Question:

 There is a fallacy  that if you cook yourself during exercise you somehow benefit yourself (such as using those plastic suits while running).  What you actually do is sweat more, but you also become exhausted more quickly by overheating your body. I can personally confirm that this is true!  I frequently do cardio with a fan blowing directly on me.  If it is too hot, then I can’t keep cool and I don’t work out as well. Same thing at the gym while doing weights.  Heck, if you let a car overheat, then it won’t work too well either.  Ever think about what happens to your computer if it gets too hot! <those are particular good examples to compare to the human body, but the concept is similar

Amen.  I used to go to a high impact aerobics class and there were idiots in there who thought turning off the fans would be better for burning more fat than if it were cool.  So stupid.  If I get too hot I can’t work out…if I’m cool I can go farther and last longer and THAT’S what burns the calories and fat! Jan

Response:

Inside, on my bike trainer, I strip down to just shorts because there’s no wind to keep me cool, and the fan only does so much and I sweat buckets. Outside on the bike, I layer up, and still sweat buckets. It’s beneficial either way. — Quasi 227/205/180 http://www.picturetrail.com/gallery/view?username=quasimodem

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Turn that snow shoveling into HIIT by shoveling hard and then sweeping where you shovelled.  Then shovel some more, sweep some more. Sweep a little, shove a little Sweep a little, shove a little Sweep sweep sweep Sweep a lot, shove a little more… -R (good night, ladies…) — Gafilk 2003: Jan 10-12, 2003, Atlanta, GA — http://www.gafilk.org/

Response:

Turn that snow shoveling into HIIT by shoveling hard and then sweeping where you shovelled.  Then shovel some more, sweep some more.

Sweep a little, shove a little Sweep a little, shove a little Sweep sweep sweep Sweep a lot, shove a little more… -R (good night, ladies…) — Gafilk 2003: Jan 10-12, 2003, Atlanta, GA — http://www.gafilk.org/

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Although there are some hidden dangers to consider when exercising in the cold such as the need to prewarm those cold muscles, the body does work more efficiently if it can cool itself during exercise.  There is a fallacy that if you cook yourself during exercise you somehow benefit yourself (such as using those plastic suits while running).  What you actually do is sweat more, but you also become exhausted more quickly by overheating your body. I’d bet if statistics were kept that you’d find many more injuries related to heat exhaustion/heat stroke then you would due to cold injuries during exercise.  By exercising in cool air your body can effectively cool itself. I’m not saying that you will burn more calories, although in theory I guess it’s possible, but you’ll have more stamina for exercise as you are not overheating yourself and causing an early halt to your exercise.  Use common sense, if you feel hot, remove some clothing, if you feel cold, put something on. Also, sudden death due to exercising in the cold is actually very rare- it is caused by a very sedentary individual engaging in an extremely strenuous exercise that they have not slowly prepared their body for- generally is is someone who is markedly overweight who gets off the couch after 8 months of TV watching and decides to snow shovel the walkway- Shoveling show is actually extremely strenuous, just as you wouldn’t decide to run a marathon with no previous training, you shouldn’t decide to go out and shovel the entire walk of 12 inches of wet snow if the most exercise you’ve done for the last year is to get up and open the refrigerator. Just my 2 cents. So I got to thinking…  Does the temperature of my environment have any worthwhile effect on the calories I am burning? If your body is having to fight to stay warm enough, yes, it definitely burns more calories, regardless if you’re exercising or not. As an example, I got caught outside one time with only a light windbreaker to wear in sub-zero temperatures for about an hour.  I lost 6 pounds in one day.  And I wasn’t even dieting. But it’s probably not advisable to exercise when appreciably cold. Cold muscles tend to contract, so it leaves you much more vulnerable to injuries. Reb Surpried no has mentioned the real danger of strenuous exercise in cold temperatures .. heart attack from the sudden strain on the body ’s systems trying to produce all that energy to heat itself AND fuel the exercise. The heart rate can increase too much to compensate, the heart muscle can work too hard, and *boom* – the classic out-of-shape-snow-shoveler-syndrome. — Peter Website:  http://users.thelink.net/marengo

Personally, I don’t like to be cold.  I wear an obscene amount of layered clothing; if I overheat, I open some clothes (like opening a zipper on a jacket) or take something off. I don’t think that a person who is exercising outside is doing more work; if so, then I don’t notice it.  Up until about a week ago, I was riding my bike outdoors in freezing temperatures.  I didn’t notice any difference between freezing temperatures and higher temperatures.  In fact, I’ll take the cold over 90 with 90 percent humidity any day.  One thing that’s harder though is having to tug another 20 pounds of clothing over the hills. I think that shoveling snow is just very hard.  People who don’t do any exercise go out and shovel snow. — Bob ctviggen at snet dot net

Response:

alt.support.diet.low-carb: Shoveling show is actually extremely strenuous, just as you wouldn’t decide to run a marathon with no previous training, you shouldn’t decide to go out and shovel the entire walk of 12 inches of wet snow if the most exercise you’ve done for the last year is to get up and open the refrigerator.

Yep, Fitday has shoveling snow at 9 cals/min.  More than twice as much as walking. Turn that snow shoveling into HIIT by shoveling hard and then sweeping where you shovelled.  Then shovel some more, sweep some more. — Jason Baugher 355/308/215 LC since 10/1/02 mini-goal: under 300 by Xmas

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Although there are some hidden dangers to consider when exercising in the cold such as the need to prewarm those cold muscles, the body does work more efficiently if it can cool itself during exercise.  There is a fallacy that if you cook yourself during exercise you somehow benefit yourself (such as using those plastic suits while running).  What you actually do is sweat more, but you also become exhausted more quickly by overheating your body. I’d bet if statistics were kept that you’d find many more injuries related to heat exhaustion/heat stroke then you would due to cold injuries during exercise.  By exercising in cool air your body can effectively cool itself. I’m not saying that you will burn more calories, although in theory I guess it’s possible, but you’ll have more stamina for exercise as you are not overheating yourself and causing an early halt to your exercise.  Use common sense, if you feel hot, remove some clothing, if you feel cold, put something on.

I can personally confirm that this is true!  I frequently do cardio with a fan blowing directly on me.  If it is too hot, then I can’t keep cool and I don’t work out as well. Same thing at the gym while doing weights.  Heck, if you let a car overheat, then it won’t work too well either.  Ever think about what happens to your computer if it gets too hot! <those are particular good examples to compare to the human body, but the concept is similar Proper warmup are always a good idea. If you exercise in the cold, you still need a warmup period. As your body heats up, you will need less clothing. It is just common sense, really. Also, sudden death due to exercising in the cold is actually very rare- it is caused by a very sedentary individual engaging in an extremely strenuous exercise that they have not slowly prepared their body for- generally is is someone who is markedly overweight who gets off the couch after 8 months of TV watching and decides to snow shovel the walkway- Shoveling show is actually extremely strenuous, just as you wouldn’t decide to run a marathon with no previous training, you shouldn’t decide to go out and shovel the entire walk of 12 inches of wet snow if the most exercise you’ve done for the last year is to get up and open the refrigerator. Just my 2 cents.

And a good 2 cents worth!

Response:

Although there are some hidden dangers to consider when exercising in the cold such as the need to prewarm those cold muscles, the body does work more efficiently if it can cool itself during exercise.  There is a fallacy that if you cook yourself during exercise you somehow benefit yourself (such as using those plastic suits while running).  What you actually do is sweat more, but you also become exhausted more quickly by overheating your body. I’d bet if statistics were kept that you’d find many more injuries related to heat exhaustion/heat stroke then you would due to cold injuries during exercise.  By exercising in cool air your body can effectively cool itself. I’m not saying that you will burn more calories, although in theory I guess it’s possible, but you’ll have more stamina for exercise as you are not overheating yourself and causing an early halt to your exercise.  Use common sense, if you feel hot, remove some clothing, if you feel cold, put something on. Also, sudden death due to exercising in the cold is actually very rare- it is caused by a very sedentary individual engaging in an extremely strenuous exercise that they have not slowly prepared their body for- generally is is someone who is markedly overweight who gets off the couch after 8 months of TV watching and decides to snow shovel the walkway- Shoveling show is actually extremely strenuous, just as you wouldn’t decide to run a marathon with no previous training, you shouldn’t decide to go out and shovel the entire walk of 12 inches of wet snow if the most exercise you’ve done for the last year is to get up and open the refrigerator. Just my 2 cents.

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – So I got to thinking…  Does the temperature of my environment have any worthwhile effect on the calories I am burning? If your body is having to fight to stay warm enough, yes, it definitely burns more calories, regardless if you’re exercising or not. As an example, I got caught outside one time with only a light windbreaker to wear in sub-zero temperatures for about an hour.  I lost 6 pounds in one day.  And I wasn’t even dieting. But it’s probably not advisable to exercise when appreciably cold.  Cold muscles tend to contract, so it leaves you much more vulnerable to injuries. Reb Surpried no has mentioned the real danger of strenuous exercise in cold temperatures .. heart attack from the sudden strain on the body ’s systems trying to produce all that energy to heat itself AND fuel the exercise. The heart rate can increase too much to compensate, the heart muscle can work too hard, and *boom* – the classic out-of-shape-snow-shoveler-syndrome. — Peter Website:  http://users.thelink.net/marengo

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – So I got to thinking…  Does the temperature of my environment have any worthwhile effect on the calories I am burning? If your body is having to fight to stay warm enough, yes, it definitely burns more calories, regardless if you’re exercising or not. As an example, I got caught outside one time with only a light windbreaker to wear in sub-zero temperatures for about an hour.  I lost 6 pounds in one day.  And I wasn’t even dieting. But it’s probably not advisable to exercise when appreciably cold.  Cold muscles tend to contract, so it leaves you much more vulnerable to injuries. Reb

Surpried no has mentioned the real danger of strenuous exercise in cold temperatures .. heart attack from the sudden strain on the body ’s systems trying to produce all that energy to heat itself AND fuel the exercise.  The heart rate can increase too much to compensate, the heart muscle can work too hard, and *boom* – the classic out-of-shape-snow-shoveler-syndrome. — Peter Website:  http://users.thelink.net/marengo

Response:

Okay…there is a real disagreement about this on different exercise/physiology websites.  Some say you burn more calories exercising in the cold, Runners World says the air temperature doesn’t change how many calories you burn per mile.

Theoretically it takes calories to keep your body at 98.6 deg. F, unless it’s that hot or hotter outside. The colder it is, the more calories you will spend keeping the body heat up.  However, if you’re running, it probably doesn’t make much difference since you will get some body heat as a by-product of the muscle action. And a benefit to this is you expel more water to cool the body off (a benefit to some, but NOT a benefit if you’re running across the desert, either toward or away from Sadam). bill

Response:

I’m not a scientist…I’m a blonde soprano, so take anything I say lightly I don’t know whether you burn more calories exercising in the cold or heat, but I do know you burn more calories NOT exercising in the cold than you do in the heat.  Your body burns more "resting" calories keeping itself warm. I’m Googling the exercise question…if I run across an answer (or a scientist ), I’ll let you know! Debbie

Response:

Okay…there is a real disagreement about this on different exercise/physiology websites.  Some say you burn more calories exercising in the cold, Runners World says the air temperature doesn’t change how many calories you burn per mile. How’s that for being no help at all?? Debbie

Response:

So I got to thinking…  Does the temperature of my environment have any worthwhile effect on the calories I am burning?

If your body is having to fight to stay warm enough, yes, it definitely burns more calories, regardless if you’re exercising or not. As an example, I got caught outside one time with only a light windbreaker to wear in sub-zero temperatures for about an hour.  I lost 6 pounds in one day.  And I wasn’t even dieting. But it’s probably not advisable to exercise when appreciably cold.  Cold muscles tend to contract, so it leaves you much more vulnerable to injuries. Reb

Response:

Maybe not at provocative as the subject… and maybe more of a curiousity question than a real-world problem… I notice lots of people bundle up when jogging in cooler weather.  I’ve always been someone who gets heated up easily, and usually end up stripped down to a t-shirt even in sub-freezing temperatures, when doing something like splitting firewood with an axe. So I got to thinking…  Does the temperature of my environment have any worthwhile effect on the calories I am burning? My analogy:  A house with a wood-burning furnace.  You insulate the house, you burn less wood to keep the house warm.  If your intention was to burn as much wood as possible, you would remove insulation from the house until the furnace would just barely keep up with the loss of heat through the walls and ceiling. So on a person, it would stand to reason that maximizing the heat transfer to the outside environment would cause my body to burn more calories keeping warm.  Obviously, this would have to be within reason – an ice bath would cool me off faster than my cells could warm me up. But in theory, it seems right. Any scientist types out there who can tell me whether this is true, and if so, whether it would be a measureable difference?  Will I burn any more calories exercising at 50F than at 100F? — Jason Baugher 355/310/215 LC since 10/1/02 mini-goal: under 300 by Xmas

Response:

Question:

I’m new to this group, so pardon me if I am rehashing something ages old. I live in central Alberta, where we get a lot of wind. My home and garage are heated by natural gas-fired hot-water heating systems. In the colder winter months, I have had $200 monthly gas bills. I have been wondering about installing a wind generator of some kind, making 3-phase AC, and simply dumping the output into resistance heaters in tanks plumbed into the return line of the existing heating systems. My thinking is that when the wind blows the hardest, heating demand is the greatest, and likewise available energy from the wind generator is the greatest; so the energy and the demand are in sync. Also, no inverter, batteries, or any other power conditioning equipment is needed. I’d rather use the wind power to cut a $200 gas bill by 50% rather than try to eliminate 100% of a $60 electric bill, and I’m sure my capital cost for the system would be less, too. I was thinking along the lines of a Savonius turbine driving a number of auto alternators (synchronized) with the respective phases of their stators wired in series to yield maybe 240 volt 3-phase AC at max output. I have lots of room to build such a thing. Has anyone here got any information on buiding such an installation?  Is there another forum dedicated to wind power? Are there any vendors with plans for such a unit? I’ve gone to several of the websites linked in other posts in this forum, but mostly they address using the windpower for home electrical needs. Seems to me I’d get more bang for the buck addressing my space heating needs. Thanks for taking the time to read this. Any input appreciated. Gordon Richmond

Response:

Gordon. The core of your problem is pay back. If you switch your heat from gas to electric, your gas bill goes from $200 to $60 (for the water heater and stove, eh?) but your electric goes from $60 to $360. Now your wind mill, cost of construction, cost of maintenance, and storage since the wind never blows when you want, can make enough money to help there. But I think you first need to consider a heat pump, probably with a large ground heat source, since your air temp can be pretty cold up in the big A. This is way more complex than a simple gas flame heater, but it does allow you to take advantage of some alternatives. Using a resistance heater is just hammering the heater (making that one part very simple), but you still have all that complicated wind generator. Generally you want to off load the complex, so the nuclear power plant (as example) is operated far away by specialists, and your home site is the simple part. A wind generator is a complex piece of hardware, so you want your heat use to be complex enough to make good use of it. BTW, if you do decide to KISS and just use resistance heaters, you could heat a large rock or water mass in the center of the house, and open vents to it to heat the house, so you can heat for days without wind after a good blow. Since we are heating, and heat rises, the mass can be mostly under the house and still work quite well. On the issue of complexity and cost. The wind generator sized large enough to do a noticeable job of heating your house will likely be one big hummer and it will need a nearly steady greater than 15 MPH wind to even start to work. This sounds slow, but remember that it is a sensibly pretty strong wind. You may be really overestimating the amount of wind energy available, and how much you can get from a simple 8 ft blade. When you have a 30 ft blade set, on a 60 ft tower, sized for the wind storms you do have on occasion, with over speed control, and a large alternator, you are going to have a lot invested in this baby and a few K additional to make an efficient heat pump may start to look like a cheap economy step.

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I’m new to this group, so pardon me if I am rehashing something ages old. I live in central Alberta, where we get a lot of wind. My home and garage are heated by natural gas-fired hot-water heating systems. In the colder winter months, I have had $200 monthly gas bills. I have been wondering about installing a wind generator of some kind, making 3-phase AC, and simply dumping the output into resistance heaters in tanks plumbed into the return line of the existing heating systems. My thinking is that when the wind blows the hardest, heating demand is the greatest, and likewise available energy from the wind generator is the greatest; so the energy and the demand are in sync. Also, no inverter, batteries, or any other power conditioning equipment is needed. I’d rather use the wind power to cut a $200 gas bill by 50% rather than try to eliminate 100% of a $60 electric bill, and I’m sure my capital cost for the system would be less, too. I was thinking along the lines of a Savonius turbine driving a number of auto alternators (synchronized) with the respective phases of their stators wired in series to yield maybe 240 volt 3-phase AC at max output. I have lots of room to build such a thing. Has anyone here got any information on buiding such an installation?  Is there another forum dedicated to wind power? Are there any vendors with plans for such a unit? I’ve gone to several of the websites linked in other posts in this forum, but mostly they address using the windpower for home electrical needs. Seems to me I’d get more bang for the buck addressing my space heating needs. Thanks for taking the time to read this. Any input appreciated. Gordon Richmond

Response:

Thanks for your thoughts, Fred. Payback is why I was thinking of using the wind power for heat. My plan would be to use the wind-generated electricity to supplement the gas-fired hydronic system. No way I’d use utility power for heat. If all I ran off the windmill was resistance heaters, voltage regulation wouldn’t be necessary, other than maybe a limiter for extreme wind conditions. A heat pump may have greater theoretical efficiency, but the capital cost is higher, and it requires clean, regulated power. My hot-water heating system has a circulating pump that runs constantly, and the gas-fired boiler kicks in when the temperature of the returning water is low emough. If I were to put an electric boiler (wind powered) in the return line upstream of the gas boiler, it should delay or prevent the gas burner from starting when the wind generator is putting out. I should probably be looking at a solar collector tied into the system as well. I wouldn’t anticipate using batteries at all. I’m thinking of a home-made generator using salvaged parts, but I’d be willing to buy new parts where they made economic sense to do so. A big, crude wind generator, with a low capital cost may be more efficient in terms of payback than some high-tech job built out of aerospace materials. Let’s say that my homebuilt system costs $2000 in capital outlay, and saves me $700 per year in fuel bills. It’s paid for itself after 3 years, and if it’s ruggedly built, could go on for many years more. If I were to spend $20,000 on a high-tech wind generator, inverter, batteries, and heat pump; maybe I could cut my gas bill to zero, saving maybe $1800 per year, and halve my electric bill, saving another $300. So I save $2100 a year. It will take nearly 10 years to pay back the capital cost of the elaborate system. If I have $20,000 to spend, it seems to me I’d be way ahead to use the crude system for $2000, and use the remaining $18,000 to pay down my mortgage. since the mortgage payment is bigger than fuel and electricity together, the sooner I can retire that puppy the better. I could also consider using coal as fuel; lots of that around here. Gordon Richmond – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Gordon. The core of your problem is pay back. If you switch your heat from gas to electric, your gas bill goes from $200 to $60 (for the water heater and stove, eh?) but your electric goes from $60 to $360. Now your wind mill, cost of construction, cost of maintenance, and storage since the wind never blows when you want, can make enough money to help there. But I think you first need to consider a heat pump, probably with a large ground heat source, since your air temp can be pretty cold up in the big A. This is way more complex than a simple gas flame heater, but it does allow you to take advantage of some alternatives. Using a resistance heater is just hammering the heater (making that one part very simple), but you still have all that complicated wind generator. Generally you want to off load the complex, so the nuclear power plant (as example) is operated far away by specialists, and your home site is the simple part. A wind generator is a complex piece of hardware, so you want your heat use to be complex enough to make good use of it. BTW, if you do decide to KISS and just use resistance heaters, you could heat a large rock or water mass in the center of the house, and open vents to it to heat the house, so you can heat for days without wind after a good blow. Since we are heating, and heat rises, the mass can be mostly under the house and still work quite well. On the issue of complexity and cost. The wind generator sized large enough to do a noticeable job of heating your house will likely be one big hummer and it will need a nearly steady greater than 15 MPH wind to even start to work. This sounds slow, but remember that it is a sensibly pretty strong wind. You may be really overestimating the amount of wind energy available, and how much you can get from a simple 8 ft blade. When you have a 30 ft blade set, on a 60 ft tower, sized for the wind storms you do have on occasion, with over speed control, and a large alternator, you are going to have a lot invested in this baby and a few K additional to make an efficient heat pump may start to look like a cheap economy step. I’m new to this group, so pardon me if I am rehashing something ages old. I live in central Alberta, where we get a lot of wind. My home and garage are heated by natural gas-fired hot-water heating systems. In the colder winter months, I have had $200 monthly gas bills. I have been wondering about installing a wind generator of some kind, making 3-phase AC, and simply dumping the output into resistance heaters in tanks plumbed into the return line of the existing heating systems. My thinking is that when the wind blows the hardest, heating demand is the greatest, and likewise available energy from the wind generator is the greatest; so the energy and the demand are in sync. Also, no inverter, batteries, or any other power conditioning equipment is needed. I’d rather use the wind power to cut a $200 gas bill by 50% rather than try to eliminate 100% of a $60 electric bill, and I’m sure my capital cost for the system would be less, too. I was thinking along the lines of a Savonius turbine driving a number of auto alternators (synchronized) with the respective phases of their stators wired in series to yield maybe 240 volt 3-phase AC at max output. I have lots of room to build such a thing. Has anyone here got any information on buiding such an installation?  Is there another forum dedicated to wind power? Are there any vendors with plans for such a unit? I’ve gone to several of the websites linked in other posts in this forum, but mostly they address using the windpower for home electrical needs. Seems to me I’d get more bang for the buck addressing my space heating needs. Thanks for taking the time to read this. Any input appreciated. Gordon Richmond

Response:

Morning Gordon. Sounds like you understand the economics part better than some of those school trained engineers.  Paying down your mortgage vs investing in high tech is a great comment that most would not consider as a issue.  I guess the real issue is freedom ain’t it Bill Roosa

Response:

Morning Gordon. Sounds like you understand the economics part better than some of those school trained engineers.  Paying down your mortgage vs investing in high tech is a great comment that most would not consider as a issue.  I guess the real issue is freedom ain’t it Bill Roosa

Named CALORIUS is a heatproducing windmill made in Danmark, using fluid brake in heat generation. terveisin,=greetings in finnish Jukka Matikainen

Response:

Yes, in a nutshell, the issue IS freedom. The sooner I can reduce the monthly cost of maintaining my home, the sooner, theoretically, I can retire; or have the freedom to make that choice. What is money, anyway, other than a form of stored energy? You have to expend energy by working in order to acquire it, and once you have it, you can turn it into whatever form of energy needed to do the job at hand. I could put in a wood-burning furnace, and dispense with the gas altogether. But I don’t have a woodlot, so I’d either have to buy wood, or spend several weeks a year driving a truck and trailer to the bush to gather firewood. That "free" fuel would cost me time, physical energy, and the cost of running the vehicle. And wood-burning heaters call for hands-on operation. You can’t leave the home unattended for days at a time. Actually, the last few days here have been cold, and quite still. My hypothetical windmill would have done nothing, but a solar collector would have put out well. I should probably look at a combination of two alternative energy sources that complement one another. Nevertheless, for my purposes, I’d want to go for only that portion of the available energy that is easily and cheaply extracted for a minimal capital expense, rather than try to approach perfection. Gord Richmond – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Morning Gordon. Sounds like you understand the economics part better than some of those school trained engineers.  Paying down your mortgage vs investing in high tech is a great comment that most would not consider as a issue.  I guess the real issue is freedom ain’t it Bill Roosa

Response:

Thanks, I’ll do a Web search. Gordon Richmond – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Morning Gordon. Sounds like you understand the economics part better than some of those school trained engineers.  Paying down your mortgage vs investing in high tech is a great comment that most would not consider as a issue.  I guess the real issue is freedom ain’t it Bill Roosa Named CALORIUS is a heatproducing windmill made in Danmark, using fluid brake in heat generation. terveisin,=greetings in finnish Jukka Matikainen

Response:

Morning Gordon. Sounds like you understand the economics part better than some of those school trained engineers. Paying down your mortgage vs investing in high tech is a great comment that most would not consider as a issue. I guess the real issue is freedom ain’t it Bill Roosa Named CALORIUS is a heatproducing windmill made in Danmark, using fluid brake in heat generation. terveisin,=greetings in finnish

The URL is: http://www.calorius.dk/Engelsk/Engelsk_intro.asp Jukka Matikainen

Duane —      Home of the $35 LED solar tracker.     http://www.redrok.com/electron.htm#led3    CUL8ER                 \          Receiver   Powered by               \              [*]  Thermonuclear     SolarEnergyfrom the Sun /////| Energy(the Sun)               \   / / // / /|                               / / /  /  /  / |    WA0VBE               /   / /   /   /  / /|   Ziggy               /    /    / /   /    /  |                   /   /    /     / \ /   /  / | "Red Rock Energy" ===  === /   /     ===   /    === Duane C. Johnson, Designer===   ===       ===  /  | 1825 Florence St  Mirrors,Heliostats,Controls & Mounts| White Bear Lake, Minnesota                     /   | USA         55110-3364                            | (651)635-5O65    work                        /    | (651)426-4766   home                              | (413)556-659O  Fax                 copyright   /     | (651)583-2O62 Red Rock Energy Site (C)980907  ===    | http://www.redrok.com/index.htm    (My New Web site) | These are my opinions, and not that of Unisys Corp.  ===

Response:

Course the other side of the equation is also valid.  If money is just stored energy (I agree it is) then using less or producing more have the same net effect on you lifestyle.  With such a keen understanding of (what I think is) the obvious, you should go into business for yourself.  I talk to people all the time that want to start their own businesses and they are aclueistic when it comes to the economics of the beast.  You want to retire sooner, don’t get a good JOB.  Get a personally owned business. The pilgrims did not come to America to get good JOBs. Bill Roosa

Response:

You don’t need a volt reg for extreme conditions. During operation a volt reg simply acts as a heater anyway. If you can use a heating element where its resistance drops as it get hotter, that will help to load heavily during storms. I did the unmbers one time for such a  system as yours, and it didn’t add up at all. I should probably be looking at a solar collector tied into the system as well.

Very much. These have to be the first thing to do for space heat. Much less cost, less effort, and useful output. Personally I would look at all your solar options first. Some of them do pay their way well. A heliostat would give you more energy than a windgen probably.

Response:

Thanks for your thoughts, Fred. Payback is why I was thinking of using the wind power for heat. My plan would be to use the wind-generated electricity to supplement the gas-fired hydronic system. No way I’d use utility power for heat. If all I ran off the windmill was resistance heaters, voltage regulation wouldn’t be necessary, other than maybe a limiter for extreme wind conditions. A heat pump may have greater theoretical efficiency, but the capital cost is higher, and it requires clean, regulated power.

      Well, with no batteries, you don’t need to worry much about the actual voltage/frequency output. But auto alternators are a bad choice. They are very inefficient (cheap!) and the field will eat a lot of your output. You have to put at least 3 amps into the field before you can get any output. Also, it takes a fairly high speed (1500 RPM for the first tricle) to get any output. Max (rated) output takes 5000-6000 RPM, not very practicle for a wind machine.       I do like your idea of putting the 3 phases in series. You probably could get 240vac out (who cares what frequency) with normal field current (7-10 amps) but 1/3 output current. Still need the 5000 RPM, though.       A permanent magnet DC motor would probably be much easier to use. You might also use brushless AC motors, if you can find one. You might use 240vac heating elements and say a 48-120v generator. You wouldn’t get much heat unless the wind is blowing hard, but you wouldn’t need to worry about overloading it.       Properly sizing the heating elements and generator, you could maximize the efficiency for your situation. The heating element won’t care if it is ac or dc current, as long as it doesn’t exceed it’s current rating (2500 watts/240vac is 10.4+ amps, which would give you and low voltages, or operate them in series at higher voltages, depending on what you use for a generator. My hot-water heating system has a circulating pump that runs constantly,

      Why? Does your hydronic system require this? A thermostat would normally cost less than the electricity a pump uses in a month. I don’t think you want the hydronic system pumping ALL of the time, do you?  I could see all winter, maybe, but even then, it makes sense to let the heat soak back in to that part of the ground once in awhile. and the gas-fired boiler kicks in when the temperature of the returning water is low emough. If I were to put an electric boiler (wind powered) in the return line upstream of the gas boiler, it should delay or prevent the gas burner from starting when the wind generator is putting out. I should probably be looking at a solar collector tied into the system as well.

          That’s a lot cheaper than using wind for this. It takes less time and material even if you scrounge everything. Of course, maybe you don’t get much sun. And you would want to be able to bypass it when there was no sun or when useing the hydronic system for cooling (if ever). I wouldn’t anticipate using batteries at all. I’m thinking of a home-made generator using salvaged parts, but I’d be willing to buy new parts where they made economic sense to do so. A big, crude wind generator, with a low capital cost

(see Dan Fink’s website, www.otherpower.com) may be more efficient in terms of payback than some high-tech job built out of aerospace materials. Let’s say that my homebuilt system costs $2000 in capital outlay, and saves me $700 per year in fuel bills. It’s paid for itself after 3 years, and if it’s ruggedly built, could go on for many years more.

         Is hot water costing you that much? Doesn’t sound like your hydronic system is doing as much as it should for you. If your ground loop is too small, you can probably use that solar collector and some more heat storage. If I were to spend $20,000 on a high-tech wind generator, inverter, batteries, and heat pump; maybe I could cut my gas bill to zero, saving maybe $1800 per year, and halve my electric bill, saving another $300. So I save $2100 a year. It will take nearly 10 years to pay back the capital cost of the elaborate system. If I have $20,000 to spend, it seems to me I’d be way ahead to use the crude system for $2000, and use the remaining $18,000 to pay down my mortgage. since the mortgage payment is bigger than fuel and electricity together, the sooner I can retire that puppy the better. I could also consider using coal as fuel; lots of that around here.

        Is it cheaper than natural gas (or is it propane you are using)? Have you considered a stove (coal or wood) with a built in heat exchanger for hot water? – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Gordon Richmond Gordon. The core of your problem is pay back. If you switch your heat from gas to electric, your gas bill goes from $200 to $60 (for the water heater and stove, eh?) but your electric goes from $60 to $360. Now your wind mill, cost of construction, cost of maintenance, and storage since the wind never blows when you want, can make enough money to help there. But I think you first need to consider a heat pump, probably with a large ground heat source, since your air temp can be pretty cold up in the big A. This is way more complex than a simple gas flame heater, but it does allow you to take advantage of some alternatives. Using a resistance heater is just hammering the heater (making that one part very simple), but you still have all that complicated wind generator. Generally you want to off load the complex, so the nuclear power plant (as example) is operated far away by specialists, and your home site is the simple part. A wind generator is a complex piece of hardware, so you want your heat use to be complex enough to make good use of it. BTW, if you do decide to KISS and just use resistance heaters, you could heat a large rock or water mass in the center of the house, and open vents to it to heat the house, so you can heat for days without wind after a good blow. Since we are heating, and heat rises, the mass can be mostly under the house and still work quite well. On the issue of complexity and cost. The wind generator sized large enough to do a noticeable job of heating your house will likely be one big hummer and it will need a nearly steady greater than 15 MPH wind to even start to work. This sounds slow, but remember that it is a sensibly pretty strong wind. You may be really overestimating the amount of wind energy available, and how much you can get from a simple 8 ft blade. When you have a 30 ft blade set, on a 60 ft tower, sized for the wind storms you do have on occasion, with over speed control, and a large alternator, you are going to have a lot invested in this baby and a few K additional to make an efficient heat pump may start to look like a cheap economy step. I’m new to this group, so pardon me if I am rehashing something ages old. I live in central Alberta, where we get a lot of wind. My home and garage are heated by natural gas-fired hot-water heating systems. In the colder winter months, I have had $200 monthly gas bills. I have been wondering about installing a wind generator of some kind, making 3-phase AC, and simply dumping the output into resistance heaters in tanks plumbed into the return line of the existing heating systems. My thinking is that when the wind blows the hardest, heating demand is the greatest, and likewise available energy from the wind generator is the greatest; so the energy and the demand are in sync. Also, no inverter, batteries, or any other power conditioning equipment is needed. I’d rather use the wind power to cut a $200 gas bill by 50% rather than try to eliminate 100% of a $60 electric bill, and I’m sure my capital cost for the system would be less, too. I was thinking along the lines of a Savonius turbine driving a number of auto alternators (synchronized) with the respective phases of their stators wired in series to yield maybe 240 volt 3-phase AC at max output. I have lots of room to build such a thing. Has anyone here got any information on buiding such an installation?  Is there another forum dedicated to wind power? Are there any vendors with plans for such a unit? I’ve gone to several of the websites linked in other posts in this forum, but mostly they address using the windpower for home electrical needs. Seems to me I’d get more bang for the buck addressing my space heating needs. Thanks for taking the time to read this. Any input appreciated. Gordon Richmond

Response:

Thanks for the detailed reply, Russ. I think there is a misunderstanding of terminology here, and maybe it’s my fault. When I refer to hydronic heating, I’m talking about a simple hot-water home heating system; boiler heats the water and a pump circulates the heated water through lines to a number of baseboard heaters. The garage has a similar system with loops of line in the floor as the radiant part. No heat pump is involved, and no ground loop. I know what a ground source heat pump is, and this isn’t it. I expect I will add a solar heat collector; but I do feel that it would help to take advantage of wind energy as well. There are days when it is windy and cloudy. And the wind does blow at night. The wind and solar should complement one another. It does sound like I should look at something other than auto alternators for the generating unit. I wonder how hard it would be to build a large diameter alternator designed to run at wind-rotor speed, with lots of poles and a permanent magent rotor? I’ll have to look for a textbook with design parameters for alternators. Thanks again, Gordon Richmond – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Thanks for your thoughts, Fred. Payback is why I was thinking of using the wind power for heat. My plan would be to use the wind-generated electricity to supplement the gas-fired hydronic system. No way I’d use utility power for heat. If all I ran off the windmill was resistance heaters, voltage regulation wouldn’t be necessary, other than maybe a limiter for extreme wind conditions. A heat pump may have greater theoretical efficiency, but the capital cost is higher, and it requires clean, regulated power.       Well, with no batteries, you don’t need to worry much about the actual voltage/frequency output. But auto alternators are a bad choice. They are very inefficient (cheap!) and the field will eat a lot of your output. You have to put at least 3 amps into the field before you can get any output. Also, it takes a fairly high speed (1500 RPM for the first tricle) to get any output. Max (rated) output takes 5000-6000 RPM, not very practicle for a wind machine.       I do like your idea of putting the 3 phases in series. You probably could get 240vac out (who cares what frequency) with normal field current (7-10 amps) but 1/3 output current. Still need the 5000 RPM, though.       A permanent magnet DC motor would probably be much easier to use. You might also use brushless AC motors, if you can find one. You might use 240vac heating elements and say a 48-120v generator. You wouldn’t get much heat unless the wind is blowing hard, but you wouldn’t need to worry about overloading it.       Properly sizing the heating elements and generator, you could maximize the efficiency for your situation. The heating element won’t care if it is ac or dc current, as long as it doesn’t exceed it’s current rating (2500 watts/240vac is 10.4+ amps, which would give you and low voltages, or operate them in series at higher voltages, depending on what you use for a generator. My hot-water heating system has a circulating pump that runs constantly,       Why? Does your hydronic system require this? A thermostat would normally cost less than the electricity a pump uses in a month. I don’t think you want the hydronic system pumping ALL of the time, do you?  I could see all winter, maybe, but even then, it makes sense to let the heat soak back in to that part of the ground once in awhile. and the gas-fired boiler kicks in when the temperature of the returning water is low emough. If I were to put an electric boiler (wind powered) in the return line upstream of the gas boiler, it should delay or prevent the gas burner from starting when the wind generator is putting out. I should probably be looking at a solar collector tied into the system as well.           That’s a lot cheaper than using wind for this. It takes less time and material even if you scrounge everything. Of course, maybe you don’t get much sun. And you would want to be able to bypass it when there was no sun or when useing the hydronic system for cooling (if ever). I wouldn’t anticipate using batteries at all. I’m thinking of a home-made generator using salvaged parts, but I’d be willing to buy new parts where they made economic sense to do so. A big, crude wind generator, with a low capital cost (see Dan Fink’s website, www.otherpower.com) may be more efficient in terms of payback than some high-tech job built out of aerospace materials. Let’s say that my homebuilt system costs $2000 in capital outlay, and saves me $700 per year in fuel bills. It’s paid for itself after 3 years, and if it’s ruggedly built, could go on for many years more.          Is hot water costing you that much? Doesn’t sound like your hydronic system is doing as much as it should for you. If your ground loop is too small, you can probably use that solar collector and some more heat storage. If I were to spend $20,000 on a high-tech wind generator, inverter, batteries, and heat pump; maybe I could cut my gas bill to zero, saving maybe $1800 per year, and halve my electric bill, saving another $300. So I save $2100 a year. It will take nearly 10 years to pay back the capital cost of the elaborate system. If I have $20,000 to spend, it seems to me I’d be way ahead to use the crude system for $2000, and use the remaining $18,000 to pay down my mortgage. since the mortgage payment is bigger than fuel and electricity together, the sooner I can retire that puppy the better. I could also consider using coal as fuel; lots of that around here.         Is it cheaper than natural gas (or is it propane you are using)? Have you considered a stove (coal or wood) with a built in heat exchanger for hot water? Gordon Richmond Gordon. The core of your problem is pay back. If you switch your heat from gas to electric, your gas bill goes from $200 to $60 (for the water heater and stove, eh?) but your electric goes from $60 to $360. Now your wind mill, cost of construction, cost of maintenance, and storage since the wind never blows when you want, can make enough money to help there. But I think you first need to consider a heat pump, probably with a large ground heat source, since your air temp can be pretty cold up in the big A. This is way more complex than a simple gas flame heater, but it does allow you to take advantage of some alternatives. Using a resistance heater is just hammering the heater (making that one part very simple), but you still have all that complicated wind generator. Generally you want to off load the complex, so the nuclear power plant (as example) is operated far away by specialists, and your home site is the simple part. A wind generator is a complex piece of hardware, so you want your heat use to be complex enough to make good use of it. BTW, if you do decide to KISS and just use resistance heaters, you could heat a large rock or water mass in the center of the house, and open vents to it to heat the house, so you can heat for days without wind after a good blow. Since we are heating, and heat rises, the mass can be mostly under the house and still work quite well. On the issue of complexity and cost. The wind generator sized large enough to do a noticeable job of heating your house will likely be one big hummer and it will need a nearly steady greater than 15 MPH wind to even start to work. This sounds slow, but remember that it is a sensibly pretty strong wind. You may be really overestimating the amount of wind energy available, and how much you can get from a simple 8 ft blade. When you have a 30 ft blade set, on a 60 ft tower, sized for the wind storms you do have on occasion, with over speed control, and a large alternator, you are going to have a lot invested in this baby and a few K additional to make an efficient heat pump may start to look like a cheap economy step. I’m new to this group, so pardon me if I am rehashing something ages old. I live in central Alberta, where we get a lot of wind. My home and garage are heated by natural gas-fired hot-water heating systems. In the colder winter months, I have had $200 monthly gas bills. I have been wondering about installing a wind generator of some kind, making 3-phase AC, and simply dumping the output into resistance heaters in tanks plumbed into the return line of the existing heating systems. My thinking is that when the wind blows the hardest, heating demand is the greatest, and likewise available energy from the wind generator is the greatest; so the energy and the demand are in sync. Also, no inverter, batteries, or any other power conditioning equipment is needed. I’d rather use the wind power to cut a $200 gas bill by 50% rather than try to eliminate 100% of a $60 electric bill, and I’m sure my capital cost for the system would be less, too. I was thinking along the lines of a Savonius turbine driving a number of auto alternators (synchronized) with the respective phases of their stators wired in series

… read more »

Response:

Voltage regulation would be useful for one reason in your situation: to prevent dangerous excessive rotor speeds. I had an idea of a very simple way to do it. As the alternator etc speeds up, its voltage and frequency both increase. So a capacitor in series with a heating element would work like this: if rotor speed doubles, F and V both double, so heater curretn roughly quadruples, with voltage doubling. So anything upto 8x the loading will occur with such an element. Also the capacitor will greatly reduce loading at minimal rotor speed, allowing it to get upto useful generating speed more ofen. You’ll need one cap for main elements, to remove low speed loading, and a separate higher power element wth its own cap for overload protection. I have heard that auto alternators can make successful wind generators if their field coils are supplied separately from a small dc motor also attached to the propellor. But I can’t vouch for it. I gather C.A.T. has some info on this.

Response:

Thanks for the detailed reply, Russ. I think there is a misunderstanding of terminology here, and maybe it’s my fault. When I refer to hydronic heating, I’m talking about a simple hot-water home heating system; boiler heats the water and a pump circulates the heated water through lines to a number of baseboard heaters. The garage has a similar system with loops of line in the floor as the radiant part. No heat pump is involved, and no ground loop.

       You’re right, strictly speaking, the hydronic part refers to your in floor loop(s). I know what a ground source heat pump is, and this isn’t it. I expect I will add a solar heat collector; but I do feel that it would help to take advantage of wind energy as well. There are days when it is windy and cloudy. And the wind does blow at night. The wind and solar should complement one another.

       Normally, using electricity for heat is considered wasteful, since most thermal sources can be done more cheaply. But wind is often complementary to such sources, and it sounds like it could be economical for you. It does sound like I should look at something other than auto alternators for the generating unit. I wonder how hard it would be to build a large diameter alternator designed to run at wind-rotor speed, with lots of poles and a permanent magent rotor?

        Look for Dragon’s posts on the alt.energy.homepower newsgroup, he’s done some conversions of auto alternators to lower speed, permanent magnet wind machines. Sorry I don’t recall his web page. You may be interested in Hugh Pigott’s books and some others on the www.picoturbine.com site. There’s a link to Hugh’s web pages there. Check out his brake drum wind machine.         If you prefer to buy a permanent magnet motor to use as a generator, you can get a higher voltage one and run it at lower speed. Voltage is proportional to RPM. I have heard of people using 120v GE treadmill motors (nominally 1800 RPM) to produce 12v (actually 13-15v for charging) at 200 RPM and up. I don’t recall if those are brushless, however. You have the same current limit at 12v as you do at 120v, so you don’t get as much power at lower voltages. You have some flexibility in regard to your operating voltage. Just remember that the National electrical code considers voltages over 50 as more hazardous. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I’ll have to look for a textbook with design parameters for alternators. Thanks again, Gordon Richmond SNIP <

Response: