Cheap Liquid for liquid/water solar/? shop floor heating

[coldspot]

Hello

I working on floor heat for shop/shed and

was wondering if anybody out there knows of something non-freezing hopefully non-toxic and

not going to cost so much it wouldn't be worth

the attempt to do this.

??

I'll be using plastic floor hoses for now,

(about the only thing rated for hot water besides

copper and SS tubing), lawn hoses all stated "Not for Hot Water use".

Metal bottom to shed, 3"X3" hard wood supports @ 16" centers, insulation, 1/2" old floor ply, hoses and 1" upper floor support strips, 3/4" new ply floor.

Will be using a few different ways to add heat to the liquid, solar collector's,(copper tubes in glass covered box with copper sheet wrapping and a old dish with mirrors also a lawn edge trim black plastic 4" flap type, ect,..ect.), copper tubes in heat box I run a little propain heater inside of this metal box to try to save a bit of heat in something that retains heat better than air, works well!

I'll be messing around with a "Eddy Currant" type system soon also, question about this on flux flow.

single rotor would need a metal plate behind copper tubes for propper flux return wouldn't it?

Anyway

Thanks for being "The Site", for hooking people on

R.E. and better lifestyles!

[thefinis]

Plastic floor hose? Is that Pex?

Do not know the temps you plan to work with but alcohol should be cheap realatively but may make the mixture boil at too low a temp. Sorry but denatured ethanol is as close as I can see to nontoxic. Do not use straight methanol it is very bad and is often used to denature ehtanol. Your other cheap way is salt but it is going to play H--l with the rest of your setup other than plastic. Look at what they use for deicing compounds such as calcium chloride or magnesium chloride. Not sure what metals you will use in your setup but that will have a big bearing on what can be used for antifreeze.

Finis

[Countryboy]

Ever hear of antifreeze?  Ethylene glycol?

I believe they even have non-toxic biodegradable antifreeze out there now too.  (Might be orange colored?)

[richard]

R V antifeeze   richa of cc

[kurt]

that rv antifreeze does kill grass though. my uncle found that out the hard way.

[Nando]

Right now, I am trying to find a fellow, I assisted in the past, located in the Northern latitudes that had some experience with such arrangement -- the hard way -- and changed it to heat up 3 large tanks with his gas engine heat exchanger and, as well, his hydro, to keep his home and shop warm during the winter.

As I remember he had placed tubing on the floor, the same way You are thinking, but he discovered that the heating at those latitudes you need excessive floor insulation -- I do not remember what he had -- Reason why I am looking for him, because I am assisting another fellow with the same problem and searching for a practical solution.

He had the tanks coupled to a car radiator with a fan to circulate the air and a small pump to move the hot water to a colder water tank -- I think the was able to keep the house in the 70s F without much use of the propane heater.

Nando

[Stonebrain]

Hi coldspot

About your eddycurrent heater.

Sure you need a metal plate behind coppertubes.

If this plate is stationary it will 'absorb' much of the energie

of the moving magnets,so in this case it would begood to have the tubes

welded/soldered to this plate to absorb the heat.

If this plate is rotary with the magnets or laminated,it will provide a returnpath

for the flux but won't absorb energy.In this case I don't know

how efficient the copper tubing stator would be.Probably it depends

on the amount of copper and maybe on other designfeatures of the stator.

cheers,

stonebrain

[Titantornado]

You gotta watch the temperature with RV antifreeze.  I think I read it breaks down pretty quick when you get it hot, and turns to an acid which eats the metal in your system.

[Volvo farmer]

The stuff commonly used in these applications is proplyene glycol. The right stuff costs about $10/gallon, the stuff commonly used as RV antifreeze doesn't have the right additives to be stable under high heat situations. I've heard that rather than get corrosive, like Titornado says, it turns into a gummy substance. Not 100% sure on this though.

I think you can use regular old H2O if you put in a drainback valve, which drains the water out of the system into a holding tank when temps get below freezing. Water tranfers heat better than antifreeze as well.

[Dan_NS_CAN]

Poly glycol or deicing fluid for aircraft. Know anyone at airport.

[Dan_NS_CAN]

Sorry , you wanted something easy on the enviroment, this is not the best. But it does stand up to heat.

[Phssthpok]

Cheap, and environmentally friendly. Hhhmm...

Assuming this is a closed-circuit (sealed) home-brew solar-heat-transfer set up, what about veggie or mineral oil?

Veggie oil would be cheaper,but I'm not sure about decay issues. (Would it decay?....I've had bottles of the stuff on the shelf for well over two years, and never noticed any changes..)

Mineral oil on the other hand is still petroleum based, but if it's Bio-safe enough to administer internally for constipation, and to rub onto a babies skin (baby-oil), then I doubt you'd have much of an environmental catastrophy should you spring a leak.

Both would be freeze resistant, as well as tranferring their heat as good as any liquid, I would think.

Just a thought.

[ghurd]

Veggie oil can go rancid.  

Then it's evil. Gooey smelly sticky...

G-

[Phssthpok]

Yeah.... I had a snaeaking suspicion of this. It IS biological afterall. It's just that I've never actually run accross any rancid Veggie oil, so I wasn't sure.

What about the Mineral oil idea though?

[electrondady1]

coldspot , you can get used antifreeze at the wrecking yard really cheap.

the solution won't need to be so concentrated as is required in cars as there will be no windchill.

if you don't spill it or let it leak it won't hurt nature.

ive'e been searching for information on the eddy currant heater idea but it's tough to find. the process is used in industry a lot but there's not much on home heating.

done any experiments yet?

[coldspot]

Thanks for the replies!

Even the ones that sounded like they are talking to  school kids. ~

(I did build and have a liquid cooled, UV reactive, TEC boosted Video card blocks, home made RAM water blocks, PSU home-made water cooling blocks with phase change assist "LAN/Gaming computer")

Phssthpok-

Thanks, I was wondering about oil's but didn't think they would work as well as water does.

electrondady1-

Thats what I was looking for, Idea's and thoughts on  places to get the pricey stuff cheaper!

Now wondering about "Lube Shops", they also change other fluids and might have a barrel or two waiting for the Haz mat truck to come by and charge them to remove it?

I'll stop by a few body-shops also as they are still friends for my paint store owner days. LOL.

Drain-back, is part of the plan but the whole shed/shop still isn't getting any warmer than outside air or just a bit more from no wind-chill.

Unless I'm there running heaters trying to finish floor so I can get back to the re-insulationing with New good stuff!

ceiling and walls still stripped bare of old nasty insulation that was in there for years.

 I'm just thinking ahead and putting in the stuff I'll want down the road, plex water hoses in the floor, many, many wire runs and hose runs for future uses.

 Eddy current was a new plan from re-searching around this site. Only testing so far was a little 3" steel rotor with 6 magnets in cordless drill holding a 1/8" copper tube between it and a steel part. It did get warmer after awhile.

This will need a real set of rotors turning to test a copper tube type stator. "Down the road"

LOL

L8R

[maker of toys]

try "eddy current brake" instead.  I doubt you'll find much in the way of home applications for the technology.

Industry likes ECB because they don't have any friction lining to wear out or need adjustment.

Downside is they are non-positive in action;  they cannot hold something absolutly still without additional parts.

that said:

a copper disk stator in what would otherwise be a dual rotor axial-flux alternator would make a good eddy current brake for what you envision; no steel needed.  you will need some sort of circulation pump if you plan to heat water, however.

is there any particular reason not to do a high-voltage optimised alternator and some sort of switched-heater load, maybe in a heat exchanger positioned for convective flow?

seems more reliable to me than depending on a pump; no seals to wear, no liquid to freeze or spill.

-Dan

[nothing to lose]

I thought so too, but you know what, I just gave away about 20 Gals or so old used resarunt oil, it was not that great when I got it. It was sitting in my barrel for well over a year. Nothing wrong with it! I am not sure if I got it before going to Canada last year or after I came home, but still well over a year either way.

It was in a black metal barrel in summer sun, winter cold, South MO. and the water settled out and it did not stink as I expected it might.

Matter of fact my friend only filtered it with paper towels as removed from the barrel then dumped it into his truck! He has the normal diesel tank and a second tank he installed specail for veggy oil. Later he said he ran all the way home on my oil just fine, no problems! Over a 200 mile trip I'm sure.

So much for bad oil

I think sitting around the kitchen stove and with food particles and exposed to air it goes rancid pretty fast, but in a sealed system I don't really know. My barrel was sealed and used oil did not go bad yet.

I think what I would worry about is gelling. In the cold if not heated, like go away 1 week or two for vacation, will the oil gell up in the pipes and prevent flowing or pumping? That could be a problem in places with severe cold maybe? As long as it is warm and kept warm I think it should work well, and you can heat veggy oil far hotter than water so more heat moving durring use. 300F maybe higher oil, 100F water?

How hot do those electric deep fryers get? Certainly at a safe heat level for oil but very hot!

Used oil may be the way to go. I would heat it to remove water, maybe pretty hot to kill any bacteria etc in it, filter it into the tank to remove food particles. Once sealed up I don't think ther will be much problem with it. It there is a problem over time, pump it out and flush the system durring winter then refill with new used oil, or even new fresh oil if you can find a bargain on it. I have bought new veggy oil for cooking at times for around $4 a gallon on sales, sometimes less. May have to buy 20 or more 32oz bottles but still less than automotive antifreeze. New oil in a sealed system I dought would ever go bad.

[nothing to lose]

Wow the errors tonight I am making. This was supposed to be about oil turning rancid up where it was mentioned.

Also,

"It there is a problem over time, pump it out and flush the system durring winter then refill "

Supposed to be "If" there is a problem, and flush and refill durring SUMMER of course, NOT winter!

By the way, how well does that Pex pipe/tubbing stand up to freezing? I have some gray plastic tubbing in a trailer house that has froze solid several times and never busted yet. PVC at the pump house and under the trailer busted from freezing, but the gray tubing never has busted yet. Being exposed above ground it is always the first to freeze solid, then no water flow is what lets the PVC freeze and bust later.

Is that Pex about the same or will it bust?

[bkrahmer]

I'm at 49 degrees N, in Northern Idaho.  We are kind of in a banana belt, though.  (I moved here to get away from the cold of MN!)    I built my own house, and have radiant floor heating throughout.  I put 2" of insulation underneath the basement slab, and my basement walls are R-22 ICF.  The basement is the most comfortable and easiest to heat area of the house.  I currently use an on-demand propane heater for my radiant system, but have been working on building a thermal storage tank, and have it just about done.  It will be 400 gallons, insulated on the outside of it, and will sit underneath the basement stairs.  It will have an electric heating element in it running about all winter (electricity is much cheaper than propane here.)  If I have time before winter is over, I will be building a wood stove that also heats the water in the tank.  Since my wood stove will be in the garage, I will be using a closed loop on that, with an ethylene glycol mixture.  That is the only fluid I would suggest, and monitor the pH of it yearly.

[desertcoyote]

The big boys use silcon base oil for heat transfer. Packs a punch of Q, does not freeze handles max temp and is easy on pumps and metal. For instance this is what boron CA solar-thermal plant uses or did uses. anybody heard of a home brew silicon solution? silcon = sand so other than is injected into body parts I would think it ok.

[Bruce S]

Coldspot;

   My wife is a chef, I have been working around their cast-offs, andof what  I thought I would lend some odf what I've learned here.

Since your system reads like it is going to be a farily close-looped system, then Waste-oil would be your best bet. In a closed-loop system the oil will not go rancid due to no air borne buggies

In most resturants, now-a-days are using a higher concentrate of veggie oil there will be less of a problem with fluidity<-sp.

The one thing I have found while working with the stuff to get a better undertsanding of making bio-diesel is make sure and get all of the water out as possible.

The better oils, like Linseed oil and better yet Olive oil, will not freeze it will, however, get thick due to the water in them, they can also get expensive. Most resturants don't mind giving this used stuff away if it's not a lot, as most around here have companies that come around and they are bound to a contract.  

PEX, I have found out by trial and error does not like Alky. I have home-made Alcohol setting in my freezer which is at 0F, I do this to seperate the water from the pure stuff and just leave it in there :=}, and the PEX I bought got hard spots in it while trying out a new decanter for large storage.

It could've been due to the extreme cold, but I would think that my hands would've had freezer burn too.

Hope this helps

Bruce S

 

[coldspot]

Bruce S-

NTL-

Thank you very much for your thoughts and idea's !!



After researching and thinking about it more-

I'll just be placing hoses and wiring in the floor and up/down a few places in the walls for now.

sort of just in case for future work if needed.

As far as for oil use, I'm still not sure about that one, nothing beats water for heat transfer/ease of use and effects on parts used ect,... ect.

The super cooling computer type people have pushed this pretty far, (way beyound liquid cooling), and as for just liquid they use just distilled water with a little bit of additives for better viscosity and anti-clouding.

"http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=8e0de11e0da0c5f5eb63919783957d6e&f=70"

I was hooked on that site B4 I found this one and switched to a far better hobby for me and the future!

LOL !



But wind toys take up way more room and so the shed/shop is what I'm building now and just thinking ahead about what I'd like to have in it and adding this stuff later would be a major re-work so putting things in now is just me being crazy. I'm like that! (good thing I have lots of water pumps,  fittings, hoses ect,..ect from playing around with my computer)

This thought about a storage tank keeps popping into my head and kind of driving me a bit more crazy than usual, alum sprinker pipe pc's shortened and capped to fit placed in under sub-floor maybe just one at each end of shed would be a good idea before I get much farther along, ? (78" x 3" or 4")

But maybe I should just use PVC instead, the stuff would be easyer to work on and with just needing glued on caps and not special welding ect,... ect,..

:~

l8r

[Bruce S]

Coldspot;

   Extreme cooling >>>> ahhh yes. We should compare notes

I have gone about as far as I can afford with super cooling chips. I own a few of the really large pletier chips for cooling. I not talking about the ones that are for the Igloo fridges either, I'm talking about the 4x4" ones!!

These babies can freeze a beer can quicker than a chemical fire supressants:--}

Suck the power inlike crazy though and really need a large fan to remove the heat.

Have you looked into heat pipes? I've been messing around here at work with Al/Cu heat pipes for moving pentup heat from 1U server systems. These are becoming the preferred method for the Duo-dual core 3ghz dual processors.

Have fun with it.

Bruce

[coldspot]

Copper tube stator

for Dual rotor

Wouldn't this be able to use

convective flow?

This is way down the road unless I try

something small using 7" saw blades and

HD magnets or maybe even some

1/2" x 1/8" Disc Neo's I have a bunch of still.

[coldspot]

bkrahmer-

"at 49 degrees N, in Northern Idaho."

Hello,

My 47 degrees is S. E. Idaho, (Idaho Falls).

"banana belt"

Must be Coeur d'Alene area.

yes, much nicer over there than here as far as weather goes. I'm afraid if I ever got my boat over there I'd never leave! LOL.

OK,

"ethylene glycol mixture"

Auto Antifreeze or did you buy something

special and where?

Right Now I'm test freezing some, (A Gal.)

window washer fluid winter blend.

Only in the bottle for now.

This should be easy on plastic hoses, pump parts

and the radators I hope, I've gotten a couple aluminum oil cooler type from wrecked cars/trucks and a small car main radator with a couple of heater cores also to play with but time is quickly getting by.

 

[coldspot]

BruceS-

"Extreme cooling"

yea, I've got a 180 Watt on my Video card.

Just for extra cooling being liquid cooled anyway!

"Suck the power inlike crazy"

Thats No Chit!

The reason why I have a surfer and a "Gamer"!

"heat pipes",

Thats on the project list for sure!

I've wondered about those for heat-n-cooling combo's?

Haven't tried anything yet, just research n thoughts!

"Al/Cu"  ?

[Brian H]

Ethylene glycol is very toxic. Propylene glycol would be my choice.

[mustang19432001]

They do make a non-toxic anti-freeze. You can sometimes see it with a puppy and kitten on the front label. I think they use the term "Pet Safe" The best people to ask about it are the people at your local auto parts store. It's a little pricey too so be prepared for a good sized bill. I'm sure you are familiar with how to flush and drain the system so I'll spare you the boredom of one of my explainations.