Ken I would suggest getting a lot of vents in the building, because Carbon Monoxide is lighter than air and blends at all levels. Maybe run a fan in the building pointing out a window to keep air circulating.
A 10kw generator sounds like it should work, powering a well can always be a challenge if it isn’t dual voltage. I have a 240v only well pump so I’m in the same camp.
If you have the funding for it I’d look for a twin cylinder slightly above that KW size. Then your generator won’t always have to be at full tilt to power the home and maybe give you wiggle room for directly powering the well.
One thing you could do is run your 120 Volt side of things with a battery bank and inverters, and power the well with the 240 Volt output of the generator directly. For the house’s 120 Volt side you can also get some solar panels to help out with charging the battery bank.
You can buy charge controllers that use a 120v plug and it will start and stop depending on the status of the batteries.
Man you are right on point, that’s what i needed to hear. I will definitely make sure to put more ventilation in the shed, i don’t need to die trying to survive. I like your thinking with the well pump because i was thinking i would definitely have to some how transfer power only to the well most of the time when i need it and use the batteries to power lights when taking showers and things of that nature. Thank you for your help, i really appreciate it. I try to talk to my wife about things but she eventually zones out lol
In the book “Wood Gasifier Builder’s Bible” by Ben Peterson he’s made a size chart based on engine size. I highly suggest that book for use in stationary engines I own a copy myself. You can find it on Amazon.
There are other size charts here on the Library portion of the non-forum side of the website, but they’re geared more to automobile engine sizes.
You mentioned woodchips, do you already get them in chip form or do you get dimensional lumber boards? Chunks would be more ideal, maybe Jenga blocks sized for starters. You could rip them lengthwise with a table saw and chop them down with a mitre saw or again with a table saw. Building with chunks in mind you also have the opportunity to use fallen tree limbs, or small trees that you can manage with coppicing.
Hi Ken,
Welcome. I can tell you are going to fit right in around here.
If I were you I would first read Tractor with gas? Tone has made a gasifier for his tractor that I think will work for a stationary system. He also seems to be starting to generate electric power for his sawmill.
Many people on here start by making a charcoal gas generator because it is a very simple way to get started building. Baby steps first, and all that.
Of course Tools, Tips and Tricks is a huge source of all kinds of good info.
Don’t try to read everything. You cannot.
Have fun.
Rindert
Hi Ken, Welcome to DOW. You might read Matt Ryder’s postings on here. He builds Thrive off Grid gasifier systems. Matt is 100% off grid for his home and welding shop. Your generator will have to be oversized as it will lose capacity (20-30%) operating on wood. Will you be using pine chunks or pine chips from work? (Chips from like a tree chipper make a difference) Pine is less energy dense vs hardwoods. Your system will need to be built around your feedstock and the engine size you need to power for your electrical generation needs.
Actually i was thinking of cutting them up for wood chips but now they are all in small chunks already. I work for Carter Lumber, I’m a plant supervisor at one of there truss manufacturing plants and we have to pay someone to come take all our scrap, so i can take as much as i want home.
Pine will work fine if that’s all you can get, you’ll just have to refill the hopper more often and clean out the ash area more often.
Hardwoods are more ideal for density reasons. Just like a wood stove.
Can you take a picture of the wood chunks you already have?
It would be best to go ahead and start a stockpile, if you can get plastic 55 gallon drums you could store them in that to keep them dry, or maybe an old IBC tote that won’t hold water anymore and throw a tarp over it.
Yea i thought about starting to hoard some wood lol but that’s why i was thinking of turning it into wood chips because then i could store it in a stand up grain bin and use a auger to move it into the shed. That way i could always keep it dry
Wood chips typically have their own design hurdles to cross, being lighter they can hang up in the hopper. Not saying it’s impossible but it could be a challenge. Maybe if you modified a chipper to make very large chips. Stephen Abaddessa of Northern Self Reliance has made wood chip gasifiers, though he modified a chipper to ensure he’s getting decent sizes. Less wastage that you have to screen out.
It’s definitely something i would like to try and figure out, i think storage of all this wood will be a big factor too. Any idea on how to store large quantities of wood chunks? Because how i was going to transport it home from work was just use a dump truck
You could make crates out of pallets, or IBC totes with a door cut out to shovel the wood.
For intermediate storage inside the shed you could make wire baskets like the old office trash cans they used to have, any remaining moisture in the wood will sweat out if you have a flow of warm air going over the wood. The dryer the wood the better. You could just as easily use buckets if the wood is already really dry and hasn’t been rained on.
The wood will absorb some of the humidity in the air so it’s somewhat unavoidable, but that amount isn’t an issue for a gasifier. Just keep it from getting rained on.
One IBC Tote is usually 250-300 gallons, that’s a lot of wood.
Welcome to the DOW KennethZ.
I’m linking this back up to your intro post so other reading now will realize your rural location (climate), that you do have “woods”.
Later down you say your own well, and assume septic system.
I have caught up reading your answering post to hear your work would be suppling the 2x4 kiln dried pine cutoffs.
You say your end project goal is an electrical generator, " . . to power my home so I can be energy independent."
A couple of your homes current energy category usages questions please:
How do you heat this home? With wood? Does you family expect hot weather air-conditioning?
How do you make your domestic hot water? What is your cooking heat source? Cloths dring heat in the winter?
The reason I ask these is some of us are using wood to power these needs. Unusually directly by stoves/furnaces direct burning of the wood. Not by wood to gas → fuel gas to electricity → then to electric heating. Too many steps. Each step requiring complications. Each step eating 10-30% of the energy efficiency. Real easy to stack-up 10% losses bury yourself.
Now on the wood to electricity, not make heat needs; it has become relatively easy to set up a 4-6 hour batch producing system fueled by dimensional wood cut offs. Softwoods or hardwoods.
Ben Petersons “Woodgas Builders Bible” was specifically written for this. His years experiences makes him to recommend engines of at least 3 cylinders and 500-1000cc. With very durable electric starting. And he does promote and personally use PV solar, and a battery bank as first up. Then his woodgas batch system is supplemental suppling and like for 240VAC boosting that.
Now taking those conifer cut-offs and fuel chipping them with the hope for an automated self-feeding system that can and has been done too.
Lots and lots of need extra energy input steps and chip feeding augers; motors power supplies; and controls/timer systems to make that Auto-work.
Not on the DOW but I can point out youtube links to those insisting on this way.
You Ohio woods makes for hardwoods, yes? Hardwoods makes the best wood charcoal fuels.
For your current small 4375/3500 electrical generator (very hard to raw wood, woodgas systems this small) do consider making up a much simpler charcoal gasification system for it.
Get your feet wet on gasification powering.
The best way to bring you wife around is to show results, as quickly as possible and least intimidating.
Info on these is here on the DOW looking under the upper tool bar stacked papers Icon for Small engines charcoal gasification.
Man Steve you raised a lot of good questions, I’ll try to answer them all. Currently we heat with propane, same goes for water heater and cooking stove. I do plan on installing a wood stove to heat the house and i was going to run my hot water set up with the wood stove. I would be interested in trying to figure out how to run a propane stove off of wood gas. Eventually I’d like to have a truck set up to run on wood gas too, but one thing at a time. Along with your question about the auger system, i probably won’t put it on a timer system because I’d want to keep an eye on the system when it’s running, I’d try to have it set up on manual switches to feed into the power house and feed it myself. One thing someone brought up was using wood chunks instead of wood chips, so i need to do more research on what works best
