~2~ Homestead Hacks
Today we will look at a number of alternative ways to provide heat/warmth. As many will know heat is the most costly energy wise. Those that live offgrid will want to find the most efficient ways of warming spaces, water and so on without expending too much power.
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This nifty idea keeps your chicken's water from freezing. Basically take a cinder block and put a lightbulb inside with a flat brick for covering and set your chicken waterer on top. I have done it myself and it works well. Have yet to try it with an LED bulb which I would like to so as to conserve energy.
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When it's sunny a window or glass pane can help warm up a chicken waterer as well, painting the waterer black would further increase the sun's ability to keep the water from freezing.
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Biomass heating refers to the process of generating heat from living organisms. Most of the time the living organisms are plant based as in compost, straw, sawdust etc. Some of the simplest biomass heating systems are nothing more than a pile of manure, leaves, wood chips and small sticks with multiple coils of pipe inside used to heat water or a pile of compost inside a green house constantly generating heat.
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Here is a smaller version with a diagram of the contents inside
https://permaculturenews.org/2010/01/11/free-hot-water-from-compost-wheelie-bin/
A method of heating a greenhouse with compost
Here is an interesting trick to keep your seedlings warm if there is an unexpected overnight frost using christmas lights!
A DIY slowcooker that uses no power
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How cute! Using feather dusters you can simulate the warmth of momma hen for chicks
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Build a DIY heated outdoor bath!
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By wrapping copper piping around a wood stove chimney you can heat water that can also be directed to radiators at different locations within the buildings generating more heat for your home as well.
I hope you enjoyed today's Homestead Hacks! Happy Steeming <3
Those arebsone really creative ways to generate heat. I have always wanted to see the compost pile in action like that. Maybe because I live in suck a cold climate I can't picture utilizing the bath tub ideas but I do think they're clever. Maybe a summer novelty for me. -Aimee
I plan to make one one of these days. I'm in a cold climate also but I've seen people make them efficient enough to work as hot tubs during winter.
Hot tubs?! Now you're speaking my language! -Aimee
How funny, I did a post on how to make the chicken water warmer the most efficient!—
https://steemit.com/homesteading/@mtnmeadowmomma/diy-chicken-water-warmer-conquered
And I can confirm from our own trial and error, that an LED bulb will not work. It doesn’t generate nearly enough heat!
Haha thanks for confirming my suspicion! I had a feeling LED would be incapable of generating enough heat. I like how you used a tile covering, makes more sense than the brick.
One suggestion to conserve energy using a regular incandescent light bulb... try using a lower wattage bulb and wrapping some sort of insulation around the sides of the cinder block so it doesn't release as much heat through the sides.
Excellent suggestion thankyou! ^_^
LED bulb might work, the kind you screw into a regular light socket, they do get pretty warm. I left my cabin this winter for 2 days over the holidays, i left 2 bowls of water, but when i checked when i got home, the water was frozen solid! Sorry kitties :D .. On the homestead I'll be experimenting with biomass and a air pumped earth battery .. Thanks for the post :D
Worth trying a few out I suppose. Have not heard of this air pumped earth battery! Thanks for the comment ^_^
Think of a passive solar design greenhouse having a basement filled with dirt and gravel. In that dirt and gravel every couple feet is laid air tight flexible drain pipes (kind of like the hot compost pile water pipes, but for air). For much of the hot summer, you have a fan blowing the hot air down there. It snakes back up for the air exit on the other side of the inside of the greenhouse. In the summer it cools and dehumidifies the air for you. In the winter the fan draws up the pipe the saved up heat from the gravel and dirt. For every foot deep it is supposed to give you a month of relative heat, something like that :D .. this guy in BC talks about it ..
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Wow excellent! That's what the guy in the video I posted here was describing but this is much better, thankyou :)
I believe the cheapest option all together though is to get an electrically heated dog dish which will only turn on and heat the water if it is below freezing otherwise it's turned off and not consuming any electricity.
I never thought of that! Of course they would have heated dog dishes, thanks so much for the suggestion! they even have them at princess auto :D
Super! some i had heard of and others not, right now trying to keep my motorhome warm at night is a challenge! i been using two upside down flower clay pots over night lights, funny i was just talking with @markwhittam yesterday about the copper coil around stove pipe, we were wondering can the heating of the water in the pipe move the water upwards to an insulated storage tank? great post, glad to have found you :-)
I'm stoked to make the slowcooker! I covered the walls & ceiling of my trailer with poly & blankets and it's helped keep the heat in a lot. RVs are so poorly insulated that most the heat just escapes! I'm not sure that the heating of the water in the pipes itself can drive the water upwards but I'm sure with some method of movement like a pump it could be stored in the insulated tank for future use. I quite fancy those propane tankless water heaters myself, I plan to get one soon. I need on demand hot water so I can quickly sanitize goat milking equipment/jars. Glad to have found you also! I saw 'natural horsemanship' in your write up and my reaction was "Yaayy!" this is something I'm just starting to get into. Don't see too many people posting about it. Going to be volunteering at a friend's farm to get more experience with horses in general but one day I hope to befriend one of my own! ^_^
Yes the heat escapes very easily! Ivwany one if the gas water heaters but the water pressure isn't enough here, so I would need some kind of pump...am thinking black pipe coiled under perspex (not glass as my van drives ;-). Or the copper pipe around stove pipe, but that's not great when weather warmer!. Great you got a friend with horses, did you see that documentary 'the path of the horse' nice variety of natural training methods in there. I had to sell my horses as with new baby I couldn't do the 3x day feeding needed here in south Spain, its high maintenances here, no green fields, miss them lots. later will do another trek and for much longer,, enjoy your time with the horses and I'm sure one will find you :-)
I think you will find that the LED lights won't work as LED don't give off much heat at all. Sad but that is why they are so efficient. :)
I love these ideas! I don't think an LED lightbulb would work for the first one, though, because the reason why incandescents are inefficient is that they produce heat; the energy savings on an LED would come from it NOT producing heat.
Exactly!
Thank you for contributing your knowledge to help others! This post has been added to the Sotall.org Directory of Self Sufficiency & Survival posts. One of our goals is to provide access to the knowledge of our fellow Steamians, that will still be seen, long after the 7 day period is passed. If you write any future articles with instructions on how to do any tasks related to a homestead or survival, to ensure they are added to the directory, please submit them. They will be added as soon as possible.
Tis my pleasure! I tried opening the 'please submit them' link and I don't think it's opening correctly for me, tried disabling my ad blocker but didn't do anything. Is there another way to submit future related posts?
I'm sorry you had problems. The link opened for me, but it was much slower than normal. Took at least 7 or 8 seconds to open and I am on a very fast computer and a direct cable connection. I've ran across a couple of sites today that are so slow to load they are timing out.(Cannot get into pixabay.com today) Not sure if there are some Ddos attacks going on or a sick server somewhere.
If anything ever happens, you can always submit directly to [email protected]. That is where the site sends to replies and where I will reply from.
Great post! I've wondered before how use the heat from compost,great photos! Keep up the AMAZING work 😀