Building a cheap home heating system. Please help refine this idea.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YvkZxtg-Ck
Published: 2026-05-02
Author: Horse
Post Date: 2026-05-02 09:43:06 by Horse
Views: 75


 

This system could cheaply heat the coils underneath your house. Please consider this and offe your suggestions. 

This is a brilliant solution to what I want to build which is a climate battery greenhouse. I want to use a mini excavator to dig a 5 foot deep hole which I would fillwith soil. soil biology, biochar and organic feedstock (leaves, wood chips, worm feces, manure tea, etc.) This would solve the heating problem by placing heating coils on the bottom and possibly sides of that hole. I could run that greenhouse 12 months a year producing food in January. My only problem would be producing far red and infrared light to feed the photosynthesis process.

Any suggestions?

 I subscribed to his Youtube channel

I just found this video 

 (I suppose you would have to switch from one system to the other when seasons change) What do you think.)

 


 

 

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#1: Pinguinite    To: Horse (#0)

The solar heating system sounds plausibly advantageous over solar electric.  An AI check on the basic claims would be in order.  Only thing I question is the $100 setup costs.  It will certainly be more than that if you want to do anything more than heat water.  It needs some kind of way to circulate the water through the pipe, maybe a pump or maybe it can be self pumping.    Water heated to well above boiling means it needs pressurized containment meaning all piping everywhere has to be very well sealed, including a sand heat battery piping and or a heated water tank.  Conventional hotwater tanks are not pressurized.  This is also a safety concern as any spontaneous break in the piping could cause serious burn injury or property damage.  You also want to ensure no damage can occur if the water flow  through the pipes stops for whatever reason during a hot day.

For you people living at seasonal latitudes, seems a good option is a combination of sand battery and a hot water battery, and maybe the optional electrical generator as well.  Some kind of intelligent heat balancing between the 3.  Generation when you need it, perhaps going through a series of car batteries for good power stability for household appliances that need steady power, with a computer system to monitor temps between the sand battery and water tank to control water valve direction of the hot water flow.  Maybe including a servo for moving the mirrors a bit in the case everything gets too overcharged and you want to reduce heat input.  But maybe the sand battery (thanks for posting vids about that earlier as I'd not heard of those before) might be the adequate overflow heat storage for everything.  Hell, at 400 degrees, that's enough to cook with, if only during the day.

There is also the idea of running wide diameter air duct piping through the ground for general home heating and cooling.  That is adequate for green housing produce in the winter, but it can also keep the home to about 50 degrees as a base temp. then the solar water heating could elevate it from that.  Maybe the hot water pipes could be inside the underground piping so it picks up the pipe heat as the air is pump through the underground ducts.  In the summer, of course completely disconnect the hot water in the pipes for reasonably effective AC.  

Solar heating does require good sky exposure, of course.  Maybe it could be elevated to work above trees in wooded lots.  Do the math to see how much mirroring is needed for capturing needed heat power that way and the ground required to support it.  Everything I described would seem to be very robust and cost probably a 5k or 6k in hardware and maybe an equal amount of that value in labor.  But it would certainly be interesting and rewarding in both satisfaction and practical results.

Pinguinite posted on 2026-05-02 20:46:28   Reply   Private Reply

#2: Horse    To: Pinguinite (#1)

Thanks.

Horse posted on 2026-05-03 13:06:18   Reply   Private Reply

#3: titorite    To: Horse (#0)

Heat up sand.

titorite posted on 2026-05-03 17:11:32   Reply   Private Reply

#4: ghostrider    To: Horse (#2)

 

 

ghostrider posted on 2026-05-03 17:17:38   Reply   Private Reply

#5: Esso    To: Horse (#0)

The most efficient heat you'll ever get is a non-vented gas fireplace (NatGas or propane).
I put one in my house ~15 years ago, my highest winter NatGas bill last year in the winter is ~$45.
My minimum gas bill is ~$16 at zero usage, the service fee for just being hooked up, but I have a gas stove too.
They're stone ax reliable and almost zero-maintenance. I just blow out the dust in the unit out (especially the pilot assembly) at the beginning of the season.
They don't require electricity unless you add a blower to it which is negligible. I use convection to circulate the heat.
I put one in Chris's LR to supplement his central forced air heat (and A/C).

Most AltE schemes are unreliable and expensive and a waste of money and time fixing it.

The most efficient water heat I've come up with is a well insulated, self-cleaning electric water heater converted to 120V low-Watt density elements.
You could leave it 240V if recovery is an issue, but low-Watt density elements are a must for reliability.
I tried an instantaneous gas W/H when I built the house. Complicated, unreliable, I abandoned it in-place when parts became obsolete.
Heat pump waters are good, great, excellent and save a ton of money on electricity until they fail (I tried that too). Too expensive, not repairable.
Gas water heaters have large standby losses from the tank venting into the atmosphere via convection out the flue, but have the best recovery time. Shut off devices, like bimetallic dampers, for the flue are illegal here.

The project I had the best luck with was a rain water reclamation system that I used to flush my toilets around 2010 which is illegal with city water/sewage.
The city charges a penny for water and two cents for sewage, measured by the intake water meter in units, 100cu/ft or 748 gallons.
Their new "smart meters" measure to the gallon and can tell if you have an active water leak.
So, that's illegal AF in a city-setting, rural on a septic may be different, but the goob gets teary-eyed if you 'steal' rainwater.

You know where to find me, Dan. I can answer about any question about this stuff for you.
I'll tell you why it won't work or how it's illegal.

FWIW, I'm pretty sure that this new, 'smart' water meter they forced me to have put in my house that I can get an an instantaneous reading of water usage online, any day, can probably tell me tell me when I diddling Dr. Kimmy's clit, not unlike the new gas meter and electric meter.

What else would be this new, massive proliferation of "Data Centers" be about? What 'data'?

Somebody needs to make the goose meme into:

"What data?"

"WHAT DATA ARE YOU LOOKING AT?"

I used to work for those people until they started breaking the law.

Esso posted on 2026-05-03 20:19:28   Reply   Private Reply

#6: Horse    To: Esso (#5)

I am more concerned about heating greenhouses.

My original plan was to get a mini-excavator dig out a out 5 X  120 X 40 foot pit and then dig a trench 270 feet long going 
from the pit out 90 feet or so and then across 90 feet and then back 90 more for a total of 270.
That would geive me 50 degree heat 12 months a year. That would only require a little heat in the winter and provide some cooling 
in the heat of summer.

I would fill in the pit with soil, soil biology, compost, leaves, vermicompost, manure and compost tea, wood chips and biochar. The 
filled in pit would become my garden with 5 feet of topsoil after I gave it 90 days to meld together while growing an initial mix of 
crops and green manure, Then I could grow organic crops with a high Brix reading (3 times supermarket crap). Brix measures 
the photosyntheses in your fruit and vegetables.

We will have to either buy specialty lighting or make it ourselves. The original Edison bulbs made in 1910 have been burning 24 hours 
a day ever since.

They were made by glass blowers. We can help someone revive the art. If we can't find one already in business to make special far red,
infrared and ultraviolet lights for our greenhouses. The Greenhouse panels block most of the energy from far red and infrared rays. And 
ultraviolet rays  which kills plany pathogens. Those only need to run 10 minutes at a time, twice a day.

That is why greenhouse veggies do not taste good - a lack of sunlight means insufficient photosynthesis.

I need to keep the pit above 72 F and the air above 80 degrees F.  That will give me huge veggies that will taste good four times a year.

Keeping the pit warm might require coils on the side as well as the bottom.

It might take 20 fulltime self-employed gardeners to make it work. Any orders received by 6 pm could be sorted in the computer and
given to the 20 or so gardeners who would fill their orders before 8 am. One pesron would drop off at restaurants, specialty markets 
and with some going to special orders sold to families who could pick them at a one or two locations in town. Small businesses who
would want the extra foot traffic, or even a small businessman who would want to partner with us.

I will have zero fertilizer costs at a time when food prices are soaring. It could work.

Horse posted on 2026-05-03 23:43:10   Reply   Private Reply