Hot Rocks storage

[Richard S.]

Take the free energy from the sun...

Stuff that burns is free too. The cost of course is collecting it, just like the expense of solar panels. The closest thing to free would be wood. You can reduce your expense to a hand saw, a maul and whatever food you need to maintain the calories to cut it all up.

[waytomany?s]

Stuff that burns is free too. The cost of course is collecting it, just like the expense of solar panels.

I'll collect my gas cans and fill up the Genny so I can have power on a wind less night.

[BigBarney]

I'd like to see someone haul out 10 cords of wood out of forest ...

Especially if its 1/2 mile or more in... By hand or with a small wagon...

Wood is never free...Just the labor involved is massive...

When you have to do it every year...Solar panels once put up are good

for 20-40 years... With just a light dusting off...

BigBarney

[Richard S.]

Wood is never free...Just the labor involved is massive...

That's an expense related to collecting it. Using your logic it's free just like the sun.

Solar panels once put up are good

Where do I get free solar panels?

[BigBarney]

But I do not need to go cut move and stack it every year ... Once and done ...

Panels at $40 and up for used .... 75% of full output...

Replace weakest panels as money is available....Only to upgrade output...

BigBarney

[Richard S.]

But I do not need to go cut move and stack it every year ... Once and done ...

If I pay someone to go on my lot and cut firewood this would be the same thing as you paying for panels and having them install them. The wood itself is free just like the sun. Once again this is your argument, not mine.

[BrokenGrate]

Agreed. I have all the twigs and sticks in the woods to use, probably could find the time and ambition to build it, but how can you make it worthwhile and not ugly? Not to mention getting your insurance company to sign off.

It’s taken some age to learn “it is what they don’t tell you” that you need to pay attention too. Barney has yet to figure that out yet.

I have never had insurance on a house but the new wife is scared to death of fires so she put it on our newest house which is our main residence. It’s good I guess, but I don’t live my life bowing to insurance companies. If they pay for it they do and if not, I am no better off paying for it myself. I can play the odds just like they do by insuring it.

Still rocket mass heaters are god awful ugly.

[BigBarney]

Here comes the Sand Battery for heat storage..

You could build one yourself with minimal cost...



I use bricks but sand would be acceptable...

BigBarney

[BrokenGrate]

Agreed. I have all the twigs and sticks in the woods to use, probably could find the time and ambition to build it, but how can you make it worthwhile and not ugly? Not to mention getting your insurance company to sign off.

There was a guy in the Netherlands who made a windmill that churned water to heat his house in the 1970,s

I thought of making a hydrokinetic turbine to do the same thing at my house as I am at the confluence of two rivers and just downstream of a dam. But that is a whole lot of building for something that may not work. It is tempting though because if it did, it would be a 24/7 heater for my house using free energy (flowing water)

Of course it’s NOT renewable energy. In all the states but Maine it is considered renewable power, but not in the State of Maine. (Insert tolling of the eyes here)

[David...]

I saw a house with a box of 3/4" stone in the basement that was heated by solar panels warming air. I think I replaced a blower motor. Was back a few years later and the rocks were gone. I asked why and as told radon was the issue.

[BigBarney]

This is like the system I mentioned... Sun heats the rocks ... Air is blown through...

Heating the house... Store the excess till needed usually at night...

Supplement with any other heat if needed...Or heat the stones with it...

Simple and efficient... Lasts many years... With little to 0 maintenance...

You now have a heat battery ... For storage.... Cover in summer and let

the cold earth supply you A/C with cool air to increase its efficiency...

BigBarney

[BrokenGrate]

I kind of tried that on a house. Instead of putting rocks in the basement, I put down foam, then 400 tons of crushed rock under a slab on grade on a fairly big single level 2500 sq ft home. So in that, there was a lot of ground contact.

Again, I am not so sure how well it did. Heating wise, I had a lot of mass because I had the slab on grade holding heat, and the rock, but I also had to initially heat that rock from60 degrees to 90 degree depending on the ambient temperature.

One winter the house went vacant, but was still owned by me, and without life inside it (people, cooking, motors running, etc), and without being heated all winter, on a -7 degree (F) day, the lowest it ever got was 46 degrees inside. Not warm enough for humans to be comfortable granted, but it never got below freezing. I don't think the extra 400 ton of rock or mass of the slab on grade had anything to do with it though. I think the surface area of that house was just big enough, and the house was so super insulated, and had just enough solar gain, that it could maintain a temp above freezing.

It was basically passive geothermal...

[BigBarney]

Hell you had 2500 Sq ft of floor at 50* radiating 24/7 ...

That's a lot of Kwhr of energy...

As long as the building was tight it heats to 50* by itself...

My heat pump water heater in the basement sucks the heat from

the walls at ~50 to heat my DHW. Walls are 2' thick hand mixed concrete

and big rocks,its like a bomb shelter...

Bigbarney

[BigBarney]

Update :: New information...

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/study-reveals-ancient- ... 00602.html

The heat either comes from direct heating in the sunshine ... And off peak electric...

Take the duck belly excess and save it for later use...As heat not electric...See the "duck curve"...

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=56880

BigBarney

[Richard S.]

...See the "duck curve"...

That can also be expressed as underutilized capital investment in reliable production sources that you are paying for and not reaping the benefits.