Hand Cranked water heater?

CRACKERMAN · Tar Sands Joined: Jul 28, 2008 Posts: 26

I am trying to find some place where you can buy a hand cranked water heater and a hand cranked coffee pot. I must not be using the correct search term, but what I am looking for is something sort of like those battery powered radios / lights that you can run off battery power or you can just turn the crank.

Have any of you seen anything like what I am talking about?

I am also looking for any and all hand cranked chargers. Mostly when I search google, all I find are flash lights or documents that talk about them, but never link to one I can buy.

alokin · Intermediate Crude Joined: Aug 24, 2007 Posts: 885

Never heard of a hand cranked water heater and I cannot imagine that it works. (I guess you mean that one for the shower). We had an electric water heater and it used up HALF of our electricity use, I really cannot imagine that you crank this with your hands, even not for a tea kettle.
Far more realistic I think is connecting a bicycle to a battery, and this is hard enough, but these constructions exixts.

Rabbit · Heavy Crude Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 121

I used a Hudsen Sprayer and a large bucket to take a shower before. You pour a kettle of warm water into the sprayer and then give it a few pumps to create pressure. The one I used held about 2 gallons. It's enough for a basic military shower.

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bobaloo · Heavy Crude Joined: Oct 14, 2004 Posts: 485

Those had cranked lights and radios use about ONE watt of power. The coffee maker uses 600-1000, the water heater about 6000 watts. You'd need a long lever to get those 6000 people all cranking at once....

Aimrehtopyh · Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 10:24 pm Post subject: Re: Hand Cranked water heater?

This might actually be doable with a heat pump of some kind.

The smallest air conditioner (heat pump) that General Electric makes requires 520 watts of input to operate. Too bad your body can only sustain about 100 watts of output through a stationary bicycle.

Does anybody make a heat pump that a dude could operate by lashing it to a stationary bike?

Maybe one of those little wine chests would have a compressor small enough.
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SheikYarbhouti · Tar Sands Joined: Jan 27, 2008 Posts: 25

There are other ways to heat water without using natural gas or electricity. If you have good sun in your area you can build or buy a solar water heater. They work really well, and can be as simple as a black garbage bag full of water set out in the sun (or one of these camping showers) or as complex as a 40 (or more) gallon setup that is integrated into the existing plumbing in your house. Or barring all that, just build a fire. Safely, of course. Once you've got hot water figured out, all you need for coffee is a good french press and you're set. Although if we're in a situation where both NG and electricity are scarce and very expensive, getting the coffee in the first place might be a larger issue...

alokin · Intermediate Crude Joined: Aug 24, 2007 Posts: 885

depends were you're living, our solar water heater is a thermosiphon system and is very good for all climates at least as warm as the Mediterranean. As far as I know they can't deal with frost. We don't use the electric booster.

pedalling_faster · Intermediate Crude Joined: Dec 10, 2005 Posts: 947

i used to think about this when i did a lot of bicycling in the hills around Woodside & Portola Valley, what some people call the "Santa Cruz Mountains".

weighing 150 pounds with 25 pounds of bicycles & gear, i was generating 175 ft-lbf/ second, if i was climbing at a rate of 1 foot per second. if i could bear not to stop & look at the view on Highway 35 (looking West through the redwoods towards the ocean), i would keep going to the high point on that particular route (looking East through the redwoods).

for 45 minutes. i think it came out to a 1/4 horsepower, my maximum output.

(disclaimer - it's been a while. it's possible i'm mixing up ft-lbf/ second, a power measure, and watts, and horsepower units.)

i would need a shower from that hand-cranked water heater, but any cold water would be welcome at that point.

short version, what people have already said - it takes a huge amount of human energy output to create enough energy to heat water.

another example - a pool with 12 lanes, 3 people in each lane, each swimming their approximate maximum for one hour.

most of that energy goes into the water of the pool. it's about 100,000 gallons, admittedly, but it doesn't get any warmer. starts at 83 F, finishes at 83 F. of course there is a layer of concrete & then the earth, so the pool water loses some heat through conduction that way (the earth sits at about 55 degrees F in most places, a few feet down.)

bottom line - it's possible. you could set up something where you crank for 3 hours and heat up 1 gallon of water. it would be more efficient to do it naked, otherwise you'll have to wash your clothes & their will be an energy loss there. plus, unless you're somewhere really cold, after an hour most people would be drenched in sweat & say, "the heck with it", and just pour the lukewarm water over themselves.

it's a good example though. if you do the calculations for any significant exercise, converting into watt-hours, counting the calories burned, etc., it becomes obvious what an incredible windfall fossil fuels are, energy wise.
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MadScientist · Heavy Crude Joined: May 19, 2004 Posts: 418

heat your water with wood, coal, other biomass, or solar.

replacing "hand cranked" with "bike cranked" was good advice.
like pedalling said, you could generate power on your bike cranked mill for an hour and then take a cold shower Smile

.

every power requirement has variable solutions. Your location and personal needs are likely unique.

The most important part of "Planning for the Future" is understanding your energy needs and the energy sources available (human, animal, wood, coal, wind, geothermal, solar, hydro). Then using this energy toolbox to create a system to meet your needs post-peak.
For most people this is a personal project for their residence.
For the community leaders it extends to building resilience into their community as a whole. Some people, like Matt Simmons and Boone Pickens are experienced enough with energy systems to affect an entire region.
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kpeavey · Expert Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 1323

Cavitation water heating is being developed but beware of over unity problems.

An easier solution may be a sauce pot and a campfire
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CRACKERMAN · Tar Sands Joined: Jul 28, 2008 Posts: 26

I have heard of people developing coffee pots that work off a regular 9 volt battery. How long would it take to hand crank enough power to re-charge a 9 volt battery?

bobaloo · Heavy Crude Joined: Oct 14, 2004 Posts: 485

1000 watts of power is equivalent to 14.43 kcal/min. If your coffee pot is 1 liter in size, it will raise water from room temp to boiling in about 7 minutes with 1000 watts of heat being delivered to the water.

A 9 volt batter will supply 9 volts with at total rating typically of 300-400 milliamphours of energy. IOW, it will supply 9 volts at 400 milliamps for one hour before dying (simplified). That's a total of 3.6 watt hours. According to my calculations that's enough energy to raise the temperature of the water by 5.03 degrees C, not really enough to make good coffee.

You can't heat water with human powered electric, it just takes too much energy (and you can't heat water with a 9 volt battery either).

I have a wood fueled water heater, sure is a lot easier to cut and split wood to fire it than it is to crank a bike for days...

smallpoxgirl · Moderator Joined: Nov 08, 2004 Posts: 6486