Heat/power idea

[NevadaBlue]

I didn't know where to put this, but...

We were talking about shop heaters on a gunsmithing site I help run and one of the guys told about his heater. He took the front end of a small car (a honda I think) and mounted it outside his shop. He piped the radiator to the inside of the shop and used the engine heat to warm the shop. Said it ran 'forever' on 5 gallons of gas. This was in Buffalo, NY, so heat was a necessary thing.

[vdubnut62]

Now if he would install a heatx on the exhaust and hook a grid tie inverter to the electrical system, he would have a novel cogen unit!
Let it putt along just above idle speed.
Ron

[mobile_bob]

he built himself a horribly inefficient heater,
at best it is probably less than 30% efficient as designed

i am with Ron, put a exhaust heat exchanger, and belt drive a big induction motor to back feed the grid
and he could then make much more heat, and be probably over 60% efficient in even the sloppiest of builds.

with good attention to detail he could get up over 85% perhaps even better.

i can't imagine the way it is described being something that will catch on.

bob g

[Ronmar]

Yep, sounds like he is not aware of that pesky rule of thirds thing.  Like Bob and Ron mentioned, with exheatex and induction motor synced to the grid, he could recoup a good percentage of the heat and generate all the power he is using in the shop at the same time...  Failing that it would be more efficient to make a gas fired boiler spraying the same ammount of fuel as the car is burning.  Again, carefull design could get you 85% + and be simpler and quieter than an engine running out back:)

[NevadaBlue]

I think it was a way to use something he had for a quick and dirty heater. Just thought it might trigger some ideas.

[BioHazard]

He probably would have been better off to scrap the car and spend $100 on a propane heater, which would be more than twice as efficient.

Sounds like the A/C system I had in my old shop. The guy in the shop next door had an older limo that he was working on, me, him, and the crazy russians next door would take turns in the back with the engine running and the A/C on...drinkin' beers out of the cooler. It was the only way we could stand the heat and keep working. Had a hose spraying water over the radiator because the thing was overheating. LOL, that guy was crazy. Later I found out it was the meth, he got pulled over for speeding in the limo.