The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: sausagesandcash on August 01, 2009, 12:18:29 am
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Discovered this quite by accident, but thought it might be of benifit to rustyme and other likeminded folks. Wonderful idea and well worth the look.
http://www.electricitybook.com/composting-for-heat/
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Renewable-Energy/1981-07-01/DIY-Water-Heating-Compost.aspx
Regards,
Morgan
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cheers Morgan ,
I have seen them before . I saw the Jean Pain youtube thing and made a system similar , but I didn't have all the brush from woods to use . I made mine using ordinary compost , just to see how it worked . It worked well , and If you had access to enough brush then I am sure it would be a good free set up . The only thing is that heap is BIG ... I mean BIG BIG . ok if you have the stuff and lots of people to help , I don't ...not enough stuff ..and only little old me .... :( But I think it would work well...
cheers
Russ
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We have a large recycling place a few miles away with tons of shredded de-nailed pallets - trailer loads of mushroom compost available, old bales of silage straw and hay, and the space to do it. I'm also fairly handy on a 360 dumper ....... God i'd love to give give it a go, but I just don't think I could afford the trip to the divorce courts!! ;D
Morgan
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a friend of mine is experimenting with a muck heap!
he has piled lots of tubing through the heap and turns the water on, the water that comes out the other end is HOT!!
This was just an experiment, he is now working out how to replace the manure, or a top up method that will be ensure continuity, without disturbing the microbes that rot the manure too much, and loosing heat. As once the manure is fully rotted it no longer heats up.
he believes is the pipe is run underground then it wont cool down too much from the yard to the house
He says he will have this sorted by the time he is ready to build his house and will be running all his hot water to the house through his muck heap!
For us this would be a fantastic way to generate hot water as we have tonnes of much every year!
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I'm converting a garage for my mum and would love to try it as a heating option. We have substantial acerage lying fallow, so plenty of room to experiment. I would like to get my plumber and welder mates round for a think in to see what we can come up with. Don't fancy coiling 100 metres of pipe, thank you!
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an old uninsulated copper water tank in the middle of a huge pile of horse crap an straw would do the job surely ? pipes in and out already to go ...Place tank on floor ,connect in and out pipes, build crap heap round tank , leave till done... You would have to go careful near the tank when dismantling , but I can't see why it wouldn't do the job ????
cheers
Russ
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You would need to keep adding to the heap, though, wouldn't you - to keep it hot, so you would therefore also need to be able to remove the bottom layer. It all sounds like an awful lot of bother for what it's worth. Why not just bury the pipes - the ground is pretty warm 2 metres down!
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If you can find soil that brings water to 60 degrees celcius, i'm all ears! I agree rustyme, but I want to construct a rectangular compost pile with a rectangular water resevoir 3/4 's the way up and see how that goes. I'd like to experiment and see if the heat will rise through the pile, or if i'm better with the Jean pain method of having layered pipes (messy).
Morgan
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If you can find soil that brings water to 60 degrees celcius, i'm all ears!
I'm no engineer but is that not how a ground source heat pump works?
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To 60 degrees!! I have a friend who installed one and the electricity costs of the pump are astronomical
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My Pal is building an eco house at the moment and she said it wasn't very expensive but I don't know how much or what she compared it to. We knew someone who did a barn conversion and installed a ground source system, it was enough to heat and provide hot water for a five bedroomed house. I don't know what temperature it took the water to but is 60 degrees celsius not extremely hot? My house is always at 24 I think. Why do you need it so hot?
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ground source heat pumps are very efficient at low output temperatures say 30c which is enough to run underfloor heating if you space the pipes close together. Our gshp is capable of water out at 55c but the efficiency tails off so rapidly it is a no no at those temperatures. The real trick is to get the input temperature up a bit to just under 20c (easy with a zinc roof covered and trickle fed) then the gshp is only working to raise the temp from 20c to 30c
and is remarkably efficient.
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I'd love to say my mother is like a rare orchid, and needs her heat.... You just circulate the water in the rads when you need heat, the rest of the time you have hot water on tap.
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But - 60? That's nearly boiling point if you are on top of Ben Nevis!
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Heat rads, switch off pump....easy and economical
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Well insulated?
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if Morgan is on top of Ben Nevis, he is a pervert !!! ...get off him and leave him alone...dirty boy ...dirty boy .... :o :o :o ;D
cheers
Russ
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He told me his name was Ben Dover! :o
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Back on topic. ;D ;D ;D
Many years ago, I went to the now defunct Shire Horse Centre in Yealmpton Devon. They had twenty odd shires producing masses of poop mixed with straw. The centre was very go ahead and produced the sites hot water by having coils of plastic piping full of water inside numerous mountains of rotting horse poo. :horse: :hshoe:
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You can buy black piping in circular coils. So in theory if you welded metal supports around it you could lift it out as a roll, when the compost had rotted and place it at the centre of a new pile without having the messy hastle of coiling the piping back up. I think I might experiment with the garage and see how I go. A few other jobs to do first though!
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Getting my hands dirty wouldn't bother me, I'm perpetually in the S*** !
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any reasonable compost heap of large enough size , would provide heat for about 4-6 weeks . So piping would need to be removed and relaid in that same time scale.That would be lots of fiddly work , I did it and it really is a fiddle.
Thats why the brush compost heap works better, because it takes so much longer to break down and the shear size helps keep it working too. Thats why I thought a tank the size of a hot water tank, would be better for a smaller muck heap . The main heat would be in the middle, where the tank would be put !! A heavy duty galvanised tank would last much longer than an old copper tank or maybe even longer than black plastic. Unless the plastic pipe is special heat proof stuff , it's life span would be quite short.
The tank method is much easier to maintain too , remove old compost without fear of puncturing plastic pipe etc . If using horse manure and straw , the heap will heat up almost immediately and could be turned on a weekly basis to maintain maximum heat . This could be done for 4 weeks or so , or until heat dropped too much . Which ever way you go it means heavy work , on a regular basis.
If a fork lift was available ? a system of pallets could be made with wire cages (about the size of IBC wotsits) fitted, and then filled with horse manure and straw , then placed around the heavy duty water tank , like spokes round a hub !!. some form of lid put on the centre and then the whole lot would heat up . As heat dropped in the containers , they could either be taken away by fork lift, and remixed or replaced with fresh . This would then be a perpetual system , with easy change over. Water tank would be semi permanent , as would fittings . This system would last a long time and would be quite easy to make using second hand materials . Thats how I thought of doing it anyway ... drawback ...no fork lift !!!! ::)
cheers
Russ
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As I recall, the SHC had several bays that they piled the poop into in a rotar. As one pile finished producing heat then the next one was ready to be switched on. It seemed very simple to use.