Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat

Growing => Growing in Greenhouses & Polytunnels => Topic started by: ambodach on May 15, 2015, 22:47

Title: Water filled plastic milk containers as heat source for P/T
Post by: ambodach on May 15, 2015, 22:47

I visited an "very-green" couple some years back who were very proud of their P/T from recycled materials - I had to enquire why all the milk containers and was told they were filled with water and this was heat recovery for night-time.

Is this effective?   I'm in the process of building a 24ft long  tunnel and my maths is suggesting that if I have 48ft 's worth of bottles they would be storing 9 kWh of heat at 20 deg C.  As there is so many variables in the equations for this, what is the empirical experience of anyone who has tried this ?

Thanks
Rob

Title: Re: Water filled plastic milk containers as heat source for P/T
Post by: cadalot on May 16, 2015, 06:51

I use milk bottles full of sand as soft bricks and they go brittle very quickly, so having them in direct sunlight in a greenhouse they are going to degrade even faster - Good thing is with the amount of milk we drink I have a continuous supply.

Title: Re: Water filled plastic milk containers as heat source for P/T
Post by: Dave NE on May 16, 2015, 09:41

Have a look at (death of the rocket stove) youtube, it might help, cheers Dave

Title: Re: Water filled plastic milk containers as heat source for P/T
Post by: JayG on May 16, 2015, 10:40

Fairly recent thread discussing thermal storage:

http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=118332.msg1383695#msg1383695