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!