Making a basic conductor pipe

[skodaboy]

Hello there,

I have a hair brained heating scheme that involves me making a simple conductor pipe. I'm thinking about simply having a pipe, sealed at both ends with some water inside it. The pipe will be heated from organic material around it.

Is this the most effective way on conducting the heat? What is the best material for the pipe itself- clay, brass, copper? How much water would I need in there?

Hope someone can help.

Thanks in advance

Skodaboy

 

[Mike Jackson]

What ever material you make it from it will need some form of safety valve that discharges below the pressure limit of the material. Have you ever seen the demonstration of a golden syrup tin with a small amount of water in it and the lid on heated on a fire?

Mike

 

[Tosh]

OOh that sounds good. I've done the soft mints in a bottle of coke before that goes well. Just for fun if you skewer a soft mint with a needle and thread a bit of cotton through it, you can then carefully remove the lid of a bottle of coke and dangle the soft mint inside without it touching the drink, hang the thread over the neck of the bottle and screw the cap back on which holds it in place.

The next time someone gets a drink, they unscrew the cap, the mint drops inside and hey presto, one erupting bottle of drink.

Tip: don;t do this in your own house or you'll be cleaning coke off the ceiling for ages.

 

[pnhsolutions]

softmint????? you mean trebor soft mints?
Never heard of this before but it sounds like fun!

 

[Deleted member 2053]

This sounds to me pretty much ike the principle involved in glass tube solar collectors. The inner tube is made of copper, completely sealed, with a small amount of water in it. This heats and the vapour rises to the top of the tube whic in turn has heat conducting contact with a manifold containing a much larger volume of water which can take the heat away. This in turn condenses the vapour back into water which will trickle down the tube to be reheated.

Mike's caveat is fair but there will be a limit to the presure generated by a small volume of water relative to the volume of the vessel. I would imagine that as the vapourisation point rises with pressure there would be a point where it became self-limiting. I have not had any of my installed solar collectors explode.

 

[REDSAW]

?????????kinell
sorry wrong page.

 

[migoplumber]

skodaboy, without revealing your life changing plan, if you let us know a bit more about what your trying to do, maybe we could help more seriously. mind you your probably asking in the the wrong place, as most of us would have your life changing idea in the patent office 2mrw morning!!
shaun

 

[skodaboy]

Well,

It's probably nothing ground breaking but I work as a gardener and I hear tell that you can achieve some surprisingly high temperatures from compost (especially grass clippings). Im looking for a pipe that I can lead from my compost bin and under my house- as a primitive heater.

Cheers

Skojak- who loves ya baby?

 

[Deleted member 2053]

Ths could well be a bit like a static electricity discharge: good high voltage but no usable power beyong flammable gas ignition. i.e. it isn't the temperature that is important but the actual quantity of heat. BTUs and all that.

 

[migoplumber]

graham is right, but if you dont mind spending a bit of money, would be a good experiment.

dunno, but try a coilf of 10mm pipe buried in your compost connected to a coil of 10mm pipe above the height of the compost, call it your primary. add to your primary the safety blow offs, fill up and expansion. fill it up, put your top coil in a bucket of water, see what happens. let us all know. if it works youll get more advice. if it dont youve just wasted 100 quid, but good for all of us.

good luck.
shaun

 

[buffy27]

won t generate enough heat i would suspect.sounds like a good idea but in theory won t be too effective.

 

[unguided1]

Hi all
I seem to recall seeing something similar on discovery chanel where an american farmer ran load of pipes under a dung pile to get heat transfer, I have no idea if it worked or what sort of temps he was achieveing, another possibility is running pipes under silage piles I seem to recall that they can get quite warm, the only problem is that silage is winter feed for animals so towards the end of winter as the pile got smaller, less heat
regards
mike

 

[justlead1]

Hi, There is a guy on you tube, uses massive coil of black polythene under wood chip that seems impressive. Sorry cant remember title. Good Luck