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QUESTION:Regarding the earlier discussion on running a generator from a household
boiler:
Here's a picture of a 15 hp boiler capable of running a 30 kw generator.
The photo was taken on July 15, 2006 at the Pioneer Steam and Gas Engine
Society, Saegertown, PA. I'm the fat guy dressed in blue (on the left.)
The engineer (on the right, wearing gloves) is Brian Wedekind. The boiler
is owned by Todd Zuck of Fairview, PA.
This particular boiler is wood fired and (at maximum output) burns around 75
lbs of wood per hour and boils about 60 gallons of water in the same
timeframe. Physical size of the boiler is around 20 feet long and four feet
in diameter. Firebox grate area is 16 square feet. Overall thermal
efficiency is somewhere around 18%.
URL for the photograph: http://home.alltel.net/smccabes/boiler.jpg
ANSWER: Yeah, I *knew* better than to quote horsepower as a "standard" unit!
For some reason, "Boiler Horsepower" is different from all the other
versions...
According to my (slightly dated -- 1925) machinist manual, 1 Boiler HP =
9.8095 kw or
33,455 BTU/HR instead of the usual 746 watts we see in electric motors.
That's purely an
expression of heat energy, though, and doesn't directly correlate to
electrical power.
Actually, when this photo was taken, Brian was running 3 different engines
and a steam-kettle kitchen (gotta love the bean and ham soup cooked that
way!) off this boiler. I didn't get good photos of all of them, but here's
two. When generating electricity, we belted the generator to the green one.
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