We live in a house, where we have a heat pump (Wärmepumpe) and an earth probe (Erdsonde).
The probe goes deep into the earth and takes the heat from the earth. Thanks to a very clever system, we can use that heat to make hot water and to heat our house. Because the heat from the earth is renewable, the system is very ecological. Before the pump and the probe we had to heat with oil, which is not good for our environment. The change to the new system is a very important step for our family and our ecological footprint. More and more families and houses change or already have changed to this ecological system.
In the picture below you can see our boiler at home.
At home we have a oil heating. Sadly it is nonrenewable, but we are thinking of getting a more environment friendly one in the future.
Here is some Basic knowledge about the oil heatig:
In the first step, the heating oil is pumped into the oil tank. From there it reaches the boiler via oil pipes. Its function in oil heating is to heat the oil first. Then a solenoid valve opens and the oil is atomized with the injection nozzle and sprayed into the combustion chamber. Sparks ignite the heated oil there. In the modern mode of operation of an oil heater, the oil is evaporated before it is burned. This leads to clean combustion, since the oil burns like a gas and soot formation can be minimized in this way.
Source: Basic Knowledge oil heating
Our building is heated by oil. This method obviously isn't as eco-friendly as sun panels, but it still does the job just fine. It's a really reliable source of energy. In those 20 odd years, in which i have lived in this appartement, i've never had to experience a freezing cold night or anything of that sort.
Here is a picture of how a regular oil-heater works.
*I wasn't able to take a picture of the heater itself, because it's in a seperate room to which the tenants have no acces.
We have heaters at home, the heaters are gas heaters. I live in an apartment where there are some others apartment, we have a boiler room where all the heaters come together. This type of heat can be good if you use biogas. However, I am not sure what we use.
THis is how it works: The burner burns the gas, the combustion produces heat that is needed to heat the water. A circulation principle allows them to circulate in the heaters.
Our heat pump works like a refrigerator - only the other way around. A refrigerator generates cold from the outside heat, while a heat pump extracts the energy from the environment (air, earth, water) and transfers it to the house as heat via the heat exchanger. So it is a renewable energy source we use at home.
Picture: Heat pump
My house was built in the 1970s so unfortunalety, we don't have renewable energy. We are heating with the oil heating system. Our heater / boiler was built in 1987 so it is quite old.
How it works: First you have to tell the thermostat what temperature you want your rooms to be. If the temperature drops below that, the heater kicks into action and starts to heat. Meanwhile, oil is pumped into a burner thorough a nozzle (Düse) where it converts (umwandeln) the flowing liquid into a spray. At the same time, air is mixed with the oil mist in a combustion chamber (Brennkammer) where it is ignited (entzündet). The heat then flows through a distribution system and the rooms get heaten. More...
We are heating our rooms with a renewable energy source. We have a geothermal Probe.
A geothermal probe is large pipe which goes under the earth. We take the heat out of the inner of our earth.
How does it work?
We are putting cold water into the pipe, the water goes trough the whole pipe and gets heated up at the bottom of the pipe trough the geothermal. The Water circulates through this pipe and so we can heaten our house for free an unlimited.
I couldnt take a picture of our geothermal probe because it is hidden under the floor.
At our house we heat with three different heating sources. First we have a boiler. In the boiler we can spare warm water for taking a shower. But it's not very good for the environment, because a boiler need very much electricity.It's not renewable. We heat also with solar panels. They are installed on the roof of our house. The solar panels convert sunlight to electricity. So a house can produce their own electricity. At least we have a normal heating system like every other house.
We heat with sun panels. They are very efficient and eco-friendly. It is also renewable.
As the sun shines on the roof, the water starts boiling. This is how it works.
What’s the energy source (Energieträger) for heating your room?
For heating our house, we use a water boiler at home. Please find below the picture of it. The boiler heats the water to the requested temperature and then saves it. In order to save costs it gets heated up during the night.
Is it renewable or non-renewable energy?
Because of the fact that a boiler uses water for heating it is a renewable energy
As we know, solar panels doesnt emmitt any CO2. If put correctly on the roof, it can make full use of the sun shining on it. We have some own solar panels on our roof.
While the specifics behind solar power are perhaps a bit on the technical side for some homeowners, the basic principles are straightforward and easy to understand. Standard solar panels - or photovoltaics (PV) as they are technically called - generate an electric current by catching light particles from the sun. This current is transferred to wires that lead to an inverter. The inverter converts this energy into AC power for your home and can be used throughout the home in a variety of ways. As we produce more current than we need, we sell the part we doesnt need.
*Due to server mistakes I couldnt load up any picture.