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Can I turn my theory into reality? Fossil fuel free, 100% off grid, but modcons


TitaniumSquirrel

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Okay, so I'm soon to have my own boat for the first time! I have a brother who is a wooden boat builder, a boss who lived off grid on a narrowboat for 20 years and turned it entirely electric, and work for a renewables company so have access to expertise and hardware when it comes to solar, heat pumps and batteries.

 

However, turning all of the theory of what I envisage into reality, requires some knowhow of things I am quite clueless about! Diesel. Engines. Insulation. Plumbing....

 

So, here's the idea:

3-4kw of solar on the roof, lithium ion battery bank, small heat pump, wood burner with a back boiler feeding some radiators, hot water with immersion and gas backup.

 

The idea being I can fully power, heat and provide hot water for a pretty damn comfortable lifestyle. This is a bit of a journey for me, and I want to see how practical it is to keep a decent number of modcons whilst being utterly off grid, all year round.

 

So, can I tap into the hivemind to see if anyone has done anything similar, or advice on small parts on it:

 

Heat pumps - has anyone ever had one on a boat? How is it? How did it work? What size? 

 

Hot water - how practical is it to have it running off an electric supply initially (with the solar kit I'll have, I should have plenty of electric without a hookup) with gas as a backup option? Is there kit out there that does this already? Would it require some sort of mash up of two systems with a manual changeover?

 

Heating - if I can make a heat pump work, this is sorted. If not......... how do people find running heating off purely a stove with a backboiler? I assume insulation is key? Double glazing with thermal breaks too!?

 

Cooking - I am contemplating having dual induction and gas..... induction in the summer when I have plentiful solar, and gas as a back up for the winter.

 

Ultimately, I want to use zero fossil fuels and be totally solar dependent, without sacrificing warmth, hot showers, or footy on the telly.

 

I'm not interested in naysayers sorry! I will more than happily take constructive criticism, but please don't tell me I'm mad. I know the theory is sound, I have seen most of this done before, I'm just looking to take it one step further!

 

All advice, questions, suggestions and comments welcome! Get involved!

 

Thanks!

Edited by TitaniumSquirrel
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5 minutes ago, TitaniumSquirrel said:

Ultimately, I want to use zero fossil fuels and be totally solar dependent, without sacrificing warmth, hot showers, or footy on the telly.

 

I'm not interested in naysayers sorry!

 

"Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall not be disappointed ..."

 

The only statements you made above that didn't mention gas mentioned diesel.  Apart from the one that said you didn't want to be using fossil fuels.  Hello! Wakeup time!  Diesel IS a fossil fuel and so is LPG as available in the UK.

 

If you want a zero fossil fuel life, you'll not be having hot showers daily - and the one a week you do have will be May to August not September to April ...

 

If you don't want to listen to the "naysayers" then I suggest you study thermodynamics at doctorate level before chipping in to the debate.  The grownups have already done the calculations for you.  In the UK, you can not live a lifestyle acceptable to most of the population without using fossil fuels.  In Equatorial regions, you probably can if you are realistic.

 

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38 minutes ago, TitaniumSquirrel said:

Ultimately, I want to use zero fossil fuels and be totally solar dependent, without sacrificing warmth, hot showers, or footy on the telly.

I wish you well please let me know how you get on.

 

You could possibly go some way to achieving that on a decent summers day but have you done your solar calculations for winter time or even overcast days?

 

And please don't keep confuse practical experience or advice 

as naysaying.

Edited by reg
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The simplest ,most reliable way of making water hot and heating a space is a wood stove .Especially if you can get free wood to burn...........Far as I know ,heat pumps wont work with near freezing water .....take a small amount of energy out ,and you have ice..which blocks the flow.

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Plenty of people heat a boat with a solid fuel stove with a backboiler feeding radiators. Or just a stove and no radiators. But coal and smokeless fuels are fossil fuels, and we are now told that wood (even dry wood) puts far more particulates into the atmosphere than fossil fuels.

Solar is good in summer, but all but useless in winter.

Ignore the naysayers by all means, but you will come back to a need for fossil fuels or a shore line.

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7 hours ago, TitaniumSquirrel said:

I'm not interested in naysayers sorry!

 

This strikes me as spectacularly narrow minded and pointless.

 

The naysayers are the one who will highlight and draw your attention to the areas of particular technical difficulty, where 99% of your effort will need to be concentrated in developing solutions. 

 

My own naysaying contribution in this vein is to point out that your plan of 3-4kW of solar on a narrowboat is difficult due to the sheer area of panel this involves*. I presume therefore, you are getting a widebeam but you don't say. The beam of your boat will also turn out to be important I think, not only for the extra roof area it gives for the solar panels, but the space for all the gubbins you are planning (heat pump especially) will eat into your living area.

 

* Unless you have access to new technology panels that harvest more than the approx 200w per square metre that current tech delivers. 

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7 hours ago, TitaniumSquirrel said:

Cooking - I am contemplating having dual induction and gas..... induction in the summer when I have plentiful solar, and gas as a back up for the winter.

 

 

Hold up a sec. Which gas?

 

Green hydrogen will be necessary as you are not going to use fossil fuels. Is that available as bottled gas? Or are there any other non-fossil fuel gases to consider? I'd suggest investigating using HVO (green/renewable diesel) as a backup for cooking, rather than gas. 

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Well done for having a go. Not many (if any) heat pumps on boats in the UK - possibly some on barges in Europe. Ecologically speaking boats are a pretty poor example of  sustainability, Lots of steel with associated mining, smelting, electric and stuff. Lots of wood of questionable origin from right around the world, diesel and gas and dodgy old woodburners and so on. A house is potentially a lot less harmful but to be honest a turf hut in half an acre with a pig or two is probably as good as you can get, in other words living like people lived in my part of Shropshire just before the ironbridge was built and started the whole thing off.  I think that with effort you can get some good results so good luck but technology is just a chimera and shifting the deck chairs on the Titanic, I have had three steel hulls built and have fitted them all out and I reckon my carbon footprint is terrible. We are fixated on the fuel used for heating, cooking etc but conveniently ignore the carbon disaster involved in making the products in the first place. Electric cars? Electric boats? If you really want to avoid damage you (and I ) can't have either.

Edited by Bee
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Get a mooring with a landline where the power comes from renewables and plant trees or similar to offset your gas consumption. That's exactly what I do in the house and it enables me to have a clear conscience when it comes to my domestic energy use.

4kw of solar takes an area of 14m x 2m a lot of roof for a narrow boat leaving precious little room for your solar water heating system.

Burning wood will not be pollution free and will struggle to make enough heat to keep you warm and heat water etc.

 

Edited by Loddon
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8 minutes ago, jake_crew said:

Where does green hydrogen come from ?

It doesn't really, 95% of hydrogen is from natural gas without carbon capture, the other 5% comes from either dirtier sources or from like at the plant in Rotherham a wind turbine 

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8 hours ago, TitaniumSquirrel said:

Okay, so I'm soon to have my own boat for the first time! I have a brother who is a wooden boat builder, a boss who lived off grid on a narrowboat for 20 years and turned it entirely electric, and work for a renewables company so have access to expertise and hardware when it comes to solar, heat pumps and batteries.

 

However, turning all of the theory of what I envisage into reality, requires some knowhow of things I am quite clueless about! Diesel. Engines. Insulation. Plumbing....

 

So, here's the idea:

3-4kw of solar on the roof, lithium ion battery bank, small heat pump, wood burner with a back boiler feeding some radiators, hot water with immersion and gas backup.

 

The idea being I can fully power, heat and provide hot water for a pretty damn comfortable lifestyle. This is a bit of a journey for me, and I want to see how practical it is to keep a decent number of modcons whilst being utterly off grid, all year round.

 

So, can I tap into the hivemind to see if anyone has done anything similar, or advice on small parts on it:

 

Heat pumps - has anyone ever had one on a boat? How is it? How did it work? What size? 

 

Hot water - how practical is it to have it running off an electric supply initially (with the solar kit I'll have, I should have plenty of electric without a hookup) with gas as a backup option? Is there kit out there that does this already? Would it require some sort of mash up of two systems with a manual changeover?

 

Heating - if I can make a heat pump work, this is sorted. If not......... how do people find running heating off purely a stove with a backboiler? I assume insulation is key? Double glazing with thermal breaks too!?

 

Cooking - I am contemplating having dual induction and gas..... induction in the summer when I have plentiful solar, and gas as a back up for the winter.

 

Ultimately, I want to use zero fossil fuels and be totally solar dependent, without sacrificing warmth, hot showers, or footy on the telly.

 

I'm not interested in naysayers sorry! I will more than happily take constructive criticism, but please don't tell me I'm mad. I know the theory is sound, I have seen most of this done before, I'm just looking to take it one step further!

 

All advice, questions, suggestions and comments welcome! Get involved!

 

Thanks!

I have 4.6kw of solar plus 2 big LifePo4s battery banks, in summer the excess solar heats hot water by immersion heater, and my cooking is by induction hob and microwave oven. Winter heating is by the Rayburn with backboiler, I burn mostly wood, the solar just about copes so would not run a heat pump. My boat is all electric including the drive motor, I still have a 6kw diesel genny, my boat is 57 x 12 it's double glazed and is spray foam insulated and has thinsulite as well  to fit everything a narrowboat won't work for the solar sorry mate it's a no go 

Edited by peterboat
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As you say, insulation is the key (or one of them). The problem is that (in winter) you are starting out with thermally conductive steel in contact with water close to zeroC, so the shell of the boat gives you a negative benefit. You therefore need a thick layer of insulation all round, and in a narrowboat this takes up significant space that is already at a premium. Maybe less of an issue if it’s to be a widebeam. Spray foam insulation is by far the best in term of insulation value per thickness.

 

With good insulation I can’t see why a wood stove with back boiler couldn’t kept you warm in winter plus give hot water. However wood is very bulky per kWh and needs to be stored for a year or two before burning. There isn’t enough room on a boat to store it, so you need access to a wood store on land (which is why most boaters burn coal). Hopefully you are aware that you can’t just rock up on the towpath and annex some public land, you would need a paid-for mooring with some land attached. And of course your ability to go away cruising is then curtailed, which raises the question of why go with a boat in the first place?

 

I can’t see a heat pump being much use, in dead of winter the solar panel output will be minimal so where would the electricity to run it come from? And if you did manage a ready supply of dry wood to burn, I can’t see the need for a heat pump.

 

it’s easy in summer, plenty of solar to keep the batteries charged with surplus going into an immersion heater for hot water, but winter is in a different league.

Edited by nicknorman
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Buy an old boat. Run the old diesel engine on bio or HVO, cook and heat with a wood fired stove. Eat salad in summer you've grown yourself. Refit the inside if you want with locally sourced reclaimed materials. 

Or, buy a new boat, fit it out with the latest technology made in the far east from precious metals and shipped around the world by the dirtiest methods. 

Sit back on a plane to enjoy a holiday knowing you've done your bit.

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6 minutes ago, Mad Harold said:

Having your boat plugged into a landline permanantly and being all electric would fulfill your requirements, providing the electricity came from RENEWABLE sources.

I never really understand this “renewable electricity” thing. It seems to be a scam. Regardless of what you electricity billing  company might say, the electricity all comes from one pot which comprises some renewable, some nuclear, some coal and quite a lot of gas.

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