25 replies to this topic

[manders]

Well model complete and i've just about given up on the heatsink idea   There is enough heat floating around to stave off a frosting much of the time, on sunny days, but i just cant figure out how to make it work in practice and i'm beginning to think it can't be done.  To be really usefull you need at least half a tonne of water and the problem then becomes how to heat and cool it, the only thing that seems feasible needs a lot of copper pipe (e.g. at least 80m of 12mm).  Dick Strawbridges idea of 1 m3 of gravel and a pc fan is totally pointless.

[durham]

Last year I switched to a propane heater for my highlanders. The release of additional CO2 seemed to help them immensely. Overall heating my 6x8" to 12c for the year only cost about £250-£350. The issue was I had to allow quite a lot of air into the greenhouse to keep it burning properly.

I did find that running bath water into my greenhouse helped a lot. I have a bath every evening anyway so the left over hot water might as well go to good use. It was stored in a black waterbutt at about 9-10pm everyday and raised the humidity nicely. I just had to empty it every morning.

Might be worth a try?

[mobile]

I wrote about using waste household heat on another forum, such as waste hot water from showers, baths, washing machine etc. Then there is waste hot gases too, such as tumble dryer outlet, boiler flue etc. Of course, it is necessary to come up with some way of capturing this heat and transferring it. Sewage pipes are usually warm too, but a little tricky to capture heat from them.

[petesredtraps]

mobile, on 18 October 2011 - 16:28 PM, said:

Sewage pipes are usually warm too, but a little tricky to capture heat from them.

and if they burst ,you'll be catching more than heat Karl

[mobile]

mobile, on 18 October 2011 - 16:28 PM, said:

Sewage pipes are usually warm too, but a little tricky to capture heat from them.

petesredtraps, on 22 October 2011 - 18:34 PM, said:

and if they burst ,you'll be catching more than heat Karl

[bodaciousbonsai]

manders, on 07 July 2011 - 13:16 PM, said:

Seen lots of topics about bubblewrap etc but just wondering if anybody has insulated the floor?  That must also be a fairly large heatsink in winter?

Where I work we make these spa pads that hook together with little dog bone connectors. I made a figuration of around 8'x8'. What i did was filled them with great stuff insulation. Worked great for me. If interested you can view the spa pads at www.conferplastics.com. you can either use water, sand, to fill them also. but I used great stuff. I am not trying to sell our products just putting the idea out there.