Yesterday while I was chasing away on my latest vessel I realized I hadn’t had a fire in the rocket mass heater all week, nor has the regular propane forced air furnace turned on in probably a month, yet I was comfortably warm! That got me to ruminating a bit about heating my home in what I think of as the edge seasons, those periods in spring and fall when some heating is still needed, but not a lot. I had intended this to be the post for yesterday, but while I did manage to finish chasing that vessel I obviously didn’t manage to get the post written. So here today instead I’ll share some thoughts, observations, and ideas about heating in edge seasons.
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Years ago, before I took my home fully off the electric grid I began preparing for it. Based on my location and available resources it looked like solar electric was going to be the way to go. The task was how to first reduce my electric use as much as possible, while still maintaining the quality of life I desire. I replaced the dinosaur fridge that was generally half empty with a much smaller model that only sips power. I hunted down phantom loads, and switched out all the light bulbs. I looked at those electric space heaters I had and thought, “I’m never going to use those when I’m relying on solar panels for power!” So I gave them away. (Side note, based on what I’ve seen the “Building a Better World in your Backyard” book I posted about before looks like it might have some entirely different thoughts on light bulbs, space heaters, and electric use to keep comfortably warm in the winter. I’m looking forward to seeing what they have to say when the book is published.)
It’s this last part I came to regret. I was focused so hard on conserving power, thinking of the tight season roughly 3 weeks to either side of the winter solstice. That is when it is super cloudy and overcast here, in addition to having the fewest hours of potential daylight. On top of that can be blankets of snow covering the panels until I can get them cleaned off. This is all what I was planning for, the time I wanted to get through. I didn’t spend any effort thinking about the edge seasons.
During these edge times the sun is higher up in the sky, and shining more hours each day. Usually there is less cloud cover and snow. In short, I have tons more electric power potential from my solar array. Since the array had to be sized to get me though that tight period around the solstice all this extra potential generally translates into many more kilowatts of power generated each day. My battery bank can only store so much, and since I’m not connected to the grid any extra just goes unused.
The question became, “How can I fruitfully use MORE electricity during these times?” The obvious answer quickly came back as electric space heat! So I wish I hadn’t given away those space heaters because I ended up going out to buy a couple more.
So now, when the sun is shining and I still need some extra heat in the house I will crank up the space heaters and just chug through the kilowatts like a spendthrift! It felt very weird to do this at first after all the years of effort training myself to conserve conserve conserve!
I do have to actively monitor the amount of sunlight or cloud cover and turn down or turn off the space heaters as needed so I’m just using surplus power and not draining my batteries.
It seems like this works even better in combination with the rocket mass heater. I’ve found that often I can do a burn to heat the mass then with the extra boost from the electric heaters I’m able to keep it quite comfortable inside for days before needing to burn another fire. That mass helps even out the temperature changes.
So anyway, yesterday as I was sitting working in front of the space heater, seeing the solar panels through the window, I was kind of amazed to realize that all that heat I was feeling was in essence coming directly from the energy the sun was putting out on the panels in that moment. In fact, if I run the calculations it wasn’t even using the output of the whole array, rather only about half of it! Thinking more about the real power of sunlight I must consider that the panels are likely converting less than 20% of the potential to electricity. I don’t remember exactly what mine were rated at but I know it wasn’t more than that. Then there are all the losses transmitting the power over wires, running it through the charge controllers to the battery bank, and using the inverter to convert it from DC power to AC power. In short, I’m not getting much of the real power of the sun converted to heat with this system, and yet it’s still working nicely.
Is there a better way to do it? I’ve often wondered just how well solar hot air panels would work at providing heat for a home. It seemed dubious. As I reconsider this with all my new, real world experience I’m thinking I should probably see about getting or building some as a future project. With solar hot air I won’t have nearly the same level of energy loss as I do with electric in terms of converting sunlight into heat.
I know solar hot air wouldn’t work for those tight periods around the winter solstice, which is where I had focused so much of my thinking and planning before. There’s just too little sun, and too much cloud cover. However, these edge seasons seem like periods when that technology would absolutely excel. I would imagine if I lived in other regions of the world they could excel all the way through winter! If I combined solar hot air with the rocket mass heater, and used my excess electricity in space heaters I bet I could extend what I’d consider my edge seasons further into winter. This is another way to reduce the amount of firewood I need, along with that supplemental fossil fuel I use known as propane.
Solar hot water systems are another fully mature technology that would work along these same lines, and something else I should explore in the future.
Anyway, those where my thoughts yesterday. So I have more future projects I don’t know when I’ll get to, but it’s kind of exciting to realize I can still get better at all this. As it says at the top of my page, this is about “Explorations in art and living”. I don’t know what the best way to do everything is. I’m exploring, trying stuff out to see what works. Somebody has to do it if we are going to develop better ways. I’ll keep sharing what I learn here so hopefully others can benefit.
Studio Snippet
Again, I don’t have much to say about this today. I spent all my studio time yesterday finishing up the chasing work on the last medallion section of this piece. It did happen to be the largest of the medallions, still I gotta say this design style just takes forever to chase. There are so many little planes and shapes to establish and define, then fill up with fine textures using tiny tools. Since I’m still delighted with the results though I’m happy to do it!
I’m happy to have a site where I can again allow comments. (I had to shut them off on my main website because the spam was simply uncontrollable!) So please I encourage you to share thoughts of your own. My general rule about comments though is just to play nice. Differing views are fine, but I’m not interested in engaging in or moderating verbal fights. If I feel things get out of hand, by whatever criteria I decide, I’ll just start blocking or deleting things.