What changes can we make to our lives to deal with the economic and energy crises ahead? Have you already started making preparations? Got tips to share?
adam2 wrote:Definition of a chicken "a bird that can not fly for any useful purpose, but which has suprising powers of flight when escaping or destroying cultivated plants"
Mine are Hooligans.
I’d thought of two approaches to the heat by hen idea.
1. Build a chicken coup with just enough height to let the hens to roost comfortably, and then build a small double glazed greenhouse on top. The idea being that winter crops don’t grow very tall.
2. Build a well-insulated coup with a double glazed greenhouse attached, and then blow the warm air into it using a solar or wind-powered fan.
Let nobody suppose that simple, inexpensive arrangements are faulty because primitive. If constructed correctly and in line with natural laws they are not only right, but preferable to fancy complicated devices.
Rolfe Cobleigh
This is my attempt at an ‘Its Not East Being Green’ solar greenhouse heat sink.
I’ve checked the temperature of the sink in summer and quite late at night its still around 3 to 4 degrees warmer then the greenhouse.
I what to find out how effective it is in winter, but the only way I can think of doing it, is to use two temperature plotters to compare the greenhouse temperature to the outside temperature, both when the fan is on and off. Problem is, no temperature plotters.
Let nobody suppose that simple, inexpensive arrangements are faulty because primitive. If constructed correctly and in line with natural laws they are not only right, but preferable to fancy complicated devices.
Rolfe Cobleigh
Catweazle wrote:
The greenhouse has a floor of substantial paving slabs over sand, but I could put some water containers in there and heat them from panels. That sounds like an early spring project.
The rock store suggested earlier would allow you to store more heat than water. Water would be limited to just short of 100ºC if unpressurised, but with a rock store and high temp insulation, it would be limited only by what the system components can stand.
You would need a collector other than the greenhouse so that the air could be continuously circulated while heating so that the temperature would rise continuously. You'd also need cloudless skies (always a flaw in the plan, doh!). To keep the greenhouse warm at night, the heat would just leak from the rock store. (Apparently they work well in the rocky mountains, though I doubt for heating greenhouses).
Catweazle wrote:
The greenhouse has a floor of substantial paving slabs over sand, but I could put some water containers in there and heat them from panels. That sounds like an early spring project.
The rock store suggested earlier would allow you to store more heat than water. Water would be limited to just short of 100ºC if unpressurised, but with a rock store and high temp insulation, it would be limited only by what the system components can stand.
You would need a collector other than the greenhouse so that the air could be continuously circulated while heating so that the temperature would rise continuously. You'd also need cloudless skies (always a flaw in the plan, doh!). To keep the greenhouse warm at night, the heat would just leak from the rock store. (Apparently they work well in the rocky mountains, though I doubt for heating greenhouses).
We're talking about a greenhouse here and the ability to grow a bit of extra food. You would need some pretty expensive, both in monetary and carbon terms, kit to generate temperatures over 100C.
Keep the thing simple and within reason and it will be most effective. The higher the temperatures you generate the more difficult and expensive it will be to control the movement of that heat.
Keep the heated volume as small as possible to limit the expense and increase efficiency.
featherstick wrote:The ammonia in the chicken poo isn't very good for the plants.
You’ve upset me; I’ll have to have a rethink.
Catweazle wrote:Kenneals right, simplicity is key. All I want to do is keep my peppers over winter and start next springs veg a bit earlier.
So far the internal poly-tunnel and water-butt thermal store look like winners.
It must be a lot warmer where you live; I’d end up with dead peppers and a very large ice cube.
Let nobody suppose that simple, inexpensive arrangements are faulty because primitive. If constructed correctly and in line with natural laws they are not only right, but preferable to fancy complicated devices.
Rolfe Cobleigh
Catweazle wrote:. All I want to do is keep my peppers over winter and start next springs veg a bit earlier..
Do you think that is feasible? I have a bumper crop of sweet pointy peppers that I am using at every opportunity. As well as pickling and putting them in chilli con carne to freeze.
We get quite mild winters here (still have not had a frost and harvesting toms,cue and lettuce in the polytunnel) so would the pepper plant just carry on growing when the temperature starts to rise in the spring? Or would it just produce more flowers on its existing framework when it has reached its max growing size?
featherstick wrote:The ammonia in the chicken poo isn't very good for the plants.
You’ve upset me; I’ll have to have a rethink.
Catweazle wrote:Kenneals right, simplicity is key. All I want to do is keep my peppers over winter and start next springs veg a bit earlier.
So far the internal poly-tunnel and water-butt thermal store look like winners.
It must be a lot warmer where you live; I’d end up with dead peppers and a very large ice cube.
I live between two places that are, statistically, tieing for 10th warmest place in the UK with average annual temperatures of 11.3C. Beaten by Cornwall, Scilly and the Channel Islands. So it's usually relatively warm, but winter like the last one will kill my peppers. If the water butt keeps the greenhouse above frost point it might make the difference.
Good point about the ammonia. However I don't think the gasses or the chickens need to be given access to the greenhouse. I was imagining that you just built the coop into the side of the greenhouse, and put your most precious plants on top.
The gasses (and chickens!) can be given access through the side.
We gave an award in 2009 to GERES for develoiping a solar greenhouse in the Himalayas. Worked quite well by all accounts, especially considering how cold it gets there! http://www.ashdenawards.org/winners/GERES09
sam_uk wrote:Good point about the ammonia. However I don't think the gasses or the chickens need to be given access to the greenhouse. I was imagining that you just built the coop into the side of the greenhouse, and put your most precious plants on top.
The gasses (and chickens!) can be given access through the side.
You could give it a go. This chicken-greenhouse is one of those permaculture ideas that seem to keep circulating but that no-one has ever tried out. I've seen lots of lovely line drawings of it in concept, but no photographs or "How I built...".
