pending threats of large gas/electric fuel price increases!

[Drains]

While we're on price, we get to efficiency... a company I'm doing a bit of work for at the mo, clicky, has just completed testing on a big fat BMW which they've installed a hydraulic drive in, which uses 45% less fuel than the original on the urban cycle (so it's up to around 50+ mpg). It was driving past me today looking smart (unlike me), doing sound output tests, and you could hardly hear the thing. No gears.

 

[snowcat]

Ahhhhh esentialy a CVT, these have been knocking round in the ag and construction world for a few years, excellent kit, always maximises power to torque....made by lindi fork trucks this one.

 

[Robotstar5]

Ahhhhh esentialy a CVT, these have been knocking round in the ag and construction world for a few years, excellent kit, always maximises power to torque....made by lindi fork trucks this one.

Is it anything like the DAF variomatic drive from their 44 & 55 model cars in the 70's / 80's? and I think Ford tried it in Fiesta's but the press launch cars could not reverse up hills!

 

[Drains]

Ahhhhh esentialy a CVT, these have been knocking round in the ag and construction world for a few years, excellent kit, always maximises power to torque....made by lindi fork trucks this one.

Not sure the boss would totally agree with you, as there's more to this set-up. They're at the stage now that they have an accumulator which gets pumped up when you brake, and the software turns off the engine when braking or stopped. Restart from a hydraulic motor. The beemer can get from 0 to 30 mph with the engine turned off!

 

[matt1978]

One thing I wanna rant about, was how a year or so back, there was uproar in the news and public, fuel blockades, haulier go slows etc, because fuel was approaching the magic £1.00 a litre mark and the petrol stations were panicking because the pumps couldn't go above 99.9p, now they've all been modified and we're paying about £1.20 a litre no one bats an eye lid!

 

[matt1978]

and another thing while i'm on the go..............

Its only been the last 2-3 yrs that Gas prices have been rocketing up, supposedly because of the lack of supply from Russia etc, but I distinctly remember reading somewhere that big energy companies buy gas months if not years in advance and the price they pay then is the price they pay, not the current price which is touted in the news.......but they all jumped on the band wagon and inflated all the prices using the current price as the excuse even though that high price is not what they paid.

To make things worse, I also remember reading, a few months after all the initial price rises, that there was a glut of gas from Russia and gas was then a lot cheaper to buy (literally pennies for a Cubic whatever its measured in), but we (the public) wouldn't see any reductions in prices because of the companies buying gas in advance and was paying the prices from when it was expensive.

Am I being cynical or is it disgusting that the much cheaper gas prices from when the companies could and would of bought gas when there was a glut and was practically being given away, isn't and won't get passed on to us......they'll just keep wacking it up 20 odd percent every year.

 

[Welderpaul]

In my unit i have an incoming gas supply but it has never had a meter fitted. Gas is live to the meter valve

 

[rtbcomp]

In my unit i have an incoming gas supply but it has never had a meter fitted. Gas is live to the meter valve

A garage owner I knew had a gas meter with a by-pass valve. This valve was tied closed with wire so it couldn't be opened without breaking a seal. However, the gas board fastened the other end of the wire to the wrong place, so it just fell slack when the valve was opened!

 

[Welderpaul]

A garage owner I knew had a gas meter with a by-pass valve. This valve was tied closed with wire so it couldn't be opened without breaking a seal. However, the gas board fastened the other end of the wire to the wrong place, so it just fell slack when the valve was opened!

Wonder if oxy-methane would work...??!

 

[snowcat]

Not sure the boss would totally agree with you, as there's more to this set-up. They're at the stage now that they have an accumulator which gets pumped up when you brake, and the software turns off the engine when braking or stopped. Restart from a hydraulic motor. The beemer can get from 0 to 30 mph with the engine turned off!

Not saying there the same system, just saying it sounds a similar hi bred to these type trans, . The ones i know CVT have been developed to maximize fuel economy, obviously in plant its matching forward speed to torque, when you drive these bits of kit, you tell it how fast you wanna go parameters can be set from over boost on the engine to hydraulic flow rates, it then matches the load on the back, to the most efficient speed to the most economic engine revs to that speed, It constantly vary the torque to economy loading on the engine, whatever the operator has set the computer drives it in the most economic way.......The cassettes that power these machines are simple, the computers are not, GPS is just another dimension that adds economy, to the whole package, "self steer" will drive equipment within 20mm of where it should be to make 100% use of working widths, The same guidance will make bulldozers grade to 5mm tolarance.....



Trust me Cars are years behind on this, but then the average family car doesn't have the £80,000>250,000 price tag to play with...

BTW Fendt, the market leaders have been using this hydrostatic planetary, computer driven management for 15 odd years now.....and guess which country there from, yep Germany...

 

[English Steve]

I got caught with the gas price rise also. About 4 years ago I installed a gas-fired ESSE range for cooking and domestic hot water (not heating). It really is a brilliant bit of kit - not complaining at all about it. At the time the range cost me around £3.5K plus ancilliaries, and gas prices have been rising ever since . We made the investment because the alternatives were either more expensive (oil or electric) or less convenient (wood). Should have gone for solid fuel, but then tree prices would have rocketed!

 

[rtbcomp]

Slightly at a tangent...

I was watching Watcdog and they featured electric boilers.

What's the idea of using electricity to heat water to feed radiators when you could fit electric radiators in the rooms?

 

[runnach]

Slightly at a tangent...

I was watching Watcdog and they featured electric boilers.

What's the idea of using electricity to heat water to feed radiators when you could fit electric radiators in the rooms?

If you think about it rtbcomp, if you heat water via gas, it is only around 80% efficient, 20% exhausts to the atmospere (hot gas too) I rarely use my gas system to heat my water, I use the immersion heater, say I pay £1 for a unit of gas to heat water, 20% goes to waste. £1 leccie and 100% of my £1 goes to where I want it to go. Now for a typical 4 bed house with individuel leccie heaters, each one burns lot more than a single system ie, leccie heated boiler, also it is a pressurized system going round in a cycle, less power is used to bring water back to thermostatic temp. You get my drift?

 

[rtbcomp]

If you think about it rtbcomp, if you heat water via gas, it is only around 80% efficient, 20% exhausts to the atmospere (hot gas too) I rarely use my gas system to heat my water, I use the immersion heater, say I pay £1 for a unit of gas to heat water, 20% goes to waste. £1 leccie and 100% of my £1 goes to where I want it to go. Now for a typical 4 bed house with individuel leccie heaters, each one burns lot more than a single system ie, leccie heated boiler, also it is a pressurized system going round in a cycle, less power is used to bring water back to thermostatic temp. You get my drift?

Not convinced.

I accept although gas is cheaper it could be more expensive to deliver say 3Kw into a room. But with a 3 KW electric heater 100% goes into the room.

With 4 rooms and individual heater you burn 12 Kw, I bet you burn more than 12 kw in a boiler system, because you lose heat in the pipes and there's a loss heating the water from cold to 'stat temp.

Installation & maintenance costs must be much higher for a boiler system.

 

[MrFluffy]

Electricity vs oil or gas for a heat source, is *EXPENSIVE*. I think we worked it out on actual energy its 4 times the price for a unit of energy.
Mrs F's parents had a electric backboiler system when they first arrived in france, only to nearly faint at a 1500e bill for a quarters useage. It was superceeded by a oil fired boiler system...

 

[runnach]

Gents, a colleague at work who is a member of some institute or other to do with plumbing, heating and ventilation, receives a monthly mag to do with his industry. It was in this mag I read an interesting article about these electric boilers, gave all the stats and, compared with using LPG and oil, this was recent btw, with todays trends, stats were quite favorable, if not better than the other fuels I have mentioned. I was also interested because my son, who lives in a small private residential estate out in the sticks-ish, has to use LPG, I can honestly tell you, he pays £90 per month D/D and he still gets hit to pay more, especially during the winter months.

Appears the technology in electric heating only systems has made major advances to date, all that is offered here, is another option for people not able to tap in to mains gas.

Cheers...........

 

[malcolm]

Oil is bad enough. Seems more sensitive to the actual price of oil too. 28p/L last summer for heating oil. Now 60p/L. If you happen to rent an old farmhouse that wasn't very well built you'll be paying about £4000 a year on heating just now. Really trims the toy budget.

Just behind the house there are other sources of fuel (forget the fireman in the photo - early heating experiment gone wrong). Must be possible to use those wood chippings or the other wood knocking around.

 

[snowcat]

Oil is bad enough. Seems more sensitive to the actual price of oil too. 28p/L last summer for heating oil. Now 60p/L. If you happen to rent an old farmhouse that wasn't very well built you'll be paying about £4000 a year on heating just now. Really trims the toy budget.

Just behind the house there are other sources of fuel (forget the fireman in the photo - early heating experiment gone wrong). Must be possible to use those wood chippings or the other wood knocking around.

This is biomass malc, I did some research on the boilers to burn these products a few months ago, the idea is less than new early bale burners have been knocking round scince the 70s, just en vogue at the moment, essentially they are little more than a steam boiler, fired on wood chip, the grate is fed via a hopper and augur system......

OK heres the snake oil, part that iv ran into on everyone of these type of bio, boilers, in order for these boilers to work properly, the Wood chip needs to be A, processed, or B dry ed to contain under 20% moisture....... so in other words, unless you build a plant to either make pellets, or dry you wood chip it doesn't work, drying the stuff is bloody UN fuel efficient thus going back to square one......

BTW the guys selling the kit are quick to gloss over the small matter....

 

[rtbcomp]

I still don't see why heating water with electricity is more efficient than putting electric heaters in the rooms!

One point in its favour would be the ease to convert between fuels - just change the boiler, or for use with hybrid systems.

 

[rtbcomp]

The best way of using biomass is in aneorobix digesters.