Happy new year everybody, particularly participants in Diesel Heater threads 1 & 2.
For those who are new to the topic, this is all about the Chinese taking advantage of some German patents lapsing and making a low cost version of the Eberspacher and Webasto style tiny diesel furnaces. These 100 quid marvels swallow all sorts of flammable liquids as well as diesel and produce lovely warm heat typically at around 8 pence per kilowatt hour which makes them a cheap source of heat for an impoverished Sperg trying to keep the rust off his tools.
One drawback to these wonderful devices is that they need up to 180watts of 12volt electrical power to get 'em running and about 30 watts to keep 'em going which rules them out for some situations.
Now I did have the idea of trying to use thermo electric generator cells (A.K.A. TEG's) to harvest power to run the electrical part and recharge the battery needed to get it started, but some guy on you tube has managed it and gets enough power to both recharge both his heater battery and also his phone!
It's early days yet, but TEG's offer the possibility of making electricity as a by product from your basic heating system whatever that is, if the technical challenges can be met.
But getting back to your diesel heaters, we now have two in constant service plus another one being installed today, running nice and legal of kerosine and it costs around 8P an hour to run and gives about 2.44 KW (estimated) there is a way we can get it down to 3 pence an hour, apparently.
In short.
DIY is cheaper than GRID energy now...
NO standing charges, no "manufactured shortages or "price hikes", and the tech is slowly getting affordable and useable.
OUR masters in high places have a future planned for us where energy is very carefully rationed, along with everything else including knowledge and tools.
"Fighting back" in such a scenario (if you want to!) is less about petrol bombs and more about being as independent as possible and relying on simpler more reliable tech, and easy to obtain unrestricted fuels. Basically burning unuseable stuff and using the heat as efficiently as possible.
Now what we need to do is sort out as many different ways of reliably fuelling these little heaters as possible.
IF ONLY I could find my two way fuel tap...
