The Great Winter Heating Experiment

[Nemesis]

I need no excuses really.

 

[Jane Smith]

Nimster, we're a mile off the road, near Stanage Edge. You can see us from the Pole. Is that the one you're thinking of?

 

[Nimster]

If your house is off the road that leads from Hathersage up to Higgar Tor, then it may be the one I'm thinking of. Although now I think about it, that house looks fairly well finished from the road.......

Wherever you are, I'm very jealous. We wanted to move out of Sheffield and would have liked to be in the Peak, but ended up going out East towards Worksop as we just couldn't afford Peak Park prices We've got a lovely house though, that we certainly couldn't have bought if it had been in the Peak!

 

[Jane Smith]

Nope, that's not us. You can't see us from the road, we're a mile up a track. I'll PM you.

We've been here for ten years now. No one else would take the house on because it is so big, so derelict and so very off-grid. We were keen, and prepared to work hard.

I know what you mean about prices. I couldn't afford to live here if it hadn't been so terrible when we moved in. A decade later and our house is now worth 20 times what we paid for it--we know, we just turned down a huge offer.

 

[Penners]

the sort of man to consider a washer/dryer an appropriate gift for a birthday or anniversary.

I agree - quite inappropriate.

Pig-sh!t's the thing.

I once gave Mrs P a 3-ton trailerload of the aforementioned for her birthday*. She was thrilled - it did wonders for the veg garden. Can't say the neighbours were impressed, though. As it arrived, the sound of slamming windows in our street was like machine-gun fire.

*In my own defence I should add that this was what she had asked for.

 

[Moo]

Actually, I wasn't joking. You see, in our household we earn roughly the same, and it all goes into a joint account. Should one of us want/need something expensive (ie a new computer for me, or a basset-horn for him) we play a little game where we call it a birthday (or a christmasandbirthday, if it's really expensive) present from us to us.

Silly, I know, but it keeps us happy.

 

[Penners]

Actually, I wasn't joking. You see, in our household we earn roughly the same, and it all goes into a joint account. Should one of us want/need something expensive (ie a new computer for me, or a basset-horn for him) we play a little game where we call it a birthday (or a christmasandbirthday, if it's really expensive) present from us to us.

Silly, I know, but it keeps us happy.

Perfectly sensible, Moo, and a system that the Penners pensioners follow, too.

Except we don't have much call for basset-horns. Ours is a West Highland Terrier.

 

[biffvernon]

No, I don't see a connection.

 

[Nemesis]

I just spend, spend, spend.

 

[Moo]

Now, that's one I'll definitely not show to the other half!

 

[Penners]

But which one...?

 

[Moo]

Both, actually, Penners.

And, Biff - try googling for a basset-hound as well as a basset-horn.......

 

[NT]

Yep, the inverter is a multi-function thingy which controls all sorts of things.

The wind turbine didn't suffer at all from producing 9kW: it was all the other bits that had trouble with it! I'll speak with Bob, who installed ours, and see what he thinks about putting in a dummy load (as you call it) prior to the controller: without being too technical, though, would it be possible to take that extra energy out of the system without draining power off before the house and battery are serviced?

Yes, in short. The new controller for your new dummy load would watch how much current flowed into the controller/invertor, and would turn the new dummy on when the current exceeded what the present invertor could handle. IOW the new controller would swich on not when the battery bank was full, but when windgen output exceeded 6kW.

It would be a good idea first to get some kind of idea of how much of the time this >6kW would be produced, look at what you'd do with the power, and work out the value of capturing this extra versus the cost involved.

The new controller could turn the new dummy on progressively rather than just on/off control, but again its more moolah to do it. Do you need more power? If so, for what purposes? Would occasional intermittent power do the job?

BTW do you run a single battery bank or do you have some kind of redundancy built in? I'm wondering what voltage the battery bank is too.

As far as the closet dryer goes, it looks like a brilliant way to save even more power but here, the weak link is me. I have Reynaud's disease, which is really just excessively bad circulation in my hands and feet. I can't handle wet clothes for long enough to hang them up: I can barely get them into the dryer. The wet makes my fingers get really cold, and if they go too far I start to get little ulcers which are the precursors to gangrene. Lovely! However: if we do move on with our stables renovation (big, scary project) we'll include one there, as it sounds ideal.

Ouch. I hope you've got a very high spin speed machine then. 1400rpm spin machines produce clothes that are almost dry, and the reduced weight and water content could be good news, not to mention reduced drying energy.

One of my way down the priorities list projects was once a solar tumble dryer. Electrically turned but the heat input came from reflectors outside of the machine. FWIW a tumble dryer could be converted to run off an external solarthermal panel.

Thats the trouble with these offgrid schemes, there are just so many possibilities.


NT

 

[Penners]

One of my way down the priorities list projects was once a solar tumble dryer.

But if the sun is shining, why would you need a tumble dryer?

 

[NT]

One of my way down the priorities list projects was once a solar tumble dryer.

But if the sun is shining, why would you need a tumble dryer?

I dont ever need a tumble dryer. But they remain popular nonetheless, and a solar one would wipe out most of the energy use. It would work all days, not just when sun shines.


NT

 

[biffvernon]

why would you need a tumble dryer?

It makes the towels all soft and fluffy

 

[NT]

Strange world isnt it?


NT