Efficient Workshop Heating

My plans will appear here to build a heater, that covers its own electric bills - and in turn, pays for itself.

Sounds a bit like a holy grail of sorts, free heating??

- just thought I'd leave you pondering about that for a while - it's not an early April fools joke, and no..... I don't need sectioning, some of you might get what I'm about to do right away. It will take me a less than a day to build and setup, and I can get everything I need off ebay however knowledge is power here, and I also need to buy the components at the right price to get a reasonable ROI, if any.

There is an awful lot to consider, but without quoting numbers, it will draw from the mains, it will blow heat out, I will pay the electric bill as per usual, but it will make money by creating something of value. my particular plan, should consume around 800w, and pro rata I estimate it will cost under 20p a day, and as I value the heat output (others consider this a waste/problem) I can say I'm saving money by heating my workshop for sub £6.00 a month.

some variables,

the value of the product can increase and decrease

the difficulty to make a unit, increases constantly

the price of electric goes up

thus it might cost me £6 a month now, but £8 in 6 months time, £10 in 12 etc or tomorrow the value of a unit could halve, and then bill which was reduced by 90%, is suddenly only reduced by 45%.......

-figures quoted are just examples bar my current sub 20p estimate (14p actually but it varies by the second and I did that last night).......

"" !! Fun !! ""

Heat pump?

I'm heating my workshop for zero and no electric used.

Mind you it could be a tad warmer in this weather.

It's a good consideration, a very good GSHP would deliver 3-4KW of heat for every 1KW input, so I'd have a 66-75% reduced heating bill, higher values can be achieved but a build cost / payback balance has to be stuck and gas is 50% cheaper than electric, and has a lower carbon foot print, so viewing from green or wallet perspective GSHP's are only 1/2 as good as they say they are if you have gas and a modern condenser boiler.

I'm aiming not for a reduction, but actually an offset.

I'll let the cat out of the bag tonight, but welcome more suggestions as a bit of fun.

The project will offset its own heating bill, my aim is 100%, I expect 99% and that will go down over time, even if it only offsets 50% of the bill, the components still have resale value for what they where originally intended and their value will barely change over the next 12 months, at which point, I'll upgrade them, to top up the efficiency if it's been worth it.

Oil burner/wind solar?

Recycling old oil was always my plan, a friend of my brother runs his entire house on old engine oil and has done for 20 years or more, he gets the old oil free due his line of work. Last time I spoke to him, he was building a generator out of an old diesel engine for free electric (I say free, its costing oil, which just happens to be £0.00 for him)

Edit - another clue? this project can be built by anyone with an internet connection and mains electric (thats a massive clue)

Edited By Russ B on 25/02/2014 12:10:55

You could keep pigs in there. Feed them on scraps, get useful heat from them, Get them to breed, then kill eat and sell the parents, Use the droppings for insulation. Forgive me, I have not done the maths but it sounds like a plan.

John

.......Taking an illicit tap from your neighbours heating system whilst they were away on their hols?

Norman

your certainly closer than Involute Curve and Steve Vine!

it's all above board, people usually build these machines purely for profit they have hundereds of square metres dedicated to it in some buildings in china, the by product (heat) heats the building , and they target the lowest energy consumption possible - I'm targeting the highest energy consumption possible, while still being effective enough to generate enough "units" per month to pay the electric bill. As I said, as the difficulty increases I'll be losing out (unless the value per unit goes up...... then I'm ok)

I really want to let the cat out the bag, but I said I'll wait till tonight, so I'll keep waiting.

oh, and the system I build first off, will only have 2/3 modules quoted, so it will still hit around 99% cost offset, but for a measly 400-500w or so heat output - it should be enough to make a difference in there.

I'm building it like this as I already have some parts that "will do", I'll upgrade it to 3 or 4 modules after, but only if it works. (giving me a 750w-1000w heater)

Another clue? It's about 45cm heigh, and 28cm wide, with a depth of just under 50cm.....

So let me get this straight this will be free or almost free energy ?

Can't wait to see what this is, roll on tonight.

Regards

Dull

Post removed by original poster.

Edited By V8Eng on 25/02/2014 13:32:04

But what do you do with the waste heat in summer? Hey we're owed a scortcher this year.
Funny how Iceland, with all its geothermal energy, farm servers instead of sheep which gives them excess heat so they have to use their cold streams to take it away instead of using it for district heating.
When I thought I could build a wind turbine without oppressive planning problems I was wondering how to use the summer excess to electrolytically refine copper and tin. From time to time it has been viable to recover tin from old cans this way but as the plating gets thinnner and electricity prices rise it has gone by the board.

So I just connect a 2 hp generator on the back end of my 1hp lathe spindle and get 1hp of free electricity whenever I'm running it. Simple. I use this spare energy and my internet connection to send emails out on behalf of my Nigerian cousin, Prince Akasombo, but so far this has not been much of an earner.

By the way if you are if you are running your internet porn server with my employer as ISP you will have to upgrade to a Business account. I might be able to get you a discount if I get free access - for test purposes of course.

Is it mining Bitcoins or something similar?

You can't feed pigs on scraps anymore.

Due to swine fever or mad cow disease or something.

My fire is a wood burner, neutral co2.

It's obviously not free or almost free energy Dull - its actually probably less efficient than a standard £30 oil filled radiator,

we have a winner

Well, that's animal husbandry crossed off the list (and I was going to change the idea to battery chickens as they can be stored away far more neatly).

John, check that themometer out, it could well be broken. It's been showing a constant 43.5 degrees in there for quite a while now.

Steve