openspaceman

No idea as I decided the cost outweighed the benefit as we have gas but did snag a domestic system that had a gasifier stove heating a 2 tonne thermal store. if I were to do it I would remove a radiator, as they are redundant, and put the boiler into circuit there but the pipe to the feed and expansion tank would dictate where the boiler would sit with its own coil in the hot tank and ,probably, pump.

Yes British gas trialled them but pulled out. Whispergen made an interesting 3 piston Stirling engined one in NZ and spares are still available but the factory closed after an earthquake. Microgen still do a free piston version at £14k both were only 1kW and integrated into a boiler. Stirling still makes sense as it can be hermetically sealed , for long life like a fridge compressor. Innovations in battery technology makes a rethink worthwhile. I guess about 15% conversion to electricity but the heat can still be used. PV fits well as during the summer it works when no heat needed. Yes but high purity necessary and there are capital cost issues. Where will the hydrogen come from? Up to 10% hydrogen can go in the gas main before pumping losses cause problems, such a fuel cell could filter hydrogen out selectively and methane then burned.

I'm in a sub urban area and only have 4kW of PV installed, two of us in the house ,and we seem to use around 6kWh a day. I'll attempt to log it every few days and produce a chart. It is SW facing so not optimal and year on year seems to produce about 9% of its rated capacity in sunny Surrey. This is way more than our consumption so previously most went back to the grid. I expected electricity prices to rise but not as much as happened so after much delay we had an ac inverter/charger and 6kWh of lithium phosphate battery installed late November. Early days yet but electricity imports have dropped by about 30%. I am still on a fixed tariff but will be on a capped variable from March but am annoyed that not only will the fuel price go up by 40% so will the standing charge.Currently standing charges are about £80/annum for electricity and same for gas. Electricity is 17p/kWh and gas 3p/kWh. Although I have to be grid connected for the system to run I think with a changeover switch and a pure sinewave generator I could run islanded. It would only be worth doing if I had an EV but then I would have no qualms about running on red diesel or natural gas and recouping heat for the house from the exhaust and coolant ( I was involved with a project that did this before successfully). In the meanwhile I would like to pursue other microgeneration methods as I think I only need 200W while the house is heated to make up shortfall but will need a few more moths to be sure. This is the first year we have not switched the gas on for heating, we have got through a lot of wood, gas still does DHW and costs around 40p/day Ain't that the truth

I am not happy with these web based systems and would love something simpler. In my case the Growatt inverter and battery have an interface hosted in china, the app for the phone is far too intrusive so I have denied the access to wifi. Also as the granularity of the sensing is coarse I see instances of the battery being charged from the grid and also exporting to the grid which I specifically do not want. The electricians that fitted the batterry and inverter were goodish but were not able to discuss my needs when that varied from the norm.

Depending on the ground and the coming summer the root contact will keep them good longer than if the wood is harvested and stacked.

Wat?

Sedition won't get that peerage

Yeabut I only got mine in the summer and still playing with it

Looks like he has one of the same as mine @Stubby. I've been drying a piece of beech after testing a split face with my moisture meter. Valiant measured 31% on wettest part of split face and oven dry the overall result was 25%. It bunrned very nicely.

Approved Document J | Part J - Combustion appliances and fuel storage systems | Planning Portal WWW.PLANNINGPORTAL.CO.UK Details of Part J (Approved Document J) of the Building Regulations

Shook old sweet chestnut do this to a much lesser extent without being hollow

no but similar effect

So the fuse blew to protect the upstream cabling but was caused by a downstream fault which replacing the fuse did not fix.

Pouring a bit of petrol onto polystyrene beads does reduce the volume a lot

I don't think they were readily available in 1974

If it weren'n for the risk of sparks from the motor brushes you could leave a bit of petrol in the bottom to reduce the volume 🙂 Back in the day of cleaning out combines in the field you could fit one of those cyclones to a barrel and have a wander suction hose. Power came from the air intake of the diesel engine.

What strikes me about running a tractor on DERV is that it could be construed that you are using the tractor outside its licensing or C&U regulations. The tax on fuel for road use was only ever to produce an income stream for the governement, nothing to do with climate change or pollution, so now that atmospheric CO2 is an issue the only reason for not taxing all fossil fuel is because of the problems with fishing rail transport, farming and forestry. Time to bite the bullet IMO.

Well my woodstove has no hotplate and we have an electric cooker but I bought this for 15 quid from fleabay and using kindling it boils 1.5 litres in 15 minutes and I have cooked egg and sausage on one fuelling. It all packs into the base. I would not use it indoors

not to mention it makes your clothes stink

The force on the wire is related to the friction of the clutch plate and the amount of wire left on the drum, so on a bare drum and as long as the tractor doesn't stall you will reach the rated pull of the winch

Treadlight sell them but you need the trigger block on the line too, this conical block rides the rope off the groove. I have the snatch block (only rated at 2 tonnes) but not the trigger as the sudden slack in the HMWPE rope causes problems with the wraps on the Eder capstan, so I slack off and dismount the rope, take up slack and start winching again.

Yes strictly speaking horticulture is the production of plants but for some reason the cultivation of plants in gardens has been accepted, it would need a court case to set a precedent of what is allowable. Strangely the exemptions seem to apply to sports activities, like golf clubs, whereas in the past mowing of sports fields with red diesel was not allowed.

I probably read about it in a motor cycle magazine too but it would have been in the late 60s. The thing about a traditional poppet valve 4 stroke engine is that it is simple to build and the sealing is also good around the piston and valve. The Wankel, sleeve valve and uniflow opposed piston engines all have certain advantages but have problems keeping the hot gas or lubricating oil in. The Stirling engine gets around some of these problems by having the whole engine sealed but at the cost of limiting the pressure from which the gas expands from. I think all those WW2 radial engines had total loss lubrication, as does a two stroke and wouldn't reach pollution standards now. Yes there are designs of these engines using modern techniques which address these sealing problems but they come at a time when internal combustion engines are going out of favour.

Yes that was a rotating conical valve in the head. The ultimate WW2 aero engines were sleeve valved H layout but again the cost of the performance was loss of lubrication oil.

close to the bone but funny