posted 11-13-2001 01:38 PM            

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Some time ago a member asked how the people that are building their 'castles' were putting in modern utilitys. http://www.castlesontheweb.com/quest/Forum5/HTML/000006.html
I had figured on drilling 3 water wells and (8) geo. thermal wells that are to be used for hot water and the under floor heating or we can lay the pipe grid in the 100 ft wide x 80 ft deep moat depending on certain factors.
About then I had heard of a little gadget that would use geo. therm. heat and convert it to electric power through inverters and other items, it seems now that product never got off the ground.
We knew the large 4 wheeled generater that provides power on site will provide back up after the project is finished but i had left the electric question for later.
The use of solar panels was rejected first off for several reasons, including keeping the project as authentic as possible.
But wind mills have been around and used in castles for hundreds of years and it is something i had been in favor of all along.
With new improvments, lower costs, and the amount of wind we have here in the central US (and you thought it was all mine ) the wind turbine will answer all our power needs with out paying high prices every month.
Currently we are looking into a 50 KW unit that has a start up speed of 5.6 mph and will cut in at 4.5 mph producing it's maximum output of 480 VAC 3 phase at 60 HZ in a 50 mph wind speed.
Now if everything works out i'll just have to find the place to put its 28 meter (92 ft) tower.
O'well its one problem solved,

[This message has been edited by duncan (edited 11-13-2001).]

posted 11-14-2001 12:01 AM            

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I'm having trouble figuring where the sarcasm begins and ends!
Geothermal wells??

Erik

[This message has been edited by Erik Schmidt (edited 11-14-2001).]

posted 11-14-2001 12:08 AM            

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The pun was in the hot winds during the summer here in Oklahoma and my long post.
No sarcasm in geothermal wells. We have 6 here at the house that have been in operation for over 20 years.
The units take the coolness during the summer from the water that is circulated underground
and is returned to the ground after warming the hotwater tanks.
During the winter it does the reverse.
This is known here in the US as a Geothermal system.

[This message has been edited by duncan (edited 11-14-2001).]

posted 11-15-2001 06:12 AM            

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So it was no joke or wild fantacy after all. I knew about geothermal being used in large scale operations such as in Iceland but had never heard of smallscale domestic use of it.
Around here you'd have to have a lot of money to be able to drill deep enough to get any usable heat.
As for electicity, if you can get steam out of your wells then electricity is simply a matter of using the steam to drive a generator, the inverters, battery storage and so on can be bought off the shelf as for solar and wind power. You could even negate the need for large battery storage by building a steam on demand system with a feed back loop(more electricity demand, more steam, less demand, less steam).

Erik

posted 11-16-2001 05:36 AM            

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OK, I get it now. I didn't think such a thing was called geothermal. Basically you are utilizing the thermal mass(temperature stability) of the ground. Very clever!

Erik