Posts Tagged ‘alternative energy’

Installing A Wood Burning Stove

March 10th, 2010

It is possible to save a great deal of money on utility bills by simply installing a wood stove. Not only that, but wood burning is known to be more environmentally friendly than burning fossil fuels. Traditional oil, gas and coal cannot be replaced once burned but tree can be endlessly replaced by planting new ones. So let’s look at how to actually install one of these beasts.

First understand that installing a wood burner is akin to putting in an above ground furnace, so always check with your insurance company before you commence anything. Most of insurers will require the burner to be professionally installed since there is a certain amount of precision required and a single mistake can easily cause a fire to break out in your house or apartment.

The next step is to calculate the size of wood burner you should install. This is part science and part experience and you would be best advised to speak to a professional. Ask them to pay you a visit so they can see what your requirements are and what the situation is so they can help you choose the right burner.

While it is natural to focus on the wood stove it is in fact equally important to consider the flue, since flues fitted to wood stoves must be lined with material suitable for wood burning. If you are fortunate enough to have a conveniently located chimney you might be able to simply line this with the right sort of material, otherwise you will be looking at additionally installing a new flue.

After your wood burner has been professionally installed, your next step is to clear any and all combustible materials away from the vicinity of the stove. The owner’s manual will specify the recommended clearance for keeping flammable materials from the stove. If you have children, make sure they understand that what is being installed is potentially very dangerous and not a toy.

After you start to actually use your wood stove you will need to schedule cleaning and maintenance. This is not dissimilar to the process for cleaning a regular chimney. The reasons you need to remove creosote and other deposits from the stove and flue are twofold. One, an accumulation of creosote will eventually rot the flue pipe and impair the burner. Two, when not in use during the summer, the creosote will start to smell quite unpleasantly.

To ensure long and trouble free use of you wood burner you should arrange a full sweep and clean at the least every year. By all means also make use of proprietary cleaning products called chimney cleaning logs that don’t do everything the makers claim for them but which can help control deposits to some extent.

To sum up then, bringing in professional help from the beginning will give you wood burning stove installation the best chance of success. This is a long term investment that should pay for itself many times over in the years ahead as well making a small contribution towards reducing the impact on the environment.

Check out these additional articles to find out much more about types of wood stove and how to install a wood stove.

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Wood Burning Stoves – The Heating Technology Of The Future?

February 7th, 2010

While the wood burning stove doesn’t sound even remotely futuristic, there are in fact a variety of simple yet compelling reasons why this apparent relic of the past is poised to re-emerge as an important heating technology in the years ahead.

The original wood burning stove was born of necessity about two hundred and fifty years ago when the rapid expansion of Philadelphia led to a chronic shortage of firewood. Among the residents happened to be the famous inventor Benjamin Franklin, who developed the circulating stove to alleviate this issue.

This new stove was orders of magnitude more efficient than a conventional open fire, which meant quite simply that a reduced amount of wood was needed which in turn substantially eased the excess demand for this finite resource. The first design was soon improved with a front door, to seal and even better control the airflow, and it remained fundamentally unchanged for the succeeding two hundred or so years.

By the time the 1970s rolled around, a familiar story resurfaced; the oil crises of that period of time limited the supply of oil which in turn impacted the many people who by this time counted on gas and oil to operate their heating systems. Many quite sensibly began to reconsider wood burners given the easily accessible and thus more affordable supply of fuel.

It could all have gone horribly wrong at this point as two hundred year old heating technology confronted modern fuel efficiency and pollution laws. But instead there were soon wood burners that boasted heat resistant linings, automation, and catalytic converters even. This new breed was a serious match for even the most up-to-date oil and gas boilers.

The wood stove continued comfortably along in this new upgraded form, but remained a decidedly minor player in the heating technology world. That was until oil depletion and climate change started creeping up the global agenda. Without doubt the escalating price of oil at first drove this new resurgence in the popularity of the humble wood burner, but concern about carbon footprints was also becoming a factor.

Burning wood is in fact not only cheap, it’s also a more or less carbon neutral and completely renewable form of energy. So long as the sun continues to shine, trees will take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and split it into carbon in the form of wood and oxygen which is released back into the air.

All that is necessary to clean up the CO2 discharged by burning the wood from a tree is to grow another tree. It really is as straightforward as that and for that reason, although it will probably never become a dominant heating technology, woodburning is likely to be with us for quite some time yet. Think of it as a kind of solar energy that helps clear CO2 from the atmosphere while the fuel grows.

For much more information on this subject, check out http://www.kulekat.com/woodburners/ and http://www.kulekat.com/woodburners/installingwoodburningstoves.html.

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Energy Savings: Generate Your Own Energy Source Using Home-made Solar Cells

January 31st, 2010

For a while, solar cells have been completely critical in providing an alternative energy supply. Numerous nations, specifically the tropical lands, continue to be employing the power of direct sunlight in order to produce electricity. There’s common sense for that.

Our sun’s light and warmth have been basically the source of most additional energy on the globe. So why is it that natural light isn’t readily chosen to develop electrical energy?

The technology of solar cells has made it feasible, at long last. So, aside from business versions, you will find residential solar cells which are getting implemented far and wide.

Might Anyone Do This?

Are home developed solar cells genuinely feasible? The answer is yes. Today, a variety of households could very well make their own energy through using home-made solar cells.

It actually is not as difficult and intricate as someone may well imagine. You can opt to make your very own solar panel systems because usually, commercially obtainable solar cells are too steep.

This large expense is the key explanation for why not very many families and houses are employing solar cells with regard to the production of electrical energy.

Do you plan to proceed in creating your own energy? You could possibly begin the work immediately. However, if you do not intend to invest thousands of bucks to purchase a commercial solution, you need to then invest a few dollars to acquire the essential manuals for producing the home developed solar cells.

Availability of the Resources

Anyone will be able to unearth and invest in these kinds of materials at either bookstores or on the web. The instructions would serve as guides while you try to make the solar cells yourself. The procedural instructions are normally detailed, the instructions all-inclusive, and the insights and tips are genuinely helpful.

You could get started by looking for and ordering the needed materials and specific tools which will make building solar cells by yourself workable and less complicated.

Exactly How Complicated is the Effort?

You could be pleasantly surprised to realize that the labor is just not as hard or as complicated as you may possibly assume. You could in fact perform the whole set of procedures on your own, though it ordinarily should be faster if someone in your family would help you.

What is even more, it may only take a number of hours or up to roughly 3 days to totally finish the development and setting up of your residential solar cells. By and large, your total financial commitment in the project may not even get to, much less surpass, a thousand dollars.

That is a very limited monetary investment when held up against the significant level of money you might conserve through establishing your private energy.

So why wait on? You would certainly do well to give this option serious consideration to help getting a grasp on the reason why increasingly more homeowners are moving in this path.

For info on practical home energy savings options, see www.energysavingsoptions.com – a popular site providing super insights about energy expense reducing options, such as Lennox Furnaces – the effective Trane Furnaces – and several more!

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Conserve Money With A Solar Water Heater

January 10th, 2010

Heating water for your home can be very expensive. If you would like to spend less money on heating water, consider the addition of a solar water heater. These water heating systems can be installed in many different geographic areas. They are effective enough in some areas to make water heating free.

You will notice that solar heating systems come in two different general types. The one which works best for you will depend on your geographic location. In warm locations, a passive solar tank, a black plastic tank which is installed on the roof and allows water to be warmed in the sun may be all that is necessary. In other areas, an active system will work best. The active system has solar collection panels installed on the roof that either allow the water to pass through for heating or use a heat exchange solution for heating the water in the storage tank.

With the passive solar water heater, the tank is black as this allows for the most heat to be absorbed from the sun. The amount of water in the tank is controlled by a float mechanism which regulates the amount of water in the tank. Heated water flows into the home using gravity pressure. As the hot water is emptied from the tank, it is replenished using cold water from the supply line.

Since the solar heating tank can be very heavy when filled with water, the roof may need to be strengthened to support its weight. Solar collector panels however are light and will not require any additional support.

Passive tanks are only appropriate in warmer climates.

One way to install a solar water system is to use it as a pre-heater so that your tank is not filled with cold water but water that has been warmed by the sun in the collector panel. This water then fills a normal water heater that is fueled with gas or electricity. Other systems use a pump to draw cold water from the storage tank and pass it through the collectors to be heated. In either of the cases, if the solar system is not able to keep the water at the correct temperature, the secondary source of heat will come on so that water is always at the correct temperature.

Active solar water heating works best if you have a flat roof. If your home does not have a flat roof, then you will want to place the collector panels on the south facing side of the home’s sloped roof.

Any time there is danger of freezing temperatures, there are special instructions for your solar water heating system. Be sure that you follow these instructions in order to avoid the possibility of freeze damage to the system.

In very cold climates, you may find a heat exchange system is the best investment. This system is filled with antifreeze and has a heat exchanger in the storage tank. A pump moves the solution through the solar collectors and then the heat exchanger to warm the water. The solution continues to circulate to bring the water to temperature.

If your electric or gas bill is too high due to the cost of keeping water hot, why not install a solar water heater and have 100 percent free hot water. More info on solar water heaters now a click away.

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