# Heating



## RoadRash

Ok propane heat will run out so will natural gas, I have wood stove to heat n cook on, but this will draw attention to me and BOL. The smell of a wood fire or smoke in the air will draw others to see what I have or not.
Cause this is the Great White North I need to heat at least 5 months out of year.
Need to find a way to hide smoke from chimney and mask smell.
Has anyone else thought of this?


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## LincTex

If you can, build a "rocket stove mass heater"

http://www.richsoil.com/rocket-stove-mass-heater.jsp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_mass_heater
A rocket stove mass heater or rocket mass heater, is an innovative and efficient space heating system developed from the rocket stove, a type of hyper-efficient wood-burning stove, named in the 70's, but dating back millennia in concept, and the masonry heater. Wood is gravity fed into a 'J shaped' combustion chamber, from where the hot gases enter a heavily insulated metal or fire-brick vertical secondary combustion chamber, the exhaust from which then passes along horizontal metal ducting embedded within a massive cob thermal store. The thermal store is large enough to retain heat for many hours and typically forms part of the structure of the building.

Burn the fire at night so no one sees the smoke/steam. There won't be much smoke if the fire is burned right.


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## LongRider

LincTex suggestion sounds like the optimum choice. Barring that a well lit and maintained fire in an efficient wood stove will minimize your exposure. A heat sink of any kind heavy layers of brick, rock or even steel around your wood stove will help reduce your need. More important is have your house checked for energy efficiency. Be sure all drafts are sealed. All windows double or triple paned gas filled. Be sure that around the window frames are well insulated a major source of heat loss in homes as well as all the doors well sealed. Add insulation to the exterior walls if need be or possible. One reason we built an enclosed heated porch was to provide a heat barrier from the outside. An option to running the wood stove at night is use propane sparingly during the day. Of course dress warmly you do not need to keep the house at 70 or 80 degrees as so many do. 65 or 60 is plenty comfortable if you dress properly. I had a friend mentor who lived all his life off grid. He got up at sunrise and went to bed when it got dark. Saved him a lot of heating/lighting expense and effort


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## Bobbb

Look into building a masonry heater. They're kind of like the rocket stoves that LincTex referenced but more heavy duty. What you have with these stoves is a lot of mass. You load up 30 lbs of wood, fire it and you burn it extremely hot because of the design of the fire chamber, which means that you get very little smoke and soot for the fire consumes something like 95% of the mass of the wood, which is considerably better than what you get with metal stoves. Hardly any heat escapes up the chimney instead it is absorbed by the many tons of stone or brick and the mass of the fireplace slowly releases the heat over the 24 hours.




























After you burn a load of wood, and even during the burning, you can sit on the fireplace or put your hand up against the bricks/stones and not get 3rd degree burns like you would with a metal stove. A metal stove simply doesn't have the heat absorption capacity to deal with efficient heat release so you get a super hot - rapid cooling cycle and this cycle isn't good for an efficient burn process - heat that can't be absorbed won't be and will go up your chimney, same with wood fuel that is only partially combusted.


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## LincTex

Ahhh... what a good cup of coffee will do...

Now that my brain is awake, there is also two other options:

Solar - you need a BIG water tank inside to store heated water and a LOT of collector area to catch the suns rays. There are lots of pros and cons to this system, but hey, it *IS* smokeless.

Pellet stoves - also pretty darn smokeless. 
But Geez... they need power and pellets. 
If you own a good solar array and batteries, a decent wood chipper, a hammer mill (to turn wood chips to sawdust) and a pellet mill (to make pellets) and a way to power all of it, you are set!!


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## mojo4

Nice design bobb!!! That is simething i can try to build in my home. Do you have plans or can i just find design plans online?


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## Sentry18

Two years ago we had our home re-insulted and our windows re-caulked. We have had several days of 40-50 degree temps outside and my house has never dropped below 64 even without the furnace on. But my only back up heating system involves a generator and electric heaters and propane tanks with heating elements, neither being a long term solution. A popular item around here are furnaces that burn corn cobs.


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## DJgang

We just put in a wood stove. I've not given much thought to smoke giving me away....I just want heat in the house for "free". Propane cost me over 2000.00 last year....,

Anyway, like sentry suggested, maybe insulate home really well....then stoke it up only at night...if it gets that bad you better have enough firearms and ammo or you won't make it long anyway.


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