What's New in 2019?

So I finally decided to install an indoor wood stove which requires no electricity.  December is always a cloudy part of my life, but this year one week of cloudy weather seemed to wreck havoc.  I ran the generator but afterwards I noticed something was amiss, my batteries weren't holding a charge. After testing the battery acid, I realized some of the cells were very low - enough liquid but the battery acid must have been diluted. I also realized that a breaker on the solar panel was tripped.  How long had it been like that?  Who knows, so now I check more often and thought maybe the generator had something to do with it?  And sure enough, after I ran the generator another time, I found it tripped again.  Something that is beyond my problem solving and knowledge is going on...once that gets figured out, maybe that would explain why I'm on my fifth generator since 2006.  I will leave that mystery unsolved until warmer weather.

I have spent the month of January adding battery acid to try to get all cells at the proper acid level, but it's mid-February and I still have two cells that refuse to improve.  It's still a work in progress.

Let's talk about the wood stove.  I love my outdoor boiler, I love my warm floors, and I don't mind cutting wood especially since I don't usually have to split it for this stove, but I hate running the generator (which as documented above wreaks havoc).  Winter is the struggle for enough power to heat the house using the outdoor wood boiler, so I splurged, and splurged it was on an indoor wood stove. 

I wanted a more modern looking stove and of course I wanted an efficient one.  These don't come cheap.  Maybe I spent too much, but it has done its duty.  I installed a Blaze King Sirrocco 30.    

This has been a great addition.  Not only does it supply heat when there were consecutive cloudy days, but it even heated the house (ok, the living room comfortably) when the temperature was -20 degrees.   

Needless to say, I am trying to avoid running a generator at all.  But is is also nice to have options.  When it was -20 degrees, the outdoor wood boiler wasn't working!  Seriously!  Since then it has worked, I think there was an air bubble in the line.  But that takes power and with all of the cloudy days, there hasn't been an abundance of that.


But we have had wind.  However, since the ice storm last week, the windmill doesn't seem to be turning as it should.  We've had a few days of wild winds, but the wind controller registers nothing and the turbine isn't turning.  Today, its the same.  So I am not sure what is going on with that.  If it requires lowering it down to work on it, that's not going to happen anytime soon.  :(  There's always something!  I'm just hoping one of these days it will "magically" spring back into working order.  Wishful thinking, I know.  

Another winter day, another lost day of school, and another day enjoying the indoor wood stove.  Stay warm and stay safe!

What happened to Spring?

However this year, with my average binoculars, I have seen a handful of diving ducks.  I had no idea they would visit a pond in Iowa. Of course with my average binoculars, standing in my living room looking out the window, I really don't have a very good view, much less a way to take pictures. But I tried my best to properly identify them.   The first diving duck I saw was a Scaup in March.  There was only one so I couldn't tell if it was a Lesser or Greater Scaup.  He was very busy diving and eating.  The wood ducks also showed up around this time as well as Canadian Geese as soon as the water opened. 
 

In early April, after another snowstorm, I noticed a duck on the pond that looked like his feet were frozen in a snow ball and he was floating around - turned out to be a Bufflehead which has a white lower body.  That same day I saw a Ring-necked Diving Duck.  The giveaway there was white on its beak.

It's mid-April and yet again we have a snow day.  Luckily I finished all of the grape pruning in mid-March.  It meant I didn't take a spring break, but looking back, it was a wise choice.  I've noticed a lot more waterfowl on my pond this "spring".  Since I don't believe it is the weather bringing them here, I'm apt to think I've always had these species come and go but I never noticed them.  Usually I am busy planting seeds, working in the greenhouse or in the vineyard or riding my bike to notice the unobtrusive waterfowl visiting my pond.  But this season I am stuck inside on these less than glorious April snow days enjoying the wood heat.  I find myself taking note of birds at the bird feeder and ducks on the pond.  Even though this spring we have had snow at least once a week, temperatures haven't stayed low enough to freeze the pond again, so open water has drawn many waterfowl.  Every year I see wood ducks and mallards.  I have two nest boxes for wood ducks.  Once the young ones hatch, they seem to only stick around a few days and then I don't see them anymore.  I am not sure what that is saying, but maybe I get too busy that time of year and don’t notice.  

Even though we didn’t have much of a spring due to the odd weather, I enjoyed getting to know more about the wildlife that surrounds me. 

Check out pictures of mentioned diving ducks at  Ducks Unlimited

The Shoulder Months

A feature of this house are the five foot overhangs on the south side.  These prevent the summer sun from penetrating the interior space, and hopefully keeping the house cooler.  But they allow the winter sun - lower on the horizon - to directly shine into the interior, thus warming up the house, albeit somewhat.  The issue is the shoulder months - the cooler months where direct sunlight would help warm the house but the overhangs don't allow it - like March and April and October and part of November.  These months are trickier to keep the house at a consistent temperature.  Sometimes it's too warm outside that using the outdoor wood boiler is more trouble than its worth, yet the house is too cool for comfort.  It's definitely a transition time.  The solution, sometimes run the boiler to heat the house up for a day and then shut it off and let the house cool slowly until the temperature is once again unbearable - like 61℉.  Bearable for a few days, perhaps, but not for long.  This spring seems to be much wetter than normal, which means more cloudy days.  Not enough natural power to keep the stove running, and not enough excess energy to use the dump load to heat domestic hot water.  I did need to use the LP water heater quite often.  April has begun just as rainy, although the warmer temperatures are now keeping the house around 67℉.  It is time to clean out the wood boiler and put the cap on the stove pipe for the summer.  

Spring Projects Commence

 It's that time of year again, the weather is warming up, lots of work to be done preparing for the season of gardening...but, it is much more fun to build and create.  

Looking down on the patio

I found another old barn foundation and asked for the limestone blocks.  Asking is the easy part!  Retrieving them, moving them and using them is the much more difficult part.  These limestone rocks are beauties!  I'm not sure exactly what they will be used for - maybe around the fire pit area as a barrier?  Who knows, but they definitely will be repurposed.   I brought one load home, but there is still more to get.  We've gotten plenty of rain so far this spring, but the ground was dry today, so the man with the equipment came over and moved some concrete pieces so work could commence on the patio and fire ring even if the ground was soft.  Many of these pieces aren't too large and can be maneuvered by hand.  There are still some big pieces buried in the concrete pile, and there is still a large pile left.  So much concrete!  Where else can I put it?

Raised beds under the wind turbine.

Another project started last fall and not finished were raised beds.  I am using the smaller concrete pieces to pave a walkway alongside the beds and leave the centers open for plantings of perennials like strawberries, rhubarb, asparagus and whatever else comes to mind.  I was able to haul some concrete pieces up here, but other than that not much work was done.  My muscles are looking forward to my Monday morning desk job.  Until next weekend...

How to not Plow your Driveway

This really has nothing to do with living off-grid, except every once in awhile it's nice to get away!

First of all, don't be home when a snowstorm is in the forecast in early spring.  

Secondly, don't return home until the snow has all melted.  Problem solved!  
  
However, thirdly, go somewhere warm where you can enjoy your time away from the cold winter.  

Unfortunately I only got two out of the three.  Check the weather forecast to see how large an area the storm is going to affect and plan accordingly.  I tried.  I checked the weather forecast hourly and daily, but it was never correct.  

I woke up to 31degree temperatures and a snowstorm in Nashville, drove to Chattanooga and experienced sleet - but had great barbecue.  Continued south to Atlanta and hit rain so headed to Savannah for cloudy, windy, cooler than normal temperatures.  That was the best I could do.   I need to mention that it was cold enough to get out the down sleeping bag, wear a down jacket and scarf nearly every day!  I kind of missed my toasty warm house with heated floors, snow or no snow.

So I returned to this: 





It is spring, I finished the grape pruning, the lilacs are budding and the grass is turning a vibrant green.  And so another season begins...
 

System Components

I started this post about four years ago, 
and never finished.  I guess I didn't know much about my system.  Since then have replaced the batteries, fixed a broken turbine (partial replacement) and as you will read below, added more solar panels and a dump load water heater.  Life has been interesting.


This is the original "backyard".  The outdoor wood boiler, back up generator, 8 135 watt solar panels and lp tank = electricity and heat.
 

The outdoor wood boiler is made by Central Boiler.  It is a dual fuel model - will run off of lp or wood.  I think it is over sized for my house - on sunny days, it really isn't utilized at all, the house heats itself naturally, but the pump still runs.  I'm not sure if it is really the answer for an off grid system.  I love the fact that I heat my floors and am using wood instead of lp, but since the pump on the stove runs constantly circulating the water from the tank to the house, it consumes a lot of power over 24 hours.  The short days and long nights of winter - especially cloudy days require the generator much more often.

These is a picture in my utility room of the four pumps that circulate the hot water through the floors.  I put in four zones - one pump for each zone.  Each floor of the house is one zone and the garage is the fourth.  These only circulate the heated water when the thermostat requires heat. 

The solar panels and in the background the small wind turbine.  The Kyocera solar modules have a 20 year warranty.  These supply a little over 1kw of power.  The Whisper 100 has a 5 year warranty.  It is a 900 watt system. 

This is the configuration in the garage, with the battery box underneath.  I keep the garage heated in the winter at about 48-50 degrees Fahrenheit.  The big white pipe is the battery box vent.  These are just vented into the garage, they were supposed to be in the basement and a vent to the outside was installed there.  In this configuration are the transformers, the Outback inverter (2 year warranty) the wind controller and the Outback Mate to the far right.






In 2013 I added another 12 solar panels, 250 watts each and in 2014 another 3 solar panels with the dump load electric water heating system that I have described in another post. This adds another 3.75kw of solar power.