REAL MAN TRUCKWORKS & SURVIVAL
TOOLS, CONSTRUCTION, ALTERNATIVE ENERGY => Alternative Energy => Topic started by: Wilbur on August 30, 2017, 08:47:04 AM
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Not sure the best location for this thread but this story was pretty interesting about the simplicity of an alternative heat source for hot water, in this case for a shower. But I also think this could easily be adopted for hot water for a cabin, a shop or any off grid method. I think with more piping it could be used as a type of radiant heat source for a building although that woukd abviously require more piping and is a different system. Plus you would need to "shut it off" during the summer.
This is really simple- hook a water source through a hose to plastic piping that gets run in a serpentine fashion through a compost "pile". In this case it's about 8' x 5'. The guy in the article starts it with a pickup truck load of wood chips and another of sawdust. Obviously any yard scraps would work- grass clippings, hay, food waste etc.
Surprisingly this guy uses it to heat water for a hostel for 10 ppl a day so if this is for an off-grid cabin or BO location that would give you plenty of water for a variety of sources beyond just showers. It gets hot enough for him (120 to 150 degrees) that he needs to mix cold water with it.
Like a lot of these things you may not do exactly what this guy did but it might stimulate you to come up with a version that works for you. Oh....and always....YMMV ha!
Here's the link to the article that stimulated this:
http://bangordailynews.com/2017/08/30/homestead/how-to-build-an-alternative-compost-heated-shower/
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Now that's a cool idea!
:likebutton:
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So simple, its brilliant!
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So simple, its brilliant!
Don I was thinking about your hide site as a possible place something like this could be put in and used pretty effectively. And you make your own sawdust and wood chips so you have the feedstock already.
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That is awesome. Why haven't we heard of this before now!!
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That is awesome. Why haven't we heard of this before now!!
Because it's a "crappy" idea! :laugh:
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So simple, its brilliant!
Don I was thinking about your hide site as a possible place something like this could be put in and used pretty effectively. And you make your own sawdust and wood chips so you have the feedstock already.
I pulled apart one of the now present piles of wood chips, and it was smokin hot inside. Very true about how hot piles of mulch get. Now the danger of those things is coming into focus. The poor hapless driver gets his ford 4X (sometimes) 4 hopelessly mired in a pile of mulch at the mall. While trying to get the truck out the driver gets burned and infected all at the same time!
Dangerous stuff! Why do people spread it all over the place?
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That's why I have a Chevy K5, it doesn't get stuck in the mulch beds. :)
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Don's not telling the whole story here as cmax has been known to get sidelined at the local shopping center a time or two and have a Kia SUV come to his rescue..... :popcorn:
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That's why I have a Chevy K5, it doesn't get stuck in the mulch beds. :)
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I'll have to trade in the Silvy...Went to see a movie one cold dark night. I unwittingly hung a single tire half way into one of those mulch beds. Coming out afterward into twenty something degree weather, I thought I was done for. But with over a thousand foot lbs, decent rubber, low range, that grizzly locker, and a good tail wind, I made it out, but just barely!
I was thinking of offering the concept up to the military. Anti-tank mulch mine. Just place em here and there, and the T-62 that happens to hit one is stopped as if it fell in a hole. We just come along later and place a 120mm hole in it and move on to the next T-62. Work with me, it could sell...
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Don's not telling the whole story here as cmax has been known to get sidelined at the local shopping center a time or two and have a Kia SUV come to his rescue..... :popcorn:
Sadly it was a prius, and with a low battery charge! But I'm not tellin' anyone!