Caton Baptist and a weekend of telling stories.

I’m spending the weekend this weekend with the people from Caton Baptist Church. They are having a church weekend away and I’m their guest. I have a few things to do including a few devotions, a bible study and an all age celebration. I’m quite looking forward to it, though I don’t particularly like staying away from Louise and the kids.

In the devotions I will be retelling some of the gospel stories, using some songs from my ipod. The first time I used this approach I was meticulous. I planned, practised and recorded the whole thing. Now I generally just mix the songs in as I talk. However, if your interested, here is a recording of me retelling the account of Jesus and the Tax Collector.

Jesus and the Tax Collector

Encrypted WMA files and my IPod.

I need to play a hymn at a funeral tomorrow.  There’s not going to be many people there (2) so singing is out of the question.  So we agreed to play the hymn.  The truth is I don’t have any hymns on my ipod so I had to buy it.  My usual Russian sources don’t sell hymns so I had to go to a British store.  I chose Tescos Downloads and paid an astronomical 79p for the offending item.

I paid no attention to the format so was a bit miffed when neither my Ubuntu Linux Laptop and my itunes app (running on Louise’s windows laptop)  wouldn’t play it.  To get over the problem I had to use Windows Media Player to burn the encrypted file to a cd, then rip the file from the CD back to the computer in order to transfer it to my ipod.

What a bizarre world when you have to go to such lengths to play music that you have bought and paid for on your ipod!  Anyway I now have one hymn on my ipod.  How long will I keep it on?

Ground Source Heating

In my constant quest to find cheap energy sources that are environmentally friendly and economic I began to have a look at Ground Source Heating. I couldn’t find much that was really helpful in explaining how it works so I asked my friend Andy. He sent me this concise, informative reply:

Graham,

Your Renewable Energy Hotline here! (I’ve asked Andy renewable questions before)

Yes, I’ve looked at Ground Source Heat Pumps quite a bit. You are all right in a way:-

1. They are extremely good for the environment because you get 3-4 kW of heat for every kW of electricity. Looking ahead they are going to play an important part in meeting the commitment the government has signed to meeting 15% of UK’s energy needs from renewable sources (the heat counts as renewable).
2. I wouldn’t describe them as any more complicated than necessary, but they are more complex than a boiler.
3. You are right too, they are expensive, generally expect £5k-£10k on top of normal boiler cost. Grants can offset a small proportion of this: http://www.lowcarbonbuildings.org.uk/how/householders/

How they work:-

1. They extract heat from the ground, which is generally at 5-10 deg C by pumping cold antifreeze or brine around the ground loop at say 0 deg C.
2. The slightly warmed water, now returning at say 5 deg C has heat extracted from it by the heat pump, which takes the heat at 5 deg C and upgrades it to heat at 40 deg C which is then given to the water circulating round the house. This diagram shows it quite well, note how the heat pump takes heat in from the right at low temp and gives out heat into the house on the left at high temp, this is the clever bit you can’t replicate in a DIY manner. http://www.earthwisescotland.co.uk/Tech/sys_diag.htm
3. This is just about warm enough to be useful, but because 40 deg C is not very warm compared to a normal boiler you have to have especially large radiators or underfloor heating.
4. Note this is not hot enough for hot water. Typically a heat pump cannot supply the hot water tank (although one or two can now) and a supplementary boiler is often required for that.
5. A bonus is that in the summer you can use the cooled ground to absorb heat from the house, in this mode the heat pump is not used because the brine is returning at a suitable temperature to cool the house.

Why the Doel It Yourself plan won’t work:
I think you’ve mistaken heat for warmth. The ground isn’t warm, it’s colder than the house, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get heat out of it. In scientific terms heat is a flow of energy, it doesn’t imply warmth. A heat pump uses electrical energy to push heat “uphill” against it’s natural inclination to flow from high temperature to low temperature.

Summary
If you are off the gas grid then although it is expensive it will pay back (in perhaps 10 years) compared to oil or direct electric heating, which have high running cost. If they have gas there is no contest on price both installation and running costs of gas are lower. From a green point of view it knocks the socks of everything else. They are very disruptive to lay, although the ground loop can be in a installed in a 70m deep borehole instead of a 70m long shallow trench. It will also be disruptive inside to lay underfloor heating or up sizing radiators.

And no you can’t rig one up yourself!!

Postman Pat and Christian Satire

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn2V_43rmPk

Thanks to Catriona for pointing this out. If you are interested in lifting Youtube videos for use where there isn’t an internet connection then Andrew has some tips.

UPDATE: I couldn’t get Andrew’s links to work but have found the “Better Youtube” Firefox extension, which provides a download link and appears to work.