Hiding a powerplant in a residential neighborhood?

[vdubnut62]

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Nothing helps when our neighbors cat sprays. Dilution is not enough.
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Aw!  Booo! Hisssss! Horrible play on words.  But TRUE.
Ron

[BioHazard]

It is my experience that if you live in the sort of neighborhood you describe, you may be able to spend a lot of time and money and get your super-quiet, smell-supressed plant up and running - for a while.

Once *any* neighbor finds out - sees you dealing with large quantities of stored oil, smells something odd, haers a noise, sees you working on it with the door open - etc - you're done, if someone wants you done.

And then your hard work and the money will be gone... so take a good hard look at what you are trying to hide... and determine if you are willing to shut it down for good if someone complains...

Well, that sounds about right...but then again I wonder if any of this is technically "illegal" as long as I'm not backfeeding the grid? I mean, I have the right to to idle a diesel pickup in my driveway 24/7 if I want to. I would keep the oil supply at the house rather small, less than 55gallons, with the main source at my shop.

What is your objective with the home system? The thumps are hard to hide. Mine is on a good chunk of concrete in sandstone/rocky soil and it does rattle the dishes in the kitchen sometimes.

Converting worthless black oil into electricity and heat. Maybe I would be better off with a Changfoid in a residential environment?

[vdubnut62]

Converting worthless black oil into electricity and heat. Maybe I would be better off with a Changfoid in a residential environment?

Not a lot. Wanna hear a barrel of railroad spikes falling down a hill?
Ron

[BioHazard]

Not a lot. Wanna hear a barrel of railroad spikes falling down a hill?
Ron

I know they're loud...but less "thumping" like listeroids are known for? Certain types of sounds are easier to cover than others...

[bschwartz]

My 6/1 listeroid is NOT the best balanced engine around, but mounted to a cubic yard of concrete, the vibrations are only noticeable 40 feet away because I am listening for them.  I live in a residential neighborhood, and no one knows when I'm running my engine.  Exhaust can be muffled to a 'whoof, whoof, whoof' fairly easily, and the low speed of the engine just doesn't produce NASTY sounds like a higher speed engine does.  I truly believe that the lower the speed of your engine (lister, listeroid, whitte, etc.) the more neighbor friendly it becomes.

[sailawayrb]

Hiding a powerplant in a residential neighborhood?

That's exactly my current situation and why I designed a resilient engine mount, I burn SVO/propane, I exhaust into an underground concrete cistern, and I use an air intake silencer.  My nearest neighbor who is only 10 feet away from where 6/1 is located in my garage can't see, hear, feel, or smell it

http://listerenginegallery.com/main.php?g2_itemId=351

Bob B.

[BioHazard]

Hiding a powerplant in a residential neighborhood?

That's exactly my current situation and why I designed a resilient engine mount, I burn SVO/propane, I exhaust into an underground concrete cistern, and I use an air intake silencer.  My nearest neighbor who is only 10 feet away from where 6/1 is located in my garage can't see, hear, feel, or smell it

http://listerenginegallery.com/main.php?g2_itemId=351

Bob B.

That is a really amazing setup. Tell me your engine didn't come painted that color? 

[sailawayrb]

That is a really amazing setup. Tell me your engine didn't come painted that color?  

Thanks, but NO  

She only achieved this beautiful red finish AFTER she was first completely disassembled, each of her components carefully inspected for sand contamination or any internal cast iron defects (gasoline/talc method), each of her components carefully machined to tolerances far in excess of any original Lister, and each of her components bathed in Lye to remove the ugly green Listeroid paint.  Only then was each of her components carefully painted red or black to suit her artist's/lover's perception of perfection, after which all her components were reassembled with proper respect, devotion and everlasting love.  

The red paint is a high temp ceramic engine paint.  While high temp paint is certainly not required for these engines, I wanted to use the brittle characteristic of this paint to hopefully provide advance warning of any future fatigue or stress induced cast iron failure.  Any such impending failure should cause the paint to chip/flake thereby revealing her fair, white primer underskin.  I also painted the inside of her crankcase with Glyptal to prevent oil from eventually seeping thru her porous cast iron body and potentially marring her beautiful red finish.

Bob B.

[BioHazard]

Now I don't feel so bad about repainting the lawnmower engine. I've always thought red or black was the appropriate color for just about any engine...

[BioHazard]

I exhaust into an underground concrete cistern

I'm getting more curious about this, how does that work exactly? How big is the cistern, and where exactly do the exhaust gasses eventually vent?

[sailawayrb]

The underground concrete cistern is located outside just beyond the exterior house wall adjacent to engine.  It is cylindrical in shape and has approximately a 12 inch internal diameter, has 6 inch thick walls, and is 6 feet long.  It was made from 12 and 24 inch diameter sonotubes that are normally used to build concrete deck posts, etc.  

I dug a 24 inch diameter, 8 feet deep hole, placed the sonotubes into the hole and then poured concrete (with rebar and screen) between the two sonotubes to create the cistern.  I also shaped the top of cistern to accommodate a 4 inch thick concrete man cover lid that I poured separately (with rebar and screen).  The bottom-most foot of the cistern was filled with coarse gravel and the bottom of the cistern was left open to the earth to allow exhaust condensation to be absorbed and to allow bacteria to digest the exhaust particulates.  The man cover was then covered with about 2 feet of earth and the top soil was leveled and reseeded with grass.  

The engine exhaust pipe, which is a combination of steel rigid/flex pipe, goes thru a DIY wall thimble (to protect wall from exhaust and accommodate exhaust pipe expansion/contraction) and then out to the cistern where it enters about a foot below the man cover.  The vent line, which is 4 inch plastic drain line, enters about a 6 inches above the gravel and runs underground maybe 200 feet (at a slight downhill slope the entire distance) before it eventually surfaces beyond my property.  There is a gravel termination bed directly below where the exhaust surfaces that captures the exhaust water vapor condensate.  You have to get about 5 feet close to where it surfaces before you can maybe hear a slight wush of air indicating the engine is running.  If the wind is blowing hard, you can't hear even that.

Since I didn't use any concrete to mount my 6/1, I felt the need to use concrete somewhere in this project so as to not overly offend those who firmly but mistakenly believe that one can't operate old stationary engine designs without using lots of concrete.

Bob B.

[dieselgman]

Wow, that is a far cry from our old buried oil drum trick. We have installed a lot of Alaskan power systems where the folks wanted to lose the generator noise as much as possible. The buried oil drum would hide about 99% of the exhaust note and cost next to nothing except labor to get it buried. I would think that the biggest associated problem would be keeping track of your engine condition, especially fuel injection, a clean burn would never clog the system - however, we have seen a stuck nozzle completely clog up a system with heavy soot before the problem was identified and fixed.

dieselgman

Diesel Electric - gsj@gci.net

[sailawayrb]

Wow, that is a far cry from our old buried oil drum trick. We have installed a lot of Alaskan power systems where the folks wanted to lose the generator noise as much as possible. The buried oil drum would hide about 99% of the exhaust note and cost next to nothing except labor to get it buried. I would think that the biggest associated problem would be keeping track of your engine condition, especially fuel injection, a clean burn would never clog the system - however, we have seen a stuck nozzle completely clog up a system with heavy soot before the problem was identified and fixed.

dieselgman

Diesel Electric - gsj@gci.net

The problem with using steel oil drum shortcut is that it will eventually rust thru and collapse because exhaust is highly corrosive.  You would also have to cut the bottom out of the drum or it would eventually clog too.  Whatever you use, it should be designed to handle condensation water buildup and use this to flush the entire system during normal engine operations (i.e., similar design principle to marine engine exhaust system).  I have a tee fitting outside and the before cistern (which is normally plugged closed) that allows installation of the standard exhaust muffler for doing maintenance checks.  I have been running about 5 years without any issues at all.

Bob B.

[sailawayrb]

One thing that nobody has mentioned is the exhaust gas plume. As I look out, I see a column of white smoke some 30 to 40 ft high over one of my flower beds. I tried a number of ways to hide it but to no avail (although I have not tried the old "do a steam loco yard display and pump the exhaust through the loco exhaust"). I have also not tried misting water over the exit because that just gets silly.
Anyway, point is there is no smell (generally) and no sound but the neighbours can still tell that I am up to no good. Weather conditions obviously need to be right for this to happen.

There is absolutely zero smoke or anything else visible exhausting out of my setup.  Even on a cold day you can't see anything because the exhaust gas temp reaches ambient temp by the time it surfaces.  There maybe is a slight fried chicken smell in close proximity of where it surfaces because I burn Costco soy bean SVO.  

Bob B.

[vdubnut62]

sailawayrb, just where did you get your degree in ME?
Ron