Heating My Underground Greenhouse With Wood Stove - The Wisconsin Walipini Stays Warm!

In earlier videos I promised to share more details about the various ways I keep the Wisconsin Walipini warm in the winter. In this video, I deliver on that promise by showing the wood stove in action.

Without any active heating at all, the underground greenhouse would probably never drop below 40 degrees here in zone 4a. However, certain plants that I desire to keep alive would not appreciate that. For example, the coffee plants, the luffa vine, the peppers, and so on. So, the lowest I'll let it go is around 50 degrees.

Daytime temps are usually no problem. At night, especially on windy days, action must be taken to keep it at 50.

I discuss this and more in this video.

In a future video, we will discuss the GAHT (Ground to Air Heat Transfer) system.

[truthleaker]

I have a plastic barrel with a 500 watt fish tank heater sealed inside with a circulator. It has a vent tube going outside the greenhouse. It’s an Amazon 20 by 10 with an extra greenhouse tarp over it to seal the windows. It is currently blizzard conditions and it’s 34 when I woke to 20-30 mph winds. By noon it was 42. I am growing carrots, onions, potatoes, and lettuce,

[slaplapdog]

GAHT plus wood heat/ thermal mass-your only the second person Ive seen do this.
His wasn't underground.
Thanks for the video!

[gabrielsyme]

Perfect off grid setup would be to run the stove pipe the length of the greenhouse then have a meat smoking shed at the end.

[voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang]

rocket stove thermal mass would have required installing a duct system - you probably don't have space for that or would have to redesign the greenhouse. You can try get ceramic fiber board but you have to do it correctly since the high temp would damage the metal otherwise. Also the air flow has to be correct - like a secondary baffle to burn off the smoke from the internal combustion chamber - that could cause blowback when you open the stove door. So considering how much thermal mass you already have - that probably increases the efficiency of your burn temperature. Looks like an awesome set up you got going! Very impressive.

[ipadpad]

There’s so much junk and clutter laying around its hard to tell if this is a greenhouse a shed filled with junk pilled on top of each other