A silly way to get "free" energy...

[dR-Green]

I came up with this idea a few months ago while in the bathroom. It's a bit laughable I suppose but I see no reason why it wouldn't work, even if it is on a tiny scale. Basically, we all have pressure and flow at our disposal in our homes.

The idea is simply this: Attach a turbine or dynamo to the house mains water supply, so whenever you turn on a tap you generate electricity, thus taking advantage of the flow of energy that's already there, rather than just letting it literally go down the drain.

Crude diagram attached...

[Joit]

You may want to compare then your Waterbill against your regular Power bill after few weeks.

[synchro]

Water main turbine.

This is well established technology at this time. Move the turbine generator to a street main outside the house, and you'll find several outfits that manufacture these kind of in pipe generators. They try and sell them to communities. Tesla patented one based on his turbine design. The problem is the water's off most of the time in the house. Victor Shauberger originally had a generator that attached to the ordinary gardener sprinkler that he invented. Look at this google link.

in pipe turbine generator - Google Search

[dR-Green]

You may want to compare then your Waterbill against your regular Power bill after few weeks.

If the whole population did it then yes. Because if the water company is pumping the pressure up they would realise something weird is going on. But it won't affect the amount of water flowing through your pipes so if you are on a meter it can't make it go higher, and if you have a fixed bill then it's irrelevant. So the way I see it, only if the water company starts realising they're having to pay more to pump it will they increase the bills. And seeing as most of the population aren't going to do it, then we'd just be doing it at the expense of the water companies in the meantime.

[dR-Green]

This is well established technology at this time. Move the turbine generator to a street main outside the house, and you'll find several outfits that manufacture these kind of in pipe generators. They try and sell them to communities.

I was not aware of that I had also thought about the "community turbine" which would be much more practical, but that introduces a lot of other obstacles, like needing to convince the community for example. But it can be done on an individual scale far more easily (assuming you can find a suitable turbine).

[Joit]

Yes. Well it was anyway only meant in a Sense of you dont want turn on your Electricity on anymore, just the Water, to light your House

[dR-Green]

Sorry Joit, I misread your post. I thought you said compare the water bill after a few weeks compared to your regular water bill, not power bill. Apologies

[everwiser]

If you're in a municipality that charges you for water (well users gain nothing monetarily from this idea) you can save a significant portion of your water bill by collecting the condensation from your air conditioner as well as collecting rain water. You route this collected water to a sizable container/tank and then use an RV water pump (they usually have a built in pressure switch to automatically kick on and off) to feed this water to your toilet(s) and washing machine. The water is already "soft" water so you won't need as much detergent for washing clothes and who cares what kind of water used for toilets as long as it's non-staining. Since the power/water company only measures the water coming into the house your bill will drop significantly due to only using "city water" for bathing and cooking.

[Farmhand]

Hi dR-Green, I think this is actually a very good idea I had a similar thought myself, but my intention is to use the rainwater I have caught up high in tanks, the idea is every time it's used a small amount of power is generated it all help, of course the problem is I only have the head of water pressure to work with but it is FREE.

Then during all the recent rain and lack of sun I wondered why i hadn't thought of a way to put generators in the overflows of the rainwater tanks even the one's on the ground. I wouldn't put them in the actual gutter downpipe from the roof because a blockage could be disasterous, but if the rainwater tank overfolw gets blocked the tank can just overflow out the top for a while, it would be unlikely anyway because the water is by then filtered and nothing can enter the overflow from the bottom because it has wire mesh over it. Of course no power would be generated until the tank was full and overflowing from rain, but after seeing all the tanks overflowing for weeks I can see there could have been quite a bit of power produced, and practically for free.

The pipe is 4 inch so a reasonable sized turbine could be used, maybe of a novel design to maximise the use of a small flow but also work well at high flow. Haha I even thought of putting a water wheel in a big fast flowing drain. We get a lot of rain here even in a normal year and when it rains the sunlight is reduced so I can't help but try to think of a good what I can do with all the flowing water.

Anyway don't most water supplies come from the pressure in resevoirs up high. They pump the water up to the resevoirs and it feeds to the outlet taps, maybe they have some booster pumps I guess.

Very good idea you had and in principal could be employed in many different ways, if the pressure was good enough you could put several in a row and connect them together, or if a module was made with a shaft a very small flywheel attched to improve rotation or mechanical could even be tapped.

Cheers

[dR-Green]

Some good ideas there everwiser, thanks for your input.

synchro, yes the idea wasn't intended to be a full time generator, just something to take advantage of the flow that's there when it's there. Because the alternative is just wasting that potential and doing nothing with it like most of us are doing now. Thanks for the link. I think it's time for me to get reading Viktor Schauberger's books.

[dR-Green]

Thanks Farmhand My friend also suggested drain water and rain, but I couldn't see how it could turn a turbine without just falling straight through. Storage tanks would be a good idea, and maybe a novel design turbine like you suggest could overcome the problem of small flow.

Now that you mention a water wheel in the drain though, I live next to a farmer's field and there's a ditch/stream flowing right past my house. Maybe I should start thinking about something similar It's very small though and would probably be of no use in the middle of a hot summer. But I live in Wales so there's no shortage of rain here most of the time.

I also thought that the pressure in our mains water supply was due to reservoirs being higher up than the taps, but my friend seemed to think otherwise. I haven't been able to find out too much information on that subject, but I have come across "pumping stations" being involved in the process. In my mind though, this would rather be a necessity in a city where there are thousands or millions of taps rather than a requirement in less populated areas. So I'm not sure about that.

I like your final suggestions. Also rather than inserting a generator turbine, just make it output mechanical energy, which can then be attached to whatever. Maybe have some sort of ratchet (is that what it's called, like the thing that allows you to pedal the bike in one direction and rest in the other?) on the flywheel so when the water flow stops or slows down it won't stop the flywheel

[FRC]

I also thought of this a few years ago. Just have some little device attached to
the spout from the taps giving a little charge to a battery. I thought every little
bit might help reduce total power consumption.

FRC

[sebosfato]

I wrote about this here last month.

You just need a high pressure and low flow pump and a generator.

you could use your karcher.. . Those for washing cars.

With a flow of 300 liters per hour you could generate as much those machines consume around a kw if your water pressure is 10 bar.

Of course you could make a turbine inside the pipe but is not that easy as modifying existent things.

You just need to find the best efficiency in the pump mechanism.

[synchro]

New York P.S.I

The water pressure is so great in the NYC water main, it can supply pressure to the top floors of tall skyscrapers. Hydrolic shafts with floating elevators have been concieved that would work like canal locks. This would be possible because the upstate resevoirs are higher than the top floors of the skyscrapers in the sea level city.

Imhotep has been credited by some with engineering a hardended clay pipe of standard dimensions that streched from the upper falls to the site of the great pyramid outside Cairo. This would have carried water to the top to float the granite blocks to their positions through a series of locks, then channel the run off to irrigate worker gardens at the base.

Schauberger's twirling sprinkler was reported to have generated enough pressure to squirt water back over the top of the reservoir head. The twirler was the link for the electric generator connection, and alone would defy all known laws of physics; However, the addition of an evaporator and recondenser at the top might explain how he helped substantiate those claims. I think Victor's so called "Flying Saucer" was an attempt to harness just that kind of power. I believe he successfuly controled a tiny man made rain shower inside that contraption to close the sprinkler power loop.

[synchro]

Recycling hydroelectric plant.

Schauberger may have improved a German Hydroelectric plant in the 30's. The Niagra Falls hydroelectric dam runs water downward through the turbines, then releases the water at the base and sends it down stream.

Victor's plant sent the water upward through a sprinkler head that particalized the water into a fine mist. The Windex window cleaner push squeegy atomizer creates a fine spray that sometimes rises in a cloud on a warm day.

The housing cover was shaped like a horn, and a heated vortex column of air spun the heavy mist to the top where it recollected in the neck. The flow was redirected back down into the resevoir through it.

Everything was lost after the war, but this plant only generated 80% of the power that the original flow turbines did, except no water was lost. This kind of system may not make sense for a "Three Gourges" flood control type dam,
but a drought stricken country like Venezuela, plauged by blackout from insufficent supply, could benifit.