If you have access to a stream, you could always use a system similar to a ground source heat pump for home heating.
Not if you live in Stratford, London, Obvs.
.....although there is an underground river somewhere directly below me, getting it might be a little disruptive.
How does this work? I'm on a committee responsible for a building, medium-sized house, which has a small stream running through its cellar. This requires constant pumping to prevent a flood – when someone turned the pump off for a week without telling anyone, water level rose to about 1m – which uses a lot of electricity. The stream is small and there's no vertical head so generating electricity is probably not possible. I had thought about getting the stream to drive its own pump mechanically – needs to be looked into – but heat pump might be interesting too. I know nothing of how it works though?
I doesn't and wouldn't work for me either.
FTR, the area I'm in is called
"Aldersbook" - there's a hint somewhere there - which was an edwardian development, in the grounds of a
18th century mansion and country park, which included landscaping and substantial water featurage by Bloody Stupid Johnson or some such. Whatever, the brook that fed into the Roding is long since underground, and as we are sat on gravel, makes little difference. Little difference that is, apart from a select few houses in our road whose cellars flood, indicating where it probably still flows. I dug a sump and lobbed a float switched pump into it, it only has to work occasionally for stretches of a few days at a time.
