Damus
rev.hodl profile picture
rev.hodl
@rev.hodl
Now that transaction fee storm has passed I'm back to heating my living space primarily with wood in a rocket mass heater instead of Asics.

Wood is burned in the small firebox and heat radiates from the barrel warming the space quickly while the fire burns.

As the exhaust gasses make their way to the chimney, they pass through ductwork in a plywood box filled with pea gravel.

The majority of the heat from the exhaust is transfered to the gravel before exiting up the chimney. By the time the gases exit the box, they are cool enough for me to put my hand on the chimney pipe.

After the fire burns out, the heat absorbed by the pea gravel slowly radiates out into the living space until the next fire is burned and the gravel is recharged with heat once again. I built this rocket mass heater for a fraction of the cost of a wood burning insert, with no special tools, materials, or skills.

It has been an unusually warm November and December here at the homestead. Normally we have to start burning wood in the rocket mass heater early November to stay comfortable but this year, the bitcoin mining dehydrator was enough to stay warm and do some food preservation simultaneously.


Transaction fees started climbing and I was shocked to see the most efficient miner I had approaching break even at my electric rate.


I didn't have the circuit to run it wired yet but this bump in fees was the motivation I needed to get the miner hashing. Coincidentally, the weather also started to get colder finally so getting the miner up and running was a win/win.

It successfully kept us and our guests warm through the holidays, even earning some Bitcoin beyond the cost of power at times, all while allowing us to save our firewood.

We did have to fire up the rocket mass heater a handful of times, but so far we've burned less than half the amount of wood compared to previous years. This is thanks to the combination of the warm weather, and high transaction fees allowing us to stay warm with heavily subsidized electric heat.

This might be the first winter we make it through with wood leftover for the next year, typically I'm scrounging for the last couple weeks.

#permaculture #permies #homesteading #selfsovereignty #meshtadel #rocketmassheater #woodburner #bitcoin #bitcoinmining #plebminer #rmh #grownostr
3819❤️35🤙24🔥5❤️3👀3💜3
Flemingfarm · 144w
I've got the plans and most of the materials for the rocket I want to build in my greenhouse. I need to source 100+ ft of stove pipe to bury though for soil heat. Your setup looks killer!
Lighthouse · 144w
How does the heat travel horizontally?
CiderMaker · 144w
Extremely high quality note 👌👍
IdahoPuma · 144w
Cool, how long did it take to build?
Mark Camper · 144w
Nice work, Rev! The setup reminds me of the old Czech kitchen stoves (Austria, Bavaria had the same ones - kachelofen). They usually build a stove top over the fire for cooking & tile up the rest. And mainly, build a day bed of sort and benches around the ducts. It's famously a very popular lazy s...
Badsamm · 144w
Love it.
LightningSpore · 144w
I am here for this content!
PaddleManJoe · 144w
Is it hard to scrape the ash out of that tight little J-Box?
brah · 144w
Yo for some reason I thought the rocket mass heaters were like a conspiracy theory or something- I stumbled on reading about them last year and they seem much more efficient than wood stoves but I’ve never seen one in real life They burn less would and radiate heat longer but at lower temps than ...
jb55 · 143w
Very cool!
Gigi · 143w
Oh wow. Thanks for sharing!
Artur · 143w
Wow! I’m going down the Rocket Mass Heater rabbit hole on YouTube 🤩🤯 Love it 💜
Mr. Fred Rogers · 143w
I love Bitcoiners.
Swan Tea · 143w
Wow. So cool. I love Nostr people, so resourceful.
NoSerfdom · 143w
So cool hot*
nostrich · 143w
Steam punk!
Bill Monroe · 137w
This is super cool. Never seen one with pea gravel before. Usually I just see the ones with cob around the pipes.
noobslayer69 · 10h
Thanks for sharing. Thermal mass is the bomb. That's why when I build a house I always use lath and plaster to jack up the mass. Man, it helps with temp swings.
1776 · 10h
Fouch family claims they cut their firewood consumption by 75% using a RMH. And the labour that goes with it. I hope to employ one of these one day.
Laser · 9h
How many cords do you typically go through?