Cheap heat

Dave was pretty darn close with geothermal heating. The problem I have with Geothermal is that is cost a lot to set up. It's more than just pipes underground. They use a mixture of water, bio-degradable antifreeze and water pumps.

In manitoba here the frost depth is 6'. If I dig down 30 inches I hit the water table AND a lot of large rocks and sand. :(
So another type of heating is called 'Heat sinking'...

Fundamentally it acts as a storage heater, you heat up material that then slowly releases the heat back into the surrounding structure. In this application we heat up the storage material not with a heating element, but with hot air pumped down into a chamber under the floor of the greenhouse.

Only I would probably do it on a larger scale like the picture to the right.
The only electricity this system needs is a fan to move air.

The heat sink system isn't good enough to keep you toasty warm in -40 weather but it will help a little and keep other costs down.

How can I make it better?

Well I'm going to have a small wood oven for pizza and bread maybe a wood burning stove. I can pump excess heat from there down into my heat sink.

So the pizza oven heats up the surrounding area and that heat rises.
The pvc pipe near the top of the ceiling sucks the hot air down under the floor into the heat sink. The heat sink warms up and is insulated by the ground.
As the pizza oven cools down the cool air gets pumped down into the warm heat sink and warms up.

Another important part of the system is insulation.
It's better to keep hot air in than to create extra hot air to make up for what is leaking out.

Pink insulation is pretty darn good. I'd like to use some of it on the south side and ceiling.
But for the north facing wall, which will always been in the shade I'm going to try using straw bales. It has a very high R-value and is very cheap in my area of the prairies.

"Research by Joe McCabe at the Univ. of Arizona found R-value for both wheat and rice bales was about R-2.4 (RSI-0.42) per inch with the grain, and R-3 (RSI-0.53) per inch across the grain. A 23" wide 3 string bale laid flat = R-54.7 (RSI-9.64), laid on edge (16" wide) = R-42.8 (RSI-7.54). For 2 string bales laid flat (18" wide) = R-42.8 (RSI-7.54), and on edge (14" wide) = R-32.1 (RSI-5.66)" -Wikipedia

I buy bales (16x32x16) for a dollar to insulate my septic field every winter with an R-value of 40+; compared to about $10 for pink insulation that has R-value of 25 but is 10' thinner.

Building with straw can be different than conventional structures. You usually start with the insulation first and then do a majority of the framing around it. In the end you don't know it is there. I'll have ply wood and aluminium siding on the outside and drywall inside.
The drawback is the walls will be around 18' thick. :(
I'm not going to use the straw as load bearing like most straw buildings; my load will be on the wood frame like a normal shed so I won't need a special permit.

The straw bale idea is still in limbo. I'd 'like' to incorporate it because it is very cheap in my area. I can fit around 20 bales in my truck per trip. But it also takes a lot more time than nailing up walls and insulating it.


Another way to add cheap heat is the use of colour. I want to have large windows on the south side that will allow free light in. If I paint the floor a dark colour it will warm up and help, to a small degree, the heat sink underneath.
Or paint the south side outer wall a dark colour.

Well. There are a few cheap alternatives to using electricity or gas to heat my shed. I don't mind burning wood in a stove. It costs about $60 for a cord of wood out here - enough to last a winter; and I can use the ash so very little is wasted.

But that's all fine and dandy during the -40 winters here. But how am I going to tackle cooling for cheap without an air conditioner...!?
We also have humid summers here. And mosquitoes.

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Links
Heat Sink - YMCA - BBC
Straw - Straw bale construction

Wood working on the cheap

Yesterday we were enjoying +3C temperatures in Manitoba; normally we are at, -40.
So I took advantage of it and did some wood working in my shed.

My neighbour needed a piece of wood cut and routered to fix a broken cabinet so I got that all done. Cost about $0.50 worth of wood because I bought a rough cut 2x4 and table sawed it down to the correct sizes. After a quick sand it looked great!
If I had bought a nice piece of wood at the store it might have cost around $4 depending on wood. So I saved $3.50+.

Not that $3.50 is a lot of savings but the 'cutting' costs everywhere adds up. How much 'wood' it have cost if I paid someone else to do this? $20 bucks maybe more?
Now I saved $19.50 - thats a case of cheap beer or 2% the cost of paying someone else.
;)

And I get a lot of joy creating with wood. My wife really likes it too; it's a hobby that she supports and encourages. We are even planning on building a better insulated shop for me this summer so I can still wood work over the winters.

But how can I cut costs when building a shed?
It cost my neighbour $25,000 for his garage to be built. It's about 30x30 - the size I want

It has

• cement foundation/floor
• metal siding
• shingles
• 2 doors
• garage door

It does not have

• electricity
• insulation
• inside walls
• running water
• geothermal temperature control

With a baby on the way we can't spare $25,000 to have a half finished garage built no matter how badly we want one.

I'm really not a hippy, I care about he environment - sure; but I do not believe in global warming. But what I do care about is building a shed that is warm, SAFE, costs me virtually nothing to upkeep and environmentally friendly. How can I heat this baby with a small computer fan!?

I will be seeking the required permits. I hate the idea of bowing down to 'my' governments demands but it's a small price to pay to keep them out of my life afterwards.

AND how can i do it to keep the costs waaaay down!?
I'll tell you next time. ;)
I'm taking my wife to a baby show this afternoon. I have to make us lunch and I can't spend all day laying out my evil genius plans.

What I will say is this. I've mention how $8 block of cheese can cost you less than a quarter and taste better. I just explained how $20.00 project can cost you $0.50.
And by god I will explain how you can use a small computer fan can be modified to heat a small building.

Next time.