let the insanity begin

[jnarowe]

yeah, I meant the 425g tank. It looks a bit bent in the photos which is why I asked. Can I bother you for dimensions or a link on that tank? I currently have 2 - 50g rubbermaid sumps that I am going to plumb inline to create an inbound area and an outbound area, but I am not sure that will be large enough for my system.

 

[rick rottet]

It is bent one the right side, and the right rear corner. It is bent down a little in the right rear corner (that's where I usually stand on it), and waves up on the far right side (I think in order to compensate for bending down in the other spot, it has to bend up somewhere else).
On the far left side (next to the blue cut barrel), was a raised portion where the access hole used to be, so when I cut off the entire top, that portion had to be cut around and hence it looks funny in that area too.
Around the rim, there are four places where there are indentations, but those were part of the original vat before I cut it.
Really, it's not disfigured from the original form anywhere but the olace I stand on and next to that.
I bought it at a local farm supply store. It is about 5' diameter.
I'm sure they have them at US Plastics and probably a million other online vendors. I got this one for $169. The cash register rang it up as $320, but they had a sticker on it that said $169.

http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/pr...SPlastic&category_name=20727&product_id=11813

 

[jnarowe]

Thanks. I'll look into it again. The ones I found here were fairly expensive. That's a bummer to cut up something like that but I guess that is what it takes. I checked out the local feed store figuring on finding a plastic trough of some sort but they don't carry them. I thought that I would be able to find one since in my short time on a ranch I saw these tubs used to water the animals.

 

[rick rottet]

I know Rubbermaid makes a 300 gallon tub, already open top.

 

[melev]

Good update. Rick, what is the status of your greenhouse now that the climate has changed? How are your water parameters now? The systems have had time to settle in, and it would be nice to know what you are encountering currently.

 

[ALTI]

now that we are starting to see some cold weather, what kind of heating costs are you looking at?

 

[rick rottet]

The temps have been beautiful with a couple of exceptions. All of the tanks have been hovering in the 76 -77 range with the furnace set at 86.
As (my) luck would have it, one of my tank's water temps dropped down to 71 a few weeks ago on the first night the outside air temps got into the teens. All the rest of the tanks got down to 73 - 74. Last night (12-1-05) the outside air temp was supposed to drop down into the teens again, so I cranked the furnace up to 95, but when I went out this morning, the air temp in the gh was right at 70 and the same tank was down to 71 with the other four at 73 - 74. The one that has gotten down to 71 is the farthest from the furnace and is by itself on the stand right now. The other tanks all have a "standmate". I don't think the 73 - 74 is going to be too harmful to those tanks with things like GSP, Actinodiscus mushrooms (critters from deeper, cooler water). The one tank that got down to 71 is the one that Sarcophyton went into yesterday. It was pretty curled up this morning and I couldn't even see the capitulum. By ten A.M., it was looking like nothing ever happened. That tank did get up to 75 today since it was a clear sunny day. I turned the furnace up to 105 tonite and just came in from out there and the tank was still at 74, but so was the inside air. I'm sure when I go out there in the morning, that tank will be low again.
It's difficult to understand why this is happening. Last winter I had no trouble at all keeping the air temp inside the greenhouse with the furnace set at 86. I had no insulation over the shutters or exhaust fan. The only thing out there was the live rock vat. There were no other fans running besides the one on the furnace. This year, there are now five 210 gallon tanks filled, I put expanded polystyrene over the shutters and built a box of the same material to go over the exhaust fan, one fan in the opposite corner from the furnace is runing all of the time to keep the circular track of airflow going and help circulate the heat. Puzzling. I really don't think dropping to 71 is going to kill anything, but the bouncing up and down from night to day is bound to be stressful.
I am thinking about plumbing the intake of the blower so that the air filters sit in front of the furnace. I don't know how much heat bubbling air from the blower could add to the tank water, but I don't think it could hurt anything. It would be easy enough to do and easy enough to switch it back when the weather warms up. I am also thinking about putting a ceiling fan out there to push down the hotter air that is bound to be at the ceiling. If it keeps up, I'll probably just invest in a bigger furnace or maybe a smaller one to add to this one and set the second one to kick on if the first one isn't keeping up. Other than that, the tanks aren't doing too bad at all. Just getting them built and the day to day troubles that anybody could expect sometimes get to me. I just need to keep gratitude in mind and remeber to be grateful that I am even in a position to have these "troubles".

 

[rick rottet]

Alti- I had my propane tank filled 9-13-05. $1108.
Had it filled again 11-30-05. $1174.
I'm sure this tank won't last as long as the last one.

 

[ALTI]

im actually having a very similar problem. i had to add a couple submersible heaters to my sumps, double tarp my area off and silicone any doors to the outside to keep the temp over 71. last year i went through much colder temps and the heater kept things warm ehough without a problem. the only similarity we share is the addition of more water to the room. could the water be absorbing more of the heat making the heater less efficient?

 

[ALTI]

ouch! keep me updated on your heating costs. my new setup was supposed to go in the greenhouse, but i decided that starting in fall or winter with the highest overhead and lowest production would be tough with the funding i have.

 

[rick rottet]

I just got done talking to Anthony about this (lack of) heat issue. He thinks I just plain don't have enough water in the gh to keep the temps more stable. I still have about 30 of those barrels sitting by the garage, so I'm going to put them out in the gh in the morning and fill them up to see if it helps over the next couple of days. I've also been rethinking my using those barrels for storage and mixing. I might go ahead and get one or two large resevoir tanks. The barrels just seem to take up so much room (floorspace). Without building stands to stack them above each other, I just won't have enough space to keep 20 of them (or more). A couple of 500 or 1,00 gallon tanks would be much more efficient use of space and a better heat sink too.
Maybe part of the reason(s) I didn't have trouble with just the LR vat last winter...that Mag 36 is in there, the vat is 425g and therefore more stable because of the volume, and it sits almost directly under the furnace.
I know exactly what you mean about the highest overhead...this will be my second winter and I'm still in the construction phase...sort of. I guess now it could be called set up phase.

 

[jnarowe]

How about the water volume actually cooling the GH? If all these tanks were sealed then there would be no evaporation and that would hold the warmth in, but with all the tanks open, aren't you actually creating a significant amount of vapor exchange? Doesn't that cool the ambient air?

I would think adding sealed barrels might help, but adding a cement block might help even more. I'll give you an example: We have a customer that is on fixed income and lives onboard a sailboat. He has a diesel heater but the fuel is expensive so one trick he has is turning on the stove with a large piece of iron on top of it. The iron heats up, stores and radiates heat and that keeps his boat much warmer during the winter and uses less fuel.

Putting something solid to soak up the heat during the day and release it at night might be more effective than barrels of water. Clearly with only one vat of rocks last Winter you had much less evaporation than you do now. That evaporation condenses on the inside surface of the GH, and the heat is transfered to the outside, not kept inside. Make sense?

 

[rick rottet]

I don't know about the evap cooling the inside air. Logic tries to tell me that if the evap is coming from the tanks, that should be taking heat out of the tanks with it and thereby warming the air. But the laws of enthalpy say that when moisture is added to air, the air cools. (???confused???...as usual). I do know that my evap pads over the shutters definitely cool the air when they are running.
The more I thought about it, the more I started to think that adding more barrels of water shouldn't really make much difference. They are only 55 gallons and I have taken temp measurements in them through the summer and they definitely heat and cool MUCH quicker than the tanks. I just can't picture them radiating enough heat through the night to keep the air temps up enough. I know Calfo has experience in running a gh in a freezing climate and I have always valued his opinion, but if last winter, when it was like -2 F outside, I could crank up the furnace and get the inside air temp up to 90 F, it shouldn't matter how much (or how little) water is in the gh, it should be able to be kept warm enough. Even if it was only a ten gallon tank, if it is sitting in a room (or gh) with 90 degree air temp, the water should stay around 80(ish). The 2 times that I ran the furnace up that high last year to see how warm it would get in the gh were once at night and once first thing in the morning. I seem to remember that it only took about 20 minutes to get the temp up that high. I am starting to think that maybe there is an issue with the furnace if I can only get the inside air up to 71 at night with the thermostat set at 105 . I have noticed that the furnace sems to initially fire up, then when the exchanger gets hot enough, the fan turns on (normal). A few minutes later, the burner turns off and the fan stays running, but then the burner kicks back on before the fan ever stops running. So what is happening is the fan on the furnace is running all of the time, and the burner firing intermittently. I just don't remember that happening last year, but I could just be not remembering. It seems to me that the furnace ought to have the burner fire, then when the exchanger gets hot enough the fan should turn on (like it does), but it seems like the burner ought to stay fired until the thermostat says there is enough heat in the air.
It just seems like every day is a fight and like jnarowe's signature line, I have the knife. Get one problem taken care of only to have two worse problems arise. Better stop there before I get some rings on my butt from sitting on the "pity pot".

 

[H20ENG]

"Just a beautiful creature. Can't hardly wait to slash it into pieces."

Classic!

"How about the water volume actually cooling the GH? If all these tanks were sealed then there would be no evaporation and that would hold the warmth in, but with all the tanks open, aren't you actually creating a significant amount of vapor exchange? Doesn't that cool the ambient air?"

I was thinking this too. How much of air does the heater move through the greenhouse? (I forget if it was forced draft or not). When you take very cold, dry air (or humid air for that matter) and heat it as much as you are, the humidity just drops away. This would allow your tanks to expel much more water vapor. I would think that covering them would prevent some heat loss, just keep a slight bubble going for continued aeration.
If your GH stays at a high humidity at night (and your heater is moving the air through), this would tell me that your tanks are evaporating a lot. But hows your topoff rates? Higher / lower?

I also wonder about the earth sucking the heat out of the tanks. I know some are elevated, but the vat has a large footprint in contact with the ground, correct? This is one of those hurt you in winter / help you in summer things.
And the blowers outlet pipe is still in the greenhouse, correct? That can only help.
Chris

PS: Try the hot air welder!

 

[rick rottet]

Hmmm, I don't know for sure how much air the furnace fan moves. (It is fan driven across the heat exchanger.) My HAF fans will move like 1800 cfm. The furnace fan is not as large as those. The HAF fans are 18" diameter and the furnace fan is maybe 12" or 14". You can feel the breeze from the furnace fan at the other end of the greenhouse.
Top off rates are less than mid summer, but there is always a fair amount of condensation on the inside of the gh, wether night or day. It is really irritating (almost torturous) to have all those little drip...drip...drip... on the top of your head all of the time. It seems like it always drips right where I have to stand to work on something. This is also another source of disappointment...using the blower to inflate the poly covering of the greenhouse was "supposed" to help reduce condensation. I'd hate to see it if it was worse. I seem to remember there was frost on the gh plastic covering last year. Not this year.

The blower intake is still inside the gh. I was thinking about plumbing the intake to sit right in front of the furnace.

I did put that foam insulation underground around the perimeter of the gh beneath the toe boards to try to help keep the ground from pulling so much heat out of the gh. Not sure how much that can actually help once the foam gets as cold as the ground, but it can't be hurting.

The vat is staying warmer than any of the tanks. ??? (maybe becuase it's closer to the furnace and has that Mag 36???

 

[keto]

if your furnace is doing as you say it is running on limits which means its getting to hot, i would blow the unit out with compressed air to clean all dust from heat exchanger and fan blade, also you may have a draft prob, make sure the unit is drafting good.

 

[H20ENG]

Rick,
I was wondering if your heater used the GH air for combustion was all. This would draw in / expel air from the GH. You want the GH sealed as tight as possible to retain the heat. I'm sure your heater blower recirculates the air, but what about the combustion?

I'm sure that covering as much as possible would aleviate some of the condensation. You could use clear visquene, and still get plenty of light.

Tortuous Drips (Is that a band?) Our boiler room at work is partially outside. Walking under all the piping in the rain looks like an Indiana Jones movie, ducking and dodging all the big drips

Re: adding the barrels, adding them will stabilize temps a bit. The caveat is that you will need MORE heat to get the extra mass to temperature in the first place. Paint the barrels black or wrap them in black plastic (kind of hard to paint polyethylene)to help with heat absorbtion.
This is the same concept as the buildings with thick earthen or concrete walls. The temps stay much more steady. The mass absorbs heat during the day, and radiates it at night, flattening the temperature fluctuations of night and day.

Also, water is the best form of mass to use (someone mentioned iron- pretty good, too) as it has the highest specific heat. Look at any Solar Home book and you will see that many people put large columns of water in the walls or in Trombe walls to absorb the suns heat for use at night. Also called Thermal Flywheel effect.

HTH
Chris

 

[rick rottet]

Chris- There is no outside air coming into the furnace for the combustion. Is that what you mean? The only connection from the furnace to the outside is the flue pipe.
Do you think putting the blower intake directly in front of the furnace will help?

keto- Almost missed your post. There is some dust on the exchanger and fan. Would that really make a 20 degree difference in air temps compared to last year? I will take your advice and clean it, but is there a way to make the burner stay lit until the thermostat setting is reached?


I went out to check the mid day temps. 1:30 PM

Outside air was 28 F

Inside air was 83 (pretty gray sky today. furnace and fan haven't shut off that I have seen.)(thermostat is set on 95 right now)


LR vat 76

First stand (starts about 4' in front of furnace, is 4' wide)
#1 (GSP tank)- 77
#2 (Discosoma)- ~76.5

Second stand (starts about 9' 6" in front of furnace, also 4' wide)
#3 (Ricordea)- 75
#4 (Actinodiscus)- 75

Third stand (starts about 14' 9" in front of furnace)(is also the only tank on this stand)
#5 (Sarcophyton)- almost 74 but not quite

All in all, not terrible, except for the fact that I know it is going to drop again tonite.


one other thing that just came to me while I was out there checking temps was all of the first four tanks have 6 airlifts (GSP tank has 7). I put 9 in the Sarcophyton tank because it is a pretty consistent shedder of mucous. I left the GSP tank as is since it is not having much trouble. All the rest of the tanks, I turned off air lifts to only leave four running in each tank.

Maybe another reason I didn't have trouble with the LR vat last year... it had no air lifts in it.

Going out to clean furnace.

 

[cseeton]

Turn off your fan and make sure your shutters/doors are tight and sealed. The dry air is sucking heat from your tanks while leaks or condensation is sending the heat/moisture outside.

Put some clear plastic over the top of the tanks (or part of them) - don't seal the plastic but rather use it to slow the evaporation. You would like zero to very little evaporation this time of year.

 

[cseeton]

Thermal mass is all the same. You can use your closed barrels of water, stone, iron, concrete or whatever you like. It will make your temps a little more stable...

EDIT: Well, actually they are not all the same... There is a Biot number situation, but let's say for your application, they are all the same.