radiant heat...

[Back in the fold]

A guy never thinks of something like this happening . Worst case scenario , other than losing all your fish , is the real possibility of frozen and broken plumbing in your house . A wood stove or pellet stove sure sounds smart . I might give that some thought .

 

[GaryE]

I have a pellet stove - one that was here with the house when we bought. It needs electricity.

This makes it relatively useless.

A wood stove would make more sense, and may one day replace it.

 

[Back in the fold]

I have a pellet stove - one that was here with the house when we bought. It needs electricity.

This makes it relatively useless.

A wood stove would make more sense, and may one day replace it.

What electricity does your pellet stove need ? Probably the auger that feeds it and a blower ? Could a guy have one solar panel and a storage battery to make it self contained ? Otherwise and if not then an old style Franklin wood stove makes better sense and you can burn coal in it too . Coal is economical .

 

[gimme30]

Coal is economical

Uh oh. The greenies see that and they'll be grabbing their pitchforks. But, but, climate change!

I have a wood burning stove that will roast me alive in a matter of hours. I've had to open the windows and the door to the garage which is a weird thing to do when it's freezing outside.
I've never tried coal but I did try charcoal briquettes once when I was out of wood. Worked fine. The chimney cleaner guy wasn't happy about it.

 

[GaryE]

Coal could be a problem, but you can't get it here anyway. I'm in a province fed by forestry, and trees? We have trees.

We're also close to defunct coal mines, but that industry died a very long time ago.

The pellet stoves main issue is the blower. Overall, it's an excellent device when you don't need it. It's cheap to run and throws heat. I suppose if I spent some money I could get a battery system for it, but at that point, I'd probably go for a generator anyway.

 

[Back in the fold]

Uh oh. The greenies see that and they'll be grabbing their pitchforks. But, but, climate change!

I have a wood burning stove that will roast me alive in a matter of hours. I've had to open the windows and the door to the garage which is a weird thing to do when it's freezing outside.
I've never tried coal but I did try charcoal briquettes once when I was out of wood. Worked fine. The chimney cleaner guy wasn't happy about it.

I don’t completely agree with the coal being a bad guy thing . Coal is wood that’s been sitting longer . Burn anything and you release carbon dioxide . Coals bad rep comes from the big coal fired electrical generators . People brag about how green their electric cars , lawn mowers , etc . are but a coal fired generator recharges them . What concerns me more is the water that solar panels use to cool themselves . Anyway , no real answers to any of it but coal heat in your home is the cheapest way to go and isn’t dependent on electricity .

 

[TNG]

I don’t completely agree with the coal being a bad guy thing . Coal is wood that’s been sitting longer . Burn anything and you release carbon dioxide . Coals bad rep comes from the big coal fired electrical generators . People brag about how green their electric cars , lawn mowers , etc . are but a coal fired generator recharges them . What concerns me more is the water that solar panels use to cool themselves . Anyway , no real answers to any of it but coal heat in your home is the cheapest way to go and isn’t dependent on electricity .

Solar panels these days use photovoltaic cells which do not require water for cooling. I salute anyone who still has decades-old technology solar panels, it’s proof that they look after their panels very well. I have a system with battery installed recently, so I no longer have to worry about bushfire or storm knocking out the distribution power poles and having dead fish as a result.

Living in a region where the sun shines (almost) year round, it makes sense to make use of solar energy. I no longer import electricity from the coal fired power plant but I can’t export excess electricity either as a large percentage of households here have panels on the roofs, electricity companies have problems dealing with excess electricity at midday. The plan is that from the middle of this year, (in some states) households without solar panels and need electricity can have free power for 3 hours at midday - I’m not making this up, it’s true. Free power for any household that wants it would be unthinkable if we only had coal fired power plants.

My old house had an indoor wood heater and I enjoyed chopping and splitting wood to feed it in winter, I also liked the smell of burning wood. But I’m now semi-retired and I leave wood splitting to the younger generation. I also found that using solar energy and not smelling burning wood is not a bad thing either.

 

[jaylach]

so, often people complain, about the cost to heat their aquariums... so long as they are in your house ( sorry, this excluded @GaryE ... ) the aquariums act as radiant heater for your home, so in theory, your furnace shouldn't have to run as much... aquarium heaters are pretty efficient, for what they do, as far as electric heat... I know often gas, is cheaper over all to heat with, but there are still many many houses that heat with electric today...

there you go... a good excuse to buy a new aquarium

Interesting thought as to an aquarium helping to heat an area but it just won't work. The tank just ends up being a heat sink and actually drawing heat from the room. At least I THINK I have that right.

 

[fishorama]

Gee I missed this thread for a while. Back in the 1980s I had 2 uncles that built their own solar panels. No water required I think but I don't know the details. It seems like a small central fan but with just a couple panels it may just have taken the edge off.

Not like an array of electricity generating panels of modern times. We don't have battery storage but don't pay anything beyond the $25-30/month for electricity & hot water. Gas heat is more.

Magnum, you seem like a very DIY guy. You might look into a smaller solar options to get you through hard times. Might be worth checking out now that you're almost retired. A new hobby?

I hope you repaired furnace is now working well for you.

 

[Magnum Man]

the aquarium would only be a traditional "heat sink", if it were cooler than the room it's in, it's actually a radiant heater if it's warmer than the room... now if electric heaters are used to make the aquarium warmer than the room, it is likely not as efficient as a gas furnace... but by the laws of physics, if it's warmer than the room, it'll radiate heat into the room...

 

[TNG]

Heat from fish tanks behaves like heat from an oil heater in that it warms the air rather than heats an object directly. The term for that is convection heat.

Heat from an electric bar heater is radiant heat. Unlike convection heat, you turn on a radiant heater and you feel the heat instantly. Turn it off, you instantly lose the heat.

If your room is full of fish tanks then it’s a lot more economical to heat the room rather heat individual tanks.

We can agree that if we try to heat the room to 22C/72F using convection heat from the fish tanks we’ll end up with dead fish as the tanks’ temp would be far too high for the fish - just as an oil heater is extremely hot when we turn it on to heat the room.

 

[Magnum Man]

yes, that why my unheated room goes between 55-60 degrees, even though the tanks are set at 78 degrees, so as such, the tanks are radiating heat into the cooler room... so in this case if my room goal temp was what ever the 78 degree tanks would heat the room to... to heat the room to 78 degrees the tanks would need to be set at 106 degrees using the above numbers however if they were still set at 78 degrees, and the room was actually 77 degrees the tanks would still be radiating heat, as they are still warmer than the room...

in my example, above, the goal, was not any specific temperature, only warm enough to keep the extra 12 packs of pop stored in there, from freezing, and exploding all over...