alternate heating and cooling

[Mustang71]

So if you are going to have a normal heat pump coil on top of the air handler I would put one of those flat water coils in the ductwork. That's how a lot of people pipe in a wood boiler. As for a coil on the return side it will work but you want to make sure you filter the air before the coil. I dont think they make an air handler set up for a coil on supply and return it's usually 1 or the other so you would have to get creative but it is possible.

Currently it is 90 outside and my house is 72 the ac runs for about 20 min then off for 10 to 15 min. My house was built in 75 so a well insulated house may maintain temp with a water coil but it's going to run a lot.

 

[4seasons]

I dont plan on being totally off grid and will have a heat pump as well as a electric hotwater heater. If I install a chilling coil in the return air side of a normal forced air system I should be able to cool or heat the air before it reaches the heat pump. This way I would have the benefit of instant heat and cooling of the heatpump and also be able to maintain the desired temps using the chilled coil. This should result in a lot less use of the heat pump and a significant saving in electrical use. I would be able to use the fan that comes with the heat pump to continually recirculate the air across the coil. To switch from cold to heat I can install selenoid valves operated by a wall mount thermostat to switch from hot water to cold water, or simply cut the pump off completely.

Does this sound like it will work?

I see your point now. I agree that as a supplement to your system that it would have a better chance of working. Thermal mass has a huge effect on maintaining temperature.
I can see your method working in mild weather but I would still put some thought into a larger heat exchanger like the radiant heat pipes in the floor that I suggested. I know it would cost more to install especially if it is encased in masonry like the good systems are.

 

[muddstopper]

I see your point now. I agree that as a supplement to your system that it would have a better chance of working. Thermal mass has a huge effect on maintaining temperature.
I can see your method working in mild weather but I would still put some thought into a larger heat exchanger like the radiant heat pipes in the floor that I suggested. I know it would cost more to install especially if it is encased in masonry like the good systems are.

I have never had a radiant floor heating system, so I know little about it. I know usually the tube is encased in a concrete floor. I plan on a crawl space, so it wouldnt be hard to install or maintain a radiant heating system. A radiant system wouldnt need a fan blowing air, that would be a plus. I would still have the heatpump if the radiant heat doesnt keep up. I will also have the wood stove to keep the heat pump from turning on. I also wouldnt have to worry about swapping from cold to hot water with the seasons. I will have to look into the radiant system and learn more about it.

 

[Mustang71]

I have done radiant floor heating and you staple the tubing to the bottom of the sub floor and insulate below it. The plus side is that you run the water at like 120 degrees so you wont need real hot water to heat. It's real common in the north because it warms the floors as well as the room. A lot of people use water heaters to run radiant heat if it's for one room. You need many small loops to get it to work evenly because you dont want large temperature swings.

 

[CentaurG2]

Cant help with the heating or cooling but I run a small fish pond filter and water fall on a solar panel, 2 35amp hour batteries and a solar charge controller. Pump will move 240g/h at 12v using 5 watts or 410g/h at 24v using 21 watts. It runs 24/7 from April to the end of October. I don’t see any reason why you could not set up a cooling system using the creek but the costs to do so may not be worth it. Solar is fun but it aint free. You can also move water using a small windmill to generate either with dc power or direct compressed air.

 

[M.R.]

Very quickly skimming this thread
Off grid myself
Not knowing how ‘Water Rights’ are in
other states.... pulling water from a source
that leaves the property.... ???
Even returning 100% at a warmer temp
Might get the Fish Heads upset (salmon & steelhead) water quality issues.

 

[CentaurG2]

If I had access to a cold water creek, you can bet I would have the nicest trout pond in the county set up on my property. Smoked trout is one of my favorite foods.


A couple of quick videos on air lift pumps. Not sure if it would work for you application as they don’t work well against head pressure but still great low tech to know when fiddling with water movement.


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


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU6nE6bTt-8

 

[Husky Man]

Very quickly skimming this thread
Off grid myself
Not knowing how ‘Water Rights’ are in
other states.... pulling water from a source
that leaves the property.... ???
Even returning 100% at a warmer temp
Might get the Fish Heads upset (salmon & steelhead) water quality issues.

Very quickly skimming this thread
Off grid myself
Not knowing how ‘Water Rights’ are in
other states.... pulling water from a source
that leaves the property.... ???
Even returning 100% at a warmer temp
Might get the Fish Heads upset (salmon & steelhead) water quality issues.

I'm in the PNW as well, and I agree, out here this would cause untold headaches.

It sounds like an interesting project, and Hopefully Mudstopper has looked into those issues, I would enjoy following his project and seeing how it works out. Around here the Enviro-Nazis would give you no Peace.

Solar water heating can be very effective, my Mom has a 16x32 above ground pool, and years ago the Electric company offered excellent incentives, and the State of Oregon was giving Generous Tax Credits for installing Solar systems, between the State and the Utilty, the system was very cheap.

Especially when using a "Solar Blanket", which is like very thick "Bubble Wrap", they are able to keep the pool between 88-93 degrees without using the Gas water heater. They had gone out of town during some very Hot Weather, and the solar blanket had been on for several days without being removed, and the pool was up to 102*.

Good Luck with this Project,

Doug

 

[muddstopper]

I dont know how much the rules have changed. I do know I am allowed to pull as much as 100,000gal of water from a stream, as long as I dont use over some set percentage of the flow. I forget what that percentage is supposed to be. I can pull that amount of water without need for a special permit. I used to get into all kinds of arguments with people back when I owned a hydroseeding company. There are some rules, I cant cross a person property without permission, I can stop the flow of traffic when pulling water from a bridge, that kind of stuff. I used to carry a copy of the rules and reg's with me. There was always someone being a bizzy body and wouldnt mind their own business. Even had the law called a time or two. Surprising how they try to enforce a law that doesnt exsist and they knew nothing about.

Anyways, the creek in question runs from one end of my property to the other. I will be pipeing the water from close to where it enters my property about 1000ft, to where I plan to install my hydroelectric system and water tank and water will be returned to stream. That will give me about 75ft of head to run my turbine. The water for the cooling system will be inside a closed loop of pipe circulated by a low voltage water pump. Probably use a glyco or rv antifreez mix in the lines to prevent any chance of freezing.

I have used that aluminum foil faced bubble wrap. I used it to line the inside of my chicken incubators and to wrap eggs in when shipping them in the winter time.

 

[muddstopper]

I think if I try usinga radiant floor syste for heating somethng like this, https://www.lowes.com/pd/FloorHeat-...MI9c6XxeHe3AIV14-zCh3RMA4AEAQYAyABEgIShPD_BwE would really help transfer heat from the pex to the floor. Circulating solar heated water might not heat the house by itself, altho I think a big enough system probably would. The trade off would be how big a system and how much it cost. Not sure I want a 5000gal water tank setting next to the house. Any ideals on how to do the math needed to figure something like that out to make it work.

 

[NSMaple1]

You'd have to do a heat loss calc on your house (I think there are on-line calculators for that - but I've never done it). That should give you an average btu/hr needed to keep your house warm. Then you'd have to run numbers on a solar thermal setup (or an off the shelf one might already have that spec'd) and see what kind of setup you'd need to match the btu/hr heat loss calc.

There is lots of fuzziness in that though and many variables, but it should give you a ballpark estimation.

Honestly, I am very doubtful that a solar thermal setup would satisfactorily heat your house to much degree. I know people who have given up on solar thermal just for domestic hot water heating, and a house heating load is way bigger than domestic water heating load (about 30x at my house, roughly speaking). The more accepted way to utilize solar for house heating these days seems to be combining solar electric panels with mini-split heat pumps.

 

[NSMaple1]

Did a bit of googling. Here is a link with some specs at the bottom:

http://www.thermo-dynamics.com/technical_specs/G_series_technical.html

I couldn't fully decipher them. Says per panel in one spot and per square foot in another. And all kinds of variables like weather, location, etc.. - and time of year. Not a lot of daylight hours in the winter relatively speaking, when you need the heat the most.

This is a company local to me who has been doing solar thermal for a looong time - their panels are renowned.

If you could find more data out there - and not bother doing a heat loss calc on your house but rather just assume it is somewhere between 500,000 & 1,000,000 btu/day (20,000btu/hr would be very low) - it might help with the up-front ballparking stuff.

 

[muddstopper]

Not sure you can do a heat loss calculation on a house that hasnt been built yet. Probably a formula for new construction. About all I can do is estimate how much electricity I currently use and convert that to btu's. Since I plan a smaller house and better insulation, anything that would heat what I currently have should be more than enough for the new house. Building a solar system to heat water is easy, heating a lot of water and then storeing it for later use, maybe not so easy. There is a small solar company local I just found out about a few weeks ago. I havent had the time to go talk to them, but plan to do so.

I think a person could spend a lot of money designing something that doesnt work, or work as well as they had hoped. I dont expect to use solar as my primary heating source, but would like to use it to heat my hot water and supplement my wood stove. My wood stove will be my primary heat source and I will have a electric heat pump. The addition of solar would just to be keeping the house from freezing if I am away and the power goes off, and to reduce the amount of wood I burn during shoulder season. That time of year when its to warm to keep a fire and to cold not to have some sort of heat. Anything that keeps the heat pump from running is the goal, but I dont want to spend anymore than would be cost effective.

 

[Mustang71]

I would think a solar heating system would work with radiant or a heating coil. Run a closed loop through some hot solar panels continuously it should get warm enough. They did it here in Buffalo NY in the 70s and we get lots of snow and cold weather.

 

[Hddnis]

Skimmed through the thread and didn't see a water ram mentioned. That would be a better way to pump the water over solar, much more reliable.

 

[Mr Anderson]

Have you worked out how much energy could be got from stream? Is it enough to run house / heat pump/water heating and sell rest back to the power company?

I would gravity feed water to large thermal mass (wall or floor ) in large flow and control flow through restricting (tap) for cooling.
And some heating with wood of course.

 

[muddstopper]

Have you worked out how much energy could be got from stream? Is it enough to run house / heat pump/water heating and sell rest back to the power company?

I would gravity feed water to large thermal mass (wall or floor ) in large flow and control flow through restricting (tap) for cooling.
And some heating with wood of course.

I have a whole packet of information about selling powerback to the electric company. They make it pretty hard. First off, they will not buy any electricity I can produce, instead they want to give energy credits and bank them for any of my future use of their power. So no actual money ever changes hands, unless I owe them of course.
Second, the electric company pretty much wants full control of how much electricy I can produce and how I do it. Third, the power company also wants control of how I design my home. Of course they also want me to pay them for for all their designs and If I dont follow there design plans, they wont allow me to connect to their grid. I can see the need for some regulations on who sells power back to the company, and I understand the whole safety issue. I also believe that their involment in the design of my power system stops where I connect to their pole. As long as I produce power in the proper configuration to match what they produce, and as long as there are safety devices in place to prevent back feeding the lines in the event their workers have to work on their own systems, then what I do and how I do it is none of their business. Its just much more simpler to forget the whole net metering thing and trying to sell the electric company any excess power I might produce.

As to how much power my own hydrosystem can produce, this is pretty much limited to how much I am willing to spend up front. I have 75ft of head and I can easily pull a 4inch pipe worth of water from the stream without messing up the steam flow and water quality. A generator and turbine that can handle that amount of flow will produce a significant amount of power, but also can cost a pretty penney. I dont plan on even trying to power my whole house with my hydrosystem. Things like my cook stove, clothes dryer, well pump, hot water heater, and heatpump, will all be grid tied and I plan on a battery storage system for backup. As I can afford to expand my electrical produceing and storage capacities, I can wean myself from the power company. Solar water heaters and using cold water for cooling is just one step in reduceing the amount of power I will have to buy from the power company.

Producing power with hydro instead of sunlite has its advantages. For one thing, hydro is 24/7 where as solar depends on sunny days. This means you can get by with a lot less storage capacity. Less storage means less dollars. The disadvantage is you have to locate the hydrosystem close to the water source. This means running wires a long way, unless you build next to the creek. You lose a lot of DC power by running long electric lines. This usually means running AC power from the hydro system to the house and then rectifying it to DC to charge your batteries and then inverting it back to AC to power your house or sell back to a power company. That is a lot of equipment to buy and maintain.