We cover the foundations of rocket stove building at every Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course we host. Upcoming Courses
Whereas wood gasification turns wood scrap into a flammable gas to run engines (generating electricity power and heat), a thermal mass rocket stove simply turns scrap wood into heat…. lots of heat…with a lot less wood!!! So, we have included them in our overall design, especially for Earthcamp Village, because they are: - Relavtively simple to understand, construct and use
- Inexpensive to build
- Beautiful, functional and warm.
- Fueled from current sunlight (i.e. wood)
- Very…very… efficient at converting wood into clean heat!
Bottomline: They burn 1/4 of the wood to generate the same heat from a conventional wood stove and the outgases are 90% cleaner as well. The Key? They burn the wood, smoke and gasses at very high temperatures…SAFELY! |

The exhaust system of Bev and Wayne’s stove before cobbing it over into a bench for heat extraction. More pictures at bottom of this post.
Thermal Mass Rocket Stoves Explained
Not long ago, our friends and neighbors, Bev and Wayne, started to build a thermal mass rocket stove in their living room. Wayne took one of our PDC courses and was inspired by the rocket stove concept (See the illustration and links below).
Bev and Wayne have been sharing their adventure with us and we are very excited about the possibilities.
Imagine having a wood burning stove in your home that:
- Burns less than 1/4 the amount of wood you typically burn
- Keeps you as warm or warmer
- Allows you to easily burn sticks, twigs and branches instead of just large chunks of firewood.
- Burns cleaner than any wood stove ever made
The big thing for us, living here on the prairie in Illinois surrounded not by woods or forests but by corn and bean fields, is the very real shortage of easily available firewood.
What I am talking about are the large hardwood trees with trunks and large branches which are typically chainsawed to length and then split to fit into a wood burning stove. All of this tonage of wood then needs to be hauled out of the woods, dumped or stacked somewhere, then loaded back into a truck for delivery to be driven to someone’s home (a lot more energy) and then unloaded and stacked again for winter use.
Continue reading “Thermal Mass Rocket Stoves on our Minds…”