Ford Escape Heats Toronto Home

MechTech_2

Faced with no power, heat, or hot water heading into the Christmas Holidays during the Toronto Ice Storm, being a Hydronics Gear Head has it`s benefits. My home in Richmond Hill just north of Toronto is heated with radiant floor heating throughout, and is powered by a combo wall hung boiler. After quickly doing the math, I realized my boiler only drew 170 Watts (internal pump included), and my Wilo Star 16 secondary pump only drew 56 Watts. I plugged an extension cord into the 110VAC 150 Watt outlet in my Ford Escape to power my secondary pump, and plugged my old 280 Watt DC-AC Inverter into the cigarette lighter via another extension cord to power my boiler. I was worried about how the boiler might run, but it hasn`t skipped a beat, and I even threw the combustion analyzer on to check my C02 etc. and all was good! Hydronics wins again! Pictures attached.

ChrisJ

Nice

I have a small setup to run out steam boiler almost in the same manner although I have a tiny 12V to 120V inverter that normally plugs into a cig lighter.  I think its only good for 50w or so.  The nice thing about an atmospheric steam boiler is you only have to power the gas valve and LWCO.  All of the other magic happens by it self.  It's been a while so my math might be off but I believe I calculated that I could run the boiler off of the car battery for 5 days without concern and without starting the car during a very cold week.

Bob Gagnon plumbing and heating

Awesome!

Saves the price and maintenance of a generator. You won't have to fill it with gas every few hours like mine either, especially valuable with the increased frequency of these prolonged power outages.



Thanks, Bob Gagnon

nicholas bonham-carter

Not useful in this situation but.......

Could the heating/cooling system of the vehicle be tapped into as a source of heat? Maybe if the oil had run out in the middle of the wilderness (such as the straights of Macinaw).

Imagine if you drive up to your holiday cabin, and connect some hoses to your car, and while you are carrying in the food, the engine is heating up the house. This supposes a plumbing system which is freeze-proof.--NBC

Jean-David Beyer

Cogeneration

"Could the heating/cooling system of the vehicle be tapped into as a source of heat?"



Years ago, some Italian automobile manufacturer (Fiat?) made a little gasoline powered heating system by using a specially designed internal combustion (piston) engine. As you know, an internal combustion engine is not all that efficient, say 20% (I do not know the exact figure). The byproduct is heat and much of it is rejected into the cooling water. So what they did was use that hot water as the heat for the house. They designed this engine to run at maximum efficiency at some low speed. And since the crankshaft was going around anyway, they stuck an alternator on that and used it to power the house. The total was not 100% efficiency (heat was wasted in the exhaust gas, for example), but apparently they marketed the thing. Perhaps they still do.



Now heating a house from a normal automobile engine still installed in the automobile would be less efficient than the special-designed cogeneration unit, but it might just save your pipes. Using the engine in a car would pose problems with getting 60-cycle power with all loads. Present-day technology would probably rectify the alternator output, charge a batter with that, and use a solid-state invertor to supply the house.