[Cob] Heating cob homes?

[Whidbey Island Soap Co.]

Thanks Bill!

I don't really need a lot of heating in the Pacific Northwest here. Just
something to keep it warm on cold nights. The corn stove looks like a good
promise for the mid west with lots of corn available. Unfortunatly here I
think I would have trouble finding corn for a decent price. I can get wood
other fuels here. I was thinking something like a small fireplace and then
wrapping the the flue back and forth inside a wall then up and out. This
would give the  heat a greater chance to be absorbed by the wall and then
released back into the room. Even if I had to go to burning coal I could do
it. My home and rooms in it will be prety small so I do not need to heat
large spaces. I will also be using pasive solar to heat the house and
probably in floor radiant heating of some type. The in floor would be cool
to do by heating the water with waste oil from deep fat friers. I can turn
that into bio-diesel prety easily since I own a soap making company and the
chemistry to make soap or Bio-diesel is prety simmilar.

My idea for my home is to build two or more structures no more than 200
square feet and connect them with breezways that can be inclosed in the
winter. The infloor radiant heating hoses would be run underneath the
breeazways. All floors and breezways would be earth floors since they tend
to be easier on the feet and seem to radiate the heat prety well.

What do you think!

Dave T

-----Original Message-----
From: coblist-bounces at deatech.com [mailto:coblist-bounces at deatech.com]On
Behalf Of Bill&Julie
Sent: Sunday, June 04, 2006 4:59 AM
To: Cob List
Subject: Re: [Cob] Heating cob homes?


Hello Dave,,,  Heat,,,!  Wow,,,  The thing that is good about
a fireplace of 100 years ago,,, is thant anyone with mosonary
skills could build one. The Bad thing, is that with the flue
open, and a good draw up the chiminey, the same amount
of air goes up the flue even with a small fire...

If your place of latitude NEEDS alot of heat, like here in
Minnesota? The rage is corn stoves,  Google it...
Less than $4 a day are the numbers that I am hearing for corn.
Bad things: I have not seen a continious stoker, so you have to
load the hopper every 1 to 2 days.
I have not seen a self ignighter, so it must stay burning.
And there is no thermostat control, so if you have extreem
swings on the outside temperature, you have to be there to
turn the nob up and down.
It must have electricity to run the feeder of the corn into the
fire box. But I have seen models that run on 12 volts.
I am thinking a large un interruptable power supply or
 I am ussing a large 12 volt RV battery and a 500 watt
inverter for if and when the power goes out...

We see $400 to $600 per month for natural gas heat...
So we are getting a corn furnace to connect to our gas furnace.
That way if we go away for the week end, the gas furnace
will keep things from freezing...

But like with anything else a bird in the hand is worth two in
the bush. Or: What you want to do will always work better
than what you don't want to do.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=corn+furnaces

Take a look,,bill  ~¿~



----- Original Message -----
From: "David T." <soap at whidbey.com>
To: "coblist" <coblist at deatech.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 03, 2006 8:57 PM
Subject: [Cob] Heating cob homes?


I was wondering if there are ways to heat COB homes that are not sean often.
How about waste oil from deep fat fryers? I know you can heat a kiln with
these. I was thinking how about something like what the romans used to do,
like the hypocosts, but have the flue run through one of the walls and then
curve back on itself multiple times to get the most efficiency from the heat
and let it leach into the cob wall and then slowly let it out over time.
I've seen this used also in clay stoves in Europe. I would think clay piping
would be the best thing to use in this case for the flue since it radiats
and holds heat very well.

I'm looking personaly for the best way to heat my home to the least ammount
of money. I will also have a wood fireplace in the home but something other
than wood when I get lazy and dont want to take the time for a wood fire
would be nice.

Sincerely;

David T.
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