ROCKET STOVE FOR HEATING YOUR SURVIVAL SHELTER!
So most of us have seen the typical little "rocket stoves" that efficiently cook food in the outdoors using very little fuel. You load twigs and sticks into the bottom side of the unit and the heat rises up the chimney and concentrates at the chimney opening where you can take advantage of that heat concentration by putting a kettle or a pot or pan on for boiling water or cooking. They typically look something like this:
Well, this same concept can be beefed up to create a heat source that you can not only cook from, but you can use it to heat your water, your bed, seating, and even your home!
But why would you want to do that? Wouldn't a fireplace do the trick? Well, sort of... but this method burns so much less fuel because it does the same job with less wood, burns the wood far more efficiently and completely! What does this mean? You have to invest far less time and energy processing firewood to keep you warm during the winter!!
I am fascinated by this concept at the moment because I have seen both the small portable versions of rocket stoves for cooking and have seen the larger home heating versions, but didn't really connect the two together in my mind as being so closely related. It's obvious to me now, but for some reason it wasn't before. These pumped up versions are referred to as Rocket Stove Mass Heaters. Here's how they work:
So... my question is this: Couldn't we potentially really tap into this concept in a post SHTF scenario? Absolutely we could, and I would really like to try a few experiments with this concept of my own. I have seen "super shelter" designs that allow heat from your camp fire to pass through the transparent plastic sheeting and then get trapped inside, but the downfall to this concept is that it is fairly inconvenient to add more fire to your fire in the middle of the night as you are nestled in your shelter and your heat source is outside of your shelter. The rocket stove concept could allow you far more safely and conveniently add fuel to your fire from inside your shelter, and your actual heat source could run directly through your shelter like duct work in your home!
Here are some fancier versions of what I am referring to, but could not a far more primitive version be fashioned from natural materials like clay, straw, stone, brick and dirt?? Absolutely!
