[Greenbuilding] another innovative build

[RT]

On Sat, 29 Mar 2014 11:37:00 -0400, john daglish <johndaglish at gmail.com>  
wrote:

> They could just make a big compost pile outside and use a hydronic  
> heating system prefereably with large surface low temperature oversized  
> radiators,embedded floor slab or  embedded (in plaster) wall emitters in  
> the house.

> PS how many horse stables are there with large used bedding holding  
> bunckers that compost away producing heat and methane that could be  
> captured and
> used?

Back in 1985 when I was building my current house, I bought a $#!+-load of  
IGUs from a fellow who had bought a bunch for himself to build a large  
greenhouse which utilised such a hydronic heat-from-compost system to warm  
the growing beds.

Despite it's large size, it was quite cozy on the interior during the  
early winter morning that I was there to pick up the glass. While standing  
there chatting with the fellow, I heard a bleating sound that I didn't  
recognise immediately. It turned out that they were new-born kids (of the  
baby goat variety, not the jam-face/rugrat variety) who had been moved to  
the greenhouse from the barn because it was warmer.

                   *

Not just manure piles from horse barns, but what about manure piles from  
dairy barns, liquid manure tanks from pig and poultry barns  
(uber-methane-rich) or maybe even the holding tanks at municipal sewage  
treatment plants ? (I've never been in a municipal sewage treatment  
facility so I don't know anything about what they've got to play with.)

I know that in the 1980's there were thousands of owner-built methane  
digesters in use in the rural villages in China and India, utilising a  
design developed by the IDRC ( http://www.idrc.ca   ... a Canadian  
govt-funded public corp (for which my neighbour across the road was VP for  
science policy) - basically consisting of a holding tank made of staves  
(like stave silos)with a vinyl bladder over top to collect the sewage gas  
-- from which vinyl tubing (of the variety and size used for the aeration  
systems of hobbyists' aquaria) piped the gas to lights and appliances in  
the houses, controlled by el-cheapo in-line ballcocks, just like the ones  
on the aforementioned aquaria systems  -- the bladder being "pressurised"  
by atmospheric pressure bearing down on the bladder-- the essence of  
simplicty.

Just a few days ago on the local news here in white bread Ottawa, there  
was a story about an animal rescue facility that wanted to construct a  
methane digester on their farm to utilise the animal and vegetable wastes  
to generate fuel but the City wouldn't issue the permit to allow them to  
do it. [rolling eyes wa-a-a-y back]
-- 
=== * ===
Rob Tom					AOD257
Kanata, Ontario, Canada

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