Messing around in the shop

[JSinMO]

JSinMo, 200 amp is what I have for my house with a 60 amp breaker to run my shop. I have no problem in the shop because I’m the only person using it. So I only use one piece of equipment at a time. Harry

I am in the same boat Harry . Just a one man band . The one major thing I have over most is we are on the gas main that feeds town north of us . So the whole house , garage , summer kitchen , and shop are gas heat/hot water and cooking .

99.5% of the time I’m the same as you guys, just me and maybe son in the shop. My gas gets brought in on a truck so I only use it for heating the house, everything else is electric.
I knew a fella that had a gas well on his property. Part of the lease agreement with the gas company was he got his gas at no cost plus what ever they paid him for access to the well.
Kinda makes me want to do some gas exploration around here!

[Eugen]

That's interesting, to have gas on your own land and just use it. It's a big world out there. There was a property in the hills there for sale, which had running water through it, I thought big enough to run a small hydro turbine. Being in the hills there isn't much permission one needs to get. But didn't like the property. There a nice feeling to be more self sustained. So, go digging Jeff. Imagine, free heating forever.

[JSinMO]

That's interesting, to have gas on your own land and just use it. It's a big world out there. There was a property in the hills there for sale, which had running water through it, I thought big enough to run a small hydro turbine. Being in the hills there isn't much permission one needs to get. But didn't like the property. There a nice feeling to be more self sustained. So, go digging Jeff. Imagine, free heating forever.

It would be nice! I like your idea of a hydro turbine. Spending most of my life around the rivers here I’ve wondered why there isn’t a system like that on the Missouri or Mississippi. On the surface it’s seems like it would have great potential, but that’s way, way above my pay grade! I have no doubt there’s a lot more to consider than I can think of.

[DavidBarkey]

JSinMo, 200 amp is what I have for my house with a 60 amp breaker to run my shop. I have no problem in the shop because I’m the only person using it. So I only use one piece of equipment at a time. Harry

I am in the same boat Harry . Just a one man band . The one major thing I have over most is we are on the gas main that feeds town north of us . So the whole house , garage , summer kitchen , and shop are gas heat/hot water and cooking .

99.5% of the time I’m the same as you guys, just me and maybe son in the shop. My gas gets brought in on a truck so I only use it for heating the house, everything else is electric.
I knew a fella that had a gas well on his property. Part of the lease agreement with the gas company was he got his gas at no cost plus what ever they paid him for access to the well.
Kinda makes me want to do some gas exploration around here!

Just think , you could generate your own power with a NG diesel genny . Would just need to up keep the machine .

[Eugen]

Just think , you could generate your own power with a NG diesel genny . Would just need to up keep the machine .

Steam turbine! I think it would be more efficient than a generator?

@JSinMO would the neighbour agree to run a pipe over to you?

I'm thinking that getting free gas for allowing the gas company to harvest gas on your land is not that great a deal. Somehow I think the gas company, like banks, like insurance companies, like casinos, make the biggest profit leeching us. I don't mean to sound political, or bitter, I just accept this as a fact. On the day of judgement they will answer for it all.

[Spike188]

During the 60's it was common in Oklahoma for land owners to pull gas from the wells on their properties. One acquaintance put in a heated swimming pool using "free" natural gas. The acquaintance also heated their home from the well. I do not know if their large buisness was tied into the well. The down side was that the well could not be counted on as continually flowing. When commercial demand would drop or well servicing was required the taps would be turned off. Free came at a cost of being unreliable.

The common practice now is to be paid 3/16 of production revenue.

[Harry]

If I had a gas well on my property. I would heat my driveway so I would have to remove the snow. Harry

[RoamingGnome]

We had friends outside of Corfu NY that heated their home from a gas well on their property - it was one of the requirements they gave their real estate agent when they were looking for a property to build on. I don't remember the details, but they did have to add Mercaptan (the rotten egg smell ingredient) to the gas line before it went into their house / shop

There are a bazillion small gas wells in Southern Ontario - mostly in the areas bordering Lake Erie and it could be legal to have a private gas well in Ontario, but of course there are lots of rules & regs -

https://geohub.lio.gov.on.ca/datasets/p ... 785%2C7.00[/url]

Fun Fact - The world's first commercial oil well was in Oil Springs, Ontario in 1858 - a year before the 1st American oil well in Titusville, Pennsylvania (1859) There is a really interesting museum in Oil Springs about the history of the Petroleum industry in Canada https://www.lambtonmuseums.ca/en/oil-mu ... anada.aspx

[JSinMO]

@Eugen I agree with you. Although corporate greed certainly isn’t a new phenomenon, it sure seems to have grown exponentially in our lifetime.
@Spike188 brings up a big con on the whole idea. 3/16 of the revenue to sell you mineral rights. And it would absolutely be my luck they would shut down production in February without me having enough storage to make it to spring.
If you own your mineral rights I believe a fellow can drill for them if he wanted to in a lot of areas, but when you figure all the up front costs of permits, drill rig, materials, needed equipment, and then the upkeep it would be difficult and not very profitable to do it without a gas company involved.
Maybe @RoamingGnome friends had the right idea to find a property that already has a well!

[thebuildist]

"Free came at a cost of being unreliable..."

Are we talking about wind and solar now?