Car Engine Generator to Power a House

[crackle]

Hi,

I'm new to the forum and not sure if an electricians forum is the correct place for this post, but it is an electrical question, so hopefully someone can help.

Many years ago, a workmate of mine was looking into powering his house off a diesel car engine. I didn't think that this could be done, but apparantly he had all the plans and instructions on how to do this and he informed me that there were hundreds of homes already powered this way.

Not only did the engine generate all the electricity, but water was heated by pumping cooling water around the engine which was then plumbed into the house hot water supply and central heating. The engine is usually situated in a soundproofed enclosure in a garage away from the house I believe.

I've lost contact with my ex workmate many years ago and cannot seem to find anything on the internet concerning this.

Does anyone know of a system whereby a house can be powered off a car engine and, with the price of fuel nowadays, is it still a viable proposition?

Grateful for any comments on this.:confused:

[Central Scrutinizer]

well the engine could be used as a prime mover to turn a generator, but would not be generating itself

your next problem would be matching a generator to engine speed. The frequency from the generator would have to be 50hz, and using the formula F= NP/60, where N=speed (in rpm), and P is the number of pole pairs per phase of the generator, so a single pole generator would have to spun at exactly 3000rpm, a two pole at 1500 rpm etc. Once you have a speed controller/governor to set the engine speed according to your generator )and of course to maintain the frequency under varying load conditions), then there is no reason that you couldnt do this. You would also need a voltage regulator to control the genny output,

how cost effective this would all be is a different matter - and trouble is, if you get it wrong, and your voltage or frequency is wrong, you could end up blowing everything in your house - ouch!

[rocker]

From a record producer's point of view, there is no way you could soundproof a diesel engine in your garage. You of course have to have an exhaust, and even a 1 inch hole in otherwise perfect soundproofing material will render it completely bloody useless. Fire-wise, its a nightmare. It just so happens that the best type of soundproofing material tends to burn up real good! And you don't want that around a hot engine.

I guess you could bury it or something? But then we come back to the eternal question: how far down do you own? Anyway, can't you get diesel generators that are designed to generate electicity at the most efficient rate? Apparently you can put chip-fat in them as well, as long as you cleanse it with a bit of caustic soda. Just pop round the local chip shop, scratch their back and they will scratch yours, and yum yum lots of delicious free electricity.

If only it was that simple. I do a bunch of stupid stuff for renewable free energy - for example I have ripped apart a load of garden solar lights, got them charging some aa batteries, and use the batteries for 'movie watching time' late night lighting in the summer - it works really well off of LEDs and has probably saved me 40 pence off my yearly electricity bill. That doesn't matter - I am saving the world! (Like there is a little man in the supergrid going 'Oh Rocker has turned off his living room light, we don't need to generate 44000 volts any more). I also made a battery charging turbine off of an old electric whisk that didn't work so well. And I really like your idea of partially heating a house from the cooling water used for the engine (as long as we had some form of condenser in there to actually make the water *cool* again before it went back around the engine), but I fear that if you want decent, renewable energy, you can get a little way at home, but eventually you are going to have to pay the big boys for it.

[rocker]

Ooh ooh and also regarding Central's post relating to blowing everything up - ever done an insulation resistance test and forgot to unplug the customer's £1800 plasma with 'fancy' diodes and screen cells? Hmmmm I wouldn't advise it if your brother doesn't run a Currys.

[crackle]

Thanks for your input guys.

Phew, seems a little more complicated than I thought !

Strange thing is, I distinctly remember my workmate having all the instructions/plans etc. to do this, but I can't seem to find any info on it anywhere.

Perhaps it's an American thing, or a 'fad' from the eighties that died a death!

Just have to keep making E.ON even richer by the looks of it!

[Central Scrutinizer]

Well things like this are like becoming a successfull businessman - if it was easy everyone would be doing it!!!!!!

and really, I can see little to be gained by using an old car engine over just buying an 'off the shelf' deisel engined generator anyway!