canalsiderenovation Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 Ok, I know nothing about this but I'm curious to try. We have a small bywash in our garden (some of you may remember me at one time considering a water source heat pump but Canal and River Trust did not take kindly to that idea and we also discovered that when maintenance is done on the canal the bywash doesn't flow) so we couldn't rely on it all of the time. I'd like to see if it is possible to try and use this flow for something such as charging things. We don't have electric nearby (just a small shed) but I'm curious to see if there is any way of generating some kind of power we could use to charge things for example..... Other half who has the electrical knowledge has refused to get involved in such hairbrained ideas so I'm sure buildhubbers can point me into what sort of equipment I may need (and I don't want to spend much otherwise I risk divorce if it doesn't work or I mess something up)! Electrical stuff is not my strong point so you'll need to spell anything out to me in a non technical way..... Video of area (bywash is shallow despite looking quite deep). 20240715_112416.mp4 This is something I'd seen on Amazon not sure if its suitable and what else I'd need. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 Ooh I love hairbrain projects, but is the bywash yours? On your property? Canal guys might object. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saveasteading Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 My gut feeling is that this would have a payback of 1,000 years or longer. If your setup was modular and movable you wouldn't get in trouble @ProDavemade a water wheel. I think for fun and science, and that it has been removed. His response eagerly awaited. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanR Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 1 hour ago, canalsiderenovation said: Ok, I know nothing about this but I'm curious to try. We have a small bywash in our garden It looks like you have a really good flow rate in the bywash, how deep is it? If there's enough depth I'd look at a pelton turbine, or something more like a water wheel, although you'd probably have to build the water wheel. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canalsiderenovation Posted July 15 Author Share Posted July 15 3 minutes ago, IanR said: It looks like you have a really good flow rate in the bywash, how deep is it? If there's enough depth I'd look at a pelton turbine, or something more like a water wheel, although you'd probably have to build the water wheel. No, it's not deep at all. Not even knee deep, perhaps a little over ankle deep. I'll measure exactly later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canalsiderenovation Posted July 15 Author Share Posted July 15 1 hour ago, joe90 said: Ooh I love hairbrain projects, but is the bywash yours? On your property? Canal guys might object. It's on our property, accessed only by our garden. The water source heat pump needed CRT permission and all sorts of issues for an MCS install and they wouldn't give it but perhaps me trying a bit of DIY thing would be OK.... nothing permanent... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canalsiderenovation Posted July 15 Author Share Posted July 15 1 hour ago, saveasteading said: My gut feeling is that this would have a payback of 1,000 years or longer. If your setup was modular and movable you wouldn't get in trouble @ProDavemade a water wheel. I think for fun and science, and that it has been removed. His response eagerly awaited. That's why I wanted to try something cheap and cheerful, I'm just curious if such a thing can work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 My immediate thought was an undershot water wheel, you would need to dam the water slightly which would upset the water level within the canal upstream. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IanR Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 53 minutes ago, canalsiderenovation said: No, it's not deep at all. Not even knee deep, perhaps a little over ankle deep. I'll measure exactly later. That's probably enough. I think it would need a dam either side of the wheel, so that most of the water went under the wheel. If it was a largish wheel, that was geared to spin the generator faster than the wheel itself, the resistance of the wheel would cause the upstream side of the wheel to rise. Something like Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToughButterCup Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 @canalsiderenovation, a thought. Theres a group of people living near us who have used the River Lune for just such a hair-brained project. Its called Halton Lune Hydro. Its being going for over 10 years. They have open days every year - there will be a significant number of people there who can at least point you in the right direction. They also built a series of passivhauses way back then. Thats why we know of them. Very helpful people indeed. Halton is ust at Junction 32 on the M6 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparrowhawk Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 2 hours ago, canalsiderenovation said: It's on our property, accessed only by our garden. The water source heat pump needed CRT permission If on your property why did it need their permission for you to put some pipes in the water? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elite Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 Love a hairbrained scheme... There is an interesting series of videos for an overshot wheel here, but obviously you would need it to be undershot. The wheel did have to be rebuilt as the driveshaft snapped 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canalsiderenovation Posted July 15 Author Share Posted July 15 (edited) 32 minutes ago, Sparrowhawk said: If on your property why did it need their permission for you to put some pipes in the water? Because the Canal and River Trust own the water! It's a canal.... Edited July 15 by canalsiderenovation Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canalsiderenovation Posted July 15 Author Share Posted July 15 2 hours ago, IanR said: That's probably enough. I think it would need a dam either side of the wheel, so that most of the water went under the wheel. If it was a largish wheel, that was geared to spin the generator faster than the wheel itself, the resistance of the wheel would cause the upstream side of the wheel to rise. Something like Dam isn't an option as there is a lock the other side of that bridge. Sometimes the flow is more fierce in thr bywash especially when the locks are in operation... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 (edited) Start with the physics. Power (W) = mass flow rate (kg/s) x head (m) x gravity (9.81 m/s²). While the flow rate may seem impressive, the head is only going to be a few millimeters (across a water wheel), so very little usable power. If you know the flow rate in m/s, then you can calculate the most efficient water wheel size as the perfect speed is half the flow rate. So say your flow rate is 3m/s, a 1m diameter water wheel which has a curcumfere of 3.14m, will spin at 30rpm. But, all is not lost. Do you know the height difference between the start and the end of the bywash? If you have over 2m then you could run a pipe from the start to the end, where it then drops the height down to a very small nano turbine (a central heating water pump). Will still be a fraction of a small amount. How about making a scale model of Niagara Falls? With some battery LED lights to make it interesting. Edited July 15 by SteamyTea 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canalsiderenovation Posted July 15 Author Share Posted July 15 It's a shame this company o longer exist, would have been a good way of testing. https://get.waterlilyturbine.com/paddling-charger/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 Plenty on the tinternet https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005571046055.html?pdp 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvin Posted July 15 Share Posted July 15 Hi @canalsiderenovation There are many, many alternatives to be seen which will potentially produce energy. In my humble opinion ( having looked at no end of options) the devil is in the detail (in this case otherwise known as the mathematics). I would first play around with the maths. This will give you an understanding of how much energy you can achieve from what set up (assuming no drought): https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/hydropower-d_1359.html Good Luck Marvin 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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