Heating yer house w/ yer car??

Awl,

Just a little ditty here, for those of you who actually use your garage for your *car*--wow, what a novel idea!! My garage is actually the basement of my house, and when I was foolish enough to actually use it for the cars, I noticed the following: When I brought the cars in in the winter, the house got warmer! In summer, the house got miserable! And, my garage, despite being in the basement, is really fairly remote from the "house proper". wow..... Then, it made sense: a hot car is like a gigantic radiator, very high temp,

*very large mass*, adding boucou heat-- M x C x delta T, for the chemistry peeple. I'm sure this saved a cupla bucks a month--when I was silly enough to park my cars in the garage. :) Now, how bout dat motorcycle in the living room.....
Reply to
Proctologically Violated©®
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Only thing is the very time you would benefit, is the worst time for the car to be garaged. The road salt stuck all over the car melts out and dissolves the car. At least the cars left outside stay frozen much of the time.

Reply to
Eric in North TX

.=2E.......................................................................= .=2E.................. . Hmm! Sounds theoretically possible! Maybe, maybe not?

Suppose you drive 60 miles to home and that you use one gallon of gas per each 30 miles?

Also suppose that half that gasoline energy is wasted as heat; also that not all of it is dissipated by the car radiator as you drive along?

OK so far?

Pushing it, IMO, say that 20% of that heat is still in the car when you park it in your basement?

That's one fifth of half the the energy used to drive the car; probably that's overstating it and then some.

But anyway; each gallon of gas can provide about 110,000 BTUs of heat energy.

So 0.2 x 0.5 x 110,000 BTU =3D 11,000 BTUs (right?) That's roughly (very roughly) the equivalent of switching on a 1000 watt heater and leaving it on for three hours.

Maybe it's possible but sound like 'pushing' it to me?

You mileage (Er. BTUs!) may vary!

Please feel free to disagree in any manner you wish.

Reply to
terry

. Yeah maybe it's the heat of the steel vehicle electrolytically dissolving due to road salt.

What a stupid combination eh? Iron + salt. Shakespeare was right, "Lord what fools these mortals be... ".

Why can't cars be made of fiberglass etc. Boats are! And you can often buy a boat that resists seawater for years longer, also cheaper than a road vehicle.

Reply to
terry

But it wouldn't matter whether you drove 60 miles or 600 miles. It's only a matter of *when the car gets up to temperature*. It then has a given mass and temperature, and therefore a certain amount of energy to transfer. Which gives 8.7 liter engines a little advantage, here. :)

Oh, and based on this li'l tidbit, in the summer, I would leave the cars on the street until they cooled off, bring'em inside later.

Which also suggests warming your car up *inside* the garage, before leaving--assuming you can vent the exhaust (actually not hard). Exhaust gases can permeate the house *very* quickly, according to my CO monitor.

Yeah, the salt thing. :(

Reply to
Proctologically Violated©®

Salt's bad any way you cut it... whether you park in your garage in winter time or not.

I've used this method ever since I've gotten a garage. It leaves puddles of water on the floor when it's snowy, but my garage doesn't ever freeze if both cars are parked around 6 pm every day and the doors are shut.

Saves me more than most... my water heater is in the garage.

Reply to
kellyj00

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