|
|
|
|
|
Start Medium
Energy Saving Specialty Stoves
Stoves have been around for a long time, and manufacturers are a creative lot – always coming up with brilliant new ideas (sometimes based on really old good ideas.)
Here are a few specialty stoves that can be wonderful in certain circumstances.
Biomass Stove
Do you happen to live in an area where there are tons of unwanted cherry pits? Olive pits? Excess corn? Excess wheat? If so, then a biomass stove might be just the thing. These stoves are designed specifically to burn unconventional organic material. If you live in a big city, this probably won’t be feasible. But what if you happen to live in the cherry processing center of the US? Or perhaps you live in farm country and there is left over wheat or corn begging for a good use. As luck would have it, these organic materials burn rather cleanly. In other respects, these stoves operate like a standard Pellet stove, with a hopper which holds the stuff to be burned. The hopper delivers a slow steady amount of fuel (rate of burn is set by the user) to the fire in the stove.
Masonry Heater
This super efficient stove extracts more heat from wood than even the most economical conventional wood burning stove. A masonry heater is a wood burning stove, but is encased in brick, stone, adobe or cement. The wood is burned, and the resulting hot exhaust air is routed through a labyrinth like flue that winds its way through the stone or cement, which soaks up this heat and radiates it slowly into the room. Regular wood burning stoves can make a rather dry heat. The masonry heater makes a much more comfortable heat. And, the heat soaked up by the mass of the stove from a single burn can keep heating the room for 6 – 24 hours.
Passive Solar Construction
If you think about modern construction techniques today, it seems rather absurd that almost no effort is made to align the house with its surroundings. Nice tree? Cut it down, it’s in the way. Sloping hill out back? Squish it! Flatten it! Good breeze from the east? Breeze? Who cares? With a little effort, a new house
could be integrated with its surroundings and thereby be far more efficient. In fact, there is a whole school of study out there of ways to integrate one’s house so perfectly with its surroundings that most of the heating and cooling needs for are taken care of by Mother Nature herself. Some of the concepts used in passive solar construction are careful orientation of the house, precise calculations of wall thickness and overhang, glass in the right places, and a meticulous design for natural circulation of air. The folks who know how to do this can be masters, and the houses they design can be masterpieces which use almost no energy for heating and cooling. Unfortunately, most builders are so pressured by market forces that while they might want to integrate the houses they build, they find they cannot. For the glory of a passive solar house to take place, the owner must take charge and make the project a labor of love and devotion. Wonderful idea. Takes a lot of time however.
Anyway, there is a way to use some of the concepts of passive solar on an existing house. All that is needed is a south facing wall with sunlight. Here is a diagram showing how this system works. It requires no electricity, and runs on its own. Many people install this system on a workshop which would otherwise be icy cold in the winter. No heater – this one included – will work on a drafty, poorly insulated structure. So any structure would need to be properly sealed and insulated before anything else. These systems can be purchased ready to install, or if you feel the urge to build and be handy, you can make one yourself.
|
|
|
|
Solar Energy | Sun Powered Attic Fans | Solar Water Heater System | Solar PV system | Energy Saving Tips
©2008 Queen of Green