

thermal mass

 

[Gareth0123]

Thank you for the replies.

As a thermal mass I think we have a winner that has been suggested to me. I've just got to talk to my friends, Hannah & Isaac about the way I would like to proceed .... it's their boat and therefore their decision. If we do go ahead I'll keep you posted with the project's progress.

 

[gaz1]

a 13kg bottle rocket stove the rights belong to the owner of the pics but thankyou for posting them



whilst pretesting it



the owner has now gone on to make a bigger version of the rocket stove