Hello from Nebraska

Hi everyone,
I’m really excited about building a rocket stove. I live in eastern Nebraska USA.
I plan on building two stoves, one for my house, and the other of my shop. I am trying to figure out how large to make both stoves and if it possible to incorporate a boiler system into the stove or a fan system similar to a furnace.
My shop is 24’X48’ with 11’ ceiling. I built the shop out of panels constructed of 4” of foam insulation, sandwiched between sheets of 26 gage steel sheets. The panels are screwed to 6X6 post on 8” centers. On the inside of the shop I covered the walls with steel siding. There is a roughly a 5” air gap between the outside panels and inside panels. The building is divided into two work areas, one for woodworking and the other for meat working. The floor is 6” of concrete with fiberglass and rebar.
My home is a log home made of 8” logs. The logs are milled on the top and bottom supposedly to stop air leaks. I did not build the home but always wanted to live in a log home. The home sits on top of a hill so I get winds from every direction. I have learned several lessons about log homes. Milled logs don’t stop air leaks, don’t buy a log home sitting on top of a hill, don’t buy one from a little old lady, and log homes require a lot more maintenance than a regular house. Moral of the story, don’t buy a log home from some else.
The home had a modern fireplace in it which I replaced with 75,000 BTU wood pellet stove. It also has a propane furnace. The first winter I decided it wasn’t a good idea to buy this house. The house leaked so much air we couldn’t keep it warm, especially with a northwest wind. It took 1,500 gallons of propane the first winter plus 6 tons of pellets.
So far, I have replaced the pellet stove with a wood gasification stove, chinked the logs on the outside and resealed the logs, and replaced two double doors on the west end of the house with 4X6 triple pain windows. This has reduced my propane use to about 700 gallons in the winter. I have burnt about 3 cords of wood this winter.
I plan on putting the rocket stove in the basement. I would like to incorporate a zero-pressure boiler in this stove with a 300-gallon holding tank. I haven’t decided if I want to do the same type for the shop or not. I don’t want waist shop space with a big heat storage system for radiant heat storage.
I have both mig and stick welders and a CNC plasma table. I also have a 500 and 250 gallon propane tanks and 80 and 60 gallon air tanks to use for stove part.
So any help you can give me would be a big help.

hi and welcome to the forums

my advice look at garys stove

you wont go far wrong with building it that way

https://woodstoves.forumotion.co.uk/t839-thoughts-on-2nd-year-burning-batch-rocket-stove

you can adapt round his build you should be able to produce the same amount of output from it

all depends on size vs convection

the system should be more than powerful enough to use a heating system with it but I think it would be too powerful for 300 gallons

Hi Kvale, my best advice is not to buy a used log cabin, oh and make sure its not on a hill.
anything else just ask.
Seriously though really over engineer the fire box with insulation and lots of pre heated air control, including secondary air. This element of your stove will give you the biggest heat gains and fuel savings combined.
The exchanger can incorporate your water lines and is the least fussy part of the build, but id say a refractory riser is also key to efficient long burns.