Cowshed source heat pump?

[Nearly]

How about putting waterpipes through the concrete floor of a shed to keeping suckler cows on deep litter?
When I forget to cut the bands on a straw bale it's very warm underneath by next morning.
It's probably too late for us now as cows planned to go within 5 years.
Could lay a second 6" skin of concrete over existing?
Should be a grant for it?

 

[spin cycle]

great idea

 

[Suffolksucklers]

Dairy farm near us did this. Reckons it can heat the water to 40 degrees

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

I wondered about doing that years ago. It could complement solar thermal quite well as the solar give oodles of hot water in summer and using the warmed water from the cowshed loop to feed a ground source heat pump would keep the efficiency very high in winter when it usually drops off.

Put it into the concrete base for a dung clamp and stir it occasionally and you could probably get the water produced up over 60⁰C by mid winter.

 

[Bald n Grumpy]

Dairy farm near us did this. Reckons it can heat the water to 40 degrees

Fen farm dairy? Read an article somewhere about it. Says on their website they laid 2 miles of pipe under the floor

 

[Nearly]

@holwellcourtfarm
Much from cowshed wants to be out in spring onto a heap and spread in autumn (dickheads permitting) .

 

[daveydiesel1]

Would there be heat in buttom of a slurry tank

 

[Nearly]

Too wet, would conduct heat out?

 

[daveydiesel1]

Too wet, would conduct heat out?

So what makes digestate warm?

 

[Nearly]

My shed 90 ft x 50 ft.
27m x 15m x .15m depth
60 cubic m concrete. Plus feed passage 75 cube.
Roughly £7500 concrete cost, call it £10k all in. Own labour plus helpers.

House costing 1500 litres kero to heat for year. £1k at moment.
Might save £700 less extra electric to pump water around. £500?
20 year payback even at current prices.
Might have to keep b+b pigs to heat it in summer..... but then corn will need another shed.
And then there's the carbon bootprint of the concrete.
If putting new floor in then pipework is a no brainer.

 

[Nearly]

So what makes digestate warm?

The lid?

 

[Highland Mule]

Don’t confuse heat and temperature. The dung may be above ambient but that’s as much because of its insulation as the small amount of heat generated.

 

[Nearly]

So as soon as I start to pull heat out of it the job is stuffed?
3rd cottage we're converting is surrounded by concrete, farmyard and buildings so piping into ground source is a no no especially on dry sandy soil.
Wind turbine into 2 element immersion heater then.

 

[Highland Mule]

So as soon as I start to pull heat out of it the job is stuffed?

I’m pretty sure the cattle shed would be frozen from below if you started pulling any meaningful amount of energy away from under them. I wouldn’t bother with shyte source heat pumps no - maybe enough to give a standpipe a bit of warming if the flow is low enough, but not for anything serious.

3rd cottage we're converting is surrounded by concrete, farmyard and buildings so piping into ground source is a no no especially on dry sandy soil.

Speak to a specialist - I’ve heard some places can work with deep vertical pipes tapping into the groundwater.

 

[Wisconsonian]

So what makes digestate warm?

the gas they burn to heat it up.

I don't know how any of this could possibly work, pen manure would have to be dry and aerated to warm, then it would give off too much gas for the livestock health. Packed manure won't heat. Liquid manure won't heat.

Jean Pain proposed a compost hot water system. Lots of examples on youtube if you want to see how to make it work, and get the rough parameters.

 

[S J H]

I’m pretty sure the cattle shed would be frozen from below if you started pulling any meaningful amount of energy away from under them. I wouldn’t bother with shyte source heat pumps no - maybe enough to give a standpipe a bit of warming if the flow is low enough, but not for anything serious.



Speak to a specialist - I’ve heard some places can work with deep vertical pipes tapping into the groundwater.

I've read that gardeners at an open garden were having trouble with the change of ground temperature from a ground source heat loop, so I dont know what the change in temperature could do to affect the livestock.

 

[Mattiwilkin]

We have installed a system below our slurry pits in a pig building. Pipes are in screed.

They have been doing this in Denmark for 25 years. It is only just up and running but going fine so far.

We are told this also reduces ammonia by up to 50% by cooling the slurry and locking in the ammonia

 

[Exfarmer]

There is no reason why you could not harvest the heat from manure, but you would have to be very careful. The heat is caused by the action of bacteria, and to a degree the hotter they get, the faster they breed, until they literally kill themselves by the heat.
The rate of reproduction , roughly doubles with every ten degree increase in temperature.
The danger you dace is if you try and harvest too much heat, you will slow the breeding rate of the heap and yield will be lost.
Worse still, is the fact that a heap of muck is a reasonable insulator, it may well appear to be very warm but the actual heat there to harvest may not be that great.

 

[organicguy]

I heat a tack room with water pipe running under a calf shed.
200m m of 19mm pipe under shed and a coil in tack room concrete floor. Water pumped around with a central heating pump.
Tack room floor is warm enough to sit on.

 

[sjt01]

There is no reason why you could not harvest the heat from manure, but you would have to be very careful. The heat is caused by the action of bacteria, and to a degree the hotter they get, the faster they breed, until they literally kill themselves by the heat.
The rate of reproduction , roughly doubles with every ten degree increase in temperature.
The danger you dace is if you try and harvest too much heat, you will slow the breeding rate of the heap and yield will be lost.
Worse still, is the fact that a heap of muck is a reasonable insulator, it may well appear to be very warm but the actual heat there to harvest may not be that great.

It seems to work well at Fen Farm. There is possibly a low enough heat conductivity through the muck that the active part stays quite warm, while only the underside is cooled by the gshp loop. He has put enough pipe in that there will only need to be a very small dT for it to work.