Is this a silly idea?

[Ford Man]

Originally Posted by order99

BTW Ford Man-I love the idea of a 'safe' Kerosene heater, this is the first i've heard of it. I had a heater myself in case of winter blackout in my former home, but I dreaded the fumes...I would have had a woodstove myself but I wasn't willing to blow $7000+ on an electric fan insert, and NC wouldn't sign off on my $20 hand-made unit no matter how many times thier OWN INSPECTOR signed off the Safety Approval (yes my little feud has long-term roots...). Not to derail this Thread, but i'm curious as to your layout...do you have plenty of room facing the South, with two or more windows and room for some Thermal Mass tanks , either sand or water based? PM me, I may have some cheap ideas for you, and if you think they're worth it we'll start a different thread ( HINT: it involves Soupcan Thermal and transmission through coils snaking through Thermal Mass storage...)

My front lawn is the south facing side of the house and the side of the house most of the windows are located in, so not a good idea unless the tanks would be underground.

Where are you located in NC? From 1987-2010 I lived in Mt. Pleasant, Cabarrus county NC (approximately 35 miles north of Charlotte).

If you are interested in one of the Monitor heaters send me a PM I can give you the name of a supplier in Hickory, NC.

The Monitor has an electronic igniter and small electric blower to help circulate the heat throughout the house so it can't be used during a power outage. At those times which as a normal rule are few and far between I rely on closely monitored portable kerosene units to keep from freezing to death.

I know all about those NC power outages, I lived there through Hugo in Sept. '89, 90MPH winds in Charlotte, 200 miles from the coast. I got up the next morning to go to work and every direction I went there were trees across the road within a mile of the house. At the time I was working construction and we were building a large church, approximately a $50 million job in Mathews, NC, one of the project superintendents told me the storm caused about $1 million in damages to what was already finished.

[order99]

Ford Man-thanks for the link. Such a heater would have been fantastic in the old place,but since my RV in Newport NC runs dual Electric and Propane, it's no longer the issue that it was...still an awesome piece of tech though!

In my former house, my front yard was North, so my neighbors couldn't see my dual Solar Thermal units (not that they would have cared, they were cool that way). The units(old windowpane, plywood box, soupcan 'tubes' made with power drill, high temp gasket sealer and black BBQ paint, the usual) ran the heat through high temp hoses through blocks of SIP board (plywood w/ closed cell foam) acting as window blocks. The ends of the hoses turned up, and leather 'caps' riveted into place on one end, made a one-way valve to prevent heat loss at night.

If I had kept the house, my next step would have been to build a plywood-box 'shelf' running 8" wide, as tall as the windowsill in order to blend with the decor, and the length of the kitchen (Unit A) and the Office (Unit B) and decorated to match the walls. The windows would have been unblocked and closed, permanent mounting points would have been made through the wall and into the boxes, and the hoses lengthened and filled with tiny holes.Each box would have a length of hose, 6" of sand and another fold of hose until the box was full-then covered.From then on the Thermal boxes would leak hot air into the sand for a slower, steadier heat and a longer retention of same for those cold nights. In the summer, the units would disconnect, caps would be fitted and the sand would simply be additional insulation-which would assist the AC.

Alas, I sold the place and purchased the RV a few weeks ago...since the new owners liked the Thermal Units so much, I left them installed, showed them where the Food Dehydrator/Solar Slow Cooker unit was(powered by the Units in Summer when disconnected) and left them my blueprints for the Sand Walls...so who knows, maybe the new owners will create them, if not for their new house perhaps for a Greenhouse they were thinking about.

Back to Hat_man's project though...I keep hearing about the development of IR Photvoltaic panels which can continue to generate power(albeit at a reduced rate) at night-but for some reason the availability seems to remain 'just around the corner' and has been so for about two years now If anybody could get ahold of these-even at greater cost-we would be looking at a real game-changer here...constant power generation (full by day and partial at night) would reduced battery anxiety for any installation and reduce the need for secondary power sources as the IR function would keep PV from being useless on cloudy days.

Also-have any other Forum members installed battery-only circuits in a pre-wired, On-the-grid house? If so, i'd like to hear your results.

[Ford Man]

Order99, I'm not sure whether there are any topics that might interest you on this forum or not, but I've found it quite helpful for Monitor heater owners. Very few forums I've found have anything at all about Monitor heaters, but this one has it's own Monitor sub forum in the heating section. I can't remember whether there are any topics on alternative power sources or not that might interest you. Home Repair Forum - Helping you with your home repairs for the past 10 years My user name there is FordMan59. There's one member and moderator of the forum there HayZee518 that's pretty knowledgeable that might be able to give you some assistance, but let me warn you sometimes he comes off a little rude with some of his replies. Still all in all I think he's a pretty smart man and when I had to do the burn chamber rebuild in my 422 in 2012 for the first time he gave me some very helpful information. He also has a Monitor and seems to have pretty much learned it inside and out.