Anyone figure out how to run A.C. with wood yet? What's up with this March weather?

[johnnylabguy]

Ok. I usually feel guilty a few times about letting the heat pump run in March when I should come home and start a fire...BUT I HAVE NEVER HAD TO THINK ABOUT TURNING ON THE AIR CONDITIONING!!!

It was around 85 F today here in Mid Ohio and that is a problem I've never had to worry about. Not trying to start a global warming fight but this is HIGHLY unusual when I can sit outside and worry about the bugs covering my laptop screen rather than throwing a stick in the wood furnace. I love it if its a rare treat but daggonit I can't cut wood and burn it in this hot weather! Was a great day to play with the kids outside though. What kind of temps you guys having?

 

[johnnylabguy]

Here's a pic of my son sitting in the 3 week early cherry blossoms at our D.C. trip to visit his hero wounded warrior cousin(a whole nother thread trust me). Awesome weather for an awesome trip. My kids learned alot about America on that trip they'll never forget. His scratches are from a razor scooter mishap and not from his uncle in the background blocking his Washington monument view. lol.

 

[Doug Fir]

No need for A/C here. It snowed yesterday (the first day of Spring) and the temperature got down to 17 a few nights ago. I have a fire going in the woodstove right now. Nice! But since you asked, it is possible to run your A/C with wood. All you need is a wood gasifier connected to a generator. These folks can help you out:

Home « Gasifier Experimenters Kit

You can even run your firewood truck with firewood! Lot's of folks have wood-fueled pickup trucks. The technology is pretty simple.

Wood is a versatile fuel! :msp_thumbup:

Doug

 

[Dan_IN_MN]

No need for A/C here. It snowed yesterday (the first day of Spring) and the temperature got down to 17 a few nights ago. I have a fire going in the woodstove right now. Nice! But since you asked, it is possible to run your A/C with wood. All you need is a wood gasifier connected to a generator. These folks can help you out:

Home « Gasifier Experimenters Kit

You can even run your firewood truck with firewood! Lot's of folks have wood-fueled pickup trucks. The technology is pretty simple.

Wood is a versatile fuel! :msp_thumbup:

Doug

Doug Fir beat me to it! My thoughts too!

 

[Rsquared]

What kind of temps you guys having?


88 yesterday and thought about turning the AC on. Going on spring break to Myrtle Beach next week and hoping for the same temps down there...

 

[Whitespider]

I'm pretty much figurin' we skipped winter this year... went from fall to spring about the first of the year, and now summer has arrived.
After all... how wrong can I be? Even the elm trees are opening buds this week.

 

[slowp]

It snowed last night, and the ski area had 199 inches as of yesterday. Total snowfall for the ski hill, which starts at 4500 feet is 400+ inches this year. It is 33 degrees right now so the snow here at 1000 feet elevation will melt. We may see the sun. We may not. I'm having a hard time getting the woodstove going this morning, but it will go.

 

[zogger]

Ok. I usually feel guilty a few times about letting the heat pump run in March when I should come home and start a fire...BUT I HAVE NEVER HAD TO THINK ABOUT TURNING ON THE AIR CONDITIONING!!!

It was around 85 F today here in Mid Ohio and that is a problem I've never had to worry about. Not trying to start a global warming fight but this is HIGHLY unusual when I can sit outside and worry about the bugs covering my laptop screen rather than throwing a stick in the wood furnace. I love it if its a rare treat but daggonit I can't cut wood and burn it in this hot weather! Was a great day to play with the kids outside though. What kind of temps you guys having?

Actually, there is a way to do it (several ways actually), and you should be able to construct it at home if you *really* want to. It's called wood gasification, and you can run a generator on it, then run your AC.

Wood gas generator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



I mean, there's steam engines too, or stirling engines.

Slickest home made made Ac unit I ever saw was a country store here in Georgia back up in the mountains. Cold stream running right by the store, they had it plumbed to pull cold water into the radiator part of the AC, then go back into the stream, with the fan blowing through it into the store. I went in there several times before I noticed how it was set up. Worked really well! I mean, cold freeking air outta that thing. Had some pretty small little water pump ran it. just cobjobbed a regular window Ac unit.

If I ever get ambitions enough, I'd like to try one with the well water here for when we are watering the garden, run it through a similar setup, just a radiator and a fan with a little bypass valve action.

Been real hot here, plenty of over 80 degree days so far, gonna T storm in a bit here though. Not digging on the long extended tornado season that is apparently the "new normal". Also, not enough winter for trees to go dormant properly or to kill off a lot of the bugs.

 

[Jesob Jesperson]

We've been blowing all daily record temps out of the water by 20 degrees for the last 10 days. This is unreal. Usually get 200-300 inches of snow . Last I saw the board at the firehall we were at 38" for the whole winter. it's gonna be an eF'd up summer thats for sure.

 

[stumpy75]

Just came in from splitting some wood I scrounged. Thermometer says 86 degrees! I'm soaked, and just popped open a barley pop. This in Northern Ohio in March. Yesterday, we set the all-time high temperature for March at 85, and it might be hotter today.

Too much too soon!:msp_scared::msp_w00t:

 

[saxman]

Absorption chiller units are used in large building AC. These use steam from boilers to provide the heat that compressors do in smaller units. These chillers are very complicated, require a cooling tower and the one I ran used a highly corrosive fluid as a cooling medium, I think it was sodium bromide. I am with you, be great to cool with wood


Steve

 

[superwd6]

4th day in a row we shattered temp records. I had a No Cooling call today. Our average should be 40*f and were getting 70s here. My E-classic is out till Saturday

 

[H 2 H]

It's just crazy weather in Northwest Washington State

I go up to cut the last three mornings and their snow on the ground go home for lunch and head back up and snow is gone and it's t shirt time

Got home here tonight about 5.30pm and it was 52 degrees just crazy

Now only if I could get someone to haul all the wood home Ive cut the last few days; now that would even be more crazy

 

[apattie]

I don't know what the temp was yesterday, must have been pushing 80, but changed out the log splitter for the tiller. Tilled the garden and planted lettuce, cabbage and broccoli.

 

[tooold]

I think they said in the past 2 weeks, we broke the record high temps 9 times! At least after it rained last night, it will cool down some but will still be above normal. My trees are all budding out (even my new sugar maples) so I hope we don't freeze hard this spring.

 

[Somesawguy]

It was 84 yesterday. We had to open the windows and run fans. At least it'll be back to normal this weekend. I still have to cut wood for next year. Trying to cut and split in high temps is not my forte'