Affordable DIY Wind Turbines- Produce your own affordable electricity

xonencentral

Any Architects or others out there;

A friend of mine was told by his architect that if he added a green energy system into his house build, he would be reducing his Co2 usage and would get a better energy rating on his house when the new housing law come in March next, and hence increase the value of his house significantly?

Anybody got more info on this, I've done some web search's and I have found the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, interesting stuff and I do remember Duncan warning about it on one of his shows but I wasn't listening at the time.

I'll do some more searching but It would be great if anybody can add to this.

Greenman

xonencentral wrote:

Anybody got more info on this, I've done some web search's and I have found the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, interesting stuff and I do remember Duncan warning about it on one of his shows but I wasn't listening at the time.

I'll do some more searching but It would be great if anybody can add to this.

http://www.rte.ie/tv/aboutthehouse/5prog2future.html Is this of any help???

CJhaughey

AFAIK the Government was pushing to have this postponed till 2010 or some time way into the future, probably to continue to shelter the main contributors = Concrete and construction.
However seeing as this is an EU directive and Ireland is so far behind the Kyoto protocol as it is, It is highly likely that the govt will be forced into implementing it.

fearrchair

Found another DIY Wind Turbine Manufacture in Dingle.

Wonder how they compare to surface power and windsave.....

http://www.atlanticpowermaster.com/home.asp

Khannie

Nice pic of the paper bricks there xonencentral. Any chance of a new thread on this with details on how you make them? I'd love to make my waste paper into fuel.

Mothman: How do you measure your wind speed? Do you need specialised equipment for this? Is it expensive to do accurately? I'd like to measure my average wind speed before investing. I live in a coastal town, near the top of a hill.

Personally, I'd consider a dual system (wind and solar), even at a loss, once there wasn't a very large loss.

CJhaughey

Khannie
To measure windspeed you need an anemometer,Like this one
Or alternatively you can get a system that runs through your PC and constantly measures the wind speed.
I can't remember which company makes these kits but they shouldn't be too hard to source.
Remember to elevate your anemometer to the same height as the turbine would be to get a true reading.

xonencentral

Hi Khannie,

Paper bricks are easy, just use newspaper or any other light paper for the best results, tear up into strips as best you can. You need to soak in water for 2 weeks and then place into a mould leave overnight under pressure and find a dry shed space for them. They will dry in 12 weeks or 4 weeks in your hot press, and don't worry, they don't even drip after coming out of the mould.

I made my mould from timber and place some big blocks on them but I'd like to get a mechanical press somewhere if anybody comes accross one, I seen one years ago when I couldn't find enough places to blow my money quick enough so I didn't pay attention as usual.

And I am celebrating today, just got my new electricity bill where I have been running my turbine for the last 2 months and I haven't been that concious of using it all the time but my bill is EUR 82 and its not estimated. Not bad for a 2,500 sq ft house. I have to admit I'm kinda surprised that I have gotten to that amount so quickly, "surprised maybe but not complaining ". and just as the ESB are about to put the price up again. My units are now costing me 18.8 c a unit all in.

Thanks for the link Greenman, thats the very programme, I wonder will it be repeated so I can pay attention this time. I have got more info on the energy labelling item, it seems to all concerned that it will in fact come in next year as the fines on Ireland (taxpayer, what's new !) will be enormous if it dosen't.

Apparently, it is very easy to work out how to make your house better.

Every house will get a rating, i.e. XX KW's per year, anything which lowers it will make it better, (increase the value of your property) so these were the examples I was given, (I found some of them interesting).

a) Add extra heat insulation into walls, roof, etc ( rating goes UP)
b) Add a renewable energy system (Rating goes UP)
c) Take out your garden lights, light on the holy rosary, etc (Rating goes UP)
d) Use a rainwater harvesting system, no processing of your water at the treatment plant is a saving of Co2 (Rating goes UP)
e) Put a push button timer on your emersion instead of switch (Rating goes UP)
f) Add a water barrell to the end of your drainpipe for washing car/watering garden, etc (Rating goes UP)

You get the drift. I just found it ironic that some of the enormous houses with more lights than your local village could be the ones facing the largest problems in value under the directive.

Anyone watching coronation street and Roy's uncles invention of converting door opening/closing into energy. IT'S A MAD WORLD WE LIVE IN ! :eek:

xonencentral

Sorry, ( Rating goes UP ) means good, more value in your house.

I was given one word of warning though by someone; They told me that if you are about to sell your house when the new Directive is in place and you run around pulling out your garden lights, putting a turbine, adding a barrell, etc, etc. It will be a waste of money as the energy assessor will survey your last 12 months electricity/gas/water/waste whatever bills and is more likely to come to the conclusion that you are horrendous wasters of energy given all the green stuff available and give the house a worse rating.

Moral of the story, do the changes at least 12 months in advance of your rental/sale audit so it can show up on the bills. (Makes sense I suppose)

air

xonecentral, how are the bricks to burn?
Are they smokey?

Greenman

air wrote:

xonecentral, how are the bricks to burn?
Are they smokey?

Are thet smelly???

CJhaughey

I am not sure if this has been posted but here goes (alittleofftopic)
http://www.constructireland.ie/dail.php

xonencentral

Just like burning a piece of timber.

Good link CJ, it tells us a lot about our government.

xonencentral

Hot off the Press today:

Possible 36% rise in ESB prices Indefensible - Durkan FG

“Indications that ESB prices would be possibly rising by an astronomical 36% is proof that when the going gets tough, consumers are the easiest target,” said Fine Gael Spokesperson on Communications and Natural Resources Bernard Durkan TD.

“Even though we do not know precisely how much of an increase householders and businesses will face, the acknowledgement by the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) that, ‘prices would be rising significantly’ is totally unacceptable. Especially since the ESB, which is State-owned, made over €250 million in profit last year. Electricity costs are already too high and are proof, if it were needed, that the lack of competition in the sector is damaging our competitiveness

Khannie

Hey xonencentral,

First off, thanks for the info on the paper bricks. Gonna start making them today.

One question:

xonencentral wrote:

Paper bricks are easy, just use newspaper or any other light paper for the best results, tear up into strips as best you can.

Can you use light cardboard too (like cereal boxes)?
What about brown (corrugated) cardboard? (I'd expect this to go to mush after a few days in water).

Thanks

xonencentral

No Problem..

Don't use anything corrugated or with glue in its construction, typically industrial products. You don't want to burn glue, bad for the environment and your brickette will fall apart where ever this runs through it.

Regular paper comes from wood and just puts carbon dioxide back into the air which plants & trees use up and the cycle begins again.

Cornflakes boxes, etc OK because they use safe inks and glues but don't go any heavier, newspapers should consist of at least 60% of the batch.

Buy a big plastic container and soak for 14 days, not 13 days and not 15 days, (14 days very important).

Greenman

xonencentral wrote:

Hi Khannie,
And I am celebrating today, just got my new electricity bill where I have been running my turbine for the last 2 months and I haven't been that concious of using it all the time but my bill is EUR 82 and its not estimated.

So what was your bill before??

xonencentral

Just ran through my bills, typically 130-160 Euros before I did anything.

My last bill which had my turbine up for 2-3 weeks was 107 Euros and this one is down to 82 Euros which is the first bill I got where I had my turbine running the whole time.

CJhaughey

Xonen
Have you looked at last years bill back to back? to compare like with like?
I know that we have a substantial variation between winter and summer.

xonencentral

Yup, did the year,

Old Bills are:

130 Euros is the summer, (we use a fair bit more emersion as the heating is not on - Hence my DIY radiator solar panels for the summer months to try and get out of that)

and 160 Euros in the dregs of winter.

These bills are also before a number of increases since so I suppose they would be a bit higher today for comparison.

Khannie

Apologies for going off topic on this thread again, but those paper bricks are just too intriguing to leave alone.....

Will be making the mould for the bricks this evening with some leftover wood in the shed. Do you have several moulds Xonen? Or do you have several buckets of soaking paper? Or do you just not make very many? I only ask because you were very specific about the length of soaking time.

Thanks in advance.

xonencentral

Yes I have one mould with several segments, each one can take a brick (a bit like a ice cube tray) and a block can go into each cube space.

I lay the mounld on the pavement, fill the segments with wet paper and press a block into each segment.

I have one large bucket which i dump everything into and then I fill all the moulds and place the blocks on top to squeeze down and get the water out overnight Next day I push out the blocks and place them in my hotpress.

Hope this helps....

Khannie

xonencentral wrote:

Hope this helps....

Yes it does. Thanks kindly.

Any chance of a photo? Don't worry if it's too much hassle.

I'll take photos of my construction process and progress and post them.

Greenman

Khannie wrote:

Apologies for going off topic on this thread again, but those paper bricks are just too intriguing to leave alone.....

Will be making the mould for the bricks this evening with some leftover wood in the shed. Do you have several moulds Xonen? Or do you have several buckets of soaking paper? Or do you just not make very many? I only ask because you were very specific about the length of soaking time.

Thanks in advance.

I suppose a webpage with a step by step pictorial guide to making these paper burning bricks would be great, including the making of the mould!!!

Would that ever be a possibility Mr Xonencentral???

Just a thought!!!

bandraoi

can't believe you guys are advocating, unlicensed, unmonitored, small scale incineration of perfectly good recyclable material!?!

Have you any idea what the emissions from that stuff would be like?

full forward

bandraoi wrote:

Have you any idea what the emissions from that stuff would be like?

Probably the same as peat or coal.

Also, recycling uses a lot of energy. Some people believe is more environmentally friendly to burn news papers then it is the recycle them.

bandraoi

no, emissions from paper would be much worse than peat or coal. It's a less dense form of energy and there would be chemicals in the paper that you wouldn't get in the peat or coal, and even so I would hardly advocate an open peat or coal fire as an energy efficient way of heating a house.

You are however correct to say that recycling can use alot of energy, it's something I regularly try to get across to people, but if you're going to burn it then at least use a proper incinerator facility with monitored emissions and a properly designed furnace.

Khannie

Seems to me like making compressed paper bricks (see the image that xonencentral posted) makes them burn for a long time. The upside to this is (to me) obvious:

Recycling the paper involves the following (that I'm aware of):
Transporting the paper from my house to the recycling facility
Chemically bleaching the paper
Other stuff to turn it into useable paper
Transporting it to its end user

Having a home fire (assume that the house in question will have one, regardless of paper bricks) costs the following:
Getting coal out of the ground
Getting the coal to the depot
Getting the coal to your house
released CO2 from the coal

Making paper bricks saves the following energy costs that I can see:
Transport of paper to recycyling facility is removed
Transport and burning of coal is removed

On the down side, there are chemicals released into the atmosphere (not sure if paper bricks are any better or worse than coal in this regard) and surely a similar amount of Co2 is released. The chemicals would have been removed from the paper (and therefore put into the environment in some way anyway) if the paper were recycled.

Overall, the paper bricks seem like a real winner to me. Apart from the savings to your pocket.

We like having fires in the winter. They're aesthetically fantastic. I hate that they waste so much energy, so we try to use renewables (i.e. wood) for the most part. The wood we burn is locally produced (I know this from questioning the local merchant) and although my wife prefers a coal fire (less sparking, noise, warmer, etc.) she's prepared to meet me half way and uses the wood (though it is more expensive overall).

Anyway, I like the paper bricks idea. I'm not sure about some of the paper sources (like magazines) so I'll probably try and use paper that's mostly white already.

I have made the mould that I'll be using. It looks hillarious because I'm no handyman but it should do the job nicely.

Edit: Just found this page. Looks like it could be useful (though a lot more expensive than the moulds that I made from wood that was lying around in our shed).

CJhaughey

Why is there not a separate thread on Paper Briquette making?
It would be much better as pics etc could be posted.
just a thought.

bandraoi

http://www.mindfully.org/Air/Ban-Burn-Barrels.htm - it's the best I can find on the harm of burning waste materials on a small scale, it's not specific to paper but the rubbish involved has a very high proportion of paper, particularly in the Non-Recycled stuff.

The chemicals released to the air by burning paper are horrendous. Just using white paper is no better than not using magazines. The paper is made white by bleach, usually incorporating chlorine. There would also be all sorts of other additives in the paper.

The transport of paper to a recycling facility usually works out as negligble. The chemicals involved in recycling the paper can be off set against the chemicals involved in making paper from wood materials reducing significantly the increased damage to the environment.

The impact of mining the coal will be negligble because it is a tiny portion of a large quantity of coal. While overall coal mining can be a polluting activity, the proportion you would be using would be such a small portion of that, that it becomes insignificant.
Even so, as I said nobody would advocate burning coal or peat as an environmentally sound way to heat your house.

Khannie

bandraoi wrote:

Even so, as I said nobody would advocate burning coal or peat as an environmentally sound way to heat your house.

100% agree with that (of course)

Found this page which says:

if newspaper replaces coal in energy production, burning is preferable to recycling from an environmental point of view.

I'm assuming that this is talking about commercial energy production, which would involve transportation of the newspaper.

Edit: On other thing: in the link you provided, the amount of noxious gases released when the person didn't recycle (i.e. higher percentage paper being burned) were much lower.

I'm not saying that burning paper is the best thing in the world for the environment. For our household though, it's a question of minimising the damage, since the fire will be lit one way or the other.

I must admit, I thought that the CO2 savings would be great (compared to burning coal), but it seems like they'll be marginal enough, and that perhaps using locally produced logs would (still) be the best solution.