Rocket mass heater workshop

I attended a rocket mass heater workshop last weekend.  It was fun and educational.  Seeing all the young people who want to live “green” was amusing!  Imagine them wanting to do the things I did growing up . . . living with wood heat, slaughtering their own meat, raising their own vegetables . . . really cute in a retro kind of way.  We did it growing up because we had to to survive.  These people are making it a life-style choice.  More power to ‘em.  I like raising my own veges, I like heating with wood.  I am drawing the line at going back to slaughtering my own food.  In my early years I had enough of that to last me a lifetime.  It’s enough to know I have the knowledge.  I can milk a cow, skin a deer, cut up pig, chicken, turkey and beef.  I have wrapped enough meat for the freezer.  At this point in my life, as long as I can comfortably afford to purchase my meat in tidy plastic wrapped packages at the local grocers, I’ll stick with that method of supplying my protein.

With the mirror over the sink the hinged wings of the mirror will be able to act as cupboard doors for the corner cupboards.

I’ll have to scale back the depth of the two corner cupboards, but that won’t be an issue.

The mirror has nice piano hinges holding the wings.  The frame of the mirror is not solid wood.  I think it might be press-board so I’ll have to sand the frame down really well, seal it with a good quality primer and paint it to ensure it holds up to moisture in its new position over our future bathroom sink.

Yesterday Wadly and I got the awning over the garden window and glass door to the deck covered with polycarbonate.  Progress!  The flashing’s on and most of the gutter.  I have a two foot section of gutter left to install as well as a down spout and some magic with billboard vinyl to handle end runoff.  The way it is now will greatly improve things, but it does need the final touches to finish it up.

I’m not expecting much more progress for a while.  Terry’s old boss called and wants Wadly to work part time.  <sigh>

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.

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.

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’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.