Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Technology => Topic started by: liam on 15/04/2009 18:58:39

Title: an idea by a newbi !
Post by: liam on 15/04/2009 18:58:39

hi guys am just after finding this fine site and im well impressed by it ! i have an idea for heating in the home and i decided seeing as though ye seem to be extremely clever id run it by you

im constantly coming up with ideas but never take them any further lol

anyway my idea is as follows !

we pay for oil for our heating , we pay for our electricity what if we could combine both and generate our own ?

this is not very eco friendly but its an idea and thats all that matters at the minute

what if we were to get a large water cooled generator (big enough yet quiet enough for domestic use)and use this for our electricity generation , so ul need to keep this thing kept with fuel but ultimately we can assume its going to be an engine that is fairly energy efficient or that there are 2 engines one cuts out while there are small current demands anyway this engine will be running hot and its own radiator will be there to keep it cool but what if we were to replace the radiator with a heat exchanger or in its basic principle connect the radiators and hot water cylinder to the "cooling system" of the generator while the generator would not be able to get all the water needs of the house to boiling point im sure it would raise it enough to keep the house above 22` at all times ?

what ye guys think of that ?

Title: an idea by a newbi !
Post by: Bored chemist on 15/04/2009 19:53:53

It's a perfectly valid idea, though I'm not sure how well it would work on a domestic scale.
There's lots of stuff about it here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_heat_and_power

The place where I work is thinking about installing this sort of system to save £££

Title: an idea by a newbi !
Post by: liam on 15/04/2009 20:00:56

damn its already in the "pipeline" :(

Title: an idea by a newbi !
Post by: lyner on 15/04/2009 22:37:52

Quote from: liam on 15/04/2009 20:00:56

damn its already in the "pipeline" :(

Battersea Power Station, on the South Bank of the Thames in London provided hot water and heating for the blocks of flats, on the North side of the river, many decades ago. ~Nothing is new under the Sun.
The flats are still there but the power station was decommissioned a long time ago

Title: an idea by a newbi !
Post by: Karen W. on 16/04/2009 08:09:49

welcome to the forum Liam keep up the ideas... you'll hit on one of that has not been done and even improve on those in use!

 Good luck!

Title: an idea by a newbi !
Post by: DeepestBlue on 21/04/2009 00:53:59

Dont worry Liam, keep up the good work.  Whispergen is one of the few firms that specialise in domestic CHP....

http://www.whispergen.com/