Energy Independence Week, Day 6

Wednesday, July 9, day 6 of Energy Independence Week

In the morning the batteries were down to 12.3 v.  It seems to take almost a quarter of the battery capacity just to run the 5 watt compost bin fan all night.  The icebox was hanging in there at 43.5 degrees.

Cold cereal for breakfast again, and then it was off to weed and mulch the potato patches.  By 6:30 the cooler was up to 49 degrees, and all the two-liter bottles had thawed, so it was just the three blocks left.  It looked like there was a storm coming so I hustled down to the river for my daily swim.  On the way back I decided to cheat and buy some more ice at the gas station, two five-pound bags.  So the original charge of ice lasted six days seven nights.  I barely made it back before the rain started.  

I joined Flora's expedition to Farmer Dave's U-pick Strawberries along with Ranger K and young Skyler.  So, dinner was basically rain-washed strawberries off the vine.  That was nice, as was the rainbow which was so bright it almost touched the ground in front of the treeline.  Farmer Dave's mosquito herd made such a good living off me I started to wonder if his U-pick deal was a scam to produce a sustainable yield of mosquitos.

I've been meaning to mention how well the cottage is working temperature-wise throughout the spring and summer.  The space heater gave up the magic smoke back on June 5, when the daily average temperature was still well below room temperature.  I haven't needed any active heating or cooling since, nor even any fans.  I've been able to manage the temperature just by opening and closing windows.  The passive-solar overhang on the attached greenhouse is a key feature - back in the spring when the sun was lower in the sky it would shine into the greenhouse and I could pump heat into the house just by opening the connecting door.  I don't mind it warm so I would heat the place up to almost 80 during the day and let it cool off at night.  Now that it's summer I'm opening the windows at night and closing them during the day.  I was using the ceiling fan a lot during the spring but I shut it off for Energy Independence Week and haven't missed it.

There is maybe some controversy about whether thermal mass is useful in this climate.  The argument against goes something like this:  Many of the natural building methods feature thick heavy walls with lots of heat storage. But a lot of that comes from the desert southwest where the main problem is not the average outside temperature but the extreme day-to-night difference.  But in central Minnesota it can easily be cloudy for say the entire month of November, and it would take a ridiculous amount of storage mass to ride that out, something like full earth sheltering which nobody dares because it's so outre it has no resale value.  So forget thermal mass, build it light and very tight (like passivhaus.)

I was pretty sympathetic to this argument but I have to say from living in this cottage it is nice to have the massive walls.  At the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair there was a workshop on the subject.  The presenter argued basically that in the spring and summer in Minnesota, the heating and cooling problem is in fact a daily moderating problem, as in the desert, so thermal mass is useful in this climate for a good portion of the year.  

In other news, the experiment plots are showing some noticeable differences.  There's a pretty bright line between the all-compost plot and the compost-sawdust mixture.  Here's a couple of views of that.  The all-compost plot is basically to the left of the white door on the cottage there.

The compost-sawdust mixture is right now not even as good as the chiseled-but-unamended control plot, and the sawdust-only plot has only a little bit of stuff growing.

It didn't photograph that well but the left half of the picture is the compost-sawdust plot and the right half is the sawdust-only plot.

Here's the control plot:

The crater has developed a more verdant patch, on the north side east, closest to the piles of dirt that were pushed in to fill it.  There is some different stuff growing there but it looks to me like its just more fertile on that side.  

Energy Independence Week, Day 5

Tuesday, July 8, day 5 of Energy Independence Week

The batteries were down to 12.17 volts this morning, which is about 50% according to this chart from the Battery Book for Your PV Home:

12.60 100%

12.35 75%

12.15 50%

11.95 25%

11.85 discharged

This chart applies to 12v lead-acid batteries which have been sitting without charging or discharging for at least an hour.  I think it was the Skipper that told me even deep-cycle batteries shouldn't be discharged more than halfway, for longest life.  So I really needed to get them charged up.  I was able to get up to 6.5-7.5 amps from my mongrel solar array.  At 5 pm I took advantage of my lack of mounting racks to reposition the best panel facing west.  By 6:45 the batteries were back up to 12.53v.

This battery-based solar electric lashup cost about $750 altogether.  Nominally it's a 194 watt array but the most I've gotten out of it is 92 watts, due to the mismatched panel voltages. 

For breakfast I cooked up a cheese and lamb's quarters omelette on the woodgas camp stove.  I used pine lumber chunks about 1 inch big for fuel, kindled with fire starting cubes.  I only filled the stove halfway but that was still too much fuel.  Lunch was another peanut butter sandwich.  For dinner I reheated leftovers in the solar oven, along with some hot water for dishes.  The water supply was down to about 60 gallons at the end of the day, and the cooler was at 46 degrees, up about 1.

I've continued going down to the river in the evening for a dip. The first couple days it was like 85 degrees and the water was clear. The third day it was like 80 degrees and the water had some bits of algae in it. Today it was like 69 degrees and the water had algae, pine needles, and a small dead fish. Maybe the Lord is trying to toughen me up - maybe by Thanksgiving I'm supposed to cannonball through a half-inch of ice with a hearty rabble yell.

Ms. Flora stopped by in the evening to apply compost tea to the hazel seedlings and the potted bur oaks (I believe this is to promote root growth.)

You can see I'm having to regularly keep an eye on the water in the tank, the ice in the cooler, and the juice in the batteries.  I think this is good for putting you in touch with the general idea of thrift and conservation.  When you're plugged in, you don't see the coal mine or the aquifer being emptied, so what the heck, leave the sprinkler and the ceiling fan on.

As I wasn't messing with my infrastructure so much I had time during the day to work on weeding the potato patches.  I mentioned before how we ended up with the worst of both worlds there.  As I understand it, there are two basic approaches to weed control in gardens:  digging them out with a hoe, or smothering them with mulch.  We went with mulch, but the wheat straw I used was full of seeds which came up, so now I have to weed as well.

Potatoes have to be kept in the dark as the grow, or so I am told, they will become green and poisonous.  Again this can be done two ways, by hilling up dirt over them or adding more mulch.  After I get done weeding I have to add more mulch (Ms. Flora strongly advises me.)

Energy Independence Week, Day 4

Monday, July 7, day 4 of Energy Independence Week

So after three days of cold cereal for breakfast I thought I'd try to make pancakes again using the woodgas camp stove. In my one previous attempt I kind of scorched'em.

I fueled the stove with cut up bits of cardboard standing on end, about 1x3 inches big, and kindled it with fire-starting cubes. That worked out perfectly, it was just the right amount of fuel for the job. I keep the stove's fan on low, and regulated the heat by taking the pan on and off the stove.

It was a cool morning and I really wanted some hot coffee now. I thought I'd see if the supposedly 1000 watt inverter would run the supposedly 750 watt coffeemaker. Sort of. The inverter overheated about halfway through the 10-cup cycle and had to rest. It was drawing 85 amps from the 12v batteries. Making one pot of coffee used about as much electricity as the compost bin fan running all day long - twenty-some amp-hours.  I decided I'd better wire up my fourth solar panel.  It has a crack in the back glass but I think it still works.

I mulched and watered the hazelnut trees.  That took awhile as I can only get one or two gallons a minute through the 250 ft hose from water "tower".  That put a big dent in the water supply.  I'm down to 80 gallons or so from the 150 I started with.  

Three of the thirty seedlings had leafed out since they were planted last week.  It hadn't rained more than a trace in that time.  

The garden hose through the window seems to have created a mouse highway - I've trapped two since the start of this stunt.

Lunch was Peanut Butter and Cherry Pie Filling Sandwich.  For dinner I fired up the woodgas stove with pine lumber chunks then pan-fried together a bunch of Italian sausage, tomato, red chard, and lamb's quarters (picked fresh from the crater.)  I also mixed in the last of the solar oven vegetable stew.  

I refueled the stove a couple of times during cooking, and again after, when I put the dutch oven on full of water to heat for dishwashing.

The bike shop is stringing me along on this bike trailer.  First they said last Thursday, then this Monday, now its maybe next week....

Energy Independence Week, Day 3

Sunday July 6, day 3 of Energy Independence Week

Well the batteries got a full solid charge on Saturday, but just running the little compost bin fan overnight brought the voltage down to 12.3.

It only took about half an hour in the solar oven to reheat some leftovers for lunch. The same trick worked at dinnertime, though I left it in longer (6:20-7pm) it wasn't as hot.

Made some steps for cooler.  This 16-foot trough made of two-by's had been sitting behind the house for months.  One time I asked Redbeard, is this like, a thing, or what is the deal?  He said it used to be but go ahead if I had another use for it.  Now I do, so I just sawed it into four pieces with my solar-charged cordless sawzall.  Voila, standing platforms.  

Originally I thought of hinging the icebox lid, but decided I liked being able to open it on any side.  Not bear-proof though.

I'm using these little 6-LED rechargeable lanterns.  But this time of year there's so much daylight you shouldn't need lights much.  

Energy Independence Week, Day 2

Saturday, the 5th of July, and Day 2 of Energy Independence Week.

On Friday and Saturday mornings both, I ate cold cereal for breakfast which I hadn't done in years.  This week I'm cooking only with solar, wood, and charcoal, which isn't as convenient as gas or electricity.  My 50/50 mix of Special K and Crunch Berries hit the spot.

In the morning I mostly worked on my solar electric lashup, which as you see is totally safe and structurally sound.  My panels are mismatched for voltage.  I have a current booster which is designed to downconvert my 72 v panels to 12 v to drive a pump - I was hoping it would be able to charge my 12 v batteries as well, but it didn't.  It ran a car wiper motor okay but just sat there doing nothing when I hooked the battery to its output.

So instead I just connected all the panels directly in parallel with the batteries.  This forces the high voltage panels to operate pretty far from their maximum power point, so about 70% of the power comes from the one little 12v panel.  I was getting about 5 amps peak under hazy skies.  With the panels directly connected they can draw power from the battery if it gets too dark, so I have to watch the ammeter.  I was still getting positive amps at 5:30 pm.

I was hoping to use my little folding solar cell phone charger to run the compost bin fan, but that didn't work so well either.  In full sun it ran about half-speed.

Rain was forecast in the evening so I broke down the solar array and hauled it inside for the night.  It's wired together with cut up pieces of lamp cord and such, no conduits or weathersealing.

Here's my little outdoor kitchen.  Note chimney-style charcoal starter, no lighter fluid allowed.  I grilled up some burgers, zucchini, and portabellas more or less as directed in this week's Green Scene memo.  According to those recipes, the key to grilled vegetables is salt, lots and lots of salt.  

I set the dutch oven on the grill to use the rest of the charcoal to heat some water for dishwashing.

Meanwhile I went down to river for a swim.  There's a nice little park by the dam.  Earlier in the day I had tried to fill the solar shower bag again, but it sprung a leak again in the exact same place where I had fixed it before, so I gave up on that.  

Energy Independence Day!

Friday, the 4th of July, day 1 of Energy Independence Week

Back on Wednesday morning I got the outside water tank plumbed into the inside via a garden hose through the window.  It isn't high enough to feed the shower head, but there is low pressure water to the sinks and the commode, which is a fine thing.

I spent most of Wednesday and Thursday making the cooler pictured below.  As with the small personal water tower, the cooler is supposed to be useful both for Energy Independence Week and longer term.  For now its an outside icebox replacing the fridge which I don't have enough solar power to run.  Later I hope to use it as a root cellar.

You can see I'm making it out of scrap Structural Insulated Panels (styrofoam faced with oriented strand board.)  They're a foot thick and allegedly R50.  There were three odd-size pieces in the attic of the shop - I spent like an hour figuring out what was the biggest size box I could make out of them.   I ended up with 22 cubic feet on the inside.  On the outside it's basically five feet big.  I made the lid out of three layers of 2-inch pink foam insulation board (polystyrene).  That should be nominally R30.  The whole business is stuck together with Pur Stick professional gun foam.

I could've spent three weeks making this like a grandfather clock but I was desperate to just get it basically functional in time for 4th of July.  The air sealing of the lid needs improvement, and the ergonomics aren't that great.  

It doesn't have a drain, so the ice needs to be contained.  I had previously frozen 13 two-liter bottles of water.  I moved these into the cooler along with the wireless thermometer and tried to freeze some more bottles overnight on the 3rd.  The cooler chilled right down to 35 F by morning, but the new bottles didn't freeze.  In my haste I had bought the cheapest regular soda and hadn't dumped it all out and replaced it with water.   Either there wasn't enough time or maybe the sugar depresses the freezing point?

Anyway, come the morning of the 4th and it was time for power down.  I transferred most of the contents of the fridge in bags and buckets, along with another 30 pounds of block ice.  I ate the ice cream for brunch.  I don't think the temp went over 45 all day.  The meat was still frozen and there was still a lot of ice at the end of the day.  It might go the distance?

As I was washing out buckets at the end of my 250 foot garden hose, I noticed the water was pretty warm even at 9 am sunshine levels.

Some of the food in the fridge was produce that wasn't going to keep much longer, so I broke out the solar oven and made up a recipe.  Potatoes, tomato, celery, baby carrots, red chard, onion, garlic, salt, basil, and a little oil.  

I let it cook from about 11:45 to 3:45.  It was a bit cloudy so I put the reflectors on.  I had some of it for a midafternoon snack, turned out pretty okay.  I put some corn on the cob back in the solar oven and let it cook the rest of the day.  That was really good and went great with the steak I grilled for dinner.  I reheated the vegetables by putting a skillet on top of the charcoal grill.

In the afternoon I worked on hooking up the solar panels.  I'm reluctant to put much drain on the batteries until I have a way to recharge them.  By the time I got it set up it was too late to tell if it was going to work.  I have a current booster for running a 12v motor from my 72v panels, but I don't have a real solar battery charger.  The compost toilet bin really wants its fan to run 24 hours a day.  At this time of year the day is so long here that there isn't that much need for lighting.  

It was a hot day and by night I really wanted a shower.  For that I filled two five gallon buckets from the hose, hauled them into the shower, lifted them up and dumped them on my head, cold turkey (one for wash, one for rinse.)  This was not that bad, but it wasn't that great either.  A little cooler than I'd've liked, but as I say it was a warm day.  Mainly it was just awkward.

Why am I doing this?  Because I read the News of the Future.

Energy Independence Week is here...aaack!

You may remember my call to celebrate Energy Independence Week this 4th of July.  That is:

• No burning of fossil fuels
  
• No using electricity from the grid
  
• No trips to the grocery store
  

This exercise works to increase your preparedness for both random disasters and for the entirely foreseeable low-energy post-fossil-fuel world to come.

I almost punted because neither the solar water heat nor the solar photovoltaic system I was planning to use is built yet.  Also as far as I know I'm just about the only celebrant.  I questioned whether anything useful would be learned or should I postpone my observance.

The real crux of it is the well pump.  Without 460 watts of 230 VAC I don't have running water.  Without 525 watts of 115 VAC I can't flush the toilet, because it's got its own pump-out to the compost bin.  The original plan was to install a solar electric system capable of driving these.  I also greatly desired to be able to take hot showers, and was counting on the solar hot water system being finished.  Nada.

So yesterday I went around to my friends, told them of my troubles, asked for advice.  Miss Twiggy lent me her portable solar camp shower, which is like a black plastic bag you hang in the sun, holds about four gallons.  It had a leak which I fixed with the plastic welder, but even so, it only puts out about as much water as some one pissing on you.  Lame.

Redbeard suggested driving a new sand-point well and putting a hand pump on it.  I wasn't crazy about that because I've seen it done and it's a lot of work.  I finally thought of an alternative I liked better, and that was to go ahead and set up the roof water catchment tank which I had included in the permaculture design, for gravity feeding irrigation water to the gardens.  

There already existed on campus a few 250 and 300 gallon plastic tanks and a platform for holding one up about five feet off the ground, so it would only take a few plumbing fittings and a hose through the window to hook it up to the inside plumbing and get some low-pressure running water, enough to supply the sinks and toilet anyway.  

Also, it turned out I needed irrigation water a lot sooner than I thought, because Flora got a blowout special deal on five hundred hazelnut tree seedlings, which had to be planted right away.  I had in the design an area designated for hazelnut trees but wasn't going to plant any until next year, until these came along.  I said I'd take thirty of them.  

Here is my water tank.  I picked out the prettiest of the 300 gallon totes, one with an intact cage, a lid and a working drain valve. (This solution exhibits the permaculture principles of catching and storing, multiple elements supporting the (water) function, (tank) element has multiple functions, least change for the greatest effect.) It isn't really a rain barrel yet as there's no gutter, but the rules of Energy Independence Week allow stocking up ahead of time, so I half-filled it from the well using dirty old coal-fired electricity.

The platform was so big and heavy and far away I didn't have much choice but to use the Huge Arguably Unnecessary Forklift to put it in place.  I'm trying to get grass and clover growing near the cottage and it annoys me to drive on it.  I had never driven the Lull before but Jolson was kind enough to give me a lesson and wave me off bashing into anything important.  Unfortunately the tank is not high enough to gravity-feed the shower head, or maybe just barely if it was filled all the way up.  It took three adapters to get the two-inch plastic nozzle on the tank down to a garden hose, and I cross-threaded it something awful so it drips a little.

Here is the new hazelnut tree grove, southwest of the cottage.  In spite of my attempt to place them randomly I basically ended up with a three by ten grid.  The seedlings are individually protected from deer browsing with yellow plastic mesh cages staked with bamboo (available from Forestry Supplies of Jackson MS.)  You can see my water hose there which runs 250 feet from above pictured tank.

The lesson here is that even though you never know what's going to happen, its still good to have a design and a phase plan so that as fate throws stuff around you have a better chance of picking out pieces that will fit into some kind of coherent whole.

Thanks to Flora for help with the tree planting.  It did pain me to do so much stomping around in the south experiment plot where the deer forage mix is just starting to come up.  I think I will wait a week before going out there again and mulching the trees.

So that was yesterday; went pretty well.  Today I resolved if only I could get the toilet working off-grid I would go ahead and celebrate Energy Independence Week.  I had earlier purchased a cheapo $60 modified-square-wave 1000 watt inverter for the car, which I figured might just be capable of running the macerator pump.  I decided Hunt Utilities Group needed to trade in a couple of their dead car batteries for brand new Interstate marine deep-cycle batteries, and that furthermore they would not mind if I borrowed them for a week.  

I ran this setup once and it worked so I'm off to the races.  I have a 65 watt 12 volt solar panel I can use to recharge the batteries.  The inverter draws a lot of standby power (10 W) so I don't dare leave it on.  

I spent the rest of the day chasing down plumbing fittings to connect the water tank to the inside piping.  Redbeard gave me an Aquapex lesson.  Tomorrow I'll see how much damage I can do with a little plumbing knowledge.  After that I need to see about a cooler (the original plan was for the fancy PV system to run the fridge too.)  I think I've got enough hardwood charcoal for cooking and heating dishwater.  I have some LED lights.  Trips to the hardware store are allowed during Energy Independence Week as long as you don't drive, so I've ordered a Burley flatbed trailer for my bike.  It'd still be nice to figure out a way to at least get a lukewarm shower...

______________________________

Postscript:  The terms of Energy Independence Week allow apartment dwellers and other such city mice to celebrate it by spending the week with country mice who will be in a better position to do the off-grid thing, but if you've talked your entire condo association into putting up a wind turbine, "more power to ya."