DIY Refractory Compositions thread out at the Alloy Avenue forums has a number of recipes for refractory. I made my first furnace and a few prototype stoves using a home made fire clay based refractory. There are far too many possible variations to effectively cover in a single post, but there are a few points that are helpful.

Obviously the first point is to use a high firing clay. Adding grog also helps a great deal. Grog is basically bits of clay that have previously been fired and then broken up. Having grog in your mix, preferably with a multitude of sizes as opposed to finely sifted dust, will reduce shrinkage. Being that this previously fire clay has already shrunk it makes a great addition to a fire clay hot face.

Another thing that can be helpful is the shape and design. Given that these clays can and probably will crack, it makes sense to shape it in such a way that it can't fall in on itself or easily topple over. You can use a knife or similar to add 'dashed lines' so it will more likely crack in places you designate as opposed to wherever it feels like cracking. If you wrap a more insulating material around your hot face (insulating refractory, ceramic blanket, home made insulation) this can also be shaped and designed to hold the hot face in shape. I have even seen people make special shaped bricks out of refractory and stack them up. any of the shrinkage or cracking would happen at the brick stage as opposed to happening in the finished product.

Given the possible temperatures of these heaters I would avoid using sand in the hot face, particularly if you are going to be adding insulation. It will turn to glass, and this molten glass will act as a flux and slump your hot face like an ice cream cone on a hot day. While I was fairly fortunate with the first furnace I built, I only got it up to aluminum melting temperatures. As temperatures increase the chance that a home made refractory mix will fail over time increases, be it hours or years. Something made to withstand intense temperatures like Missou Castable Refractory would be better. I have heard of guys on Alloy Avenue destroying Missou with a good oil burner when melting cast iron, but it is supposed to be one of the best refractories available. You could use this as a hot face and make your own insulation. A lot of the furnace construction threads over there use the same principles as building a rocket stove/RMH.

They have brought up some rocket stove stuff over at those forums and they have very experienced people there, including people who worked in proper foundries for a living. I'm sure if you can't find the information you need through searching that the people there would be capable of giving you plenty of help and ideas.

I have been using one of these - DROK 3W + 3W Amplifier. It isn't going to be enough for a block party, but certainly enough for me out in my shed. I used an old USB cable for power and an old headphone cable for sound input. What is really nice about that device is the size. The knob I put on it is bigger than the whole unit! Roughly postage stamp sized with a small potentiometer. A pair of Sony satellite speakers someone was throwing away work well for my needs, and I couldn't beat the price.

I had previously bought another sub $10 amp for a car that I had directly connected to my batteries powered by the sun. It worked fine but had an annoying color changing LED light inside. I eventually gave that to my mother and hooked it up next to her bed as a headphone amplifier for her TV, after removing the LED of course. It worked as well as could be expected for the price.

I definitely can't wait to see 12V USB power become common. I have been using cheap automotive interior replacement LEDs for task/emergency lighting. I have run a pair for a couple years straight and they still appear like they haven't degraded significantly. They draw 4 watts at around 14 volts, so you could hook up a bunch of them in parallel on a USB cable that can handle up to 100 watts. It would be pretty nice to have USB ports in your ceiling to customize your lighting on a whim. For some reason I have be really enjoying making my own light fixtures out of stuff most people would throw away or recycle.

Using automotive fuses is an excellent idea. You can even use a fuse block from an old car as your fuse box. There are some screw down types that would be easy to use for making a custom fuse box. Plus you can go to a junkyard and get a lifetime supply of fuses for just a few bucks.

I have used standard household receptacles and plugs for a quick fix, but I think it is a bad idea to implement in a tiny house. For one, anybody who doesn't know any better will just try to plug something in that isn't meant for it and could blow fuses. The biggest problem for me is the price. I can cut cords off of things and I have a box full of old receptacles that I can use, but I save those for other projects. The XT60 connectors are rated for higher amperage DC at a cheaper price. I have also used standard household light switches, but they are not made for DC and if you draw a lot of current across them and use them frequently then they can burn out much faster than they would using them with AC.

There are lots of places to draw inspiration from and reuse existing hardware. I guess for many people building their own PV power system then they are familiar enough with what they are doing that they can get away with things that other people would surely have problems with. I'm just inspired by the whole USB connector situation where it works great at what it does and is the same around the world.

Thanks for the replies. I think one of the main issues with using DC power ports has been a lack of standardization. It causes fragmentation which can make things more expensive and inconvenient. I agree that many people will benefit from having cigarette lighter jacks in an off grid situation, but I wish they weren't the norm. They are massive connectors with connection issues that can cause increased resistance or a complete lack of connection. They were made for cigarette lighters to fit inside.

I'm hoping the new USB PD standard will be expanded in time to handle 10 Amps like typical cigarette lighter circuits in cars. For something more powerful, the XT60 connectors are cheaper and much higher current capacity than many other options out there. They seem to be popular with the RC crowd. I'm thinking of using these and making a couple of break out cables to go from XT60 to a cigarette lighter, with an appropriately sized fuse built in of course. I think these XT60 connectors will be particularly useful when installing some permanent DC appliances, since it will be easier to work with as opposed to hard wiring something in place with a junction box. It would also be really nice for something like this to be molded into a receptacle for use in standard electrical boxes. This would make for a clean and easy installation that would be more easily accepted by governing bodies.

It doesn't necessarily have to be the XT60 connector, but something with similar properties that could become standardized would make it easier and safer to install and use. Until the USB standards start to catch up, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a tiny home prewired for it and use something like XT60 connectors.

I have an idea. It is not mutually exclusive to tiny homes and I don't think this will greatly benefit people with grid power or large power generation systems. The idea is that many things run off of low voltage DC power and the number of devices using this type of power is increasing. Or maybe it would be more correct to state that many higher voltage AC devices step down that power to DC and a lot of devices are on the verge of putting a USB connector between this step-down converter and the device.

The new specification I came across several weeks ago is USB Power Delivery (USB PD). This specification has several profiles, the highest of which allows for substantially more total power to be drawn. This can remove many of the region specific high voltage power cables from typical computer systems (and countless other devices) in favor of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) connector. Having power conversion devices for your home and vehicle will allow you to power and/or charge a myriad of existing devices, with vastly more devices on the horizon that can use a versatile standardized plug. You can already find many power adapters and device that provide USB power, and I believe it is inevitable that billions of new devices will roll out over the next few years utilizing newer USB specifications.

For those with large power generation sources, it will be as simple as plugging in an adapter. There are probably many people with tiny homes that run high voltage cables through the walls and wouldn't consider anything less. But for those going off-grid and looking to maximize efficiency, I think the new USB-PD spec is worth serious consideration. Given that the standards are already published, it would be very easy to run wires and even provide the power needed to run these new devices during the early building stages of a tiny house. The minimal extra cost and labor to do so could pay dividends as opposed to omitting it and wishing you had done it after the fact.

The USB PD Wiki Page shows the basic table of the MINIMUM power outputs of each voltage requirement for particular power profiles. After digging through the information from reference 100 of that page, I found the minimum requirement for any of the power delivery cables is 5 Amps. Given the inexpensive nature of wiring a tiny house, it would probably be worthwhile to go above and beyond that minimum. Also noteworthy from the documentation was that while the 5V, 12V, and 20V minimums must be satisfied to meet a particular profile, aftermarket power supplies may include additional voltages as they see fit. These would be ancillary to the USB PD standard profiles. I doubt you would find too many devices using more than a few voltages on any single device, but it wouldn't hurt to add an extra pair of cables if you are running wires depending on the situation.

Even if this seems a bit over the top, many devices today are already exceeding previous USB power standards. Providing a steady power source of 5V 3A will meet the maximum power requirements of the USB Type C connectors that have been equipped on newer devices over the past several months. This doesn't have to be a complex installation. I added a car USB phone charger to my solar PV setup by opening it up, soldering wires and connecting them to my charge controller. There are many voltage converters out there that can accomplish the same goal without any soldering. Once USB PD becomes the norm, similar voltage converters will be every bit as easy to find. If your tiny home is prewired for it, then it could possibly be installed in a matter of minutes.

The one thing I think about with the new USB PD spec coming out is all of the non-computing devices that will come with it. Think of all the different lights and fans and battery chargers available that can plug into the current 5VDC USB connectors. The new wave of items powered by USB PD could easily cover most of the needs for a tiny home or other off-grid area. The more things you power directly from DC with an off-grid power source, the smaller or fewer power inverters you will need. This can be a savings of energy and money. I hope this gives people some food for thought.

Given that it is a greenhouse with that large of an amount of water, it could be greatly beneficial to make it possible for the sun to warm up the water prior to cold weather. Adding insulation to the north side of the greenhouse could also help trap some heat. If you used something like foam or wood panels, these could be moved to block the sun from hitting the water when it is too warm.

Van Powell on YouTube has a number of videos about rocket stoves, builds a greenhouse with one inside, and talks about using thermal mass, such as water, to hold more consistent temperatures. Your larger scale project would have additional considerations, but his videos are rather well thought out and should be able to help you accomplish your goals.

Luke Grainger wrote:We all know that worms improve soil.

I had never given this any thought before, but after searching for 'invasive earthworms', it appears that there can be cause for concern. In North America glaciers killed off many life forms, including earthworms. The ecosystems there lived without earthworms until they were introduced by European settlers. There is also some information about worms in Australia in this link Australian Earthworms.

My guess would be that if you can already find certain species on your land then it probably wont make much difference to create habitats for them to reproduce. With the substantial rainfall I receive here, it was very easy to find worms on the North side of my house. Keeping an area moist and blocked from the sun by a structure (in your case on the South side), tree, bush, or other form of shade will usually attract local worms. You can add mulch or other organic matter to feed them and then harvest some for whatever purpose. I don't find too many in my garden because it gets too much sun and is rather low in organic matter, as it used to be all beach sand. Building small habitats in the garden will be more productive than tossing them in if there isn't adequate habitat for them to survive.

The information from my invasive earthworm search is very thought provoking. I wonder if having invasive earthworms has shown detrimental effects to people trying to establish food forests. Or perhaps certain forests that don't natively have earthworms are having issues because there is not enough predators or some other element missing from the ecosystem. In my case, adding habitats for lizards and worms brought in armadillos, another invasive species which seem to eat the worms and lizard eggs. It appears to me that the armadillos are merely another mechanism trying to close some open loops in the local life cycles.

This list of 'getting stuff done' is very inspiring! While I have no business experience, I do have some tips dealing with the HTML/website stuff. My go-to method when working with computers is to cheat! This forum has a pretty nice setup for posting replies, and you can take advantage of it to make links. For instance, you can click the 'Post Reply' button to open up the forum text editor and click the URL button along the top. It lets you enter a web page URL and then enter text to create a link. It also shows the code method used between the buttons on top and the text box, but this generally isn't practical for many people. Trying to learn a new language when you don't use it very frequently is an exercise in futility. Making use of a tool like a forum text editor can save a bunch of time. You can simply copy the code that the editor creates and paste it other places, such as your signature or your website.

I believe you can do the same thing to make pictures that are links. I will try and go through the steps and make a link out of your .gif posted above. The Img button allows you to enter the URL of an image. Punch in the URL and it should add the img tags around it. Now you can cut the info and use the URL button. Punch in the URL you want to link to (such as your blog) in the first window, and then paste in the img info you previously cut into the second window as the description. I find it easier to remember a few steps of doing something I am familiar with (such as using a forum) as opposed to trying to remember a new language. Here are the results of me using your .gif image to link to your blog using these steps:



Adding links to your website and blog in the signature of different forums you use should make it easier for people to find out more about what you are doing, and what you have for sale. Adding clickable pictures to the top and bottom of all of the pages of your web site and blog will make it easier for people to be redirected to the home page, similar to how many forums, blogs, and commercial websites work. Adding links to your other site(s), shop, and current kickstarters can make it much easier for people to navigate to all of the items and information you have to offer.

I tried learning a tiny bit of html about a decade ago, and the person running one site said he learned by copying other code he ran across on the internet. If you keep copies of things you do in plain text files (such as Notepad on Windows) then you can copy it again later down the road when you need it. If you aren't doing a lot of complicated methods then simply using any forum editor can usually yield the results you are looking for. Once you get things the way you want it, you can use this as a template for the whole site to make it more uniform and easy to navigate. Hopefully some of this is helpful to you. Good luck with the kickstarter!

Smart Splitter - That tool uses a weight to split wood. It is a pretty interesting design. Looks like it is a lot easier than swinging an axe. Amazon also has manual wood splitters similar to the one posted above at a much cheaper price than the smart splitter.

It should be fairly easy to add weight to that splitter without a welder. You could find a pipe that fits over the handle and an appropriate pipe cap. Cut up the pipe lengthwise a bit at the end opposite the pipe cap and clamp it in place. I'm sure someone could get creative from here and use items and tools on hand to create something effective. You could pour metal into the pipe to add more weight at the pipe cap. Zamack 27 - the alloy mentioned in that link has a strength similar to cast iron but melts at a lower temperature than aluminum. I have learned tons of stuff from that forum, some really excellent work happening over there.

If there is an existing circuit for an electric range that is no longer being used then 240V would be more efficient. The higher voltage device will draw less amps for a given amount of watts. It allows you to use smaller diameter conductors, or in the case of reusing larger diameter conductors it will have lower resistance. This is one portion of why it isn't really feasible to get 100% efficiency as the resistance of conductors will lose heat, likely in places where the heat can't be utilized as effectively. If the kitchen is near the point where power enters the house then it may be easy and cheap enough to run a short 240V line. If you have to do a long run plus buying new breakers plus hiring someone to help with installation and it can quickly become more expensive than the savings of reusing an existing 120V circuit.

Any use of solar that can warm the house or water may be beneficial in a cold climate. The tankless system would probably be more efficient on grid, but is dependent on usage. Having multiple points drawing hot water simultaneously will need a considerably more powerful (expensive) unit. As mentioned above, a tank system could work well in an off grid situation. Using excess energy being produced while it is being produced, such as sun shining on a PV system with full batteries, means you can make use of energy that otherwise isn't being stored.Missouri Wind and Solar has a charge controller designed for wind, but I believe can be used for solar and hydro, that sends energy to a dump load when the batteries are full. This dump load can also be a water heating element. His youtube channel has videos about this and tons of other off grid and energy saving techniques.

My guess would be that it is extremely dependent on the situation. If you set up the tank and tankless water heaters in series, they would both be running when the temperature drops below the threshold set by the thermostats. Even assuming that threshold is set higher on the small tank and lower on the tankless heater, once that lower point is reached then both would be consuming energy. Without any solid facts to back it up, I would say it would consume more energy simply due to the fact that there is a loss of energy when you convert it to a different form of energy (in this case electricity to heat). The 220V heater will probably be more efficient than the 120V heater.

Having them in parallel to perform different tasks could potentially save much more energy. This seems especially suited to your situation since you are already conscious of your hot water usage and have actively minimized waste. Places that may demand more water at times, such as perhaps the bathroom, could benefit from the 'on demand' nature of the tankless heater. Other places that would normally use more consistent levels of hot water, perhaps the kitchen sink, could use the small tank. Once it is depleted you either stop and wait or source hot water elsewhere. The biggest benefit of this that I see would be to use two small heaters as opposed to one large 'whole house' solution which could be much more costly.

I don't think the two in series really compliment each other as a whole house solution. With one or two people conscious of the water usage and understanding the benefits and pitfalls of the situation then this may not be a large issue. Hosting guests, even after being informed, would likely lead to someone ending up less than happy. If I had to guess I would say most people used to electric hot water want hot water now and that may be part of why you don't see tank and tankless systems used together. That and the tankless system being designed to not use a tank and sized for a given amount of flow. Once the tank runs out you are at the mercy of the limitations of the tankless heater. Trying to flow more water than it can effectively heat will result in less than appropriately hot water.

Is the current location of the water heater in a heated space? Or perhaps a basement or other place of relatively stable temperature? Given the cold temperature of the water supply I would use the old water heater as a holding tank. Disconnect the electricity and strip the insulation from around the tank and it could be used to hold and warm up the water prior to going into the new water heater. This is similar to how some solar water heating systems work, except you would be removing the insulation instead of adding to it. If you heat your home with electricity then this wouldn't be efficient. If this is in a basement, or in a living space heated by wood then it should be able to save electricity. This goes back to my first sentence about depending on the situation.

The exhaust pipe looks very reflective. It probably isn't giving an accurate temperature reading and there could be substantially more heat going out the exhaust. If it is drawing air in that well then that air must be coming from somewhere. It could be that it is pulling an amount of cold air into the house that is killing the efficiency of the stove. In an uninsulated space it probably only effectively warms up the area immediately around it. You could set up one of those reflective emergency blankets and sleep between that and the stove to stay warm but I doubt it could warm the house as-is.

Adding some sort of restriction to the exhaust could help slow down the burn. I remember seeing a video with the exhaust routed into a second barrel that was filled with bricks as a thermal mass, but I can't seem to find it at the moment. Rocks or other mass could also be used. It wouldn't heat the entire place but it could be enough to hold you through till it is warmer when you can build a better stove/heater.

I'd imagine you could buy a couple of steel studs and rivet them in place. You would have to make a header for the existing roof structure to dive in to and securely attach this header to the new studs. It should be fairly straight forward if you have experience building one out of wood, if not you might be better off with the smaller windows. There could be a few alternative options in this space. Going to a junkyard and getting a couple of matching sunroof windows comes to mind.

Something like an SUV with a large flat roof could yield a decent window around 2 - 3 feet long and a width that fits between your studs. I remember almost 20 years ago getting one out of a junkyard for a Jeep Cherokee and installing it in another Jeep Cherokee. As long as you measure well and take all of the hardware from the donor vehicle it should be a success.

In an effort to get involved with the forums I have been browsing around and found this 'introductions' forum, so I figured I should post here. My name is Daniel, not quite 36 years old, and currently looking for a small piece of land to do some smaller scale permaculture projects. I planted my first tree about 9 years ago and slowly got interested in native trees here in Florida after watching the deforestation of huge amounts of land. Right before the 'housing bubble' burst, there were large amounts of land that were leveled and swamp areas turned into bare land for building houses. I was a cog in that wheel framing houses and condos and such. While I did enjoy the work, I didn't like the destruction of wild areas and building gigantic and unnecessary houses that people can't even afford to live in.

I have since put a lot of time and effort into learning about tiny living, alternative energy, growing plants of all kind, and living a life that is less destructive to the land around me. I have always liked to learn and do things for myself and a small permaculture homestead seems to fit in well with my skill set. I still have a lot to learn about growing things, but I have been learning a lot from reading and observation. I have experience with carpentry, electrical, and mechanical work. I have been running a single 145 watt solar panel with 100AH of batteries which I have been using to charge my cell phone and MP3 player, run lighting in my shed, and do some other experiments such as running a low power computer. I like the idea of reducing my electrical needs as much as possible and using energy while the sun is out to reduce the number of batteries I need for energy storage. Minimizing my need for energy and finding alternative methods like using hand tools instead of power tools or a wood fired stove instead of electric is very appealing to me.

I've been following the tiny house movement for a while and think it fits in well with permaculture and living a healthier lifestyle. Working in the garden, walking amongst the trees, creating outdoor living and working spaces - I kind of got used to being outside all day even in the brutal heat here when I was framing houses so it feels normal to spend most of my day in spaces without air conditioning. I have a few ideas revolving around tiny houses that I am hashing out in SketchUp and look forward to sharing my results with others.

Alberta Urban Garden on YouTube has the first part of a series on compost tea. I really like the channel because he finds sources that are hopefully outside the reach of US chem AG, as well as using lab testing. He also qualifies his results with some of the possible ways that his testing could be flawed. Lab results alone don't always tell a complete story, but they can be a useful tool for figuring out what is going on in your soil when you make certain changes. The videos plus the comments can reveal some interesting information and methods used by others.

I personally try to directly bury stuff in my sand pit I call a garden. It is slowly getting better. I have used compost tea but using my own method. I would simply put some compost in a bucket and add a little bit of water from my rain barrels while I'm working outside. I then fill up a glass and dump it in at irregular intervals when I am passing by with the hope that the action of dumping it in mixes oxygen into the water. Once it was full I would use it to feed my trees. Since starting the direct burial method I haven't had much compost left to make tea with and I don't have any measured results other than my trees haven't died and appear to be growing well.

I imagine in my case that adding organic matter to my soil to retain water and nutrients is more important than compost tea since we get around 5' of rain a year which can wash nutrients through the sand and into the subsoil where some garden plants can't make much use of it.

I don't have any experience with a rocket mass heater, but I do have a few points to share that should be useful. If you are using that foil bubble insulation with the foil as your interior wall surface, then that should be extremely beneficial with the rocket mass heater. The idea is to warm the mass up so it radiates heat for long periods of time. Aluminum is claimed to be able to reflect over 97% of radiant heat, as it is the third most reflective element in the visible spectrum and the most reflective element of UV and IR light - IR being radiant heat. This reminds me of the setup I saw on Dual Survival where they used a reflective blanket behind them and clear plastic facing the fire so light could come in but the air was trapped and the radiant heat gets to make 2 passes. Having the radiant heat reflect back into the space with a large mass radiating heat for a long time should keep it quite cozy.

As far as feeding the fire, it depends on the size of the RMH. A larger diameter system will have an equally larger burn chamber. I have built small prototype stoves for cooking using soup cans which needed to be fed every 5 minutes or it would go out. Of course pulling up a chair and cooking and feeding the stove wasn't a big deal in that instance. I think the idea is to figure out a time of day where you are busy inside or near your yurt working, reading, unwinding or similar where you can refill as needed until it is sufficiently hot, and then do that as often as needed, which could be every day or 2. For a mass large enough to heat that space the diameter of the system would be far larger than my little prototype and thus would have an equally increased time before needing to be reloaded. You should be able to easily work it in to a routine where you do a certain daily task and walk by the RMH every so often to fill it up.

The barrel of the RMH is designed to give off radiant heat in the short term, long before the mass heats up. This should negate the need for a second heater, although if you already posses one and have room for it then it wouldn't hurt to keep it around. I'm guessing you would have different areas inside for living and sleeping. You could use a radiant shield to put near the barrel to reflect heat towards a particular area if you are away for more than a day where the mass has gotten cold. This could be as simple as a sheet of steel or aluminum, something non combustible. I could see someone reusing an old car hood. I imagine having the barrel positioned where you want immediate heat would be an important part for planning out a house, with the yurt being more configurable than a standard house this should be easy to figure out.

My stove did have some mass added to it which retained heat for quite a while. I also have a metal melting furnace that stays warm for hours after a melt, so I think a properly built RMH would stay warm for a very long time. Insulating the mass from the ground beneath it would be likely be critical to avoid losing heat to the earth. Having some sort of floor such as cedar planks would keep air, objects, and people from losing heat to the floor. Your location geographically as well as micro climate will probably dictate how successful this would work.

That's exactly it. Now I just need to convince my girlfriend to go with me for a few days. Once I get a definitive answer from her I will inquire further. Thanks!

Thank you for the reply. I have listened to roughly half of the podcasts and read a few dozen pages here on gappers and lab projects and the Obligation is Poison thread and many others. I think there may be some people looking to take a vacation and end up becoming a gapper, while others may be in the rat race looking to be a gapper but need a breather to unwind and wrap their head around permies style projects. I'm usually not someone who spends money to vacation, but my eyes lit up when I saw this thread!

I figured since their may be other people looking to do both of these that a bit of cross pollination of ideas could yield positive results. From the gapper program 2.0 thread -

We will provide a ride to and from the airport or bus station. We will give you a tour. We can even provide a meal or two.

This appears to cross over some of the things here. I was just wondering if someone were to, for instance, rent the Love Shack for 5 nights ($250) plus start being a gapper ($100) if it would be $350?

I think of it as a way to stay ahead of obligation creep. A chance to learn or perhaps teach and do work without any build up of resentment for consuming resources since I paid to be there. These two things just seem to compliment each other very nicely. It has changed my opinion from "I probably should be a gapper" to "I really need to make this happen!"

I figured sharing my thoughts might get some other people motivated. Either way I am going to throw money at you. I have been living small while helping other people and the Love Shack is a cool tiny house similar to what I want to build for myself in the future. I look forward to staying there!

Some of the things covered by the cost of a stay also seems to be the same as the stuff covered by the $100 fee for a gapper. Would a potential gapper be able to have a small vacation and then start being a gapper without having to pay the full $100? I like the idea of paying my way in advance for a few days and having a slightly longer orientation time that's on my dime. These are very reasonable prices for a stay!

My idea to solve your problem is much simpler than the others, but it requires a change of strategy. I don't believe in the 'all of your eggs in one basket' method for power. I personally like the idea of having separate 'units' of power generation and storage for different tasks, similar to how houses use circuit breakers for different circuits. I would make a more robust solution for my refrigeration, and a less robust one for a non-essential circuit.

My idea for you revolves around the notion that it is considered unnecessary to use a charge controller if you are putting out a volume of charge that is less than what it takes to charge the battery bank in 20 hours time. If you split off 50AH or more of your battery bank and ran something such as a circuit for lighting and charging small devices or other low power electrical loads, then you should be able to simply run the hydro 24/7 @ 2A without a charge controller. If you had a bit more storage on this circuit (say 150AH or more), then you could turn up the water to the 6A output when you need it and still not need the controller. The internal resistance of the battery should emit the extra energy as heat and being spread across such a large surface area it wouldn't cause any damage. It would be wise to look into this idea from multiple sources to see specific recommendations on what charge to what size battery bank and so on.

The problem with using a valve/servo/whatever mechanical device to open and close the water source to the impeller as a means of controlling charge is that if it gets stuck open just one time you could end up destroying your generator. However it could be a possibility to design such a system for emergency shut off and check the functionality regularly. This would be a good idea no matter what method you go with to connect to the batteries, as it could save the generator from damage in the event of a wire disconnecting or catastrophic battery damage. A small Arduino Nano that cuts off water with dangerously low voltage (say 10 volts) and a cut off switch on the circuit for testing. You could go as mild or wild as you like with an Arduino.

I have one question about the hydro generator: Does it use a permanent magnet DC generator, or does it produce AC and step it down to DC at the water source? AC, particularly above low voltage (50 volts) works much better over longer distances than DC. If it does produce AC at the source, it would be best to send that AC across the long wire to the batteries, and then step down to proper DC voltage at the battery bank. You would see a significant increase in power output. You can also increase the wire gauge of the wires connecting to the generator to get more of your energy to the batteries instead of being lost as heat to the resistance of the wire. However if it is really that long of a run it may be cheaper to buy a 100 watt panel for $100 and get more bang for your buck there.

One last thing I want to note is that even though amorphous panels can do better in low light conditions, they also have a lower life span. I'm pretty sure I heard it on a video from Green Power Science and read up on it in other places. Approximately 10 years (variable depending on usage) before a serious drop off in power output. This is what also worries me about thin film panels, as they haven't been around long enough to test their lifespan. Mono and Polycrystalline panels degrade much slower, and I have heard of ones 50+ years old giving around 70% of their initial rated power. It is cheaper and greener to just oversize your array by a few panels with polycrystalline in many cases. If you have more than enough power in summer and too little in winter you can put a steeper angle on the panels to help moderate that issue. This will put more sun on the panel when the sun is low in the sky at the cost of less sun hitting the panel for a given moment in the summer. The extra daylight hours make up for it not being aimed optimally.

Hopefully this gives a few good ideas to people. Good luck!

The YouTube video link is broken on the Willie Smits page. The Wood Burning Stoves 2.0 4-DVD Set picture is broken on all of the links. This is on Firefox 43 as well as Chrome 47.0.2526.106 (64-bit) running Linux if that makes a difference.

Also, the Rocket Mass Heater podcast gob links to the Rocket Mass Heater Annex6 PDF. Seems like some simple fixes to get everything running smoothly.

Three words - Swedish Fish Theory. Look it up.

Using it to smooth over people when you need service can make a big difference between great service and terrible service. Need to have an item replaced? Give them candy. Need to have your car fixed? Give them candy. Even if they don't eat candy, I'm sure they know someone who does. It can't hurt to try!

I like this! Granted my experience is in a warm climate, i have seen many desirable plants that are able to out-compete the hideous local grass. I really like the idea I heard on the Permies Podcast to save a seed mix. Get as large a variety of seeds as you can and start tossing them around. Plants that don't make it didn't belong there, and will feed the other plants. You can mix more conventional seeds, like lettuces and Brassicas, with wild edibles to have a 'lawn' that is really low on grass and rich in edible greens.

This is simply a 'must do' DIY modification. I had set a blanket on top of my chest freezer and noticed how cold it was a few hours later one day a while back. I added 1.5" foam to the bottom and it helped the machine to kick on less frequently. Next I need to add insulation to the top. I just recently noticed how efficient newer small chest freezers can be and with some extra insulation I could rather easily run one with a small PV power system (~$500). This is excellent for reducing the cost of going with renewable energy.

I also saved a few drawers from old refrigerators and use them in in my refrigerator to help keep things organized (which avoids waste), to keep some cold air from spilling out when the door is opened, and also I can simply grab the drawer I need very quickly without leaving the door hanging open while searching.

Awesome! I like the 'Resistance is growing' shirt. I have two questions: 1- Will there be an option for the permies slogan and site on back for all shirts? 2 - Will these be available locally in Jax, perhaps even at the Beaches Green Market? Either way this is great stuff and I will probably pick one up in a couple weeks.

Hi! Thanks for your effort! I am new here and have been too busy to share much, but the dailyish emails are really good. Some places people will shove a bunch of links in with no description which is a recipe for wasting people's time. A quick blurb like the ones that accompany the links in the dailyish email makes a world of difference.