HEATING OPTIONS
We are down to the last two categories of what is necessary for human survival: Heat and Power. Today we will consider the heating plan.
I will use a wood stove. It will be located on the first floor but will have a pipe that runs up through the second floor on the cottage and out through the ceiling.
I would figure on about four cords of wood to heat the cottage for about four months. A cord of wood is defined by the amount of burnable logs contained in a four foot wide, by eight foot long, by 4 foot deep pile of stacked wood (or 128 cubic feet).
I think I would use one cord per month. I plan to use a small stove like this...
Initially on the lot there will likely be some tree to use for this. But there is also a very sustainable method for having wood each year, called coppicing. This is an old technique of raising trees (I would use poplar and/or alder), planting new ones each season and harvesting the wood for fuel and building materials. Here is the idea...
Or, an example of alder coppicing in Hampshire England, first cut...
Then new growth...
These trees grow so fast that the are usable within the same season. Or, they can be left to grow bigger for the next year. If done in different places, at various stages of growth, one could have all kinds of sizes. And, poplar, for example, can be planted by simply jamming the green branch into the ground and letting it root.
As mentioned above, the stove pipe will run through the house, rather than outside of it so that the radiant heat produced in the pipe itself will heat both floors. The pipe will have to be removed and cleaned each year to prevent creosote build up.
The first floor of the cottage will have a door on the outside of the building leading to the indoor wood box, so that fire wood can be loaded from the outside without the heat loss that comes from going in and out of the house with an armful of logs each day. Each six inch wide piece of wood lasts a good hour, and hard wood burns hotter and for a longer amount of time than soft wood.
Eventually, I'd also like to experiment with solar heating. The concept is relatively simple and there are many designs and concepts out there, from heating and pumping water through a closed system, like forced hot water, baseboard heating, to a hot air system using a fan to circulate the heat...
Of course any electrical unit (like the water pump) would be run off the battery bank, which will be explained fully in the next section of this blog.
The fact that the cottage itself will have its largest wall on the south facing side, plenty of windows to let in sunshine, with the roof area turned to the north to block the winter wind,
Heating is usually thought of being an energy-exhaustive process. But with the above wood stove the most sustainability can be maintained (through the wise harvesting of fast growing hard woods), while extracting the maximum amount of heat. Naturally, heating in Maine is pretty important and the need for an off-grid property to be free of fossil fuel reliance is not only an environmentally sound policy, but also avoids importing any combustible materials onto the land.
The one draw-back about burning wood (or anything) is the addition of carbon byproducts to the atmosphere. Yet, weighing all the options there is likely less over-all carbon foot print to burning the wood from one's own land. There is carbon produced for transportation of propane or fuel oil, whether by truck, train or tanker. Also the extraction and refining processes involved in drilling or natural gas production also adds to the foot print. Also simply burning propane or fuel oil releases carbon through exhaust.
The burning of one's own wood only has one step where carbon is released - assuming it is cut with an electric chainsaw or hand saw, split by hand or pneumatically (like with a compressed air wood splitter) - and that is the actual burning itself.
The whole idea for this property is that not only should it have very few imports (food, fuel and materials), but it should also have as few waste products coming out or needing to be processed as possible.
DEALING WITH WASTE
Waste and recycling is not something I've talked a great deal about here yet, so let me cover it since it will have something to do with heating...
Types of Waste:
1. Paper - Paper products will be burned.
2. Sewer - Humanure will be mixed with sawdust and composted. A composting toilet that is dry (no water flush), and uses only sawdust (or similar crushed wood)
3. Food - Non-protein, non-fat and non-starch food scraps will be composted. Coffee grounds, egg shells, fruit and vegetables.
4. Yard - Plant and yard waste like leaves, grasses, etc. will be composted.
5. Water - Since there will be no black water (see number 2 above), all grey water (from the sinks and shower) would be piped into the gardens during the summer and into a holding tank during the winter for the growing season. By using environmentally safe cleaning products greywater is perfect for garden water...
Greywater may contain traces of dirt, food, grease, hair, and certain household cleaning products. While greywater may look “dirty,” it is a safe and even beneficial source of irrigation water in a yard. If released into rivers, lakes, or estuaries, the nutrients in greywater become pollutants, but to plants, they are valuable fertilizer. Aside from the obvious benefits of saving water (and money on your water bill), reusing your greywater keeps it out of the sewer or septic system, thereby reducing the chance that it will pollute local water bodies. Reusing greywater for irrigation reconnects urban residents and our backyard gardens to the natural water cycle.
Source: Greywateraction.org
6. Plastic - Haven't come up with a household plan for plastic other than recycling it with whatever town I'm in. Any ideas?
Okay, the above waste section didn't have much to do with heating, but it gave me a chance to address it. I'd be interested in ideas for recycling metal cans and plastic (grind it up and use it for something?).
Thanks for reading. Please contribute if you can.
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Thanks also to Peter Sawyer for helping me find land. He keeps me up to date by email.
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