Winter storm set to 'go bananas' across Northeast - U.S. News

USNEWS.NBCNEWS.COM ^ | Tue Jan 21, 2014 5:35 PM EST | Erik Ortiz and Henry Austin, NBC News

[jurroppi1]

Now, come at me with that “beenana”!

Really, at least you can peel a banana, thus disarming the criminal, er, storm...

[EDINVA]

AND, with the cold ‘40s and ‘50s winters, women and little girls STILL wore dresses/skirts!!! A proper lady would never have worn trousers (well, ‘cept for Ms. K. Hepburn).

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Oops

C'mon, you can do better than that...

I was expecting a "sounds just like it looks" or something. (Just jivin' ya.)

Thanks for the ozone hole information.

[jurroppi1]

you need something to circulate heat. If you have a forced air furnace, you have a blower that requires electricity. Without the blower, the furnace is useless.

Why run a pilot 100% of the time and waste the gas it consumes to run it? When you can use the electricity you must already have to run the blower to also power a control board and igniter, this allows for a much more efficient and safe system overall.

Technically you could have a pilot system in a forced air furnace, but the controller would never fire the solenoid to open the gas flow to the burner without electricity anyhow (safety feature).

If this very competent furnace repairman couldn’t cite the above points immediately, then this furnace repairman you speak of may not be as competent as you once thought... at least, that’s the way this non-competent furnace repairman sees it.

Through EPA action/regulation, there may have been mandates to get energy star ratings and be able to call a furnace “high efficiency” that brought about a “law” that requires electric controls and ignition system, but I am not aware of such a law (code most likely, but not law per se).

[ROCKLOBSTER]

you need something to circulate heat. If you have a forced air furnace, you have a blower that requires electricity. Without the blower, the furnace is useless. Why run a pilot 100% of the time and waste the gas it consumes to run it?

If you used an NG engine as a furnace, it could start with a battery, and make power to run pumps and charge batteries. A liquid cooled exhaust manifold would capture heat to store in a tank in the basement.

The whole rig could be outside in it's own engine room, removing the necessity for gas and fire to be inside the home.

A proper sized engine would produce the same BTUs as the burner, in addition to the electric power.

[jurroppi1]

That would not be a forced air furnace though, it would be a radiant heat / boiler type system.

[daniel1212]

It is not that big, but when you have a population density of 19,000 per sq. mile, and the most streets are not wide enough for two way traffic, then even finding where to put the snow can be a difficult.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Yup

The engine side would be. You would have to use a liquid-to-liquid heat exchanger in the storage tank.

[daniel1212]

No GW here, though i can remember colder days. See http://www.whdh.com/weather Or http://weather.weatherbug.com/MA/Boston-weather/local-forecast/7-day-forecast.html?zcode=z6286 below

Boston, MA 02108

Change Location

Wed 16° Snow	Thu 17° Partly Sunny	Fri 15° Sunny	Sat 33° 30% Chance Snow Shower	Sun 25° Mostly Sunny	Mon 27° 30% Chance Snow Shower
Tonight 13° Snow	Wed Night 4° Partly Cloudy	Thu Night 5° Partly Cloudy	Fri Night 11° Mostly Cloudy	Sat Night 18° Mostly Cloudy	Sun Night 16° 30% Chance Snow Shower	Mon Night 10° Partly Cloudy

• Detailed Forecast
• Hourly Forecast
• Weekend Forecast
• Video Forecast

[daniel1212]

Heaviest mostly SE MA right now. http://boston.cbslocal.com/2014/01/21/snow-totals-who-is-getting-the-most:

BOSTON (CBS) – Here are the latest snowfall totals from the National Weather Service in Boston and Rob Macedo, the SKYWARN Coordinator for the National Weather Service in Taunton, for the Tuesday, January 21 storm as of 10:30p.m.

Town	Amount
Abington	10.5
South Weymouth	10.5
Brockton	10.1
Walpole	10.0
Norwell	10.0
Mansfield	9.5
Stoughton	8.7
Foxboro	8.5
Pembroke	8.0
Milton	7.7
Hanover	7.5
Franklin	7.0
Rockland	7.0
Norton	6.5
Plymouth	6.5
Hanson	6.5
Hyannis	5.5
Taunton	5.5
Boston	5.2
Fall River	5.1
Marshfield	4.6
West Roxbury	4.5
Carver	4.0
Waltham	3.9
Middleboro	3.5
Nantucket	3.3
North Attleboro	3.0	Cambridge	2.5

[jurroppi1]

If you don’t have a control system it would have to be tended constantly; and if you didn’t have any safety release system in place, you could have major problems as well.

It’s hardly an apples/apples comparison.

Also, you still have electricity starting the system. Just because it’s DC instead of low voltage AC, you still have the necessity. True, you can get off the grid with a hybrid system, but at what cost?

There are better ways WRT heating your home. There are homes built around wood burning systems that heat the whole house well after the fire used to cook for the day has died.

[freekitty]

LOL

[DoodleDawg]

The ones ‘going bananas’ over this is the media.

[aces]

Lol,

[ROCKLOBSTER]

True, you can get off the grid with a hybrid system, but at what cost?

How much is a furnace, how much is your electric bill, how much is your oil bill?

The same type of person that can tend an outdoor wood boiler could probably run this rig.

If you built it yourself, using a marine gen-set, some standard circulator pumps, relays and radiators it probably wouldn't cost all that much.

If you didn't have it all automatic (which wouldn't be all that hard to do with a timer and a temp sensor in the heat tank) How much different would it be from starting your car from inside the house with a remote starter?

Just think of it as a cross between your furnace and your car...but stationary.

wood burning systems

There is no way they could produce electric power. And how much do they cost?

If you really wanted to "cut the cord" you could run the above co-gen setup off woodchips, with a gasifier.

In Maine we import almost everything...except woodchips.

[jurroppi1]

I get what you are saying, my point is the more elegant the system, the more dependent you are on the “grid” because you will need more replacement parts eventually. Why not go LNG or propane and run a propane generator/solar cell kit. In conjunction you would use a wood burning system that doesn’t require wood chips - just properly seasoned wood cut into the right sized chunks (typical fireplace material) and use that to do all of your cooking and heating, while using the other for electricity.

The summer months are where you would run into issues with electrical demand unless you live in a cave or underground dwelling. AC is kind of nice when it’s 100 -105 out and the humidity is in the upper 90% region. it’s even nice when you have high humidity like that and it’s anywhere above 80 and sunny.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

I get what you are saying, my point is the more elegant the system, the more dependent you are on the “grid” because you will need more replacement parts eventually.

Although you could probably buy most of the components new or custom made, I would build my rig out of junkyard automotive parts, and have a redundant system for backup.

You could attempt to generate 60hz AC, but that looks like a PITA compared to using DC, batteries, and inverters. That would run things whether the engine was running or not.

As far as the "boiler" aspect of the marine manifold, the automotive solution would be a typical radiator cap and a coolant recovery tank. As the manifold coolant expanded, it would push out past the cap and into the tank. When it cooled, the vacuum would draw it back up into the manifold.

For automatic operation, you would probably have to go with a NG setup. but producer gas is pretty close to NG as far as the engine setup is concerned. (producer gas is mostly CO and H2)

The summer months are where you would run into issues with electrical demand

Up here, we like AC in our cars, but most people get by with fans or a quick dip in the Atlantic, In your hotter regions, you could have the engine either run a 10-20KW alternator to run central or window units, or better yet, belt drive the AC compressor directly.

One again, the unit would be in the back yard with buried lines connecting to the house. It shouldn't make any more noise than your car idling.

BTW, I do enjoy cooking on my old faithful wood cookstove. This years firewood price was about $250 a cord, but woodchips are often free for the taking.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Yup!

4 below right now, 17 for a high today.

[daniel1212]

Can you remember the last time we had this long a stretch of this cold a weather around here? Continuing: http://www.whdh.com/weather