It might seem a little bit counterintuitive, but one of the more carbon-neutral ways of heating one’s home is by burning wood. Since the carbon for the trees came out of the air a geologically insignificant amount of time ago, it’s in effect solar energy with extra steps. And with modern stoves and well-seasoned wood, air pollution is minimized as well. The only downside is needing to feed the fire frequently, which [Anders] solved by building a robot.
[Anders]’ system is centered around a boiler, a system which typically sits in a utility area like a basement and directs its heat to the home via another system, usually hot water. An Arduino Mega controls the system of old boat winches and various motors, with a grabber arm mounted at the end. The arm pinches each log from end to end, allowing it to grab the uneven logs one at a time. The robot also opens the boiler door and closes it again when the log is added, and then the system waits for the correct set of temperature conditions before grabbing another log and adding it. And everything can be monitored remotely with the help of an ESP32.
The robot is reportedly low-maintenance as well, thanks to its low speed and relatively low need for precision. The low speed also makes it fairly safe to work around, which was an important consideration because wood still needs to be added to a series of channels every so often to feed the robot, but this is much less often than one would have to feed logs into a boiler if doing this chore manually. It also improves on other automated wood-burning systems like pellet stoves, since you can skip the pellet-producing middleman step. It also eliminates the need to heat your home by burning fossil fuels, much like this semi-automated wood stove.
Thanks to [Peter] for the tip!
Pellet stoves don’t really have an “extra step” when you consider that wood for a boiler or fireplace needs to be gathered (or bought) and split. Somebody is doing that. I can understand somebody trying to automate an existing boiler, but the part I take exception to is that it is useful as a general idea. Far too many opportunities for error and/or failure. I have a large house that I heat almost exclusively via a fireplace and a wood stove. I get a lot of valuable exercise collecting, chainsawing, and splitting the wood … feeding the fires is trivial by comparison and with the right wood the intervals are pretty long.
Also, pellets are often made from sawdust and waste wood that would otherwise go into the garbage stream.
I like this but I’d be very concerned about having it operate unattended. In particular, if anything prevents the door from closing (including a log or twig caught in the door), the oxygen flow can raise the firebox temperature to dangerous levels.
Geologically insignificant time period all depends on the eye of the beholder.
Everyone and everything other than yourself is insignificant if you’re a beholder.
this is another example of an idea bieng published
long before it has been validated with proof of trouble free operation over an extended time period.most of these ideas are built on some
variation of optimising a supposed drudgery
with automation.
amazing skill set applied to creating a solution
AND a problem that it cant solve
funny thing is that I am,right now,sittin by the stove,all toasty warm,happy with the solution
to not having clearance to place the stove,by
removing a wall,and slightly relocating it ,in
Brick,parging with a lime/cement/sand mortor
which then is top coated with a white refractory
cement,brick wall gets warm,holds heat,and
releases enough to warm the next room,
aprox,1000 bricks,and since they are bieng parged
they dont have to match,except for size,
I buy left over lots from the brickyard at a discount,no moving parts and as opening the windows at night during the summer to cool the house off is already my habit,the bricks will help
keep the house cool.
Another project will be to build an automated system to pump air from the whichever area
needs heating/cooling ie attick to basement
with a differential thermostat,but the ducting will
be large,keeping the fans quiet will be tricky
and dehumidification will be a nesessary feature
but another step in an autonoumous house project
Nah, ChatGPT knows proper punctuation and wouldn’t write “nesessary” or “autonoumous”.
Tompall Glaser’s famous song…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BWpYQjuJ0u0
I am not too sure about “It might seem a little bit counterintuitive, but one of the more carbon-neutral ways of heating one’s home is by burning wood. Since the carbon for the trees came out of the air a geologically insignificant amount of time ago, it’s in effect solar energy with extra steps.”. While I understand the perspective, it is only valid if the wood consumed is replaced to bind out the released carbon. If more wood is harvested than is re-grown then this is just accelerating deforestation and releasing more net carbon.
Plus, in typical use burning wood releases horrible amounts particulate pollution. It takes significant effort to make wood burning cleaner. Of course particulate pollution is limited to a smaller area so it is mostly the burner’s worry anyways.
I disagree. We have a stove that burnes the smoke like a wood gas burner. Litle to no smoke and almost no soot when the chimney gets swept.
Depending on where you live, cutting wood is actually a net carbon storage gain, because when you do so, the young tree can grow faster and they capture more CO2 than the old “umbrella” tree. If you don’t cut them, they might collapse and rot, releasing CO2 and (worst) CH4 in the process.
If the forest is well managed, there is carbon balance anyway since the forest will regrow by itself. If the forest isn’t well managed, it’s likely it’s already full of carbon and won’t store anymore (the balance of the CO2 captured is equal to the CO2 generated by dead wood decomposition).
The worst case is when you cut wood to use the land afterward for something (like building a parking lot or a “architect house” that’s mainly made of concrete). In that case, most of the wood is crushed to flakes and thrown away where it doesn’t produce heat, only CH4 (and I’m not even speaking of the CO2 releases to create the concrete at first).
Thanks for posting that. I also came here to challenge this assertion, but you did a better job than I would have.
This is impressive, it’s clear a lot of work went into this. Thanks for making a video documenting your progress!
I’m happy to see your comment.
jeez, the number of “well ackshually” comments here about the burning of wood, some lacking esoteric features, etc. is depressing–the guy built a large-scale, functional, useful cartesian robot out of an aluminum ladder, some 2×4 lumber, skate wheels, and bicycle chains! Impressive indeed.
“counterintuitive, but one of the more carbon-neutral ways of heating one’s home is by burning wood. Since the carbon for the trees came out of the air a geologically insignificant amount of time ago”
Wait, what?
You mean there are different values to carbon, and to CO2? New C and new CO2 is safer than older C/CO2? I had no idea. I thought the idea of atoms and molecules was that they were indistinguishable and equivalent.
Glad to have that cleared up. I’m off let that “old oil” from existing wells rest safely in the ground whilst I drill some new wells to bring up that safer “new oil” to improve the environment.
Just lookin’ out for y’all!
I can’t tell if you’re trolling, or just typical Climate Change denying? Yes. There is “new” and “old” CO2 emissions.
As stated, burning wood isn’t great for particulates, but in terms of CO2 emissions, its not that bad. All that CO2 being released was captured a relatively short time ago via the trees growth, and returning it to cycle back into new growth is a largely net neutral operation.
Oil, Gas and Coal Fossil Fuels are just that; Fossilized, fixed and locked out of the environment for geological timescales. Until now. The CO2 it releases was sequestered millions of years ago, and adding it to the environment now produces a net increase in the CO2 global levels.
It’d be good to see:
* An add-on for wood burning stoves that has a lambda sensor in the flue and that meters the appropriate amount of air to ensure complete combustion.
* A diesel particulate filter adapted for a wood-burning stove.
Bonus points for powering these with a Peltier junction or a Stirling engine.
a DPF would quickly clog with ash
We do have particulate filter for wood burners. Its called wodd gas burners.
Can he use the fire to power a generator? (Surprised wood fuelled generators aren’t a big thing when wood fuelled stoves and hearths are so popular, does wood burn too cold compared to liquid fuels to give good carnot efficiency to a generator) Then use the electricity from this generator, via any needed inverters or DC converters, to power the robot? Would have a very nice element of system resilience to it, just provide a little initial power to get started, and keep it supplied with wood, and both the fire and the robot tending it could run forever.
(About to watch vid, so sorry if he explains it there and I just haven’t seen it yet)
Yes, you can produce electricity from any heat source. I leave the implementation details to the reader to figure out.
Adding wood (“logging-on”) is only one part of managing your fire.
In order to keep a good hot fire going, the logs have to be re-positioned quite often.