Author Topic: Greenhouse heating invention  (Read 9587 times)

SeaWalnut

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Greenhouse heating invention
« on: October 12, 2019, 06:52:21 AM »
I will start building a central heating on wood for my greenhouse.
The fire place will be outdoor ,near the greenhouse and the stove will be a small rocket stove made from ytong bricks and the stratification chamber will be a stainless steel beer barrel.
The chimney i want to make it also from stainless steel.
Instead of water to move the heat from the stove outdoor inside the greenhouse il use air .The advantage is that air doesnt freeze like water and its not toxic as the antifreeze.
Off course water based heat transfer is more efficient than air heat transfer but somehow i think my air heat transfer will be more efficient than the hydronic.
And here is the idea: because il use air to heat the floor of the greenhouse through pipes ,i can recycle the hot air that rises near the ceiling,and heating it again then store that energy back into the floor.
With water heating you can reuse that hot air near the ceiling.
Another idea is to have a blower fan ,brushless 12-24 volts that for the begining il be driving with a power source.
But later i want to use 15-20 TEGs ( peltiers) to harvest the heat from the chimney and to tranaform it into electric power to drive the fan.
Basically there will be no need for a socket since the fire itself will create enough electric power to drive the fan .
Note that il not be using the exhaust to heat the greenhouse but the air from the greenhouse wich will get heated through the stainless steel beer barrel .So altoigh il have ,,chimneys,, looking pipes in the floor ,there will be fresh air but heated that will pass through them ,not the chimney exhaust.
Later il make a hand drawing and explain it better.

Francis_Eric

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #1 on: October 12, 2019, 07:44:39 AM »
Ever think of a large Magnifying glass on a something that tracks the sun for solar energy using one of those old TV screens .
Or a Satellite dish covered in tiny mirrors 

See edit.  for links

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkgFk15uBxw
« Last Edit: October 12, 2019, 07:53:43 AM by Francis_Eric »

Francis_Eric

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #2 on: October 12, 2019, 08:02:28 AM »
I cannot find the original one some kid took tiny square mirrors , and put them on a small satellite dish ,
 and made a laser beam here is a idea though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7BI0IcZ42I

Note The Above link with the projection TV screen be careful as it could burn the retina in your eye's

You could use a cloth out side made of steel (or asbestos ) , and focus it onto a cast Iron piece of metal
May find one from a Old octopus Furnace
(or a Old wood burning stove that is broke at a Scrap yard for cheap)

(I carried (ONE) huge piece of metal out of my basement )(out of 3 smallers ones)  maybe 240 LBS (I'm skinny)
(edit) step by step resting it on each  stair
(be careful of the door frame if you do can't lift with your legs first 3 steps & a Hernia)
, but call a Furnace company the least you could get is some pretty Cast Iron art work
« Last Edit: October 12, 2019, 08:06:18 AM by Francis_Eric »

Francis_Eric

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #3 on: October 12, 2019, 08:34:47 AM »
Other than Cast iron
(Extremely salty )water could be used , but not certain if the steam would be too much
with plain water unless it was contained (of coarse with salt water)

Cat litter Mineral Zeolite could be used  (sorry can't find my links here is wiki)
(hit ctrl , and f ,and hold search heat)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeolite#Commercial_and_domestic 

The German group Fraunhofer e.V. announced that they had developed a zeolite substance for use in the biogas industry for long-term storage of energy at a density 4x more than water.[21] Ultimately, the goal is to be able to store heat both in industrial installations and in small combined heat and power plants such as those used in larger residential buildin

Organic Cavalry

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #4 on: October 12, 2019, 09:32:41 AM »
Air to air heat exchange is the least efficient. I did heat transfer for years a d years. Airplanes do it, for turning engine bleed air into air conditioning as one step... at 500 miles an hour Outside air is not enough to do the job, takes cooling turbines too.

Francis_Eric

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #5 on: October 12, 2019, 09:40:26 AM »
see this firplace (Link here) http://www.hopspress.com/Videos/Masonry_Fireplace.htm
Hope what you try works out well If I where a better plumber I would otherwise I'd try to use a heat cable , but not certain what is the most effective I do have a old 70's book Gardening under glass , but haven't looked through it in years
 (technology has come along way , but still A nice book)



« Last Edit: October 12, 2019, 09:46:04 AM by Francis_Eric »

sunny

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #6 on: October 12, 2019, 10:48:12 AM »
I cannot find the original one some kid took tiny square mirrors , and put them on a small satellite dish ,
 and made a laser beam here is a idea though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7BI0IcZ42I

Note The Above link with the projection TV screen be careful as it could burn the retina in your eye's

You could use a cloth out side made of steel (or asbestos ) , and focus it onto a cast Iron piece of metal
May find one from a Old octopus Furnace
(or a Old wood burning stove that is broke at a Scrap yard for cheap)

(I carried (ONE) huge piece of metal out of my basement )(out of 3 smallers ones)  maybe 240 LBS (I'm skinny)
(edit) step by step resting it on each  stair
(be careful of the door frame if you do can't lift with your legs first 3 steps & a Hernia)
, but call a Furnace company the least you could get is some pretty Cast Iron art work

Asbestos????? That's very illegal these days.

Francis_Eric

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #7 on: October 12, 2019, 11:23:38 AM »
Is bricks better ?
I'm talking on the out side of the green house covered in ply wood so the beam doesn't go through,
and burn down anything
said it is 2000 degree's

They say it's dangerous when it is disturbed

Of coarse those old octopus furnaces already have it in there huge steel vents
If It caused so many diseases being undisturbed I'm sure more people in old homes would have mesothelioma

I actually prefer the old octopus vent no forced air just cast iron holding the heat
and no temperature Fluctuations.

Organic Cavalry

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #8 on: October 12, 2019, 12:29:26 PM »
Are you willing to risk dying of lung cancer? It is a known risk, and it causes a horrible death. Quick and easy painless death is by Carbon Monoxide... whatever you do make certain you do not have any flue gas running into your greenhouse... pipes can corrode over time even if everything was perfect. Be safe.

SeaWalnut

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #9 on: October 12, 2019, 12:59:45 PM »
The plan as i promised.
The rocket stove will be a gasification tipe of rocket stove.
« Last Edit: October 12, 2019, 01:25:05 PM by SeaWalnut »

SeaWalnut

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #10 on: October 12, 2019, 01:07:22 PM »
Are you willing to risk dying of lung cancer? It is a known risk, and it causes a horrible death. Quick and easy painless death is by Carbon Monoxide... whatever you do make certain you do not have any flue gas running into your greenhouse... pipes can corrode over time even if everything was perfect. Be safe.
I use stainless steel for the part where the carbon monoxide danger is.
Also you can see from the drawing that i can recycle.the heat loss from the ceiling while a water transfer system cant do that.
So altough air to air is less efficient than hot water transfer,with the trick above its possible to make it more efficient than water heat transfer.
That having in mind thats a greenhouse with relatively high humidity since the water from the air does all the heat transfer.
Dry air its actually the best thermal insulator.
And il not use azbestos because i have super high temp resistant Ytong bricks wich i even used to make my metal foundry at home.

SeaWalnut

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #11 on: October 12, 2019, 01:17:48 PM »
Other than Cast iron
(Extremely salty )water could be used , but not certain if the steam would be too much
with plain water unless it was contained (of coarse with salt water)

Cat litter Mineral Zeolite could be used  (sorry can't find my links here is wiki)
(hit ctrl , and f ,and hold search heat)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeolite#Commercial_and_domestic 

The German group Fraunhofer e.V. announced that they had developed a zeolite substance for use in the biogas industry for long-term storage of energy at a density 4x more than water.[21] Ultimately, the goal is to be able to store heat both in industrial installations and in small combined heat and power plants such as those used in larger residential buildin
To store the heat il use plain sand .
Il bury the aluminum pipes in sand.I could use concrete ,but i opted for sand because there will be somme condensation going there and humidity that can cause mold blooms.
With sand i can take the aluminum hoses out and clean them easy.
I want to use wood in a high efficiency rocket stove because i allready have manny branches and twigs from my orchard .
I wouldnt use solar because in coldest days of winter  ,the days are the shortest and nights longest.If its also snowing or there are clouds,then solar wont be efficient for heating my greenhouse.
« Last Edit: October 12, 2019, 01:23:50 PM by SeaWalnut »

Francis_Eric

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #12 on: October 12, 2019, 01:37:14 PM »
the stove will be a small rocket stove made from ytong bricks and the stratification chamber will be a stainless steel beer barrel.

I looked up stratification chamber after I posted

Cool like that old trick where you make smoke go downwards
you take a Cigarette Cellophane half way off the pack
roll a piece of paper off the pack
Burn whole in Cellophane with rolled up paper  ,
and watch as you poke it through smoke goes down like a water fall.

I no longer smoke but still cool.

You think about getting a Heat cable or generator
just in case anything goes wrong

I know you said wouldn't use solar , but a hybrid system could be useful
running a trail with zeolite wouldn't be bad on one pipe it's cheap.

I did forget (my brother mentioned ) Soapstone for heat Transfer .
I will try to find some links I have buried.

SeaWalnut

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #13 on: October 12, 2019, 02:56:38 PM »
Francis,now looking in retrospective i think that my sistem will also use solar-the solar heat from the greenhouse during the day will rise up to the ceiling and i will recicle that heat from air ( as well as.the heat from the stove wich will also travel up) and store it in the floor.
Thats why i chose to use air:
1 .because air doesnt freeze and crack the pipes in case of no use ,like water does.( Antifreeze doesnt freeze but its toxic and i have a water well near by and an antifreeze leak could be catastrophical)
2.because in an air system i can recicle the heat that rises on top while a water sistem cant do that.

SeaWalnut

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #14 on: October 14, 2019, 09:41:57 PM »
The core of the rocket stove will be made from AAC or aerated autoclaved concrete (Ytong).
AAC its  soo fire resistant at such higher temps and also insulates well,that i use it to build my metal foundry furnace at home.
Inside i melt copper and outside i can keep my hands on the bricks.
Its a hard to get material in USA and i toght its funny when fellow american had to order Ytong bricks from ebay to build his foundry.
Altough these brics cant be find in USA ,somme politicians advise the use of asbestos because is fireproof but its also verry toxic.
Wouldnt it be nicer if you could get these bricks for cheap in USA instead of advocating the use of asbestos?
To me it seems that corporations have banned this AAC bricks so that they can sell their conventional brics.
AAC means cheap ,easy to build houses that are the most fireproof homes and also verry well insulated.Its also an eco friendly material that polutes a lot less in the making than traditional concrete or traditional brics.

Here is what americans think about AAC .https://www.buildinggreen.com/news-article/autoclaved-aerated-concrete-aac-will-us-ever-lighten

SeaWalnut

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #15 on: October 21, 2019, 11:54:08 PM »
The ytong bricks that amazingly are not found in USA altough in the rest of the world they are soo common.
I got 6 bricks and right now il start carving.



And here is the plan of the burner ( rocket stove from ytong ).
« Last Edit: October 22, 2019, 12:01:47 AM by SeaWalnut »

Organic Cavalry

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #16 on: October 22, 2019, 08:44:53 AM »
I Doubt you could buy asbestos in the USA... No company would take on that risk. Asbestos has caused Gigantic class action lawsuits to pay out big bucks... Honeywell bought and sold a company in 1 day, during a paperwork shuffle and had to pay millions of dollars even though they had nothing to do with asbestos. Most companies wouldn't touch that stuff with a 10 foot pole.

SeaWalnut

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #17 on: October 22, 2019, 09:19:33 AM »
I Doubt you could buy asbestos in the USA... No company would take on that risk. Asbestos has caused Gigantic class action lawsuits to pay out big bucks... Honeywell bought and sold a company in 1 day, during a paperwork shuffle and had to pay millions of dollars even though they had nothing to do with asbestos. Most companies wouldn't touch that stuff with a 10 foot pole.

Its not even funny that asbestos is used in USA while the best fireproof building material ,the Ytong ,is missing from the market.
Not only that Ytong is like asbestos as fire resistant but its also a healthy building material,cheap,and eco friendly to produce.
EPA lately has changed the asbestos policy and now its a lot less regulated.
https://youtu.be/5VbRR_bhlyk

Bartacomus

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #18 on: October 22, 2019, 11:17:06 AM »
There are some really neat examples of sub surface heaters used to keep greenhouses warm.

Just a foot or two underground and the dirt is warm in the winter and its cool in the summer. People pipe a coolant though the line up to a standard car radiator with a fan attached.
Its circulates like any other heat exchanger (called venturi i think).  It makes an impact and its passive.

Heat is a little harder to accomplish just from its nature.  Theres a 1000 clever ways to cool things. But heat, you have to subject these atoms to direct contact.

Youre basically doing all you can, be recirculating. Beyond that, all you can do is add more exposure. subject more of the duct to heat,  reduce length NOT subjected to heat. Pipe your furnace exhaust back over the duct. Place the radiant assemblies in or on the house perimeter.


ps the lens you are talking about are called Fresnel lenses.  Which could make a neat passive system perhaps.  If you could mount a fresnel lens in a air tight frame that focused on the back of a heatsink. You could mount the heatsink inside the green house as an element. The truth of the matter is, that sunlight was going to hit the greenhouse anyway. the more apparatus you create the less efficient it becomes.

pineislander

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #19 on: October 22, 2019, 04:05:06 PM »
The same material as ytong is available here in the USA. It is called AAC(Autoclaved Aerated Concrete). There are several makers, here is one:
https://www.aerconaac.com/

SeaWalnut

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #20 on: October 22, 2019, 08:03:44 PM »
The same material as ytong is available here in the USA. It is called AAC(Autoclaved Aerated Concrete). There are several makers, here is one:
https://www.aerconaac.com/
On their page from the link they say they are the only manufacturer of AAC in the US.Thats too little if compared to Germany where 60 percent of all new buildings are made of AAC.
Nice factory tho ,the one you posted from Florida and i found a video from Discovery channel about that factory.
Even in the video they say its verry little known in USA.
https://youtu.be/dSJAGCakZu0

SeaWalnut

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #21 on: October 26, 2019, 02:04:01 AM »
I made this rocket stove from ytong bricks.Works really great but im not satisfyed with it because i made it from smaller bricks that can colapse at somme point.
So ive decided to build anothe rocket stove ,this time carved from 2 ytong bricks and for the riser i will cast refractory cement mixed with perlite that will also have a stainless steel rebar in it.
This stove easily reaches 1000 C unlike normal stoves that are working just at 500C .
Ytong is good for normal stoves but for the riser i opted for a better refractory mix than the ytong because il fire this stove at really high temps for a long time.
Its because the rocket stove burns at such high temperatures ( double than normal stoves) it burns all the gases so it makes no smoke and uses less wood.

I kept it running for 5 hours with a ridiculous small ammount of wood wich made me question if this stove is big enough to heat my greenhouse.Well see about that ;D

The main invention idea i didnt presented iet: it is to invent a wood feeding system for this outdoor stove that will be loaded once a week or once at 10 days .
Should work on its own like a clock feeding small ammounts of wood branches( not chips or pellets-thats too easy).
So it will be a less maintenance heating system wich you charge it with wood once a week then forget about it and works on its own.
« Last Edit: October 26, 2019, 02:10:28 AM by SeaWalnut »

Mark in Texas

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #22 on: October 26, 2019, 08:04:14 AM »
Without baby sitting it for 24 hrs./day how are you going to regulate, fine tune the heat?

Doesn't seem practical to me and if it was everyone would be making and selling it commercially or at home.

SeaWalnut

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #23 on: October 26, 2019, 06:22:35 PM »
Without baby sitting it for 24 hrs./day how are you going to regulate, fine tune the heat?

Doesn't seem practical to me and if it was everyone would be making and selling it commercially or at home.
Its not comercially available because its my invention and thats why nobody except me will have this .
Im not making my inventions for comercial use and im not interested in getting monney from them.
The rocket stove its not my invention but a lot of the features  this stove will have are my invetions,like the stainless steel rebar in the perlite riser ,the big thermoelectrical generator that produce the stove its own electricity to drive the air recirculating fan ( this is also invented but not in the way il do
 It).
My biggest invention thogh ,will be the feeding mechanism that wil self feed the fire wood sticks.There are allready comercial rocket stoves that are self feeding but they use pellets wich is easy to feed.
Il use long wood to avoid making wood chips or pellets and i have manny ideas to try but before i get to the fuel feeding system il have to finish the stove  and il be loading the wood manually.
Il not be loading the wood 24/7 because there will be a pipe wich il load it with wood and that will last a few hours until the next charge.And because it will have a heat battery,the soil will provide radiant heat for the whole night so il only make the fire during the day until my loading system its finished.

pineislander

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Re: Greenhouse heating invention
« Reply #24 on: October 27, 2019, 07:56:48 AM »
There are auger wood chip feeders. Feeding uneven material prsents challenges. Yesterday I visited a municipal trash to energy facility that generates electricity to 30,000 homes so it can be done. Be sure to install an alarm a greenhouse under freeze conditions is like a hospital patient on life support.