Green-Trust.Org » heat

Making Steam from Solar Energy – redux

Steve Spence — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:41:46 +0000

A while back, Robert Saunders sent us an article on a steam turbine he was working on. Then he sent another on solar energy steam electric. Well, here is his third chapter in this continuing quest. Hope you enjoy:

http://www.green-trust.org/wordpress/2008/12/07/solar-powered-steam-generators/

Our vegetable oil burner has arrived

Steve Spence — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 09:56:40 +0000

We drove to Massachusetts yesterday to visit Tom Leue from http://yellowbiodiesel.com/, and brought back one of his Recycled Vegetable Oil (RVO) burners. This is designed to replace a standard 4″ Beckett burner in a boiler or furnace, can be installed in a drum for a shop heater, used to heat water, or even create steam for a steam engine powered heat and electric application (Combined heat and power, or CHP). We talked a bit a few days ago about this burner in a previous blog article, which gives more info on the burner itself. This design is based on a Babington burner that injects air through a tiny jet in a ball, and pumps oil over the ball, forming a ignitable vapor when the oil covers the jet of air, similar to a whale’s blowhole. Discussions of the Babington principle are commonly held at http://group.wastewatts.org.

Building with Cob

Steve Spence — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 19:02:00 +0000

Cob is an ancient and simple building material. Made of soil, sand, straw and water, it can last for decades, sometimes centuries, and is an inexpensive, local, green building material.

The Cob Builders Handbook says,

“The three most common forms of earth buildings are adobe, rammed earth and cob. In the southwestern United States, the five hundred year old Taos Pueblo, as well as many homes and churches, are made of adobe. Adobe is a form of building using unfired earth. Dirt, straw and water – the same ingredients as in cob – are made into bricks which are then sun dried and built into walls with a “cob-like” mortar. Some very old Native American structures like the Casa Grande ruin in Arizona are made out of cob. These are described locally as being built of “puddled or coursed adobe”.”

This spring, Green-Trust will be building a generator and wood boiler shed with cob, in preparation for building a few homes as well.

Resources:

http://beckybee.net/
http://weblife.org/cob/index.html
http://www.housealive.org/
http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/cob.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cob_%28material%29
http://www.cobcottage.com/

Wrapping the tank with insulation

Steve Spence — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 14:23:00 +0000

Now that Dharam’s fuel tank is ready to be reinstalled, we are wrapping it in two layers of Reflectix to keep the heat in the tank. New mounting brackets are being welded on the bus, and the tank, fuel filter and the lines will be hooked up today.

Tomorrow we are pouring the concrete pads for the wind tower, and remounting the PV panels on the south side of our newly repainted home. Dharam did a great job spraying and rolling the new paint.