[stevehull]

b420

I was going to add my "thanks" to AC's prior post, but more needs to be said. The last few posts may have served to discourage you. Please do not - allow me to explain.

People on this site are HARD core empiricists (perhaps too much English as this is not your native tongue). People here are data driven and have individually spent many thousands of hours of time actively thinking and working on the exact problems you are describing. We are well aware of the "Free Energy" site, similar sites and the sorts of claims that are proposed there.

But we are essentially data driven engineers and we have seen, time after time, that claims of free energy are false. You hit an emotional core when you bring up those issues as it contradicts everything we know, have trained in and have experienced.

Are we all brainwashed? No. Absolutely not! We are a collection of highly trained academicians, four year college trained engineers with decades of experience, incredibly astute hobbyists, tradespeople with exceptional skills, etc. But we all certainly DO know what works - and perhaps even more important, what does not.

Reality works when you have three things to work with; 1) money, 2) time and 3) ingenuity/practical skills. Rarely do all three things occur at the same time. Most of us have lots of the the latter two - not so much the money part. So we understand your financial predicament.

Our recommendations are also built of the "school of hard knocks". This expression is that we have tried some things that seemed to make sense only to have them cost us tremendous amounts of time and money with little to show for it at the end. Sometimes we call this being "bit on the behind (as*)" by a well intentioned idea and project.

Ask any of us about mistakes and we will immediately laugh. We will show you, all too willingly, any one of a dozen issues/projects that went the wrong way and were a disaster on all accounts above. If ANYONE here says that the haven't made mistakes (actually multiple mistakes) - then they are a 100% liar and a fool.

We learn from mistakes. In seminars I give I often start out and say "listen to me, do NOT made the mistakes I have made".

But we laugh at ourselves and get a couple of us together and we will try to out beat the other with "stupid project" stories. This is a VERY common theme of us and an imaginary Ecorenovator convention would be a blast at the bar.

But we have also been very successful at putting together projects that really work. We have learned how classically trained engineers did not take full advantage of physical properties. Since we have lots of time, we can do projects that costs little, but require tedious time consuming efforts. We have learned how to minimize energy loss first and THEN create a machine that can then reduce the reduced costs afterwards.

AC is spot on with his comments on minimizing winter heat loss first by: 1) dramatically cutting wind infiltration, 2) adding appropriate insulation and then and ONLY then 3) putting in an energy efficient heat pump.

Many of us have been amazed at just how incredibly effective reducing wind infiltration is. But you can't "see it", it is hard to measure and thus it is "easier" to add insulation that you can see, touch and feel.

Multiple people on this thread have suggested this concept of "buttoning up" a heated space first, but the fascination we all have draws us to heat pumps. You can measure that heat output, see the reduction in kWhr consumption and it is fun building it. We all understand that fascination all too well.

But the reality is that reducing infiltration is virtually as powerful in terms of reducing your energy costs at FAR less cost/energy of putting together a home made or reconfigured heat pump.

Your country has different building construction techniques and some of them are very likely better than those in the USA, Canada, Australia, England, India, Yugoslavia, Denmark, Germany, Ireland (what country's members have I left out?). But we also suspect that some (many?) construction techniques in your country are just like ours - with poor pre-construction thought, shoddy construction, and even poorer performance.

Do not get discouraged. The new year will bring you ideas and thoughts that were not apparent before. Listen, learn and you will do fine.

Respectfully,



Steve