Hi Jerry, It is an advantage to use a pure sine wave inverter from the standpoint that it will run any kind of load. Pure sine wave inverters are more efficient as well. You’ll get more out of your battery bank and solar modules as a result.
Some inductive loads will not work well with a modified sine or square wave inverter because of the higher frequency harmonics of a modified sine or square wave. These high frequency waves cause heating in the core material of most inductors/transformers that are designed for use at 60 Hz. For example a step down transformer in a piece of equipment would likely get hot and eventually fail if ran on a square wave. Many AC motors accept the AC power directly without any filtering or conditioning and therefore being inductive devices may be damaged and fail prematurely. I had a blender fail prematurely due to overheating as a result of running from a modified sine wave inverter. I’m not sure I would take a chance on a frig with a compressor motor. At times we have no way of knowing what the electronics of a particular device is or what kind of load or motor is inside the device.
In general switching power supplies have no problem with a modified sine wave or square wave. Most all our electronic devices such as computers, TV, and the like are based off of switching power supply technology these days so if that is what you will be running from the inverter you should be fine. However, if you will be running a microwave oven or any AC motor device it may not work because you have no way of knowing how the signal is conditioned before leading to the motor or inductive load of that particular piece of equipment. By not using a sine wave inverter there is a chance something will be damaged. While running devices pay attention to how hot they get. For example, on power tools the motor is exposed enough to feel if it is getting hot. If it is getting hot, don’t use it on the modified sine wave inverter. The reason the inductive load fails is because the insulating material in the coil of the inductor gets so hot it melts. Then shorts result. Some motors and transformers can run hot no problem, but this heat is another source of inefficient use of your battery bank and solar modules.
Hi everyone. I'm so looking forward to the solar workshop, meeting everyone, and helping with Paul's empire.
My family and I have been living off grid for 15 years. I have developed some electronics through that time to make off-grid life easier and get better use and work done from the power produced from photovoltaic and micro-hydro systems.
Permies has a great solar forum. Check it out. Please let me know if you have any questions before the workshop.
Hope to see you there.
Stuart
P.S. You too can get PUMPED UP with a Fresnel lens.
Yes, replicating turns something small into something big. My point was a positive perspective on the concept. Erica’s point was the negative result of the same concept. The fact is, we humans have been mucking around for a long time on this earth. Is it wilderness after we have been in it?
What is wilderness anyway? What Bill didn’t know about the wilderness is that it was likely altered by human activity. We now know, from research and books like 1491 by Charles Mann and Tending the Wild by Kat Anderson, that what Europeans perceived as wilderness, when arriving in land that was new to them, was actually a human altered environment.
As far as leaving things alone or not, I am in agreement with folks like Joel Salatin, Wendell Berry, Allan Savory and others. We need more people on the land. We need more stewards of the land. Leaving the land alone is not necessarily a solution. Of course we should start with the land that is obviously damaged by us. There is an abundance of it.
The problem has not been that we are on the land and use the land. The problem has been the mentality in which we are here. Are we here to conquer, extract, and leave? Or, are we here to practice good husbandry, nurture, and stay?
It is true, as Bill says, when referring to wilderness. There is too little of “it” left, whatever “it” is. We think we know it when we see it. It just may not be.
I like the way this chapter started out “…, I often find I have the only decently dirty fingernails”. I feel the same way. Sometimes when I am at the office in a meeting, I notice I forgot to clean my fingernails from working on my place. I then tuck my hands under the table and look around to see that other people’s hands are fine and soft, sometimes with nails too long to be used for any kind of meaningful physical labor. Such is life for now in this corner of the world.
This chapter does not deal much with legal aspects and what can go wrong, but Erica’s comments clarify this. Much of what is contentious about permaculture is in this area. Aside from roads, we mostly are interested in using earthworks to control flow of water and to contain water. It was good to be reminded of other uses such as shelter, noise and wind breaks. My grandmother said the warmest house she ever lived in was sod. Some of the earth shelter structures of the past such as the native American round houses and sod houses of pioneers are fascinating and could have some relevance with respect to the newer structures such as wofati and more resent building methods and materials.
A great deal of the trouble with earthworks have to do with the scale. “Small is Beautiful” as Schumacher would say. For example, in California where I live, much benefit could be achieved by many small ponds (earthworks) high in the water shed where water flow volume is low as we continue to lose snowpack due to a warming environment. However, in the past, the mode of operation was to build a few large dams to meet water needs which resulted in huge environmental cost and fish species loss. Also, harnessing the flow of large volumes of water leads eventually to major disasters. If one does have the benefit of a sizable river or large volume of water flowing (seasonal or otherwise) through their land, it is wise to divert a small portion by way of earthworks in different places rather than try to harness the total flow in one place by way of earthworks.
Thinking small and replicating what works is the way to go. Distributed small diverse is resilient. Mollison states “Small earthworks are so immediately effective…” (top of p. 228).
Okay, I admit, I skimmed this chapter. I have referenced this chapter in the past to get information about soil rehabilitation. I planted some of the things that were mentions such as daikon radish, comfrey, and various legumes. Had some success, but much failure as well with having to deal with the number of critters in this area (i.e. birds, wood rats, rabbits, deer). Yes, I know, I need to start harvesting them as well.
Most everything I do now I cover with some form of protection, however this means I can’t deal with large spaces. I seem to have good results with broadcasting seeds where some native plants are already established. The established foliage seems to hide enough of the seeds and the young spouts to help them into maturity.
Fact is, there are so many other good books and sources of information about soils that I prefer to reference them first. Example, I just heard a great interview of Elaine Ingham in which she claims that there is no earth structure within the United States that is deficient in minerals. All we need to do is get the right microbial activity going in the soil and the minerals will then become soluble in a form of which the plants can absorb them. For me that sounds pretty cool. Mineral additives can get to be very expensive. Check it out. Frank Aragona has got his podcast going again. Good stuff!
While Mollison does not mention the uses of a Trompe anywhere in this book, it may be worthwhile to bring attention to the Trompe for this chapter. Mollison did talk about the Trompe in some video lectures. This device amazed me as it is a very elegant way to produce compressed air with no moving parts other than the movement of water. There are few that live in areas with sufficient moving water and drop in elevation to use a Trompe, still it is something for a permaculture designer to be aware of.
The discussion of windbreaks and shelterbelts in this chapter was particularly meaningful to me having grown up in the Midwest. I remember as a child some of the beautiful shelterbelts that were then mature that must have been planted right after the dust bowl years to aid in keeping the soil in place. By the time I was growing up not many farmers or ranchers seemed to think it was very important anymore. From what I could tell, few new shelterbelts were being planted and few are today. Perhaps government programs related to this activity were dropped. Too bad.
While Mollison went on at great length about windbreaks and shelterbelts, there is one aspect of them that I have not seen mentioned in any permaculture literature that I have come across. Mollison does make brief comments about drifting snow, but does not discuss it in depth. However, this relates to the use of shelterbelts in snowy prairie like, windy areas such as the Midwestern area of the United States.
In the wind, blowing snow will as easily go up hill as it will down hill. Shelterbelts have a capacity to catch a tremendous amount of snow out on the prairie. Following the principle of slowing the flow of moisture across the land, a good permacultural practice would be to position the shelterbelts high on the land such that the collected snow when melting in the spring would soak into the soil as it moves down hill. Catchment dams and ponds could also be positioned higher up on the topography as a result of the shelterbelts being higher.
It would be great to see some permaculture folks in the Midwest experiment with this concept. This would be of most advantage in the rolling hill type geographies on the prairie. If anyone has heard of example of this please share. I suspect this has likely not been put into practice because neither Mollison nor many other permaculture practitioners to date have been working in snowy prairie like locations.
I was glad to hear of the “catch up week” as I too was finding it hard to get through this chapter. I have always understood the concept of edge. Pattern seems more mysterious. I much appreciated the videos that others posted. Thanks. For me, it helped clarify a few things. It seems that patterns are the result of some rule, law or process that takes place and therefore (in my opinion) the pattern may not be as important as the rule followed or the process developed.
For example, if one does swales on contour, a pattern emerges that can be quite beautiful but the designer did not necessarily think about the pattern but thought more about slowing water across the land and proceeded with a design based on this.
Another example is the spiral galaxy or vortex ring. If Mollison explained the underling law behind why a galaxy is shaped like a spiral, I missed it, given my lack of being able to focus on this chapter. However, a vortex and galaxy shape results from the law of conservation of angular momentum.
Here is another related video that hopefully will result in some insight into this chapter.
http://www.learner.org/vod/vod_window.html?pid=568 (if this link puts you into the Mechanical Universe main menu go down the page to lesson 19. Angular Momentum. Other lessons may apply as well such as lesson 16. Harmonic Motion)
I can think of at least one very purposeful good use of a vortex in permaculture - the vortex filter commonly used in aquaponic and pond systems.
While reading this chapter I was thinking of all the other stuff I needed to get done and I did learn some new things. However, I could not help but think that if I took the time and calm my mind there might be some very profound insights I could uncover. Perhaps I will revisit this someday in a more settled state.
Perhaps in medieval times grammar did mean gathering of data or the facts. Here is another trivium link: www.triviumeducation.com
In any case, its great to see multiple ways to approach design. I appreciated reviewing all of the approaches Mollison details in this chapter.
I reflected much on what was said about EXTRA WORK.
EXTRA WORK is the result of an input not automatically provided by another component of the system.
I must pay attention to this more in my designs. It reminds me of something apparently Sepp Holzer said (as told by Paul W.),
If you are not willing to have a pig then you must do the work of the pig.
Not quoted exactly and is out of context. It was from some old podcast on RichSoil if you’re interested in finding it. It had something to do with a question posed to Sepp about clearing brambles or blackberries if you don't want a pig.
I appreciated the material related to the “Law of return”. This is the first law of an “agrarian” economic point of view proposed by Wendell Berry in an outstanding essay Money Versus Goods in the book What Matters? Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth. This essay would be a good resource for an intentional community or any community to reference while working to establish a stable economic foundation.
In a related matter, Mollison suggests that well functioning living systems push against the law of entropy. I couldn’t help but think how that must be true in a respect to the mountains in California in which I live. The salmon runs that once existed here must have contributed immensely to the fertility and biomass of these mountains (i.e. bringing the fertility back from the sea where it was lost). Ignorance and bad practices resulted in a loss of this free service. I don’t usually focus on the past and what was lost but more of what we can do moving forward, the permaculture way, but could not help but make this observation. Perhaps the salmon will run again someday. People are helping it happen in other places by removal of dam obstructions, etc..
It was timely to read this chapter with the vegetarian vs. omnivore subject matter given the latest podcasts done by Paul W. and permie friends. For me, Michael Pollan does a great job of promoting the omnivore philosophy in chapter 17 of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Also, permies has done a great job of promoting humane animal processing methods (i.e. as an example, the respectful chicken harvest video).
Thanks so much for thinking of this idea. Heard about it from Paul’s daily-ish email I read this morning. Have had and referenced the book for many years but have never read it straight though. Will be fun to do as a group.
For me, what was of most value in chapter 1:
“A basic question that can be asked in two ways is:
‘What can I get from this land, or person?’ or
‘What does this person, or land, have to give if I cooperate with them?’ “
This , I think, relates to what Joel Salatin refers to as letting the pig express it’s “pigness” (in it’s rooting nature for example and loving it to do work for you) and letting the chicken express it’s “chickeness” (in it’s ability to scratch , eat bugs, etc. and loving it to do work for you).
Every person, creature, place has a gift to give with pleasure. Working with, instead of extracting from, could be the difference between peace and plenty, or war and waist.
Angelika, I believe there is a cost effective way to get your pumping done via solar. Don’t mean to plug my stuff here and my site is not the best yet, but I have been testing the eHarvester load controller with various inexpensive pumps on my property for a few years with very good results. You can connect a float switch to the eHarvester so the pump will turn off and not run dry if the water level gets low. The eHarvester can be purchased at www.WiserWorks.com . Let me know if you would like me to package the eHarvester with a solar panel, battery and charge controller if you are unsure as to how to use it. I am working on some easy to used packaged pumping systems now. Check out the videos about the eHarvester to get details on how it works and please let me know if you have any questions.
I would recommend using a 12V Shurflo (google “12V Shurflo” )( use intake strainer ) as an inexpensive durable pump. The diaphragm components of the pump can be purchased separately and replaced if need. Also it is not going to break the bank if the pump does need to be replaced. I keep a few of these pumps around for replacements given they are inexpensive. They are normally used in RV and spraying applications but they work well for moving water around a property as well.
If you do not need to lift the water very high then a 12V submersible pump would work well and because there are fewer moving parts they are more durable. For a 12V submersible/bilge pumps, I would recommend something from Rule (google “rule 12v bilge pump”)as an inexpensive durable choice.
This is an inexpensive solar solution. I hear often there are no cost effective ways to move/pump water via solar. It is just not true. Hope I am not out of line for plugging this, but I could not help it. It fits.
Greetings, My family and I own 18 acres of land in the Santa Cruz Mountains in California. This is beautiful land that I have built a straw bale home on as well as created ponds, terraced some areas, and planted some trees to start a food forest. In general, been working towards developing the land using permaculture design concepts. This work has been slow going while maintaining a full time job and in the process there was a fire that consumed all of the trees and vegetation on the property as well as some of our belongings. Fortunately, this event did not destroy our home in part due to good planning and in part by the grace of God.
Unfortunately, the other members of my family do not want to live this remotely (32 miles from the nearest city) any longer. This breaks my heart. I love this place and see so much potential in it, but my children want to be more involved in school activities and with other kids. I understand this given their ages. We will need to sell this property in order to purchase something in the city. I can’t help but think there may be another way. This is more land than we ever needed.
I think it could be possible to establish a land trust that folks could purchase stocks in and devise a way to be on the land or co-own the land with the land trust established to make it possible to use the land following permaculture principles in perpetuity. Ownership of stock would provide certain benefits and for anyone that wanted to sell, the stocks would pass on these benefits to the next owner of the stocks. Think of it much like buying a condo. You own the space within the walls of the dwelling but the property of the main facility is collectively owned and a certain structure of use and behavior associated with that facility is maintained.
Is this a viable way to create permaculture communities? Anybody already do it this way? Are there any other ways to keep the land and still get some down payment funds? At the very least it would be good to sell to some other permaculture folks if there is any interest out there. Thanks for any comments or interest in these ideas.
Figure RMHview7 and RMHview8 show the front and back views of the base.
This RMH would be mainly for a garage, shop, greenhouse, or similar environment. It is a bit large for a house, but in some homes may be appropriate. The base and modular construction of this RMH is what makes this unit have many possible uses. This RMH can be used for water heating, making charcoal (to use for biochar), firing clay, and of course heating a built environment. Aside from the thermal mass this unit would be attached to, this RMH can be easily disassembled, moved, and reassembled. The base can be considered more durable and longer lasting given it is not exposed to the higher temperatures the combustion chamber and drum are exposed to. The drum and combustion chamber can be considered consumable given the lower cost of materials they are made from.
Different sizes of combustion chambers can be inserted for different purposes. The chamber shown in presented figures is of a size that will accept a vessel to convert wood chips into charcoal. Human poop could also be added along with the wood chips to render sterile and useful for making biochar as well. I believe Paul might appreciate this given his healthy aversion to some other ways of dealing with this. At least this might be one of many ways to deal with this depending on specific circumstances. The volatile gases purged from the woodchip vessel during the pyrolysis process also provide additional fuel in the combustion chamber. A smaller combustion tube can be put in place if the RMH is only being used for heating.
I also believe the combustion chamber temperature can be controlled in such a way as to fire clay. I am interested in experimenting with making pots and items in general but more specifically for clay pot or olla irrigation.
http://agroinnovations.com/podcast/2009/04/15/episode-48-clay-pot-irrigation-with-larry-sallee/
I would also like to experiment with making clay pellets to add to hugelkultur beds along with the decomposing wood and biochar. The clay pellets would be similar to the ones used for hydroponics.
http://shop.simplyhydro.com/Hydroton-Expanded-Clay-Pellets-50-liter_p_76.html
I got a quote from a local sheet metal shop to fabricate and weld the base out of 1/8th inch steel for $794 Qty. 1 and $568 for Qty. 5. Even $568 is a bit more than I want to commit to this for now. I am posting this to get some feedback and also see if there are others that might be interested in collectively making this or something with the same features. I can provide all mechanical drawings of the base needed for you to go ahead and make it yourself or get it made if there is interest. This might be a good opportunity for some sheet metal shop to make some side money if this thing is as useful as I believe.
Of course, I cannot claim this thing is useful for anything. Use the design at your own risk. Be aware I cannot possibly provide all details about this design here. For example you might notice the 55 gallon drum is up-side-down and sitting in a 1 inch high trough. Why? This is to fill the trough with some sand so that the sand will make a sufficient gas seal.
Please contact me if you have any questions.
I guess this is a bit much for a newbie, but I have been visiting this site and have been involved in renewable energy and permaculture type activities for a while.
(Continuation from my previous post…)
Figure RMHview4 shows the base and combustion chamber only.
Figure RMHview5 shows the base and water heating coil only.
Figure RMHview6 shows the base and 55 gallon drum (drum not modeled with much detail – i.e. basic cylinder)
This is a design of a RMH that can be used for multiple purposes or to solve many problems as do all good permaculture designs. The design is mainly in the base of the apparatus. Figures RMHview1 and RMHview2 show the entire assembly front and back views minus the thermal mass that the exhaust pipe would go into. In the images some components are transparent so that everything can be seen in one view. The components of the assembly are the base, combustion chamber, 55 gallon drum, and optional water heating coil, optional wood chip vessel (to produce charcoal). Other optional components could be added for better serviceability like a wood stick feeder shoot at the same angle as the intake plate, as well as an ash rake and ash tray for easy removal of noncombustible ash material (which could be used to make lye or potassium hydroxide which has many uses including creation of soap used for grey water systems - i.e. potassium based soap better for plants than sodium based soap).
Figure RMHview3 shows the base, combustion chamber, and wood chip vessel only.
(Note there is more to come but I see that I can only add three attachments at a shot. Bare with me while I work out all this newbie stuff…)
