No, no Brian. Have you ever worked behind a team of horses??? THEY make the gas. TomC
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Let’s see here a horse that farts will not tire and a man that farts is the man to hire
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Hannaville Indian reservation half way between here and Escanaba
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OK, yes, I was saying it wrong. So you are over near the Casino. So Johnny, to understand the constraints on your building a gasifier, are you of Indian decent? Your logging picture with horses made me think you were Amish or possibly Mennonite, but you said that your friends were of that religion. TomC
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My mother was Mennonite who left the church. Horses are more sustainable etc.
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So John, this is not the right forum for it but I would dispute the sustainability of horses depending on what kind of ground you have. I would say my 28hp tractor fed on charcoal requires less land and more marginal land then a team of horses. I live where open pastured land is a rare thing let alone rock free fields for oats. Trees though we have a lot. The tractor is under the charcoal section.
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Then I’m finished here as my intentions are to build a stationary power unit. This suplements some of the things I do with horses. Tractors verses horses zero comparison as they have advantages. We have horses, a tractor and a cat skids teen each with a purpose. Thanks guys
John, please don’t be finished here. There are other stationary units here and I for one am interested in anything that makes power from wood gas and I am sure we can answer questions and help you with build ideas. I think you are in the right place.
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We need you here John. I have a use for a stationary unit myself. I could use 100 HP for 22 hrs a day _6 days a week your views and thoughts would be invaluable to that end.
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Hi John,
I agree with the others, stationary units are being built here. I’ve been working on one, getting decent gas and learning a lot. There’s basically 2 designs, the WK (Wayne Keith type fully documented) and imbert styles (also well represented). Powering vehicles is just putting a stationary unit in a pickup bed, so there’s a lot of info that’s pertinent here, please stick around, you’ll be glad you did. Here’s a pic of my unit on a 4’ x 4’ pallet. Check out my entry in the Small gas section named “My first small engine run”, lots of how I did it photos, vids, etc. to picque your interest. This unit is an imbert type, presently with Line D dimensions on the imbert chart. This can easily be sized for 6 Kw. I would use 10 Kw dimensions though, woodgas has only 60 % of the energy of gasoline so oversizing design is better. Check out the library here to see the imbert chart.
Pepe
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What a great topic.
Why am I interest in wood gas. First off I live in an old farm house built in 1901 and it still has all the original windows door and siding so it doesn’t heat well. I burn 12 cord of wood a winter. I want to update the house but that is time and money I don’t have right now. Trying to get the old farm back inorder.
I left industry working as a controls engineer to move back to the farm. I enjoy growing my own food it is healthier by far compared to what you get at the store.
To me there are two big issues and being independent of the power company and fuel companies would be doing me small part about them.
First issue big business is the worst thing of our times. I have worked for big companies who actually told us in large group meeting we wouldn’t get a raise because payroll was just a cost to be controlled they needed to maximize profit. I have worked for small companies bought out by big companies only to see payroll fixed where it was and to see benefits dropped. All in the name of profits for the few at the top. So finial I decided what I could do is leave and not contribute to big business. I was through being part of a team which designed new systems worth millions if dollars a year in profit only to be told there was no way we could get bonuses or raises. I decided if they couldn’t give back to the employees who build the company I didn’t want to be a part of it.
The other part for me is the mess in the middle east. I honestly believe if it wasn’t for oil the usa never would have gone over there for the war that has raged for the better part of 2 decades now. I can’t begin to say how much that bugs me.
Then I look at my electric bill and see that very little of that bill is actually for the power most of the bill is fixed charges. That bugs me more big business just charging because they can if you ask me.
So in the end my interest is to not be part of the problem but to be part of the solution. Is wood the solution for everyone. No but then I think what everyone overlooks is that going forward there won’t be a one solution fits all world for energy. To me it is going to be look around at your local resources and see what will fit your needs best. Here I have more wood that rots every year then I could ever work up and use so it is a resource I have in abundance.
So that is it for me I am sick of working for big business and sick of being part of the oil market that drives wars in the middle east.
My goal is to provide local grass fed beef and to sell the excess hay I have but to do as much as I can with local resources. I don’t know if it is reasonable to think I could convert all the tractors to wood but I do have a truck I can start with and see just how much wood it takes to just haul the hay the mile back to my barns. That is a start. Last summer I got a small case ingersoll 448 garden tractor setup with a 10hp diesel motor that raked all my hay for the summer on just 7 gallons of fuel 10000 bales. My other tractors would have burned that same 7 gallons and only raked maybe 1000 bales of hay. So that was a big improvement. So that is where I am at and my goals.
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10,000 bales??? That would be 50 hay wagons of the small How many acres is you farm? TomC
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I have 105 acres of fields that have been neglected for about 15 years. I have gotten about 70 of them opened up so far. I brush hogged off another 15 acres in the fall only to find that the renters left massive ruts all over it. I still haven’t figured out how I will fix it in the spring. I don’t have the tools I should to fix it right.
Oh yes I do make the small square bales.
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I think I’ll throw my $0.02 in here even though I currently don’t drive on wood, but am just starting on a path to wood gas that will probably lead to there. I’ve been interested in wood gas since the mid/late 2000’s when fuel up here got to $1.50/litre ($5.67/USG). I bought a house in 2000, and heating oil was $.33/litre, this also shot up to .75/L at which point I went to pellets. The heating oil price eventually went to 1.40/ litre - that would have been a $6300.00 heating bill for one year in my old 1870 farmhouse - being a highly taxed Ontarian, I’d have to earn about $8700.00 gross to have enough left over to pay that bill. It was a crazy time with line ups at the pumps, and it all ended in the Global Financial Crisis when just about everything went bust - including my previous employer of 15 years. All of the above eventually became the meat and potatoes for a slow realization that things were changing in a way I had not seen before in my lifetime.
Fast forward again another 9 years or so, and things have not got any better up here, worse actually. The economic outlook going forward is bleak, Ontario has a horrible business climate these days, and we’ve lost hundreds of thousands of FT high paying jobs over the last decade. Federally, our new PM is still pretty fresh off the blocks, loves spending, deficits, and debt - he will be eaten alive by the likes Trump in the days to come. Seems like half our new “gender neutral” federal cabinet ministers were eligible for student wage 5 years ago.
The average Canadian family is already spending more on taxes than on food, shelter and clothing combined. It’s pretty clear to me at this point that the old days are gone for good, and things will definitely be getting even worse before anything get’s better. All current projections indicate that “getting better” is not even on the table prior to 2027.
So, in 2016 I formulated a plot to severely reduce my exposure to government at all levels. Some taxes I can’t avoid, same with some fees, but most of them can be massaged to some extent. That’s where wood gas comes in, heat, electricity (TOU supplement), maybe even a wood-gas powered vehicle.
I want to be prepared for them when the current revenue streams prove insufficient - they’re already pounding things you can’t say no to in Ontario like cars ownership, gasoline, and electricity. That will be the future for a good long time to come up here. I’m glad I live in a small village with a few acres around me so I can experiment with stuff like this!
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Strawman you don’t paint a pretty picture of life for my neighbors to the north. Though I think the major difference is your government is trying to pay it’s bills with taxes and we just act like they don’t exsist. I think you are right that good times are a long ways off for everyone too many past unbalanced debts the world over.
Glad you found your way here. I am also one of the ones who is learning and figuring out what I can do but hasn’t started building yet. In the short time I have been here I can tell you that this site gives me hope for the future. It is people like the ones here who will ultimately contribute the most to turning things around and finding a better life for themselves and their extended families. By extended families I mean friends who come together to help each other out with common interests.
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I read the whole thread and no-one said zombie apocalypse. I too have not driven on wood although I have driven slowly on another members charcoal tractor. Probably the better choice for our area and I hope to attach a charcoal rig to one of my tractors this summer. Same wish as last winter, it must be like a New Years eve resolution with me.
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That’s not fair Wyatt… its not the charcoals fault even on gasoline my fergie is slow!
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No disrespect meant to Fergie David, all tractors are slow compared to trucks. No comment about the zombie apocalypse?, that was definitely your button I was pushing, wanted to see if you were paying attention. I do think that " zombie apocalypse " can be used as an instantly recognizable label for any kind of major civilization disturbing event. I find post apocalyptic storytelling to be very interesting, when brainstorming for solutions to possible problems it can be very thought provoking and even enlightening to read what someone else has envisioned.
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