air line on my central HVAC unit pepa.will do this and let us live an (on the grid) life stile and still meet a lot of ouHi folks, I need some tactical advice and help with the electronic and structural planning for a project that I am trying to put together for the benefit of everyone who wishes to cut the cost of everyday living. This information will be free and available to everyone that wants to use it. I know that everyone here has probably thought about doing this project in one way or another because it is the goal of all of us to reduce power usage and reduce the cost of the power that we do use. I believe this method of energy production r (off the grid) goals. What I have drawn up is a central unit placed outside the house that will, produce heat for living space (forced heat ducted in), will preheat hot water for hot water heater, will provide steam or heat to produce electrical power and possibly refrigeration (air conditioning-ice making). I don't know if I am a dreamer or a fool but, every thing that I have incorporated into these drawings has been proven to work as single units. The heart of the system is an emersion heater that will burn untreated used cooking oil. (with a few phone calls I have found and established a regular supplier of about one hundred fifty gallons of clean used cooking oil per week, FREE), they even put the used oil back in the 5ga. Containers that it came in for easy no mess pickup. I am researching oil burner designs and have had experience with military (years ago) field kitchen emersion water heaters that were gas fired and drip fed. The later ones are much improved over these primitive units and are electronically controlled. Wet and dry chambers for heat exchange and a boiler for steam to drive turbine. What I am looking at now is a central water tank (possibly a 55gal metal drum or large hwh) with emersion heater and coiled ¾ soft copper pipe for hot water. A brass float valve in the tank will be fed from the hot water side of the outlet to maintain water level. This will be surrounded by a dry air space that will be heated by the outside walls of the wet tank and well insulated on its outside walls and equipped with inlet and outlet for forced hot air. A boiler above the wet tank to collect steam for driving electric power supply unit. Something like this, mounted on a trailer would work well in a emergency if it could be connected to a well or separate water tank. I have put a lot of thought into this project but my drawings are very ruff and are very basic. I would like this to be a group project for everyone and I will build and document the unit as I go. Any ideas, drawings, electrical plans, structural design, ect. Would be more than welcome. I plan to tie my unit into the return
