Heating:Return to sustainability menu

My idea on heating is that one should have many alternatives but mainly based on direct sunshine. For my main backup I am using a biodiesel oil heater. It requires no electricity to operate. The solar air heater works amazingly well without much attention!

One very good source of heat is that the hot water tanks are in my living area so that any lost heat from the hot water tanks gets used in the living area and now I have a radiator to disperse some the the very hot water created by the solar evacuated tubes.

When the sun shines there is no supplimentary heat needed for heating the house.

Mar 22, 2010 One of the new fans attached to the bottom of the solar air heater.

Febuary 23,2010

Here is Teresa who just finished painting the new solar hot air heater white on the ouside. Its still not completed, Mat still has some testing to do and perhaps a solar panel to add to drive the fans if necessary.

Updated by Clare

Feburary 16, 2010

Remember the new air heater that Mat is making ( few pictures down )???

Well its out of the shop and on the side of the house. Mat is currently painting the solar air heater with another coat of black paint. The next step is to put on the window.

Here is Will installing the window .The next step is to put on the doors.

Here is Mat and Will putting on the first door of the solar air heater.But a slight problem ocured, they put the doors on upside down!!

	The pipes have a first coat of flat black paint.
	The fist pipes are put together.
	Will cutting pipe in the wood shop.
	The position of the box on the house.
	The box minus the insulation attached to the house

Feburary 9,2010

Remember the solar air heater?? Well Will is working on making the doors for it, and to do that he has to clamp them together like a sandwich to glue the foam in place..

Updated by Clare

Febuary 9 ,2010

This is a picture of some pipes of Mats that go with his heater.they are getting cleaned out after a few days of doing being in place.

updated by Clare

	Yes this is large... about 8 ft by four ft.
	The box is insulated with Roxul and covered with aluminum foil covered foam. I did test it to see it it would burn.... and it does not !
	Here Will has started the frame for the large solar air heater.
	Feb 2, 2010 Will started to build a new larger solar Air heater.

	Dec 1, 2009. I have just connected up the computer to the new radiator heating system. When the temperature gets to over 75 Celcius the pump kicks on and the hot water flows to the radiator. The ceiling fan pushes the hot air at the ceiling down and around the room... at least that is the theory... now we need some sunny days to try it out. Dec 24, 2009. This system works very well!I had a couple of very sunny days and the water temperature got above 75degrees celcius and I turned it on....it does the job and raises the temperature of the room easily. It does lower the water temperature in the tanks quickly so I'll need a few more tanks of hot water. I'm planning on about 30 of them in the basement........
	The new burner in the bio deisel stove.
	Notice the little hole??? Updated by Clare

	Nov. 26 2009. This is the view before I add the water pump and radiator. I was definitely having problems with the excess heat build up in the hot water evacuated tube system. It had melted the insulation on the copper pipes and cause me concern knowing that the water was about 100 degrees Celsius on a sunny day. What better way to use that heat than to have it used in my living area.
	Nov. 26, 2009 So here is the new radiator that will use hot water to heat the air. Yes the rad is up high with no fan but I will be putting in a ceiling fan which will draw the hot air from the ceiling down and in turn bring cold air up through the rad. At least that is the idea.
	Nov. 26, 2009 A close-up of the new heating system incorporating my recycled radiator from the central air system that I tore apart recently. The green object is a pump and I have broken into the hot and cold lines of the hot water system.
	Nov. 27, 2009 This is the ceiling fan now installed which should take the hot air at the ceiling and move it downwards. Time will tell if it is successful. It already works well at dispersing the heat from the biodiesel heater.

	Oct. 3, 2009 OK this is the new system of delivering the fuel to the burn area. The idea is to not heat the fuel line so that it carbons up.. and then then allow vaporizing area to carbon up as well. This my first attempt and I already have another one on paper. So far this has worked well in tests but I do need to see how long it will run before it needs cleaning.
	OK this is the insides. The fuel line runs in the horizontal pipe and is force fitted into a hole in the vertical one. The fuel line has no bends in it an is easily cleaned. The vertical tube where the fuel vaporizes is the problem. In this test I have a fairly large tube but in the next one I will have a double wall and the interior will be vented to lower the heat on the walls.

	December 27, 2008 This is the new idea to keep the fuel line from getting plugged with carbon.... so far so good. It has not plugged.. and the intake works very well. I had thought that some of the smoke may make its way up this intake pipe but it does not!
	December 27, 2008 Here are the controls.. the drip regulator from a oil stove and the intake valve from my old woodworking dust collector. The valve is plastic but there is really no heat on the intake pipe... the incoming air cools it. I should replace it with a metal one down the road.
	December 27, 2008 If I open the door this is what I see.. not a really efficient flame but the idea works so now to refine it.
	December 27, 2008 This is looking down the intake... and yes it works but with the smoke it is far from efficient at this point.
	December 27, 2008 This is the furnace working... yes it is smoky... lots to experiment with.
	December 27, 2008 This is the rig ready for testing.. yes it is very foggy out.. the weather changed from minus 10 degrees C to plus 10 and rain.
	December 20, 2008 Here is the basic furnace. The basic plans came from an oil burner I saw on Journey to forever and was made for me by Will Arlow.

December 26, 2008 I have discovered that when you run out of sunflower biodiesel one can use regular diesel mixed with sunflower oil... about 1/3 sunflower oil. I will experiment on other ratios as well. I have also discovered that I am quite comfortable at 10 degrees Celcius and only put the heat up to 16 when I am sitting down doing computer work. I put the biodiesel heater on in the morning for a few hours.. shut it off about 1 pm then put it back on about 6 p.m. and run it till about 10 p.m. I shut the heater off over night and sleep quite comfortably waking up in 10 degree weather,
December 7, 2008, Its been quite cold out recently and I am burning about 16 liters of biodiesel every 3-4 days which seems a lot! The upstairs bedroom where I sleep has both the double walls on the out side walls and a double ceiling. there is R22 insulation in the double walls and double ceiling as well the vapour barrier and drywall. I have only 10 of the 16 liter containers of biodiesel left and that means about 30 days supply of fuel. I have been keeping the house warmer than usual for employees and visiting friends. I recently purchased 1500 pounds of sunflower seeds and last week spent a couple of days pressing oil. Since I had not worked the expeller..... and it was very cold my yield seemed a lot lower than the summertime run. I have yet to see how much oil was actually produced. I need to make biodiesel soon but it is soooo cold~! I was not able to start the oil expelling because I had to wait for the sunflower harvest. Now I will haveto do the biodiesel in the cold. I am toying with the thought of just buying some diesel and burning that. This is a lesson for next year... purchase sunflower seeds in the spring and keep them for October expelling!
October 8, 2008 OK time to get that biodiesel stove operational. Well it gave me one heck of a lot of trouble.. yes that carburator just would not consistently give me fuel!!! After a few days and many tries I finally figured out the problem... the valve for allowing the fuel to drip slowly has not functioning properly... I removed the contol and the thing worked just fine.... so I made some modifications to allow more flow. Seemed to have solved the problem but I think that the biodiesel has affected the brass parts as last years fuel is now green! As I now have it the contol is on full blast and the air intake is about 1 1/2 inches to 2 inches... very blue flame with a temperature reqading just above the fuel intake of about 290- 305 degrees fahernheit. Restricting the air does seem to make the heater hotter.

	The new window glass I installed. It took some time to find this special glass but it sure made a difference for me seeing the flame and then adjsuting the damper!
	At the bottom of the picture is the sliding damper assembly, (from my woodsorking dust collection system) The air then goes down to the combusion intake on the left middle of the photo.
	OK here it is the next to final version..... the intake from the outside air is the aluinum pipe on the left the outside cold air goes into a heat exchanger in the exhaust chimney pipe and comes out at the top of the picture, goes down to the damper then finally the heated air goes into the combustions chamber... which you can't see! When the warm weather gets here I will redo everything with nice paint and clean it all up. But for the Moment I am overwhelmed at this success!~ It was a long hard development to get to this state.
	AHA !!!!!!There it is the famous blue flame. I now have control over the flame with the damper setup! This was a hard picture to capture.
	The newly developed Biodiesel Heater! This is a great improvement over the other one! Note the air intake and the damper at the rear.Now to add the through the wall outside air intake!
	That is actually burning.... rather colourless in the sunlight but it is mainly a blue flame. When I let the ourside air in the flame turns yellow but still no smoke! I shot this picutre just as I opened the door.
	The addition on the chimeny pipe is a preheater for the intake air.. it is not connected in thei picture. Note the blower just in front of the intake.. .certainly got a trememndous heat going with that!
	The actual flame that is produced is blue and many times not visible. when I opened the door to take a picture it came up with a yellow flame. The one thing about this new development is that it uses outside air that is heated from the exhaust.
	March 14, 2008. The newly devloped biodiesel stove.
	Even when there is lots of snow the solar water heater and solar air heater heat the house during the day.
	The biodiesel heater is still working well! As I produce better biodiesel there is less cleaning to be done.
	The new battery monitor mounted in the house.
	The solar cells on a cold morning
	Jan 8, 2008 That's the temperature of the incoming air from the small solar air heater.. I think thats impressive at 61 degrees celcius!!
	Dec 21, 2007, I opened the solar air heater in the early morning.. and by noon it was producing 60 degrees celcius hot air
	Dec 5, 2007. The new position of the Biodiesel heater. This produced more heat in the room with the angled stove pipe and certainly produced more hot water. I still need to have a method to regulate the air intake. In high winds the draw is too high and the burn pot gets cooled. My feeling is that on my second attempt I will have a control on the air intake as well as have the intake get air from the outside and then heat it before entering the burn pot.
	Dec 5, 2007 -This is the new rear entrance that Will is building so that there is an airlock between the two outside doors.
	November 2007 The south side of the house with the solar air heater, the solar water heater and the chimney for the biodiesel heater.Note the opened door on the solar air heater. I close it a night. Theres a lot more space for more solar air heaters!!!!
	The Biodiesel heater! Yes this is an old stove oil heater.. uses no electricity and heats very well. The copper pipe you see is a preheater to the solar hot water heater.I have the cover off of it as i play with the water preheater coils.
	Feb 2007 The solar heater on the inside...before I added the controllers.... little bit of a mess but a work in progressas always.
	The solar air heater mounted on the house. Note the wmall 15 watt solar cell to the right of the window.
	Winter 2006-7 Luckily I have a well equiped woodworking shop on the property. The soalr air heater is against the back wall.
	Winter 2006-7 This was the box that I constructed to fit the recycled glass I had found.