Free Room Heat And Hot Water

In Rochester, N.Y. many years back, the basement of a house was heated for free. Man had windmill on roof, with rotating shaft going down through attic, through downstairs closet into cellar to bearing mount. The shaft had a pulley that was self turning, a hydraulic pump by belt. There was a large truck radiator and hoses filled with hydraulic oil. JUST by flowing the oil in a circle , caused the radiator to get hot. A thermostat turned on a fan blowing hot air into the room. The main shaft went through a car wheel drum with  brake shoes, so as very high winds causes the shaft to slow down to prevent damage.

Man, many years back, had free hot water for 10 years. When the large INSULATED water tank in the cellar burst a leak, he shut it down and purchased an electric hot water heater with higher electric bills. The cellar old style coal furnace was always before, burning wood for house heat. Later he drilled 2 large holes in the side of the level fire pot, and installed curve  shaped large dimension copper pipe from inside to outside. After sealing with furnace cement, the pipe ends connected to top and bottom of a full height water tank. JUST by normal circulation of hot water out to cold water entering the curved  shape tube, that was self flowing. (no pump)  3 baths, wash dishes, -- never ran out of hot water! - (The fire pot kept the copper curved shaped pipe always hot)

Heated for free is a misdirection. Heated without spending money would be a better way of saying it.
First one would be friction of the hydraulic fluid in the pump and hoses happens all the time on my tractor. Second would be a thermosiphon; a great technology but not free.

Interesting ideas, but hardly free.

Lots of questions with the heating idea. Since wind is undependable, the system would not generate a steady amount of heat nor give extra heat on demand. How would surplus heat be stored for non-windy days? How many non-windy days in a row would render the system non-desirable? What is the cost to create the system and maintain it? How long could it function without maintenance? There is no way to ask for a heat boost on bitter cold days, so what temperature range could this system function in adequately to produce reliable household heat? Just mild climates?  I have no experience with such a system, so I wonder how long it takes to heat up the fluid and how much heat it can generate. How many btu’s to heat up how large of a space?

Hot water—- this system isn’t new by any means. Hot water heat coils can be added to many types of wood/coal burning stoves. The trick is having to keep  a fire burning year around. Not free by any means, as I see it. The water coil costs money, it burns out if one is not careful, some system needs to deal with the expansion of hot water to avoid a blow out, and firewood is surely not free even if one harvests it yourself.  Such a system needs tending to keep the fire going and thus heat the water. While a super insulated storage tank (think— money) might keep the water hot to warm for quite awhile, eventually a fire will need to be run. Not a pleasant idea during a summer heat wave.

No system is perfect, but luring people with the idea of "free heat"  is a bit deceiving, don’t you think?

A windmill, sounds as free as solar panel, but yes being able to pre-pay for electricity and heat, is a great feeling.

The heat that was extracted from the space heating system and send to hot water heating isn't free. If I lived in a condo and my neighbor did that, I would be very upset, and would be considered stealing heat. But the system that you mentioned does sound cool, using one "burn chamber"  to run two system is pretty cool.

I thought about doing this but rather than wind power thought about using hydro. A river runs past my house which has a commercial hydro dam just upriver from me. Flows are between 500 and 4000 cubic feet per second with an 8 mph current. In short there is energy to harvest.

I spend about $3300 on fuel oil to heat my house so anything to knock that down would be nice.

Have you heard of the 1950 furnace conversion to water line? two service men in Texas about 1950 , had converted used oil furnace in motor pool to run on waste oil. Now, that's nothing new, but they added SS tubing so as the fire pot coil was heated first by oil flame. The fire pot was lined with fire brick insulation. The water line turned into steam, which turned into super heated steam at 1500 degrees.  At proper temperature, the oil line is shut off. The furnace nozzle continues to flame using converted hydrogen + oxygen torch. Furnace stays running. There is a shock wave produced from going from 90lbs pressure to AMBIENT - exiting nozzle. Dissociation of steam molecules to useful fuel. This normally takes about 3000-4000 degrees. They called in 2 technicians to help figure that out. The servicemen filed for US Patent . US Patent office issued paper Patent that only allowed 50% increase in furnace efficiency. ( They don't allow over unity!)  I read their complete application that stated fuel shut off. If water line shut off, the furnace cools off and has to be restarted on fuel oil. There was a T fitting with valves . The lower electric motor  had 2 shafts for 2 90lb. oil pumps.  A much smaller unit was built and taken to Washington , in Senator's underground garage. It was demonstrated in trunk of car. Unit looked like a fire brick chimney with circular pores holes in lower disc, like a propane stove.  (The Jackson Water Burner)     Put that in your pipe and smoke it!