With the cold settling in for half of 'us', and mention of gennies running more often, it has me wondering who is using the coolant for any kind of home heating.
What gets me thinking about it every year is the Amish fab shops.
Some still run a diesel on a 50' jack shaft to power things, meaning the diesel runs about all day, and there should be some serious surplus BTUs at the end of a day.
Most use compressed air now, but the diesel compressor still runs a lot of hours per day.
In fact, many guys just run the compressor all day.
Anybody running a serious genny 1, 2, 4 hours a day to get the batteries up, do laundry, etc, should have a considerable amount of surplus heat that could be collected fairly cheap, right?
Run 2 tubes for a heater core, run into the home (basement?), and a car radiator for the heater core?
Or could heat a 55 gallon drum of water and just let it release heat naturally?
Back on the family dairy farm, the milk cooler had a big fan on a giant radiator, and the air coming out of it was very warm. Simple plywood on a hinge decided if the heat should go outside or into the barn.
What really gets me is a guy who worked on the farm for years(*), and lots of others, run a diesel milk cooler, and burn coal or wood for heat.
(*) In his defense, his home is across the road from the barn, BUT he is heating a close by 20x30 building 24/7 with wood, and it would be easy for him to run coolant lines between the buildings!
I know some of you guys are doing this in more complex fashions, but anybody doing it in simple ways?
Just something to think about,
G-