Keith BC

christinb wrote:
[font=Verdana]We wanted to move to the big island of Hawaii but we think if we ever had to get down to a survial situation that we would be at a disadvantage on an island.

I think the opposite.  Given that one of the biggest concerns of survivalists is protection from the "zombie hordes", an island offers considerable protection.  They can't take your stuff if they can't get there.

pa_friendly_guy wrote:
If you are worried about bacteria you can always get an ulta violet light water system that will kill any bacteria that could make you sick.  Those systems do use electric to operate the light,  I do not know how much current they pull.

I investigated UV sterilization at one point.  The light has to be on at all times.  To prevent burn-outs, the bulb must be changed every year.  Because bacteria can hide behind small solid particles, the water must be filtered before passing through the UV unit.

Once I learned that, since I'd have to filter anyway, I went with a plain mechanical two-stage filter.  The first stage is fiber and charcoal, and removes macroscopic particles and chemicals.  The second stage is ceramic, and removes bacteria and microscopic particles.  Because viruses typically hitchhike on solid particles, it is fairly effective against viruses, too.  The first stage filter has to be replaced every 4 months or so.  The ceramic filter needs cleaning on about the same frequency, and will last years before it needs to be replaced.

I just couldn't justify the 24/7 use of electricity and the finicky-ness of the UV system.

I harvest rainwater for gardening.  In our climate (wet winters / dry summers) it is a no-brainer, because we are in a rural area with no water system and very limited groundwater.  Our well will supply our household needs, but not our irrigation needs.

One of the biggest obstacles to rainwater harvesting is the legislation in some jurisdictions.  Where I live, government encourages rainwater harvesting, but in many places it it illegal.

Industrial or commercial use of rainwater is problematic, and it is no doubt those situations that have prompted restrictive laws.  A factory that used rainwater as a coolant that is boiled off into steam, for example, would be in effect diverting all that water away from its natural watershed, causing ecological damage.

Household or irrigation uses put the water back into the ground where it would have gone anyway, so there is no ecological harm other than the timing (the rain enters the ground in the summer when I water the garden instead of in the winter when it fell).

Rover wrote:
I'm talking about running a closed loop collector system with a coil in the tank with would transfer the heat to the water. I think a system like the one below would be just fine. I just dont want to use coolant (or any toxins for that matter) anywhere even near my water supply. I'm one of those wierdos who won't even drink fluoridated tap water

OK, gotcha.  That wasn't evident from the first diagram.  A closed loop system makes the use of antifreeze an option.

Still your only options are to use antifreeze or drain it in cold weather.  The pet-safe antifreeze is probably a better option than glycol, given your preferences. 

1. You would have a thermostat controlling the circulation pump.  It will shut off when the water is hot enough.  You would also have a pressure/temperature relief valve on the collector in case it overheated on a day when you weren't using much water.

2. yes.

3. no.

4. Once what is full?  You mean once all the water is hot?  Cold water will only enter the system when you draw hot water out of it.  The amount of heat that conducts back down the cold pipe is negligible.

is there a way to design this system so that it wouldn't freeze in the winter? I don't like the idea of a pipe filled with coolant going through my water.

It's either that or you drain it when the temperature goes below freezing. 

You can't put antifreeze in the water tank.  It would be a consumed item, so it would be expensive.  You don;t want to be drinking it, cooking with it or washing with it.

KurtW wrote:
One thing to keep in mind about posting "No trespassing" signs is that they are sort of vague legally.

...And they wonder why we make lawyer jokes.  Only a lawyer would pretend not to understand.  Everyone (including the lawyer) knows exactly what it means. 

Feral wrote:
I was told the deputies (yup, all two of them for the entire county) were enroute.

At least you have deputies.  We don't.  Technical, we are in someone's jurisdiction, but there's no way they'll come for a trespassing complaint.  If someone has been injured and has to go to hospital as a result of an altercation, they might consider it.  So, there is a strong motivation here to avoid confrontations with armed trespassers. 

Luckily, about 95% of properties here are posted as "no hunting".  Not that that will stop everyone, but there's so little opportunity that there's little incentive for hunters to come here.  And the same factors that keep the cops away - the inconvenience and cost of getting here - also keep the hunters away.

If all that fails and they come onto my land anyway?  Well, prudence rules.  Where does a 300 lb gorilla sleep?  Anywhere he wants to.  You can be sure that I will be getting a license plate number and any other evidence that I safely can, but I'm not going to be taking on an armed man.  Especially not one that's been drinking.

I think it is curious that not one of these schemes provides a quantitative analysis.  How hard is it to measure electrical current or gas flow rates?  Not providing this information hurts their credibility. 

I don't want to throw a wet blanket over someone's beloved project to save the world, but perhaps providing quantitative analysis would hurt their credibility more than not providing it?

I'll believe this stuff when someone drives into my driveway with a vehicle powered by it.

Irene Kightley wrote:
If you're capable then you can build a windgenerator yourself - there are a lot of plans and ideas on the 'net. For example : http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-1000-watt-wind-turbine/

We have three wind generators but I didn't build them, so I'll have to leave the technical information about how to do that to someone else. 

I have neighbours who built their own wind turbine from this (or a very similar) design.  It works well for them.

First things first.  You are going to get yourself mega-confused if you start measuring energy requirements in watts.  You are doing the arithmetic correctly, multiplying watts by hours, but what you end up with is watt-hours.  So 120 watts x 3 hours = 360 watt-hours.  Your total energy requirement, by your calculation, is 3500 watt-hours, or 3.5 kWh.  Watts indicate the speed of energy use, watt-hours indicate the quantity of energy used.

You probably want to think more about your energy priorities.  Do you really need a projector?  And are you really going to use it every day?  Get a laptop with a decent screen and watch the movies on it!

Can you do without the fridge?  What about a root cellar instead?  Will you be hauling water by hand or are you going to want to pump water for household use?

What about seasonal needs?  You will need less light in summer, more in winter.  You won't need the fridge at all in winter, fortunately.

And, speaking of seasonal variations, your electrical sources will vary seasonally.  You will need to acquire statistics for the location you are interested in.  How much sunlight is there in winter for solar?  Wind is often stronger in winter, so a solar-wind combination often makes sense.  On the other hand, wind power is very location-dependent - it won't work well in a forest.

A generator is a practical backup (at least until oil runs out - on a limited budget, will you be able to afford fuel at $20 per litre?).  You can get them in any capacity you want.  Decide how many watts you want, and then figure out how to pay for it.

An olympic cyclist can crank out energy at about 250 watts in short bursts.  An amateur in good shape can maybe expect to produce 100 watts.  So, to produce 3500 wh per day, you would have to pedal flat-out for 35 hours per day!  Nope, that's not going to work.

Since the sun doesn't shine all day (especially not when you want to use lights) and the wind doesn't blow all the time (and you can't cycle all day either), you are going to have to have batteries and a charge controller.

You can't use normal wiring unless you also run an inverter.  Normal wiring is for 120 volts (American) or 240 volts (European) alternating current (AC).  An inverter will give you that by converting the direct current from the batteries, but it costs you some energy to do that.  The advantage of an AC system is that you can use standard appliances.

Or, you can run everything directly off the battery, but then your wiring won't be standard and you can't use standard appliances.  If your batteries are 12 volts, you can find a lot of appliances designed for RVs.  However, most off-grid systems I have seen use batteries of different voltages, which makes finding appliances harder.  Because battery voltage is lower than AC voltage, appliances use more current for the same power, which requires heavier gauge wiring.

Some off-grid folks I know use solar only in an inverter-based system.  They use it to run a light or two, a laptop, charge their cell phone, and charge their electric bike.  They haul water by hand and have no fridge.  Others use a lot more solar panels and a wind turbine to run a full household including electric washing machine (though I think the heat source is propane)

Lots of research to do...