anyone make a wind generator ??

[SignWave]

most of the solar HW sytems that i see around here are 4 inches deep, 24 inches wide and 4 feet tall. Typical size. They are basically a box with a glass top painted black on the inside with flat black pipe about 2 inches in dia running through it. Most boxes (from what i recall) have about 40 feet of pipe inside them. they can be daisy chained and the whole system is driven by a resevoir in the basement (or where ever) and a circulation pump and then to a heat exchanger on your forced air furnace or w.h.y.

After discussing this setup with a company that was at the vancouver home show, they assured me that this system would still make enough warm water to heat your home in the mid winter temps of our "zone".

I am still skepticle though.
I think the firebox/boiler/expansion tank/circulation pump would be more efficient and you have total control. No hoping for wind or sunny day or whatever. just throw a log on the fire, turn on the pump, heat up a 100 gallons of water and coast for the next 10 hours as the water cools.
You'd only need to get the water to about 150 degrees. Add a thermostat switch to the circulation pump circuit to control the out flow of water to the individual rooms and tada.... relatively inexpensive heat and comfortable nights, oh and shop floor...

[Noisy Nova]

Here's a good site for radiant heat info: http://www.radiantec.com/index.php?g...FQ_bIgod5h5q7g

[AnotherDano]

I met a guy in Golden Colorado who was building am adobe house. He had his city water enter the house through piping laid in the slab floor in a grid like a (now common) radient heat system.

He figured that the temp of the water from the street would be higher than the floor exposed to the winter air (unheated garage) and couldn't hurt to sap some of that energy on the way to the house plumbing. He did tell me that he'd built in a shunt to bypass the system in case there was a failure in the future.
That was back in the late '70s.. Gotta remember to look that house up if I ever get back there, to see how it's working.

[fun4now]

i have well water so i could not get any heat out of it, but in the summer its plenty cold. however the electricity to pull it out of the well to cool the house would be no good for my bill.. maybe a wind mill to pump it but i would contaminate the well if i pumped it back into it after running threw my radiator system. and even though we don't drink our well watter its still in the ground so i would not want to add anything back into it. no telling where it would end up.

i gotta go see the wind mill my neighbor has. i been told there is one near by, so i'm off to see what i can find out.

[SignWave]

instead of water from your well, you coud build a closed system that uses glycol. There are eco friendly ones out there...im sure.

yeah i know more cost.... etc etc.

[SkidSteerSteve]

Since this thread seems to have taken the turn down radiant heat blvd, here's a question for the tank fab guys. Does anyone build a double walled, vacuum insulated tank system. Here's why I ask. This morning before I left for the job site, I boiled up some water on the stove and made up a thermos bottle of hot chocolate (the ONLY thing I like about winter...maybe it's an addiction...I should check into that). By 4:30 when I left, what was still in there was too hot to drink straight out of the bottle. All that with only a very small (1/2"?) void. Would it practical to build something like that to store hot water for days on end?

SSS

[fun4now]

air being an excellent insulation as heat doesn't transmit well threw a gas. double pained windows being of the same idea i suppose.
what is the use of storing hot water for days on end ?? keeping it hot to use to heat the house at night would be good but then you lose heat into the house and it cools as you use it. so come morning you have to start heating again.
Noisy Nova site has some good info on the idea.

[SignWave]

Sorry Fun4now, I think youve got it mixed up.
SSS's thermos full of lava is due to the fact that a vaccum does not allow heat to escape.

Heat is essentially a particle that is vibrating at a specific level or "energy state". If you have a gas, be it O2, Argon, helium, Hydrogen etc etc, As soon as a "hot" particle hits one of those gas molecules, its going to transfer some or all of its energy to that particle. One particle will lose some heat while the other will gain it. Remember, you cannot create nor destroy energy, but you can make it change form.

So, with all that crap in mind, a vacuum or a void has nothing to transfer the vibrations of heat.

Skid Steers' idea of a double walled tank is a most excellent idea. If you can keep your water hotter longer , you are in fact saving energy which in turn keeps dollars in your wallet.

Skid Steers' double tank would lose heat too over time but only at the points where the inner tank is connected to the outer one. If you can build two tanks independant of each other and suspend one inside the other then vacuum the space in between the two, the inner tank full of water or what ever, should in theory stay hot for a very very long time.

consider heat to be the same as sound. Sound will pass through some matter very well and not so well through others.

on the top of the list concrete and water. Both hold heat fairly well and both transfer sound wave really well too.

Anyway theres todays stupid science lesson.

[fun4now]

yep i get it, vibrating molicules. true a vacume is better than air but air is better then a solid as the molicules are farther apart so they dont vibrate togather as easily.
i supose a vacume around a hot water heater would be a great idea for saving $$. mine is gas and as such uses way more than is needed. been planing to go to electric so i can turn it off when not in use or atleast add some better insilation around it. it being gas i'm a bit concerned about what i can put around it. it also has to be vented to the outside both above and below the unit, this is letting a lot of cold in. truth of it is trailors were never the best option in colder climates, well not the older ones anyway.
well the wife changed my plans when she got home, no big suprise there LOL. so now i'm off to go look for a wind mill.

[fun4now]

yep i get it, vibrating molecules. true a vacuum is better than air but air is better then a solid as the molecules are farther apart so they don't vibrate together as easily.
i suppose a vacuum around a hot water heater would be a great idea for saving $$. mine is gas and as such uses way more than is needed. been planing to go to electric so i can turn it off when not in use or at least add some better insulation around it. it being gas i'm a bit concerned about what i can put around it. it also has to be vented to the outside both above and below the unit, this is letting a lot of cold in. truth of it is trailers were never the best option in colder climates, well not the older ones anyway.
well the wife changed my plans when she got home, no big surprise there LOL. so now i'm off to go look for a wind mill.

[Heaven Net]

anyone make a wind generator ??

Building a wind generator is both exciting and frustrating at times. It pays to have the information you need from someone who has actually built a few machines. We have designed a small wind generator capable of 100 watts in a 30mph wind. It is not a machine that is designed to power your house, although that is possible. Instead, it is designer to get your feet wet with the complexities and systems involved with wind power. Its not as complicated as some folks will have you believe, and the Chispito Wind Generator will help prove that point.

Since the first prototype, we have come quite a way with this design. We have built lots of different models and configurations. We feel this configuration is the best to meet the goals of this design. At one point, we were offering kits for Chispito, and we sold nearly 150 of these kits world-wide. These kits were made by us in our garage in West Texas. All of the power to make these kits came from three Chispito Wind generators and one 100 watt solar panel. So, don't let anyone tell you it can't produce useful power. We are no longer offering the kits, but we are offering the information that will help you build a dependable machine.

[Twocentsworth]

I built a system using a fireplace to heat water. It had two or three different zones. Another thing I did was to strip my electrical water tank down and wrap a 50 foot coil of copper around it. The tank was then insulated with 6 inches of fiberglass insulation and enclosed with plywood. Careful to not overheat the controls! The circulation was controlled with an aquastat that was mounted in the pipe just outside of the fireplace. I left a little hole in a brick mortar joint so I could stick a screwdriver in to adjust the trigger temperature. When the water temperature reached my set point of 80 degrees F, the aquastat would turn on the circulation pump. It would then run until the water temperature would drop back down to 80 degrees which can be good or bad. There were some balancing valves between the zones so the amount of hot water to each zone could be adjusted.
In the end the whole thing was not worth it. It was hard to control the beast. I had more valves than the boiler room on an aircraft carrier. In addition there was a temperature and pressure relief valve so if the water got too hot it would just dump outside without blowing the place up. Since water could get dumped, I had a valve that added water automatically if the system pressure dropped.
The biggest drawback was the fireplace itself. As a fire dies down, a fireplace is just a big hole to the outside. With the still warm chimney it then pulls the room heat out even with a glass door in front. A boiler turns on and off. It’s a little harder to shut off a fireplace when the house gets up to temperature.
Lol, the biggest positive was I did a presentation on the system at a local college and got a standing ovation.

[ridesideways]

Skid Steers' double tank would lose heat too over time but only at the points where the inner tank is connected to the outer one. If you can build two tanks independant of each other and suspend one inside the other then vacuum the space in between the two, the inner tank full of water or what ever, should in theory stay hot for a very very long time.

one of the reasons (besides the obvious corrosion resistance) they make those vacuum sealed thermos bottles out of SS is because SS is a pretty bad conductor of heat. the ideal material for your two tanks would be SS. got any spare $$$$ ?

[davedarragh]

"Wind Generator"

I'll have to make a BIG batch of my famous Arizona Chili!

Definitely generate some wind!

Dave

[urch55]

Flammable Gas

I'll have to make a BIG batch of my famous Arizona Chili!

Definitely generate some wind!

Dave

Save it for torch fuel in a double wall tank. Don't forget the static straps.