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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] the hydrogen argument/wood

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  • From: Marimike6@cs.com
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] the hydrogen argument/wood
  • Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 08:54:42 EDT

In a message dated 6/18/2003 12:18:47 PM Eastern Standard Time, hemenway@jeffnet.org writes:
In fireplaces and conventional wood stoves, the fire radiates its heat
right where combustion takes place. That means the fire is constantly
being cooled, and low-temperature combustion is very inefficient and
very dirty. Aprovecho stoves pre-heat the intake air, and the firebox
is insulated, so combustion is very, very hot, and the fuel is just
about totally consumed. Then the super-hot flue gases pass into a heat
exchanger that very efficiently extracts nearly all the heat; the
chimney gas is not only perfectly clear, you can hold your hand over it
because nearly all the heat has been extracted. No smoke, no creosote.
A handful of sticks will heat a house for several hours. That also
means very small wood can be used: branches instead of logs, so not
only are you using about 20 percent as much wood as a conventional
stove, you can use dead branches instead of whole trees.


A design I've always wanted to try, if I were building a fireoplace, would be to put up a brick chimney with a cast-iron radiator built into the flue, where it would heat up water circulating in a baseboard line (you'd need a circulating pump). That would convert the wasted flue-gas heat to hot pipes throughout the house. The only kink would be it would be so damn efficient you'd get your water to the boiling point fairly easily, even circulating it from a large holding tank, so you'd want to put in a safety valve (pressure relief) to keep the system from blowing a pipe. Anyone with a class six boiler license could probably design something workable like this.

M. Elvin




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