I’m thankful for Paul for sharing his expiriences there is lots to learn from them.
My big take away was the amount of land required to be self sufficient for food growing without external inputs. I had done some research regarding the matter before we purchased our property, the conclusion of which was about an acre per person. Of course this depends on the type of soil, topography, climate, precipitation and most importantly what your diet will consist of. Mind you its not necessary to grow all ones food but as transportation becomes more expensive and intermittent we will need to be close to sustainable farms that we can trade with. Personally I’ve learnt a lot from Ben Falk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxPlrTJf1Oc in the permacultural/homesteading realms. I believe we need to be actively pursuing it but its by no means an easy path. It requires a ton of hands on work to start from scratch as we have and significant amounts of capital. Doing this switch is paramount.
QUOTE:
Chris Martensen : Meanwhile, my key takeaways from the Wheaton podcasts are these (coming in a longer piece too):
- Rocket mass stoves are a real thing, and worth exploring in detail
- Inputs to my garden from outside are not worth risking....
A small stove equipped with a small fan and some large mass surrounding it can surprise a lot of people. So can a well sized fireplace insert with good circulation.I've been wondering about that. I've got an existing wood stove. Thinking about just putting a bunch of bricks stacked up around it, wondering how much that might help? Retrofitting a masonry heater would not be impossible in my house, but with a full basement I'd either have to cut through the floor and build up from the basement slab, or put in massive strut supports of some kind (while also sistering the joists, I assume). So there must be some option in between "nothing" and "ten tons." Wondering if there's any math or real-world examples to draw upon here? Next, I would also once again support everyone getting a Sun Oven. I've been cooking with mine all summer and I can 100% vouch for this thing being a magic, energy saving (and time saving) device. Just put some stuff in there and come back at the end of the day and your meats are cooked to perfection. I know less about timed things, likes breads and cakes and such, I presume those take more baby sitting. I will be getting a small rocket stove per mthousepermi's use/recommendation for small tasks like heating up water for cooking. Those sound quite worth it too.
… But I wonder if there is any danger of building up more heat than the stove is designed for. We heated with a soapstone stove for many years and loved it.
Yes, I like many ways to heat food. I have 2 sun ovens because my household used to be larger. I have made alot of bread too, and it doesnt need as much babysitting as you would think, especially depending on where you angle to oven, in other words it can be in “preheat” mode for longer then higher heat later. It is very hard to burn things. You could overcook cookies, I would not put those in for all day, nor hard boiled eggs. But, soup and bread in the newer stacking pots they come with works great. The bread is a large enough mass. Even if not ideal, it is great. Another combo we used to do is soup in one and an apple crisp or similar in the other. I have been cooking in sun ovens for more than a decade.
I bought the rocket stove for emergency preparedness mostly, we have used it to heat a large granny ware canning pot full of water to dip chickens at slaughter and was amazed that it would heat such a large pot so well, we have done this a few times. SO that tests the useage of needing to make soup for a neighborhood in case of disaster, etc… Usually at my place the sun oven can be used or it is raining and I have a fire in the wood stove which can also be cooked on, but there could also be those in between days of overcast but not cold when such a cooking mode is needed. The rocket stove is of course more hands on than the sun oven as it needs to be fed.
I have seen many pictures of mass near a wood stove, even mine has the wall behind it that is tiled, and something like that can be thicker. Some people put cob actually attached to the woodstove, but that could change firing characteristics, so caution dont do too much if it is attached. I think the ones I have seen done that way are old woodstoves that are only a container for a fire. The modern wood stove, like the Lopi I have now you would absolutely not want to coat it with cob !
But, there is no reason not to add mass to the interior of the house. Mass holds heat. You can have it close to the wood stove, this will not change how your wood stove operates, even a modern one, if you mind the specs for space around it. SO, there is absolutely many points between all and nothing. distributed mass also holds heat of course, so a second layer of drywall added to walls, tile or poured concrete floors, heavy wooden furniture, tile/concrete/stone countertops, tiled showers vs plastic surround all add mass to the house, but I live in Ca. If your house overheats when exposed to one of your heat sources ( passive solar or wood stove) and then cools off too fast at night, add mass. No matter what is ideal, any and all mass will help. Also do the air infiltration and insulation things ( see build it solar web site ) of course.
Depending on your house layout, having some mass like a half wall by the woodstove for design or to set things on is usually very doable and nice, can be bricks or cob. Add mass to the wall behind it. You can easily earth plaster ( thin cob, same thing) the wall behind and other walls if you want, you paint the drywall with sand mixed into the primer to give it some bite ( you have to keep stirring it constantly) so then the mud will stick. Once the first layer of mud is on it is more compatible to thicker layers. So, one way to go if not much cash and if you want to move your easthetic that way.
https://inspirationalvillage.me/2011/12/14/building-a-small-cob-wall/
At least you would not want to do this to my Lopi. On the other hand, this could be done to the old Moso in my rental, as that one is just a cast iron box
Great comment Chris - I’ve wondered the same thing about the permaculture world. Maybe it’s the profound quality of the subject matter. Has anyone checked out lowtech magazine.com. A nice exploration of old and proven low energy systems and devices
This might be worth studying: http://batchrocket.eu/en/ It describes several rocket stove designs, all with a closed fireboxes. You don’t want the basic rocket design in a living room or kitchen, because of the poisonous fumes and smoke.
Building your own masonry-like batchrocket, using cob and old bricks can be very rewarding, beautiful and dirt cheap. Besides that, they are very clean and efficient.
Just do not use oil drums and cover them with cob, because the cob will crack over time. Big metal objects and cob should not be used together in heating devices.
Regards, DJ
I’m not sure how much mass you would need to make a difference. I do know that my chimney has 3 flues. The fireplace and the small stove are on the main floor on opposite sides of the chimney. The basement has a large stove which I only use when the high for the day is below 30 degrees or so which is about 5 to 6 weeks of the year.
Point is that the little stove upstairs (with a firebox of less than 1 and 1/2 cubic feet) is the only heating for the house 3/4 of the time. The wall behind it is the chimney faced with brick. Spacing is maybe 6 inches. It takes a little while but this wall eventually gets warm and moderates the temperature a good bit during the course of a 24 hour day. And this is not a tiny house.
I used 4 cord of wood last season in a pretty good sized farm house located in the Allegheny highlands at an elevation of 2900 feet. That’s probably a decent guide for a well built but decent sized house in a fairly cold place if you don’t skimp on wood. Could that be improved upon? I’ve no doubt it could. But not “you could heat it with a few wheelbarrows of wood a year” type improvement.
Will
I did finally get to listen to the podcast last night and very much enjoyed it. I’ve been following Paul’s work for a while now too and thus wish he was a bit more coherent on some of his points. He’s not always good at giving concise descriptions of his ideas and projects. I’m thinking in particular here about the part about Gerd toward the end of the podcast. I feel like the point he’s really trying to make with that story is that using a permaculture lifestyle one can live a rich life without needing much money, utilizing other forms of capital instead giving and end monetary result that even though you are making much less money you need even less, yielding a larger gap between what you need and what you produce. In other words you get a greater savings rate which is the real key to early retirement, or just a lifestyle requiring less work. I did write a blog post relating to these ideas a while back which might be of interest to some. It’s about Minding the Gap.
Anyway, what I really wanted to comment on right now since this discussion thread seems to be drifting into the rocket mass heater space is that late last fall I did replace my soapstone wood stove with a smaller pebble style rocket mass heater. The space I have in my home, a 1960’s mobile home, is such that I can’t really build a RMH as large as I’d like to take full advantage of what they can do in drawing out and storing heat in a mass. My chimney exit temperatures seem to run around 200 degrees F, so there is room for much more efficiency in my system. I hope to try a couple other things at some point to make it better, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to get to that project this year as I’d hoped.
Anyway, my real world experience with an inefficient RMH is that I have at least cut my wood use in half. I also supplemented my heating with a standard propane furnace to keep things from getting too cold at night, or when I was away from home during the days unable to keep a fire going in the old wood stove. With the RMH I’m still using this some for supplemental heat, but now it’s pretty much just when I’m away from home for long enough periods that the thermal mass of the heater can’t keep the house warm. So in addition to my wood savings I’m estimating that my propane use has gone down by about 80 to 90 percent.
I guess I also wanted to note here that I did build this on my standard mobile home floor, though I did crawl around underneath to add some bracing supports under the mass. (That was probably the nastiest job of the whole build!) If anyone wants to see a bit more of my process in building a RMH I did a blog post about it. I think I might have shared that here on another thread already, but it seem appropriate to link to it again here.
I’m glad this podcast also touched on how big an impact we can make with our food choices, in particular growing your own food. As noted it’s good for reducing our environmental footprints, saving a big chunk of money, and should also help to improve our health. This topic of food has become a major focus of my life lately.
One of the biggest and easiest “wins” I’ve discovered so far has been learning to eat what wants to grow naturally, perennially, and abundantly here on my property already, even though it’s not necessarily things you’d find in a grocery store. Two plants in particular I’m liking are daylilies and common milkweed. These are not only good for our pollinators but they can provide us an abundance of food over a long period of the growing season. I wrote a blog post focusing on these and some ways I’ve found to cook with them earlier this year titled Excellent Perennial Vegetables You Can’t Buy in Stores. I’m hoping I can still find some immature milkweed pods to use photographing and putting together another post yet this year on making stuffed milkweed pods. It seems like there’s lots of fabulous culinary potential both tasty and aesthetic with stuffed pods. 
It’s not just the fouch family’s criticism, this there are other complaints about him. Sounds horrible - unsure of if this has anything to do with his training courses or is separate.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Permaculture/comments/77nm7e/two_years_under_a_permaculture_slumlord/
Almost sounds like he’s running a “company store” of some sort for his own profit:
[quote]
Two years under a permaculture slumlord
There is enough detail and drama to fill a reality TV show. A modern feudal landlord clashed with his peasants. A tiny lively village is now a ghost town. Yet, unquantifiable value was still gained, regardless of how hard we were scammed. I invite you to come to your own conclusion. Ant village may be the perfect place for you to hunker down under a dictator, drink some rotten koolaid, and waste your savings.
In Fall 2015 I moved onto Paul Wheaton's property called Ant Village. I rented an acre to compete in the Ant village challenge. I built a cabin and lived in it. Two years later, at the end of this summer, Paul took actions to evict a couple of us in the village, threatened others, and most everyone has left. At one point I considered Paul a friend. But now, the guy forced us out of our self built houses. So I will attempt to share all the dirty secrets over the course of a few posts.
The tenants of Ant Village formed a union in the middle of this summer. We had three major concerns.
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Be less secretive (aka culty). Residents were prohibited from making friends with neighbors off our property. It was presumed that all people in Superior were evil and were out to get Paul. And if we made contact with them, they would remember we existed and come to get us. At one point I mentioned at a potluck that I talked with a guy in town who was building a passive solar house about my underground cabin. Paul exploded at me, often yelling, for thirty+ minutes about his psychotic paranoia. Before moving onto the property I was not aware of the secretive rule. We were not allowed to tell people where we lived. We were supposed to say "near missoula" an hour away. Even when friends and family visited I was supposed to tell them they had to be secretive and give them a form letter to read.
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Negotiate long term rental contracts. The plots were rented on a verbal contract. Which still qualifies as a contract in Montana. But it makes it much harder to have any future certainty. Paul threatened to raise the rent on one Ant when he came by to make a video for his profit. The Ant said Paul either had to pay or could not video. We had no idea what rent would be in a few years. It was likely to keep going up as we improved the village. We were likely to gentrify ourselves out because we had no wages.
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Earn Wages. Residents were prohibited from holding a job in town. We were not allowed to leave the property more than twice per week. We could work for Paul, but he only paid in scrip. Paul created a currency called fysh. Fysh were stored in some unknown ledger. It was always a mystery how many we had. But at least I did not have to pay rent this year because I had some mystery fysh from repairing vehicles. Those fysh could be used to eat some rice and bean meals. Many residents resorted to eating at the food bank.
Montana Tenant Law protects tenants that form a union. We weren't doing anything illegal. We were just voicing an opinion. And pointing out that certain rules were illegal. It is illegal for a landlord to evict or retaliate against somebody for forming or joining a union. It is not like we called in some national unionizing body. This was an adhoc union just for the simple legal protection. Paul held all the power, and we felt that maybe, if we came together he would realize and reason with us.
Anyway, Paul's lawyer forced us to leave. He claimed we were not tenants and had no legal protection. He even did it during the Sunrise forest fire when we were away and it would be hard to get legal advice. Ant Village had been under evacuation for several weeks. Paul and his lawyer gave us 30 days notice when we could not even be in our homes. We did not have access to our belongings or know when we could get them. It took a few weeks before I was able to get some straight answers from a lawyer. The tenants lawyer I spoke to said we were definitely tenants. Paul had to file a legal eviction with the sheriff. It is illegal to pay people in scrip. A landlord cannot prevent you from holding a job. By the time I spoke to her I already made up my mind to get out and had planned a move. It was not going to be worth the costs to take Paul to court. Instead, I publish this information hoping that less people in the future fall for his scams.[/quote]
i don’t know how to put things in quotes, moderator can edit/fix it.
We built a small off grid solar home in the mountains of Southern New Mexico, I did not expect the solar design to be so effective. We have south facing windows that shine on a concrete tiled floor, that sits on top of 4 inches of high density polyurethane foam. With no internal heat and outside temps below zero the house stays above freezing for a good many days.
The next planed housing project will be an adobe infill, I saw this type of building on the Tohono o’odham reservation south of Phoenix. LOTS of thermal mass, it should keep the daily temperature swings way down. Great thread, thanks folks!
Thanks for the podcast. As always, interesting perspectives and ideas to consider. Like Chris mentioned above - great to see people sticking their necks out and taking risks; we will certainly reference Paul’s ideas among other ideas throughout our process of growing into the most sustainable life possible.
Curious about PP’s view on EV vs ICE cars. Husband grew up in a mining town (Butte) in Montana and we have seen firsthand the destructive nature of mining (see Berkley Pit for details). Mining for the large batteries in Tesla vehicles/other EVs, plus processing the batteries is likely extremely carbon intensive. Much research would be needed but I have read some research citing electric vehicles as similarly carbon intensive to ICE vehicles (electricity in many areas powered by coal as well). Do you have a position on this?
Also, what is peak prosperity’s position on meat consumption. It is controversial, but if we are going to talk seriously about environment, it can’t be ignored.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth