Need advice on micro hydro

 Hello,

I have a home in rural central New York that is currently heated with
propane / forced air. It's an old farmhouse and is poorly insulated
and the bills are killing me.

I would love to run 3 or 4 electric baseboard heaters from micro hydro
to keep the bills down  but I am not sure if it is worth the cost or
effort. I need your advice.

THE WATER SITUATION

OPTION ONE

I have a pond that is about a half acre and has about 10 feet of head
between the surface of the pond to the house foundation and about 80
feet of run between the edge of the pond and corner of the house.

- is this enough head to power 4 baseboard heaters?
- do I need to buy special baseboard heaters for lower voltage?
- how do I keep it from freezing in the winter?
- what is this going to cost me to install?
- what are the maintenance issues?

OPTION TWO

There is a seasonal stream that feeds the pond. Head is not a problem
here, there's at least a 100 foot drop from my property's border with
the stream and the pond it feeds. This is my first year up there - and
it's been one hell of a wet one - so I can't tell you what the average
flow of this stream is. I could guess and say it's like having 8
garden hoses running full blast. Some summers it goes dry, others the
flow is much greater but 8 hoses is the average.

- how much flow do I need to power 4 baseboard heaters?
- can I create a holding pond at that higher level and how big does it
need to be to power the heaters and keep from freezing?


Thanks in advance for your help.

Tony.

   tonyhedick@excite.com (Tony) wrote:


Get the house sealed and insulated.

--
Cats, Coffee, Chocolate...vices to live by

 

I agree, I had a neighbor who chopped wood all summer and then had to have
additional wood delivered when that ran out. And this was all to try to heat
a house that had no insulation and single pane windows.

Whenever I saw him chopping wood I would tell him how low my heating bills
were after I insulated and installed new windows. Each time he would tell me
"there is nothing like a wood stove...". They insulated, installed new
windows and a heating system and his first comment to me was "I don't know
why we didn't do it a long time ago...the house is confortable and what we
save on fuel will easily pay for the insulation"

 tonyhedick@excite.com (Tony) wrote:


Realistically, what you propose is probably not going to be cost effective.  If
you wanted to cool, you might create a trompe that would be useful, but it is
unlikely you could generate enough power to create useful heat from resistance
heaters.  Powering a ground source heat pump might work, but the cost would be
high.

Here is something you might find useful before investing too much time, money,
and energy.

Micro-hydropower Sourcebook, a Practical Guide to Design and Implementation in
Developing Countries by Allen Inversin, Third Printing, 1994, 300 pp, $25 plus
$4 shipping and handling in the U.S. (Overseas prices available on request)

This standard text/reference book used worldwide leads the reader from the
initial stages of site selection through to project layout, design, and
implementation. Hundreds of photographs, drawings, tables, and graphs.


http://www.nreca.coop/nreca/Resources/International/Publications/Publications

 

I ripped the sheetrock off some of  the walls in my old house, stuffed
them with styrofoam sheeting and resheetrocked them. What was the
coldest room of the house is now the warmest :o/