Solar - Wind - Fireplace Other forms of power/heat

[Miedrn]

Hi Again!

Considering the cost of natural gas, I'm considering other forms of heat and power. I found a few websites:

http://store.sundancesolar.com/plsoensy.html

I was once without power for a few weeks after a terrible storm. I don't want to repeat that scenario. Has anyone heard of these systems? Supposedly good for emergency power.

Another site:

http://store.sundancesolar.com/un64wasopa.html

It's a UniSolar system and the panels are inexpensive. Ditto here - what do you think of this? Glenn and Sassy, you have a lot of experience with solar, don't you?

http://www.uni-solar.com/  <-- Their homepage!

I was reading some of the posts here......the StrawbaleRedux blog specifically and it led me to Path to Freedom. By the way, thanks!

Very interesting site and informs me that I don't have to have acres of land to live responsibly.

Path to Freedom: http://www.pathtofreedom.com/

Strawbaleredux: http://strawbaleredux.blogspot.com/

I've considered using a fireplace and burning wood as an alternate, maybe with kerosene heaters also. What do you think? Any tips on fireplaces?

[John Raabe]

If you are going to burn wood for fuel, a recent technology woodstove is cleaner to the environment and gives you many more BTUs per stick of wood than will any fireplace. (75% efficiency vs 40-50%)

That said, the best open fire fireplace to build would be the Rumford design (from Count Rumford - the peak of fireplace technology is from an era when the nobility messed around with science and invention. )

[Miedrn]

I'd like it to look like a fireplace but behave like a wood stove so I've been looking into inserts. Do you have opinions on those?

It would be pretty expensive overall and I'm only looking to provide heat when we have power outages. Seems pretty expensive for that purpose.

I had a pellet stove in 1995. It also burned corn but those supplies were hard to come by then. It caught fire one night when it was on the highest setting. The "thingy" stuck and I couldn't shut it off so I doused it with water and that took care of that.........also called my husband home to shut the thing off.

Needless to say, we sold it not to long after that. In retrospect I doubt that I used it right but it was also one of the first which might explain some safety issues. I had a housefull of kids at home and I was scared of using it to heat the whole house.

Not crazy about it now either! The things are a pain in the "you know what!"

[Amanda_931]

No idea on inserts.  (wild guess--somewhere neither fish nor fowl, but maybe closer to one than the other)

I'm on other lists with a couple of people with experience with the heated cob benches.  Reputedly no smoke odor coming out of the chimney.  But the retreat center one person is involved with also has a Rumford fireplace.  Ken Kern liked Rumford fireplaces.

It does--or at least can--look like a real fireplace.  Although the official recommendations seem to want the wood set teepee or pyramid style--no andirons.  But lots of pictures show the wood in andirons.

[glenn kangiser]

Kerosene heaters , unless they will burn diesel also will be pretty expensive to run.  Some are expensive to repair and maintain.

I used to build woodstoves and inserts.  Good ones.

A friend gave me an insert that was a real bad one -- I can make it into a good one with cutting and welding but I could tell him when I first saw it that there was no way this thing would burn well or clean.  My wife had a medium good one in her old house.  The outlet has to be as high as possible on an insert.  A thermostat control is nice - an ash pan on the bottom that can be pulled out eases cleaning and provides air like a rocket stove for fast lighting.  Extra dampers for under and over fire air allow more control --- burn wood in smaller dry pieces for a cleaner burn and more heat.  Don't cut the fire down until the creosote produciong volatiles are burned off - this requires a hotter fire.  Use less wood cut in small dry pieces with plenty of air to do this without overheating.  The theory behind the rocket stove.  After you are down to clean coals you can close the dampers.

[Amanda_931]

I used a small portable kerosene heater--the square type--fits closer to a wall--as supplementary heat for years in Nashville.  Never tried them with diesel or fuel oil.  But they were basically no-maintenance--and low smell--if you never ever tried to burn fuel slowly, and if you let them run out of fuel whenever possible.  But these were the kind you took the fuel tank out of and filled it up outside.  A nuisance.  The house was leaky enough that I never felt I had to worry about carbon monoxide.  But the little heater did help a lot, when the heat pump was working on resistance heat, and not heating the house very successfully at that.

And more than once I walked up to the nearest place (a little over a mile) that carried kerosene carrying my little one-gallon can--to get it.   Fortunately, kerosene weighs less than water.  At least one day's supply.

But even back then I was one of the very few people who liked the things.

[Miedrn]

I'll probably have a gas forced air furnace but I want to be prepared for an emergency. I also want choices in case of lack of funds if natural gas prices keep rising.

During that power outage, we used kerosene heaters and I was thankful for them. Unfortunately since the outage was so widespread, kerosene was hard to find after a few days. The pellet stove didn't work without electricity and it was cold!

Learned a lot that year about ice dams, damage to shingles, trees, frozen pipes and insurance coverage. Amazing what two weeks of a power outage in sub freezing weather will do to a house, my attitude and gratefulness.

[Amanda_931]

True.  Even my friends in much milder Tennessee--IIRC the evening of that big ice storm the temperature didn't even get down to freezing who were without power for two weeks were very very happy to get power back after two weeks of eating out or out of cans, etc.  They had gas heat, but it was distributed via fan.

[ShawnaJ]

I have been playing with the dog trot idea for our cabin. Only adding glass sliding windows/doors to shut the center area up tight during the winter, and a big stone fireplace in the center. I am thinking the floor would be the concrete over wood with tubes to run hot water through to heat the floor and thus the whole area. The tubes would run behind the fireplace, the water would get warmed up......and have a water shut off valve for summer when we didn't need the heat....

I can dream, I just can't calculate the load this would put on the foundation!!!!

[Amanda_931]

Calculate cubic footage--length x width x depth (in decimal feet), ignoring the radiant heat setup, I'd think.

x weight of  cubic foot of concrete (should that be wet or dried--hmmm).  

Then hope somebody else knows how to do foundations.    

If it were me I'd rather do that on the ground, not up in the air.  

Although I've seen lots and lots of concrete slab over a piece of roofing metal over block over footings for a front stoop.  May have even had one in Nashville.