Hey Everyone, just thought I’d throw this out there. Been researching alternative heating and electric ideas that can save some of my very limited cash supply. Looking into Radiant heat, good old wood, which relates directly to this forum, turbine electricity, hydro electric etc… Wondering what alternative setups some of you have come up with.
Obviously we all like our chainsaws and our firewood stacks but still costs a lot after gas, oil, chain, logs, time, etc.. it is fun but looking for any other ideas. If any of you are interested in the subject?
This subject has interested me since I picked up and read a book from Mother Earth news that broached the subject thirty years ago.
Any nature powered system is going to need a storage bank as none seem to go 100% of the time. Having more than one can hedge your bets, like having wind and solar power for example, it may be dark out, but it could be windy.
Usage has a lot to do with it as well. So, the start should be the designing of the home to begin with. It should be just big enough to fir your needs. Can it be partially buried in say a Southerly facing hillside for example. Any parts of the home exposed should be energy star plus insulated.
Then there's working with your natural surroundings. Here is where some ingenuity can come into play. It can be as simple as heat ducts in the floor and A/C ducts in the ceiling (common sense). Or let's say you have a South facing entry door, if it were painted black and along with an all-glass screen door can make one heck of a solar heater if allowed to vent inside or be blown in in the winter and a white roll up blind to pull over it in the summer to deactivate it. Some shudders cut from steel plate could be installed on the inside to swing into place and radiate heat in the winter and swung away in the summer.
One idea I had was to "pipe in" cold air from outside with a small, insulated pipe in the winter into the freezer with a small fan in and back out. limiting the need to power to refrigerate.
And for any of you burning wood, you should be heating your domestic water supply when doing so. The most obvious is with a wood boiler, however a wood stove or even a fireplace can be made to do so if planned ahead. There are steel U-shaped arms that can be bolted in so water can be circulated through to your water heater.
There's also either a conversion kit for existing or complete clothes dryers ready to go that work off of hot water.
Propane can be bought in the off season fairly reasonably and an average sized tank should last years for cooking and hot water in the summertime.
These are but just a few examples of what can be accomplished of a person puts their mind to it and who knows, maybe even go off grid.
Good luck with your alternative ventures.
. When the sunroom addition was built the previous owner was opposed to filling in the cistern as that was emergency water for the cattle. The addition was built around it and incorporated in. Very few folks know it is there but it is. There was also one about 50 feet out in the yard. When I moved in here I took the backhoe and the ole Mack dump truck out in the pasture and hauled sand up to promptly fill that one in. I did not want my kiddos around it.
