Dairy Cows Heat His Farm House

Dairy cows heat his farm house FARM HOME Houses 16-5-19 M.W. DeGroot, Eel River Crossing, New Brunswick, heats his home by recovering waste heat from the milk tank in his 140-cow dairy barn and transferring it through an insulated underground pipeline to a 1,500-gal. hot water storage tank in the basement of his house. Cold water from the house is returned through another insulated pipeline back to the barn where it's heated up again by running through the milk cooler. Hot water moves from the milk cooler in the barn through a 6-in. dia. insulated pipe-line to the house, which is about 100 ft. away. When the house requires heat, a circulating pump on the bottom of the 1,500-gal. storage tank pumps hot water through a radiator mounted inside the furnace ductwork. The 3-stage fan on the oil furnace that formerly heated the home then blows through the radiator, sending heated air up through the house. A circulating pump in a second water line returns cooled-down water back to the barn. "I don't even use the old fuel oil furnace any more," says DeGroot, who has heated with his milk-heat system for 10 years. "In extremely cold weather I can get additional heat from a 15 kilowatt electric heating unit mounted in one of the ducts but we rarely use it. We also use the system to provide domestic hot water." DeGroot spent about $10,000 to build the unique heating system. He and his family did all the work themselves. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, M.W. DeGroot, Eel River Crossing, Restigouche County, New Brunswick, Canada EOB 1P0 (ph 506 826-2305).

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