# Wood Stove/Steam Turbine Idea



## markt1 (Dec 15, 2013)

Could stainless tubing wrapped around a wood stove be used to vaporize water into steam fed into the middle of a long cylinder with the steam pointed toward one opening, and a wind turbine also in the cylinder but upwind of the steam/airflow near the other opening? No steam flow would go past the blades, but the airflow within the cylinder would "suck" air into the cylinder past the blades and make power to charge batteries. A small (battery powered) 12 volt pump could be used to pressurize the water supply to keep the tubing supplied. Simple, and easy to make from off-the-shelf stuff.


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## SLADE (Feb 20, 2004)

Sounds scary. My best guess would be no.


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

Could you make a little steam that way....maybe if you have about no flow from the pump, otherwise you'd get hot water.

Could you make any useful power of of it ? Not a chance.

And don't make the mistake of buying a wind turbine for your location unless you can locate it 30-50' above the tree line on a real tall mountain top....which is to say there is very little chance you have a viable wind site.

Your alternative power options are:

1. Solar if you have a reasonable south facing site
2. Water driven generator if you have the water resource.
3. Some type of engine driven generator....diesel, wood gas, etc.


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## secondhandacres (Nov 6, 2017)

Steam power anything to the novice sounds dangerous to me. Unless your a boiler operator/mechanic I would suggest you look to more proven power generation methods that have had a engineer design like TnAndy mentioned. Solar prices have come way down in the past 10 year making the ROI much more appealing


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## markt1 (Dec 15, 2013)

I've had solar panels for the last ten years. Small 1260 watt array. Not much out from November through February due to the dim light supply then. The place I just bought in WV has a 20 foot wide, 2 feet deep medium flow creek that locals say freezes in winter. So no hydro-power in winter. Although there is a mountaintop I own near the house, the peak is 600 feet away (too far to run a line from). That leaves wood. You might be surprised to see what people are doing with it on you-tube.


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

10 years ago, solar panels were $4/watt.....I know because I was installing my first set about that time. The last 20 I bought this spring were 63 cents/watt. I'm at 11,000 watts right now. The key to lower winter production is more panels and mount them at a steeper angle....mine are 45 degrees, you might want to go 47-50 degrees.










A 20' wide 2' deep creek is probably something you can't dam up due to environmental regulations these days, so even without the freezing issue, you're out of luck there. Wood ? Sure, there are a lot of things you can do with wood....but you gotta GET wood first. Now we're back to WHY you need a tractor  ......like this.....with a skidding winch.....










And burning any fuel to make electricity is labor and maintenance intensive if you plan to do it on a regular basis and try to use it for prime power. That gets back to the best option...IMHO.....which is solar. Expensive, yes.....no alternative source of power is anywhere close to the cost of grid power...it just ain't. But once set up, the maintenance is fairly minimal.


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## Offgrid48 (Jul 28, 2016)

Don't think you would be able to generate much power with this setup. If you are looking at alternatives for generating power consider wood gas. I have a couple articles on the subject posted on this site


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## MichaelK! (Oct 22, 2010)

*I've had solar panels for the last ten years. Small 1260 watt array. Not much out from November through February due to the dim light supply then
*
Like TnAndy says, up the amount of solar. I just bought another kw of panels last month for <400$. This was an Ebay purchase, but with local pickup. That works out to 39 cents per watt, including the sale tax. You could very easily double or even triple your capacity for a relatively small capital outlay. My system stays fully charged even on rainy days.

BTW, your idea sounds like a bomb waiting to explode!


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## secondhandacres (Nov 6, 2017)

I’m a contractor by trade and I have seen the aftermath of steam explosion at a power plant. They ran steam pressure much higher than you can reach with your proposed setup but it looked like a bomb was dropped on this plant after the steam line let go. It leveled anything within 50 yards and knocked a large block wall down. 

I was toying around with the same idea you have until I seen this at that power plant. I have probably see some of the same YouTube videos that have inspired you. I’ll stick with solar panels after seeing the destruction steam caused


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## reubenT (Feb 28, 2012)

I've had lifelong steam interest, built my own boiler and it's safe and works good. But they have to be built right, and very much overbuilt to be safe. Capable of taking many times more pressure than they will ever see in use, with at least double safety relief. What yer talking bout would be a mono tube boiler, they are safe enough but still need a set of safety relief valves, and they need automatic feed pump control, not generally used with wood fired heat since they are extremely sensitive to heat variation. Also to get enough heat transfer to make a decent volumn of steam the fire needs to be in direct contact with coils of tubing.

Yer idea would not work very well with steam because expansion ratio of steam is huge, run the turbine directly off the steam, sure it gets hot, so what! it would work better with compressed air. But still way less efficient than running in the air stream. Combining both nozzle flow with induced air flow. There are a whole lot of different ways to generate power. I'm working on some that are interesting. Steam works but it takes extensive setup and controls, then takes continual supply of fuel.


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## prinellie (Mar 16, 2016)

Could someone recommend the best company to purchase solar panels from these days? I know they have gotten better but there is an overload of info (sales pitches). I want someone who has some they would recommend because they have used them. We are in the planning stages of a totally off grid cabin for retirement.


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

Good site for price comparison:

http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/surveys/free-solar-panel-price-survey/

I've personally bought from Wholesale solar in California, Arizona Wind/Sun, and AltE Store in MA with good results, but my guess is there are a lot of good suppliers.

AltE store has a great online learning forum if you're new to solar.
https://www.altestore.com/store/


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## prinellie (Mar 16, 2016)

TnAndy said:


> Good site for price comparison:
> 
> http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/surveys/free-solar-panel-price-survey/
> 
> ...


Thanks so much!


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