The first way of building a simple one was doing out of existing materials and when I saw the 4 Besser block method it tore down the barriers in building one...
Because we had besser blocks at Howes Valley! And it looked simple enough to build.
But we made something better (but without the fantastic grate that is in the video above) out of materials we had on the property. We had left over flue from our fireplace extension and we had clay / mud and besser blocks. Because we didn't have the "H" style block (that's the one you can't see in the image above) we just shored it up with pavers and mud. If you were to do a more permanent solution you would want to insulate it but as a test run this was perfect. And took us about oh.. 3 minutes to build? Maybe 5 by the time we went back and forth from the dam with some clay.
Here's our attempt:
Yes we made the kettle boil!
Really don't need too much in kindling
It was fairly smokey at first
This was early on when I could take this shot. After a little while (esp after we filled the gaps) the flames would get to the top of the chimney!
So with some measly twigs we could make this simple 'stove'. I'm now thinking how we can incorporate it as a mass heater and build it somewhere (neatly!) into our home -- once we have one of course!
No comments:
Post a Comment