changing seasons + hiatus

The false siren of winter storms came early this year. Snow fell in the hi-Sierra on October 8^th and Wolf Creek ski resort set an all-time record for earliest ever opening by a USA ski resort.  But - for the past two+ weeks it’s been ~70F at Tahoe.  Perhaps it will change this week as overnite temperatures are dropping into the teens.  There's some snow today above 7,000ft.

The fall aspen colors are amazing as yesterday I ventured up to Sorensens and Hope Valley to take in the awesome view.  Lotsa leafer-peepers, and a mere shadow of a New England autumn… but close enough. 

Here at WinSol3, these fall + spring seasonal turns and ‘middle periods’ for solar gains and passive heating/cooling of the house are always a challenge.  I’ve gotten good at it over the years, fine tuning and intuitively learning what WinSol3 needs to maintain a comfortable temperature ~60-70F each day and nite. It requires some minor manual adjustments:  like keeping the loft curtains closed all the time, and maybe opening/closing windows in the day or night cycles.  This is a fine intuitively honed balance.  I’ve only had to turn the firestove on for a few days in early October.

Old timers say that this winter will be like last winter.  Meteorologists are saying it can’t possible be like last winter – that was an all-time aberration.  I believe the latter.  And what convinces me of that, is that I just haven’t seen the proliferation of pine cones on trees that I saw last year.  uI still see robins and squirrels all over the place – last year at this time they were already bunked up for the long cold haul.  Mother nature has a few predictors around (I’m sure if I could communicate with any animal creature, they’d tell me exactly what kind of winter it will be).

 So as the seasons change so do beckoning calls for projects in faraway places on community microgrids... and time to follow Bucky Fuller's adages:

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
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“You may assume that you are fulfilling your significance if you apply yourself to converting all your experience to the highest advantage of others.”

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I will be signing off this blog for quite a while.  Please email me directly if you need.

Energy learnings

What a surprise when I did my bi-annual maintenance on my battery bank.  Every cell (all 12) was empty or water. Thankfully the plates looked wet, so they couldn't have been dry too long.  It took close to a gallon of rainwater to fill them all.  WOW!  I've never experienced that before - and likewise, I've never shorted the PV panels directly to the battery bank either.

After realizing that the Xantrex C35 wasn't doing its thing on equalizing batteries, or charging them properly - i just shorted the whole system for the summer.  I've found out since then that many others do the same thing - but not all summer.... just for a few weeks.  This really juices up the batteries, equalizes them in a hurry and you're all set to reconnect the controller.  Well, i waited 4 months for this... and boiled off a lot of the lead acid in there.  So lesson learned - only a few weeks of shorting... not months.

These huge babies can take a lickin' and keep on tickin'  - but they ain't cheap!My battery bank is fine and are they are all recharging properly. I'll be all set for a long winter - especially with the 400watt wind generator: I'll have power to spare.



Smart Energy
On another front:  An energy monitor (with a shunt) is SO important when managing your energy usage. This is the one I have:

 Simple and effective.  Four numbers: % charge state, voltage, current amp hours, cumulative amp hours (resettable).  Now, if I could just hook that up to my computer and have it log the data over time.

I constantly monitor the amp hours and all kinds of other numb3rs and trends for my energy system.  It's gotten to a point where I play a game of guessing what the meter will say and then seeing how close i get to the actual number.  Imagine my surprise when i discovered recently that my laptop computer external hard drive sucked up as much energy as the entire laptop on a dead battery (4.5 amp hours or ~45 watts)!  That was a new one on me!  So, now i copy all my files off the hard drive while I got plenty of juice (as in sunshine) - that way i use 1/2 the energy at night when watching the Daily Show or a movie.  

Figure it this way (hey, I'm an engineer - in another life!) :  45 watts X 3 hours a nite X 250 days/year = 33,750 watts per year... that's a small chunk off a solar system, but every little bit helps.

Season Transitions

What season?

As WinSol3's energy meter turns to 12.6 vdc at 7am of the first rainy day of the new winter season, the outside temperature reads 38F. My reflections turn to a summer filled with learnings and the upcoming winter season.  This time I may not be spending the winter here - lifestyle changes beckon great adventures.

Some weather reports are predicting snow levels dropping to 6,000ft (on October 5^th!).  Kirkwood received 10 inches of snow!  wheeeeee....The upcoming winter season is picking up where the last one left off – from snow on Memorial Day weekend to a trace of snow today.  That’s 4 months without snow: No spring, no fall – just snow, heat, snow.  And it was a VERY cool summer.  I think Sacramento had 6 days over 100F (normal is 30 days).  This is all new to my 30 years here, an all-time short season and cool summer record.  I couldn't even get into the high country with all the snows lingering around.  Who says there’s no climate change?

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So what has transpired and what have I learned over the past short summer seasons?  There is a shorter growing season sometimes, and I need to get the greenhouse warmer in order to grow more food.  AND the big one: the 2^nd biggest fire ever could easily have rendered me homeless and all my efforts negated. 

Of all the things occurring over the past summer months though, I took the first big step toward shaking off the isolation and remoteness and started finding community.  The WOOF and HelpNetx and other web networks have generated some interest, but nothing concrete yet.  There have been over a dozen visitors (plus the September celebration) to WinSol3 from various areas.  I am grateful to all of you who came up to visit, and I treasure your friendship.

The distance of this place to main urban areas is probably the single largest lesson I’ve had to come to grips with: don’t build too far out.  Since this was initially picked to be my Kirkwood ski hamlet, I could have never guessed that the location of WinSol3 would be THE big issue.  But people who frequent mountain resorts are not the same people who would readily live off-the-grid in a closed loop, self-reliant style.  I believe they are more inclined to pay for the convenience of endless energy and conveniences next to hi-end infrastructure.  So I am turning toward the Coloma/Nevada City area for possible future eco-village community networking since they are seem more enlightened and closer to ‘civilization’. 

Here’s a list of WinSol3 accomplishments over the past 4 summer months:

• Living roof connecting deck with hi-psf structural supports
• triple sized courtyard patio with new firepit and sitting areas
• five raised beds and bountiful veggie + grape + rhubarb + harvests
• Greenhouse water feature and tile work
• Demos of Rocket Mass heaters
• Perimeter clean-ups, screened under deck storage
• Outside LED lighting system
• 12vdc Sound system everywhere
• Gravel driveway straw cover, weed prevention
• Main area, loft, mudroom drywalled, painted
• Main deck final bracing

Whew… I get tired of thinking of the hundreds of cement bags mixed, hauling of dirt buckets, the # of granite slabs,

Lessons learned: 

It is possible to live self-reliantly with many hi-tech + modern comforts

It requires only knowledge and construction materials

More + more people are discovering reused, salvage, hospice,

My overall fire prevention strategy of not exposing wooden sill plates, masonry barriers, etc. to the surrounding forest area really paid off since it helped stop the spreading uphill fire (flame retardant helped too! :-)   

So the shift from summer to winter is on.... and this is where WinSol3 shines.  Solar PV panels and large windows + overhangs designed to let maximum daylight and sunlight in during winter months.  It's nice and bright and soon to get warmer as i fire up the stove for the first time in months....