Our House

Riser in place and base for barrel in the works Working through the exhaust port detail Mocked up exhaust port Making sure the barrel is properly supported With barrel added and fire started Nice clean burn, good draft Without an insulated riser, once the barrel warmed up, draft was lost and smoke-back was unfixable Knocked apart when the test was over

Last weekend I attended a rocket mass heater workshop put on by Ernie Wisner and Erica Ritter.  I learned SO much!  You cannot imagine!  I’m going to try and cover a very small portion of what I learned.

I learned I will not be able to use all the lovely free stainless steel ducting in the construction of my rocket mass heater.  Some I will re-purpose to improve air circulation between rooms.  Whatever I have left won’t go to waste.  You know me, I’ll find a use for it.

I spent the night at Ernie and Erica’s on the RMH bench in their living room.  My hips loved the heat.

My RMH requirements are a bit out of the norm, so I took my parts with me to do a bit of testing to see where I would have issues.  The whole process was extremely educational.  The pics on the left are thumbnails.  You’ll need to click the thumbnail to see the detail.

In addition to the four paying attendees was an awesome and ever changing group of young people known collectively as “the legs”.  You will see bits of them in the photos of my rocket mass heater test.

I’ll post more later.

I’ve been reading up on tempered glass.  I found a forum that talked about fixing thermopane windows with a broken seal and one of the contributors to the forum described what he thought might be a way to determine if glass was tempered by using a flash camera at night.  It seems tempered glass reflects/refracts light differently.

Because we have LOTS of glass . . . full windows, panes, parts of panes (the broken ones are easy to tell, no testing necessary), having a reliable way to test a pane to see if it’s tempered is a must.

Tempered glass

This is the way tempered glass reflects/refracts the light. This is the sliding portion of the glass door in our living room.  Tempered glass returns the flash from the camera as a mini sun, round with a glowing corona. This one’s a bit tricky as it has a screen behind it. Click the image to enlarge.

Not tempered glass

The non-tempered glass shows a different, more ragged flash reflection with a ragged corona.

I think the process would have produced clearer results if I’d cleaned the window . . .

It’s still raining. I’ve got blossoms on my tomatoes and the sky is providing hail. Ah, spring.

We’re still pecking away at the sun porch.  We have two rafters up and I’m ready to put up the first course of glass and . . . <sigh> Wadly put the mounting mastic away and we can’t find it anywhere.  Next time he heads for town he’ll have to pick up another roll.

The butyl rubber aluminum clad tape came weeks ago.  I’ve taken apart the first window, removing the aluminum frame.  I’ve cut the support board at the bottom and the support board for the top of the window.  I’m as ready as I can get.

We have had fairly consistent rain for weeks now.  We’re still pecking away at the sun porch but just as things dry out enough to make working on the project feasible, the sky opens again and we’re blessed with another bout of liquid sunshine.  I purchased the butyl rubber tape I need for sealing the joints and I have the windows selected for the first vertical course, two panels that are ~34″ wide and ~76″ long.  Terry bought the pressure treated lumber for the stringers and I’ll get the first set of stringers cut to length, beveled and notched as soon as the rain lets up.  I need the rain to stop and all the exposed framing to dry out enough to continue the construction.

I scored some stainless flue liner to act as the thermal mass ducting for my rocket mass heater.  This is pricey stuff and I am absolutely delighted I was able to find some free.  Now I’m waiting a nod and smile from the rocket mass heater geeks in the forum

I haven’t been posting.  My apologies.  I screwed up my neck and the result was ugly.  I’m getting better.  Now that Wadly’s done with his summer job, we’ll work around the weather to get more stuff done.

Terry and I got the posts and foundation in for the south wall of the bedroom.  As this is also the north wall of the sun porch, this is progress.  Not as much progress as either of us would like, but progress. We also picked up the additional lumber we’ll need for framing in the sun porch.  I still have to buy a new bit for the router so I can route in window openings.  Most of that I will do on the table saw or in situ with the skill saw, so that purchase can wait until the framing’s complete.

I still haven’t rounded up the 8″ stove pipe I need for the rocket mass heater.  I also haven’t worked at it very hard.  I can’t do much on that project until the sun porch is in.  Wadly is really resistant to the thermal mass run going along the wall so I’m going to wrap it into the corner around the radiating tank.  It won’t do quite as good a job heating but it will still be a huge improvement on our little radiant heaters.  The catalytic heater stopped functioning properly when we weathered in the break between the airstream and the living room.

We’re currently working on a full length awning over the garden window and door at the west end of the living room to replace the 8′ awning we moved from the slider (making room for the sun porch).  This job is a must as without it, that end of the building has no protection and we have no place to stand out of the weather while getting the door opened.  The 8′ awning was great but we really need one that spans the full length of the building.  We should have that done today.  We disassembled the 8′ awning the day before yesterday and got the framework for the new awning up yesterday.  Today we’ll get it roofed . . . assuming it doesn’t rain.

I was going to have Wadly cut a 8′ piece of metal roofing in half lengthwise to cover the top 6″ of the awning but I have just had a brighter idea.  I’m going to use billboard vinyl.  It will let in the light but still protect the garden window and door from glare.  Brilliant idea!  It will also make a softer transition to the polycarbonate.

One further plan for this winter.  We need to move the power from the pump house, which is going to be torn down and rebuilt, to its permanent location on the barn (which is now mostly weathered in and functioning as Wad’s shop).  I’d like to get that done before I have to change the power in the living room to make room for the rocket mass heater.  Moving the power in the living room is easy, it’s two 4-gang boxes connected by a 6′ length of conduit.  I have to move them down the wall quite a bit and swap the power connection from one end to the other.  Not a big thing, but it’s got to happen.

Wadly and his brother got the east end of the living room leveled and properly blocked.  Next I’ve got to get the 4×6 that runs under the living room just beyond the new blocking set on permanent supports . . . then the next one and the next one and then . . . tada! the other end of the living room.  All this is supposed to happen before winter but I’m not holding my breath.  Now that Wadly’s working six days out of seven not much will get done.  It’s either money or progress, never both.

The goal is to have the south wall of the new bedroom constructed and the sun porch and rocket mass heater in before winter.  At the rate we’re going I don’t see that happening, but we may surprise us.  Ya never can tell.

Wadly’s brother is here today getting the east end of the living room building properly supported.  Once this is done I can get going on the foundation for the south wall of the bedroom/north wall of the sun porch.  Wahoo!

Wadly and his brother built a roof over the Airstream to keep the rain and sun off.  One side of the roof is fastened to the living room, the other rests on posts and pier blocks.  The lumber came from left overs and recycled bits from the carports Wadly disassembled when he was preparing to move his shop. The new roof is put together with screws so it can easily be taken apart.  The roofing is a combo of green and creme, channeled and ripple, but it’s gonna keep us cool/warm/dry and it’s temporary.  From a distance it doesn’t look too bad . . . <grin>

Just today Wadly filled the roof vents of the Airstream (a HUGE source of heat loss) with foam and screwed solid covers on.  We’re having a spate of cooler weather and I can already feel a difference.  I won’t appreciate it so much during the bits of warmer weather, but I can’t blame Wadly for not wanting to wait until fall.  It doesn’t get that warm here that we will be uncomfortable during the rest of the summer.

I’ve been excavating the new bedroom location.  Wadly used Terry’s excavator to do the rough digging and I’ve been doing the clean-out and leveling.  I’ve had to stop and wait for Wadly and his brother to reblock the end of the living room.  I have to excavate under the corner of the living room for the bedroom foundation and the current blocking has the support right at the corner.  That won’t work.  If I undercut it the living room will have nothing supporting that corner.  Support first, dig after.

I’m getting a little antsy for having to wait so long so I’m going to work on digging more of the foundation.  I can get the other two sides of the foundation dug and start prepping the rubble trench.