During ice storm 2003, I got to experience how wonderful a gas water heater is. A hot shower in the morning brinigs back life. After a freezing cold night under a pile of blankets.
Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus
You lucked out on your heating system. If you have a gas water heater you can live like civilized people without electricity. ^_^
TDD
I helped take out one of those. it had several hunded pounds of sand,on top. The top of the furnace tapred in, sort of like the shape of a paper snow cone container. That made for a LOT of work to get all that sand out. Then, the sand up the stairs, and dump in the yard.
Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus
There are a lot of older homes in my area that I describe as having an "octopus" furnace in the basement. The furnaces were originally coal fired and you can still see the coal bins and coal chute in many of the old homes. The supply ducts slope diagonally up to the main floor like limbs of a tree or octopus tentacles and the air flow is via convection with no blower and the ducts are fairly large in diameter. All of them I've ever seen were converted to natural gas in the middle of the last century but as inefficient as the beasts may be, they will keep a home warm in the winter during a power outage. ^_^
TDD
Why would the gas company pay you to put in a furnace that uses less of their product? That would be like McDonalds paying people to take diet pills.
Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus
Check with your local gas supplier about available rebates for installing a high-efficiency gas furnace. I replaced the rickety,
20-year-old gas furnace in my daughter's house with a new 97% efficient unit and received a $800 rebate from the gas company.
Power company would not install new gas lines at time my house was built. I think some older neighbors have it and line would be maybe 300 yards from my house. No sewer or water lines on my street either. Electric, fios and cable are underground. Watching fios and Comcast cut each others lines accidentally in installations, I would not want to be around if gas or sewer were installed.
Many hot water heaters require electricity for ignition now that conservation and safety has mandated no more pilot lights.
Ditto furnaces and they also require a hot air blower of a hot water circulation pump.
"Stormin Mormon" wrote in news:sNCls.76735$ snipped-for-privacy@fed05.iad:
More likely the gas company gets a kickback from the installer and the state pays you a good boy premium for conserving.
I hired a company to oversee the installation of extra insulation in the attic (foamed between the rafters, and sealed everything in sight, including the plate on the foundation). I got a check from the state for
50% of the costs. Paperwork was all done by the contractor. Made things much more pleasant this past summer.Gunner wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
That's why I didn't really like it, but it worked.
120 Volt 0.76 Amps equals 91.2 Watt, or 2/3 of the inverter's capacity.Winston_Smith wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
The solar route sounds very good to me, but I have some doubts. Firstly, costs for something that won't be very efficient, given the location and orientation of my roofs, are a concern. Secondly, unless I go for the gold-plated (figure of speech) install with all the bells and whistles that pay me back for what I "sell" to electric company, I'd be paying for something that I won't use 95% of the time, but where I have to make sure the batteries are in good shape for when the shit hits the fan. Lastly, with a solar install, I'd want to have most of my home be able to workas if it was on the grid, not just the most essential things. So it becomes a trade-off between installation cost and usability. I can't figure it out and make a decision ...
There were a few who didn't buy my house because gas was not hooked up. So it cost me $1k to hook it up after I lived with the old oil for a year. The furnace was 40 years old.
Greg
Not counting start up surge...which can be at least 50% more.
Gunner
-- "President Obama is not going to lose. He will be re-elected. It is those of you who have these grand fantasies of that pip-squeak Romney actually having a chance at winning the election that will have to wake up to reality the day after the election. I hear there is plenty of room in the rest of the world where you can reside and establish new citizenship. Kirby Grant,
Here, electricity was off a couple of days during an ice storm in the winter of 1999. I was glad to have heat then (central heat wouldn't work, but water heater and gas logs did).
BTW, people say furnaces should be hardwired instead of using a plug. Is that because of the ground? Something else?
Someone wrote it into the National Electrical Code.
No electrical reason, that I can tell.
Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus
BTW, people say furnaces should be hardwired instead of using a plug. Is that because of the ground? Something else?
I know I live in the northern Appalachian region with the fewest sunny days in America, my solar panels pretty much useless after over a week. I hear the sun is suppose to be seen tomorrow ?? Hope it's still there.
Greg
The gas furnace where I lived in the 60s through 80s needed two things before the full gas would turn on to the burners. They were both accomplished in one valve. First it needed electricity to pull in a coil to supply a small amount of gas to the pilot light. Second an expanding fluid temperature sensor had to detect the pilot light was on and hot. Then the valve opened and supplied the gas.
It did have a manual over ride. There was a red button you could hold down to give the pilot light gas, light it with a match with you other hand, and shoo the cat with your third hand.
It took two or three minutes for the pilot light to get the sensor hot enough to operate the valve. That part was mechanical, not electrical.
Then you were off and running. Sort of. There was no power for the hot air blower and the over temperature detector in the plenum couldn't shut down the furnace when it got too hot.
The furnace was in the cellar and hot air rises, so some heat drifted up to the rooms. It was up to the user to judge when the innards were getting too hot and shut off the gas by rotating the valve.
Fortunately we never lost power for more than some number of hours.
I have no idea. I'll leave that to someone else to answer.
Parts of USA don't get enough sun shine to be useful. Yours sounds like such an area. I bet the lack of sun gets depressing.
Have you seen the movie "The Road"? Now, that is depressing.
Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus
I know I live in the northern Appalachian region with the fewest sunny days in America, my solar panels pretty much useless after over a week. I hear the sun is suppose to be seen tomorrow ?? Hope it's still there.
Greg
My house originally had coal furnace of some kind. I can't figure how it was hooked up. I do know, the second owner must have converted to oil early in time. My rafters above where the furnace would have been are very black. I'm well familiar with coal, both grandparents mined it. I remember the coal stove in the kitchen, coal fireplaces, coal furnace.
Greg
if the load varies, you will need some kind of a governor to adjust the throttle to keep the speed and hence voltage and frequency constant.
Mark
True, that's why I asked about his friend's homemade genset and what it used for a speed governor to regulate the frequency of the output voltage. ^_^
TDD
Gunner,a Pinto 2300 peaks at 96 ft lbs at 3000 RPM At 800 RPM it would be doing VERY well to put out 55 ft lbs.
55*800/5252=8 HP Not likely it could run a 10Kw genny at full load. With proper modification you might get the torque up to 75 or 80 ft lbs. That would give you 12 HP. JUST, possibly, enough to run a good 10KW genhead at full output, and take over a gallon an hour to run, so 2 days at close to full power on 20 gallons is believeable. Running at less than half output might increase run time by 25% if he is REALLY lucky.On a later model engine 800 RPM could possibly be controlled bretty well under low load by the idle air speed control after it got warmed up. The same engine, running at 1800 RPM would put out about 90 ft lbs, for 30 HP - and running a 10Kw generator head at full output would use about the same amount of gas because the efficiency of the engine would be higher.
Actually about the BEST place to get one - particularly if you want dual fuel (propane/gasoline) Take a 12HP twin (at 3600 RPM) and run it at 1800 RPM as a 6 HP engine on a 4Kw Generator head and it is a long life unit - particularly with a full flow oil filter set-up.
The liquid cooled systems are significantly quieter than air cooled - and a lot of the higher end motorhome units are moving to liquid cooled. More expensive though.
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