A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

Methane for heating?

I'm in the latter stages of planning for my new greenhouse and am considering using a methane burner for heating my greenhouse, due to being able to generate my own methane from my animals waste (chickens, rabbits, etc.) and being able to use the exhaust as a CO2 generator for my plants. Does any have any experience with this kind of setup or with methane burners that there willing to share? Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Rick Stillwagon on April 1, 2012 at 9:00pm

You should be able to use any natural gas heater. The orifice should work fine as you are using a very low pressure. There is a really neat heater that requires no electricity, it

is called the southern belle, I ordered one from the greenhouse megastore for a customers greenhouse we are building in portland. we are also putting a heating coil on the platen above the heat exchanger to heat the water for the fish tanks.

Permalink Reply by Pices on April 2, 2012 at 7:20am

Did you make the heating coil or is it a commercial product?

Rick Stillwagon said:

You should be able to use any natural gas heater. The orifice should work fine as you are using a very low pressure. There is a really neat heater that requires no electricity, it

is called the southern belle, I ordered one from the greenhouse megastore for a customers greenhouse we are building in portland. we are also putting a heating coil on the platen above the heat exchanger to heat the water for the fish tanks.

Permalink Reply by Ronald Wickline on April 2, 2012 at 7:50am

I'm building the unit so that I can include a heat exchanger in it, I figure that way I'm not only heating the air but I can use the heated fluid to either heat my water or run coils in or under my grow medium for better winter growth. Mostly using salvaged parts. The system is actually very simple. The burner is inside a container (Beer keg) and coil unit is hung above burner and uses radiant heat to move the heated liquid. No electricity involved. I'm planning on trying to use wind and solar for most of my electricity with a backup of the grid. I also figure that I'll have to run a closable exhaust pipe in case I ever have to switch to back-up LPG.

Bill Barker said:

Did you make the heating coil or is it a commercial product?

Rick Stillwagon said:

You should be able to use any natural gas heater. The orifice should work fine as you are using a very low pressure. There is a really neat heater that requires no electricity, it

is called the southern belle, I ordered one from the greenhouse megastore for a customers greenhouse we are building in portland. we are also putting a heating coil on the platen above the heat exchanger to heat the water for the fish tanks.