OneGuyFromBarlick

Blowlamps are also good for killing off weeds on your path or patio without contaminating the ground with weedkillers. The mention of the gas poker brought back memories of my Uncle Fred, not a real uncle but a next door neighbour and a great bloke, worked for the council laying flags and wore a big wide belt. As a little kid I thought he was a star! He used a gas poker to light his fire but it was on a long flexible tube that he connected to the gas cooker in the kitchen and ran it through to the living room. It frightened the life out of me with its roaring flame - I always expected the cooker to explode and blow us through the roof!

The heat coming out of the fridge is one of the principles of the Passive House concept. The house is so well insulated and airtight that no dedicated heating system is needed; all the heat comes from the sun, the machines such as the fridge, and the human beings (and pets, keep plenty of pets if you have a Passive House, or go back to the old way of keeping the farm livestock in the house!).

Kev, Settle Coal Company used to do a good cheap line in second hand coke from private sewage filter beds, not offensive and good fuel. Actually it had a higher calorific value because of the added combustible matter from the sewage!
Tiz, I have always argued that all energy from 'wasteful' sources like inefficient light bulbs, stand-by circuits was heat added to the core temperature of the house. The main argument against being that the electricity was more expensive heat than gas. I can remember that many a time when I was on the road I used to muse about the amount of heat I was pumping out of the exhaust pipe, about 60% of the calorific value of the fuel burned. Such a waste but how to collect it? Nearest I got was a trailer mounted insulated tank with a heating coil connected to the exhaust. Get home, connect tank to CH system and circulate the boiling water! (Plenty of time for thought when you are in solitary confinement!)
Many coaches used to be fitted with a Telmar retarder. This was a powerful generator which, when excited with current from the coach, produced electricity which was dissipated as heat when the retarder was used. A fore-runner of regenerative braking on electric trains.

Tizer , there was also the days of a nicely warming Telly in the corner and the sterogram on Saturday mornings to listen to whilst vacuum cleaning , the Radio on top of the fridge was also a great heat source to ( and for me guitar / tape recorder amp/s in the bedroom ). Now I need something to take the excess heat from the bottom of the laptop to somewhere more useful.

I take advantage of the waste heat in the kettle, after filling the teapot, by pouring the remaining water onto the dishcloth to sterilise it!
And I always think that if electric kettles clicked off more promptly when the water gets to 100C we could save lots of electrical energy.

I've mentioned how we are getting some concrete floors insulated - we've now decided also to get the external walls in those two rooms covered in insulated plasterboard, something like Gyproc Thermaline. I'm a great believer in reducing the need for heating as much as possible.

Tiz, as you know I have taken the handle off the hot tap in the kitchen and have not died yet! I use the electric kettle if I need boiling water for anything and one routine I have in the morning is that when I have had my first pot of tea I put some bleach in the pot and fill with boiling water till it runs over into the drain, I pop the washing up brush and the Scotch Pad I use for washing up in the pot with the bleach.. I top the kettle up and allow it to boil again. When it boils I pour the hot bleach out all over the sink and then brew the coffee refilling the pot with boiling water to warm it up. When the coffee is brewed (I have it mashed already) I empty the pot of boiling water over the inside surface of the sink and enjoy my coffee. End result is piping hot coffee and a sterilised sink, implements and pot. Cleanest sink and pot in Barlick!
I noted yesterday that the preferred disinfectant when deep cleaning the Staffordshire wards after the infection was common bleach.
The electric kettle is an expensive way of boiling water but its virtue is the fact that you only heat what you need.

If you use a gas whistling kettle you could connect the top instead to the marine engines , the little steam can then turn the engines , the crank of which in turn connected to an eccentric to cut off the gas supply. Assuming gas more efficent at heating a kettle than electric.

The stove came in handy last night for forced drying of the paint on my flywheels!

Liquid air 'offers energy storage hope' - BBC News
"Turning air into liquid may offer a solution to one of the great challenges in engineering - how to store energy.

"The Institution of Mechanical Engineers says liquid air can compete with batteries and hydrogen to store excess energy generated from renewables. IMechE says "wrong-time" electricity generated by wind farms at night can be used to chill air to a cryogenic state at a distant location. When demand increases, the air can be warmed to drive a turbine. Engineers say the process to produce "right-time" electricity can achieve an efficiency of up to 70%."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19785689

Being interested in geology I have lumps of rock lying around the house, some sitting on the conservatory window ledge and these get very hot in the sun's radiant heat and emit the heat after the sun has gone down. I could do with this heat in the north-facing back rooms of my house. Perhaps I should build a model railway that will carry the rocks from the conservatory to the back of the house once they are hot then return them to collect more heat. What a great excuse to get back into railway modelling!

Suggest you try one of the LGB Thomas sets , they were being sold off at a relative discount at ModelZone , dont know if any left though, the troublesome trucks should carry the rocks , but line the plastic with wood to avoid melting the wagons . Ideally you need two loops , one at a higher level crossing vertically at some time , and some side tipping wagons. First run round , collect rocks , take to destination , tip rocks , run to next level and allow cold rocks to fall into trucks , run to heating area and repeat process.

I was impressed by the 70% efficiency level the manager who is using the technology on an industrial scale quoted. When you think about it, one of the most successful technologies ever, the Lancashire Boiler, was economical on about the same level of thermal efficiency. I made an interesting discovery yesterday about heat transfer technology. I've been reading Arthur Woolf's biography. He was a brilliant Cornish engineer, now largely forgotten, who made some effective improvements to the relatively inefficient engines used in mining in the early 18th C. I've always been of the opinion that when the engineers were installing large boiler plants they skimped on chimney height and therefore available draught in order to economise on building costs. When I was rebuilding the boiler brickwork for the Ellenroad boiler I had the opportunity to put some of my ideas into practice with the advantage of having a chimney built for five boilers serving just one. By making the side flues more narrow I improved the gas flow and because I had such a big stack I could run the boiler with the side flue dampers almost completely closed so the gas flow was from the lowest (and therefore coolest) part of the flue. A 4" opening was plenty once the flue warmed up. The result was that the boiler could be brought up to steam from cold with about 30cwt of coal rather than the more normal 5 tons. Newton told me he had never seen a boiler in his life that could achieve this. With a smaller stack the dampers would have to be wide open on starting firing and so the hottest gases would be wasted up the stack.
The connection with Woolf came yesterday. In 1815 the Adventurers at Dolcoath mine consulted Woolf when they were sinking the mine deeper and running short of steam due to the increased load on the pumping engine and considering installing more boilers. Woolf inspected the plant and advised them to lower the flue gas outlet into the stack so that it was taking the gas from the bottom of the boiler flue. This raised the efficiency of the boiler and the existing plant coped with the load. And there was me thinking I had re-invented the wheel! However, it looks as though the later engineers hadn't noted this improvement and made the mistake of using smaller chimneys which meant they couldn't take advantage of Woolf's discovery.

It must be colder. Heat has kicked in at low level even though thermostat is set at 17C.

We have electric heating here as until the end of October it's a third of the price of the winter tariff. Electric and water are included in our site fees. We need heating usually early and late but the rest of the time its usually quite warm. Eileen

I put the heat on for half an hour in the morning If I feel the need. Stove gets lit about 16:00 and gives out heat all night.

So, at long last, someone has woken up to the fact that procrastination doesn't work. We are heading into a period where there is a good chance that generation capacity won't cope with supply and there is the possibility of power cuts. No surprise on Oneguy, we have been discussing this for eight years. I have always been convinced that they would come and that's why I have my solid fuel stove, Tilley Lamps and candles all ready for when it comes. However, the vast majority of households will be without light, heat and cooking when it happens. They won't even be able to boil a kettle. Looks as though camping stoves and lamps will be in demand. Get in there first!

Am in the middle of my quarterly accounting online with British Gas. Amazing how much I am in credit! Will wait for the actual bill and then claw something back off them.

Noting this morning that Britian's Empty Homes (BBC1) , one housing association's demand is for a Gas Central Heating system, something not quite sustainable in the long term and with more price rises unaffordable to a proporation of its possible tenants.

(one word amended to reduce lack of sense, oops)

That last post was gobbledegook to me.
News this morning that the Coalition may have found a route to avoiding power cuts and also arresting the rise in the price of energy. The solution? Manufacture a loophole in the regulations to allow the building of multiple gas fired generating stations. They say that this is quick, cheap and effective. Sounds too easy to me and a policy of despair. In effect admitting that the present energy strategy is bankrupt.

Whyperion wrote:Noting this morning that Britian's Empty Homes (BBC1) , one housing association's demand is for a Gas Central Heating system, something not quite sustainable in the long term and with more price rises affordable to a proporation of its possible tenants.

They could do it with a combined heat and power set up, but the issue falls to whether or not the tenants can afford it. Plus the one they did in Sheffield cost a fortune and eventually only burned rubbish.

Not sustainable without investment in renewable carbon, like trees or waste agricultural products

All those people who rushed into putting photovoltaic cells (solar electricity panels) on their roofs after doing calculations of payback over 20 years are going to kick themselves. New solar cells under development are going to be more effective and more widely applicable (e.g. flexible cells on plastic, cells in windows, more efficient cells) and most important of all, not far from commercialisation. Those who installed cells now may be wanting to replace them with the new generation in 10 years, perhaps even in 5 years.

Our system was installed towards the end of November last year Tiz and has performed better than predicted despite the lack of sun this year. It could well pay for itself in less than the estimated 7 years. That doesn't take into account the home produced electricity we have used ourselves.

Thirty years ago Newton and I built a CHP unit using a gas-fired Rover engine at his house in Vicarage Road. It was a complete success and cut his energy bills by 50%. We should have taken a patent out on it, I saw a unit 20 years later made by Fiat. Problem is of course that once you do that you accept the cost of maintenance and upgrades. This is the great selling point that the energy companies have, you turn the tap or the switch and the energy is there. On a smaller scale my stove has the same problems, I have to do it myself. You pays your money and takes your choice. My advantage is that I like the control being in my hands, it doesn't suit everyone.

I would assume that a fair proportion of the cost of PV cell installations was the inverters and wiring , which , subject to any variance in output characteristics of alternate PV materials , would be quite easy to connect cheaper replacement items to at a suitable future point if required.

There does not seem to be a shortage of discarded pallets everywhere to fuel at least one CHP plant , I always thought putting Community Service offenders on big tidy ups would be a cost effective way of feeding such local systems as the marginal cost of labour would be quite low.

Using waste wood products for commercial burning for power generation isn't as easy as it looks. We once had to replace the furnace tubes in a couple of such boilers in the NE biurning pelleted wood chip and domestic refuse. The attrition on the tubes from stray metal etc. was so bad the tubes only lasted a couple of years, they were being eroded so badly. Big job replacing a large four foot diameter furnace tube!

True , the glues varnishes and binders in anything from old stairwell balustrades , MDF and chipboard can be a real problem. Denailing the wood should not be a problem though - it only needs labour time spent on doing so.

Tizer wrote:All those people who rushed into putting photovoltaic cells (solar electricity panels) on their roofs after doing calculations of payback over 20 years are going to kick themselves. New solar cells under development are going to be more effective and more widely applicable (e.g. flexible cells on plastic, cells in windows, more efficient cells) and most important of all, not far from commercialisation. Those who installed cells now may be wanting to replace them with the new generation in 10 years, perhaps even in 5 years.

Thats without factoring in the feed in tariff and all the rules governing them. At the moment I get paid aroound 47p per kWh I generate. If I put them in now I'd get 16p per kWh. If I added some extra to my existing, the whole system would be re-evaluated and I'd get 16p. It doesn't matter what happens to efficiency in the future, I can never go back to get the deal I did when I put them in. Assuming the inverter holds out mine will pay for themselves in around 7 years. I've had £800 back from the £6800 I paid out already (10.5 months). The panels and inverter accounted for about £4500 when I bought them. They are much cheaper now - You can get a system with almost double the capacity now for similar money, but when you're only getting a third of he revenue per unit, I know which one I'd rather have.

The people who got in after March this year are the one kicking themselves. The government will never repeat it.......