qwerty wrote:
'Understanding a bit more now, inverter aircons take the warm air out of the cold air to add it to the cold air being heated.
So it uses the equivalent of 1 bar electric fire but outputs a 4 bar electric fire, so my neighbour is correct then 1kw in = 4 kw out'.

My understanding of a gas is that the temperature depends on the movement of it's atoms. More and faster movement = higher temperature. It would be very interesting to know how a device can remove some of this movement to excite different particles, especially if the temperature of the said gas is below that required. The idea of a colder gas heating a warmer one is a little difficult for me to swallow.
I have no doubt that modern heaters will be more efficient than previously, but I think there has to be another explanation and the 4 bar electric fire would have to be hopelessly inefficient for such a comparison to be true.

Hi Saethrift,

If you think this is hard to believe, then you want to sit in front of one of those ECOFANS and try to get your head around how they work from nothing

Its a bit like the freezer in your kitchen, even though its -10c for example inside your freezer, the gas is circulating and pulling the warm air out from inside your -10c freezer and via a heat exchanger on the back of your freezer, venting the warm air in to your kitchen.

brianj42 wrote:I really would like to get something to generate electric from wood as that is now the only thing stopping me going off grid totally

Require heat, steam, thingy that goes round and round (turbine) and alternator. Big fork lift truck battery to store that energy, inverter. Wind turbine? Blowing too much

I went back to the start of the thread to try to find out what was so wrong with a wood burning stove whether the OP was peed off with collecting, chopping wood, humping said wood to the stove, smoke, dust or a mixture of the whole lot.

It would appear that the first few replies from folk that still post on here was mainly concerned with smoke and dust.

With hindsight, I ought to have had a canopy built over my PRITY wood burner and probably an extractor fan built into the chimney, but I didn't and I can only now 'manage' the fire better.

If like tonight, I didn't have enough good tinder to get the flames going from the strike of the match, it will smoke through the vents (it can also happen if the wind is blowing in the wrong direction, but I'm now used to this and better prepared). However, if I had emptied the ashtray instead of posting on here ( ) I would have grabbed the Wife's hairdryer and given the stove a blast of hot air.

The winter wood supplies thread has lots of ideas about green and dried wood, but obviously the drier the wood, the cleaner the chimney together with the design of the chimney are all going to help a lot in reducing smoke.

I still make the mistake of forgetting to open the flue and the air vents when wanting to throw another log or two on the fire. Result, smoke rising to the ceiling that was cream, but is now a shade of Dulux cream with a hint of wood smoke.

However, I have been considering having either a copper canopy made to stop the smoke spiralling up to the ceiling every time I don't get things right or placing some aluminium sheeting (the nice looking stuff) which would allow me to clean that area above the stove every now and again.

The other dirt/dust problem comes from the ash. I still haven't got around to making a cover for the ash bin when carrying it outside nor, have I got around to trying one of those vacuum cleaners sold especially for this task. I can't think of a better way of getting rid of the ash without some dust being spread all over the place.

As far as the OP asked for alternatives, they're all covered, but for cost, renew ability, I would suggest an external wood pellet burner. Especially, if like myself, your hot water, under floor heating or radiators are being heated from your stove. There again, one might not have an external or cubby hole to place such. So, the MW alternatives are: Freeze or move to warmer climes for winter.

qwerty,
Thanks for trying to explain it, but your analogy is not correct. A freezer works by having a pump compress a gas which then discharges through a small hole. This allows the gas to rapidly expand, which causes cooling and thence cools the fridge via a cold plate inside.
The action of compressing the gas causes it to heat up and this discharged to atmosphere via the exchanger loops at the back of the fridge. This heat is all wasted energy and is a considerable proportion of the input energy.

[quote="seathrift"]qwerty,
Thanks for trying to explain it, but your analogy is not correct. A freezer works by having a pump compress a gas which then discharges through a small hole. This allows the gas to rapidly expand, which causes cooling and thence cools the fridge via a cold plate inside.
The action of compressing the gas causes it to heat up and this discharged to atmosphere via the exchanger loops at the back of the fridge. This heat is all wasted energy and is a considerable proportion of the input energy.[/quote]

Luv it. Good old Boyles Law.
It's probably been mentioned but, if you're getting crap coming from your fire into your living space, then the set up is wrong. End of.

seathrift wrote:qwerty,
Thanks for trying to explain it, but your analogy is not correct. A freezer works by having a pump compress a gas which then discharges through a small hole. This allows the gas to rapidly expand, which causes cooling and thence cools the fridge via a cold plate inside.
The action of compressing the gas causes it to heat up and this discharged to atmosphere via the exchanger loops at the back of the fridge. This heat is all wasted energy and is a considerable proportion of the input energy.

The mechanics of your explanation are correct but do not account for the physics of the operation.
Law of physics, heat goes to colder areas.
The heat from the contents of food and air inside the freezer is drawn to the evaporator "cold plate" this slightly warmed gas is sucked back through the compressor and re-compressed in the condenser where it releases the excess heat removed from the evaporator, this continues in a repeating cycle. One thing to note is that if the ambient temperature around the condenser is too hot there will be no cooling of the evaporator and hence no refrigeration in the cabinet, that is the reason why some built in or under fridges fail to function properly in hot weather and the reason air conditioners have whacking great fans behind the condenser.

The tread was about wood burning stoves,W,T.F. are you on about fridges for???mod sort it out,please........

sealman wrote:The tread was about wood burning stoves,W,T.F. are you on about fridges for???mod sort it out,please........

No it isn't.
The THREAD is about hating wood burning stoves and looking for alternative heat sources.
Air conditioners (refrigeration) is a viable and sensible alternative.
Read the original post!