So why is Jim only using the 1/3 mechanical energy to heat his house? He could put the radiator in the basement and capture another 3rd, maybe combine it with a water cooled exhaust.
A variety of reasons that add up to 'don't do this', in my case. 1) I want the big noisy generator away from the house. A large part of this is that if I don't put it by the main power pole, my separately-metered (wtf?) well can't get power unless I dig a trench and back-wire it from the house. Not a cheap/easy proposition. 2) I only anticipate at most a few weeks' run-time for the entire service life of any generator. (Translation: my lifetime.) Anything 'difficult' to reduce fuel consumption is unlikely to be even remotely economically viable. Even changing away from electric heat is not viable, given that we're heating entirely with our own wood right now. (I think the furnace has been on once, and that only because my wife turned it on.) The furnace is just there for backup heat. 3) The 40kW generator was $400. I think I'm into it another $700 right now for repairs, and I should be mostly done at this point with expenditure. If I were starting from scratch, the house would be designed completely differently, and one of those Lister thumper diesels driving a 10-12kW generator and capturing the waste heat would be an extremely interesting part of the plan. -- Jim
