C.R.A.C

[Stuart]

all the best Desp, see you had to cut down on the christmas tree too, or did the bottom go in the fire? 

Also exterminating my wood pile fast, I'm promised a big Ash in the new year!

[frotter]

Tis amazing how fast a 'normous heap o trees disappears int it? The best you can do is keep telling yerself at least it was free....  apart from all the scrounging, chopping, dragging, carrying etc. 

 

[KLD]

Well done Desp! Looks fab, and I can well believe that you get toasty sitting this close to the fire  But how cruel to cut down that midget of a tree! Well, it won't grow to shade your panels ...

Looking at the temperature traces, why do you get so much destratification? OK, you start at quite low temps, but the solar input shouldn't be strong enough to mix up your tank? Or did somebody sneek in and use hot water during the day? 

Stripped down Christmas tree trunks burn very well after a year of drying in the shed  Bit more prickley then pallets, but no nails to worry about. Oh, avoid the plastic ones.

Klaus

[desperate]

Klaus

we only have the one chair left, that old sofa burned for nearly 2 days
You are right about hot water consumption yesterdays temp charts show Mrs Desp had her shower at just gone 11 am, and she doesn't hurry if its nice and warm

Frotter, I think it would be 10 times as cost effective to go out and service a boiler or two and pay the gas bill, prefer playing with the chainsaw though, BTW heard the mayhem and merriment last night on "Nutters FM" good laugh.

Stuart Ive loads of ash here, and more all the time if you want some   

Desperate

[desperate]

Hi all
Not a lot to report since last time except for a couple of interesting observations.
You may remember my cunning plan to deal with back end rot was to always maintain a minimum temp in the TS of about 50c, well it seems to work ok, the stat shuts the TS-htg pump down at 55c and over night the TS looses a couple more deg, a couple of weeks ago I thought I would raise the temp settings. When we fired up the dragonstove the water stared boiling quite violently even though the flow temp was only about 35deg?? Turns out that with the TS up at 60 odd the hot water really doesn't want to make its way down stairs from the loft, Normally we let the system thermosyphon and it works great, but at certain temps there seems to be an equilibrium that stops the flow. I have fixed the DS-TS pump problem that moistened the ceiling and now the pump comes on as soon as the stove gets hot so no more boilage, thank goodness for that, first time I heard it I was more than a little disturbed

Also we finally dug out a load of previous gas bills and the good news is that even though the DS cant supply all our needs we have cut our gas consumption in half during this cold weather, to maintain this level of gas useage we have to burn the DS really hard which does overheat the living room somewhat, or we dont get enough CH or DHW out of it.
Poor little stove this winter has been a baptism of fire for it.........Ill get me coat
Anyway bye for now.
Desperate

[noelsquibb]

my cunning plan to deal with back end rot

cripes mate ! thats a condition I would wish on anyone.

You still thinking about a side boiler or two or you happy to have a hot lounge ?
Its easy to adjust to what you have got once the work is done eh ?

Do you reckon there has to be a period of time ( like a broken relationship ) of about a year before you can build up enough strength and determination to do the 'improvements' that you know make sense ?   

noel

[desperate]

Hi all

Noel, plans are afoot to mod the boiler that is in there, when we finish burning in the spring, something like m sikkle engine fins, welded on to the face of the boiler, to increase the surface area exposed to the heat. Just like a real boiler in fact. I certainly aint going to leave it be, if I can squeeze another 25% output from the thing we will have plenty to play with, so I aint sure it justifies a different boiler, and it'll mean I wont have to muck about with the plumbing behind the dragon stove.

The control system needs modifying as well, at the moment I have to manage which zones the heat is delivered to manually, which is ok ish, but if I have a glass off turps or three, it has been known for me to forget to switch on the relevant timer/stat/whatnot, which results in a cold bathroom/altercation in the morning, not good

Luckily Mrs Desp has the patience of a Saint, she wouldn't have put up with all my hooliganism otherwise

Plans are also on the drawing board for CRAC phase 2.............

Desperate

[Stuart]

phase 2? whats that then?

would talk you up on the offer of ash but its quite a drive 


snowing hear again, too cold for DIY!

[desperate]

Stuart said

would talk you up on the offer of ash but its quite a drive  Smiley

Hi Stuart, hows things with you?

Err that was me being silly as per usual, I meant wood ash after its been burned .

Phase 2, well,    I've a fair few mods I want to make to the control system, really would like to fit some monitoring IF I can get my head round it, and also want to be able to use the heat store for a short time in the morning instead of the gasser. I am going to weld some fins onto the face of the boiler in the dragonstove to increase the heat exchange area, I think if I can increase the heat output by 20% ish we could just about survive with out any gasser input Another plan is to provide some electrical backup for the pumps and timers so that we are more robust in the event of a power cut, we have had 2 this winter and I think as the grid gradually reaches capacity this will get worse. I would like to try and install a small PV and battery to run the heating and maybe the  gas cooker for a day or so. Then there is the insulation, but that is such a huge job it may be phase 3............

Desperate

[Stuart]

ha ha not bad, I've got the girly to painted my cylinder cupboard before the install! 
its still bodgetastic mind. Might be somewhere near in a couple of weeks if i get time to do some work there.

[desperate]

Evenin' all, how're they hangin'

A CRAC ing day today... came home at 15.30 to find S1 88, S2 79, and S3 80 deg..........which presents a little problem, you see, my little plan was to use the TS that serves the dragon stove as the heat dump My thinking was that when I needed to dump solar heat, we wouldn.t be burning wood and the TS would be ready and waiting. The flaw in my plan of course is that we are already in heat dump mode but the nights are still sub zero and the TS is at about 75 during the day so I am going to have to come up with an extra dump  pdq. My neighbour is in agreement that I can connect up to his cylinder through the loft, but of course being me, I havent got round to it yet

Does anyone know if you can still get those "hot rod" heat exchangers that you used to screw into the immersion boss, my local merchant cant find one. Anyway it is a nice problem to have, if it is any hotter tommorow I'll bung 20 or so teabags in, you bring the cakes

One of the tubes seems to have gone a bit soft though, it seems to have "steamed" up, I think between the tubes where the Vacuum should be, anybody else noticed such like? running at nearly 90 deg should be ok...shouldn't it?

anyway see you soon.

Desperate

[GMEAT]

Are these the the sort of thing you are looking for?

http://tinyurl.com/ygpe36s


http://tinyurl.com/yhxz5lv

[desperate]

GMEAT

yeah those are the things 

Thank you most kindly

Desperate

[noelsquibb]

blimey desp

you got room to put another heatstore anywhere ?

While its nice to be able to heat the neighbours, its still only March.
What you gonna do in July ? Thermostatically operated Polaroids ?

Presume your dumping on your neighbour will require pumping ?

Its a great feeling looking at all that stored heat though.

[desperate]

Hi Noel, how ya diddlin?

blimey indeed, didn't think the dump was going to be in operation this early in the year , still its got to be better than not having enough heat. Sadly I dont think I can squeeze another store in the loft, got plans for a loft conversion soonish so I need the room.

Regarding dumping on my neighbour (sounds good and perverted to me ) I was going to connect a hot rod up and treat it like another zone on our heating system and pump it from the TS exchanger, after dumping heat from our HWCyl to the TS. It is relatively easy to activate using yet another stat or two, but I have no guarantee that their cylinder will accomadate the input unless I can switch his boiler off in advance. Not easy to predict that one, and they rightly dont want their boiler turned off on the offchance that I need to dump

So I dont quite know what to do...........trouble is I need to do it quick............sounds like a dose of the back door gallops



Desperatly hot