Methane generators

[Jared77]

Are they worth it? I saw one mentioned by a guy who was on Doomsday Preppers and it got me thinking. He had hogs, chickens and human waste going into a tank and was heating his house (granted it was Texas) and cooking with it. His set up was a closed tank that was underground that was plumbed into the house.

Anybody have any experience with this? In a perfect situation Id heat my house, dry my clothes and cook with it. I doubt thats realistic but I'm wondering what really is realistic? Thank you

 

[SSDreamin]

I hope you get some replies. I saw that episode too and was very interested in that set up. Would love to get away from the propane company, ouch! (No offense to my brother, who WORKS for the propane company, but making use of waste and not paying out the nose for propane, sounds pretty sweet to me!)

 

[Denim Deb]

Never heard of one. Do you have a link? I like the idea.

ETA: If it runs on waste, I'd have no trouble keeping it full! After all, I own horses, and they' produce a ton of the stuff.

 

[Jared77]

It was just a passing comment they made. The showed his tank and how he had drains in the floor of the pig pen that were piped and how he'd piped his house toilets to all go into the methane generator. Then they showed how he converted his stove to methane and started cooking with that beautiful blue flame. His logic was methane is produced why not harness it? And it doesn't smell when burned. Wood smoke smells so when people are looking for civilization since they failed to plan, they'd smell and see the smoke thus drawing people to his compound. I got his logic, I just wish they'd have talked more about the methane generator.

 

[SSDreamin]

http://www.small-farm-permaculture-and-sustainable-living.com/methane_generator.html

Found this - has free plans, plus a how to video.

 

[Denim Deb]

I did a bit of research and have found that there are dairy farms that are using a methane generator to produce electricity to power the farm. And it really got me to wondering about using it for an off the grid power source. My idea was this: use a rocket mass heater for heating the house. Then, use a combination of a methane generator, solar and wind to provide electricity. How much each would need to provide would depend on the situation, and what all is available. Between the 3 horses that I own, they produce at least 75 lbs of manure per day. That is way more manure than I can use in my garden. However, not everyone has large manure machines so they wouldn't have the same source available to them, and may need to rely more on wind and/or solar. Does this make sense?

 

[ThrottleJockey]

I already have a septic tank/field, I wonder how difficult converting that system would be? I guess it already IS generating methane, just curious how to capture it. Anyone have any thoughts?

 

[Joel_BC]

I don't know much, practically speaking, about methane generators. No one around here has built one, as far as I know. I do know I was thumbing through some old homesteading books in a friend's library, and learned that a lot of these generators were built in India around 1970 or before - and continuing on. They were built because they served a real purpose... setting them up must have been worth it in India.

 

[Joel_BC]

I did three minutes of searching on Youtube and found these.

Here's a vid about the general topic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1fOA2qyXgA&feature=related
(I found the volume to be pretty low on this vid, so had to turn my computer's speaker all the way up.)

Here's a vid about building a small-scale set-up at home:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHGamnQu_-k

 

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