Mount Best

[[email protected]]

There's a lot more than the lovely chest fridge at
http://tinyurl.com/cay4t.

The 80% wood stove might be more efficient with a concentric pipe chimney
with flue gas traveling up the inner pipe and room air traveling back
towards the stove in the space between the inner and outer pipes to make
a counterflow air-air heat exchanger with condensation, which might add
about 15% to woodstove efficiency and reduce air pollution and allow
burning wood with a higher moisture content with no efficiency penalty
(or maybe a gain We might pressurize the stove air inlet slightly with
a small fan to assure adequate draft (given the cooler chimney) and to
regulate the heat output, and use a CO detector in case the inner pipe
develops a leak and the room air fan fails.

A heat pump with a 4-6 COP is nice, but a good solar heating system might
have a COP of 50 or more. John Christopher's CSI building in cold, cloudy
New Hampshire is heated with "98% solar power and 2% fan power." PE Norman
Saunders calculates that some of his solar houses will only need "purchased
heat" for a few hours every 35 years. No wood. No heat pumps.

The reflective solar heating system might lose lots of heat through windows
at night and on cloudy days. A low-thermal mass sunspace with an insulated
wall between the sunspace and the living space and warm air circulating
between the two and no airflow at night might be a lot more efficient. The
Barra system stores heat from sunspace hot air in ceiling thermal mass,
with little heat loss at night. A slow ceiling fan and thermostat might
bring warm air down from a low-e ceiling when a room is occupied.

As an alternative to a massy ceiling. Fin-tube pipes near the ceiling
could both collect and distribute heat from a stratified storage tank,
with the help of a ceiling fan. The tank might also have a $60 1"x300'
pressurized PE pipe spiral near the top to make hot water for showers.

Nick

 

[George Ghio]

There's a lot more than the lovely chest fridge at
http://tinyurl.com/cay4t.

The 80% wood stove might be more efficient with a concentric pipe chimney
with flue gas traveling up the inner pipe and room air traveling back
towards the stove in the space between the inner and outer pipes to make
a counterflow air-air heat exchanger with condensation, which might add
about 15% to woodstove efficiency and reduce air pollution and allow
burning wood with a higher moisture content with no efficiency penalty
(or maybe a gain We might pressurize the stove air inlet slightly with
a small fan to assure adequate draft (given the cooler chimney) and to
regulate the heat output, and use a CO detector in case the inner pipe
develops a leak and the room air fan fails.

A heat pump with a 4-6 COP is nice, but a good solar heating system might
have a COP of 50 or more. John Christopher's CSI building in cold, cloudy
New Hampshire is heated with "98% solar power and 2% fan power." PE Norman
Saunders calculates that some of his solar houses will only need "purchased
heat" for a few hours every 35 years. No wood. No heat pumps.

The reflective solar heating system might lose lots of heat through windows
at night and on cloudy days. A low-thermal mass sunspace with an insulated
wall between the sunspace and the living space and warm air circulating
between the two and no airflow at night might be a lot more efficient. The
Barra system stores heat from sunspace hot air in ceiling thermal mass,
with little heat loss at night. A slow ceiling fan and thermostat might
bring warm air down from a low-e ceiling when a room is occupied.

As an alternative to a massy ceiling. Fin-tube pipes near the ceiling
could both collect and distribute heat from a stratified storage tank,
with the help of a ceiling fan. The tank might also have a $60 1"x300'
pressurized PE pipe spiral near the top to make hot water for showers.

Nick

You gotta laugh.

Anyone interested in stove and heater design would be wise to visit "The
Maine Wood Heat Company"

They "WILL" be able to help you while Nick "MIGHT" actually do
"SOMETHING" "IF" he "SOMEHOW" decides to stop pissing in the wind.

 

[Anthony Matonak]

a tri-axial pipe? are you advising people to fabricate their own,
or you know a source?

Is it so difficult to fabricate such a thing? Take two single-walled
flue pipes of different enough diameters and place one inside the other.
Space them apart using bent pieces of metal or spring clips made from
coat hangers or the like.

Anthony

 

[George Ghio]

Nick's job is not distributing existing products. Retarded children
could do that.

Nor even to actually physically produce working prototypes of his
ideas. Average engineering students could do that.

Nick's job is seeing what's NOT there... hearing the dog which DIDN'T
bark.

Nick stands out like a sore thumb, because most of the people with
Nick's insights, choose to copyright them, or even hold them as trade
secrets. So count your lucky stars that you have access to them for
free.

If you feel they have no value.... no one can force a horse to drink.

As far as can be proven here Nick has never produced anything.

If you want to know about heating without the nonsense talk to the Maine
Wood Heat Co.

Contra flow wood heating was invented in the 1500s as a result of
Europe's first energy crisis.

Nick's post offers nothing new or inventive that has not been done.

 

[[email protected]]

a tri-axial pipe? are you advising people to fabricate their own,
or you know a source?

I'd put a 6"x15' pipe inside an 8" pipe, with the 6" pipe passing through
an 8" T near the end and a 10" 560 cfm fan in a 10" to 8" reducer plugged
into the arm of the T. Room air would flow towards the stove in the space
between the two pipes and exit near the stove.

The stove might have a small muffin fan attached to the door, running at
a low speed (to provide 5 cfm of draft air?) with a room temp thermostat
to increase that speed if more heat is needed.

We might make a condensing chimney with a lot more plain pipe inside
a house and a taller chimney or partially-open stove door to account
for the reduced bouyant force from the cooler chimney.

And use a CO detector, in either case.

Nick

 

[George Ghio]

a tri-axial pipe? are you advising people to fabricate their own,
or you know a source?

I'd put a 6"x15' pipe inside an 8" pipe, with the 6" pipe passing through
an 8" T near the end and a 10" 560 cfm fan in a 10" to 8" reducer plugged
into the arm of the T. Room air would flow towards the stove in the space
between the two pipes and exit near the stove.

The stove might have a small muffin fan attached to the door, running at
a low speed (to provide 5 cfm of draft air?) with a room temp thermostat
to increase that speed if more heat is needed.

We might make a condensing chimney with a lot more plain pipe inside
a house and a taller chimney or partially-open stove door to account
for the reduced bouyant force from the cooler chimney.

And use a CO detector, in either case.

Nick
[/QUOTE]


This is some of the best comedy you will ever see.

If one motor is good then two must be better.

Tell us Nick, What is the wall thickness of these pipes?

How much do they weigh?

How do you propose to support this weight?

With the forced air feed to the stove, how hot will the stove end of the
inner pipe get?

How hot can it get before it starts to slump under it's own weight?

 

[[email protected]]

that's a co-axial pipe. A dozen commercial products use it. Flue
gases flow out, exchanging heat with combustion air.

Some gas appliances and pellet stoves work that way.

Nick sounded as if (sometimes he posts without proofreading, I can
show you some posts where he confuses the dimensions of thermal
conductivity and thermal conductance)

Interesting. I don't recall those mistakes. I archive most of my postings at
http://www.ece.villanova.edu/~nick. If you send me a list, I'll fix 'em.

he was proposing a THIRD airflow that would bring vent air into the
living space.... a pipe inside a pipe, inside a third pipe.

No... just 2 pipes, with room air vs outside air flowing back to the
stove in the space between them.

And yes, George, it's not a "new" idea. He didn't claim it was.

It may be new, but it seems obvious to someone "skilled in the art."

By the way, what's YOUR track record vis-a-vis optimizing thermal designs?

George says he's an expert. Let's try an extremely simple test. If 10 cfm
of 70 F combustion air warms to 800 F before it exits a woodstove to enter
a perfect conterflow heat exchanger and 560 cfm of 70 F room air enters
the other end, what's the temperature of the room air at the other end
of the heat exchanger?

Anyone can answer, but it would be fun to let George give it a try first.

Nick

 

[[email protected]]

"e" ?

A low-emissivity ceiling can avoid overheating a room with hot ceiling mass.

Nick

 

[bw]

George says he's an expert. Let's try an extremely simple test. If 10 cfm
of 70 F combustion air warms to 800 F before it exits a woodstove to enter
a perfect conterflow heat exchanger and 560 cfm of 70 F room air enters
the other end, what's the temperature of the room air at the other end
of the heat exchanger?

Anyone can answer, but it would be fun to let George give it a try first.

Nick

84.3

 

[George Ghio]

that's a co-axial pipe. A dozen commercial products use it. Flue
gases flow out, exchanging heat with combustion air.

Some gas appliances and pellet stoves work that way.

Nick sounded as if (sometimes he posts without proofreading, I can
show you some posts where he confuses the dimensions of thermal
conductivity and thermal conductance)

Interesting. I don't recall those mistakes. I archive most of my postings at
http://www.ece.villanova.edu/~nick. If you send me a list, I'll fix 'em.

he was proposing a THIRD airflow that would bring vent air into the
living space.... a pipe inside a pipe, inside a third pipe.

No... just 2 pipes, with room air vs outside air flowing back to the
stove in the space between them.

And yes, George, it's not a "new" idea. He didn't claim it was.

It may be new, but it seems obvious to someone "skilled in the art."
[/QUOTE]
It seems quite clear that Nick thinks it it "new" also "obvious" and the
fact that he is "skilled in the art"

George says he's an expert. Let's try an extremely simple test. If 10 cfm
of 70 F combustion air warms to 800 F before it exits a woodstove to enter
a perfect conterflow heat exchanger and 560 cfm of 70 F room air enters
the other end, what's the temperature of the room air at the other end
of the heat exchanger?

Where did I claim to be an expert, Nick. I asked you some very simple,
practical questions,

Remember this part;

Tell us Nick, What is the wall thickness of these pipes?

How much do they weigh?

How do you propose to support this weight?

With the forced air feed to the stove, how hot will the stove end of the
inner pipe get?

How hot can it get before it starts to slump under it's own weight?


Anyone can answer, but it would be fun to let Nick give it a try first.

You can see how Nick works. He just doesn't answer the questions.

All the theory in the world is not worth a pair of fetid dingos kidneys
if it is not practicable.

Now, I could go to the trouble of changing Nicks units to SI units, Dig
out the relevant books and answer Nicks question. Might even get it
right. Nah, it would be a pointless exercise.

The question is this: Is Nicks little day dream practicable.

Come on Nick. Is it practicable? Have you done this? Does it really work?

I'll give you a hint. It does work. It was as noisy as all get out. When
the contra flow fan was not running it was cooking in the heat rising up
from the stove.

In the end the simple solution was a nice quiet fan near the ceiling to
de-stratify the air in the room.

Had I done the maths, the result would have been the same. Not worth the
trouble.

Not a new idea. As obvious as all hell. I have the skill to build it.

Would I do it again? NO.

I opted for a Masonry Contra flow stove for heating. And no motors.