Terry Brown

how do you brake a wind turbine if the wind is going to be really strong ie hurricane force... its cool to make a turbine - but it has to have speed limits or it will explode?

wouldn't all this depend entirely on the actual temperatures in the location? I live in a cold climate - north of UK and we regulary get freezing but not arctic permafrost type cold - we drain bathwater straight down into waterbutts - with a diverter to fill into garden irrigation via mocrobore plastic irrigation tubing. hasn't frozen yet in years. usually the water is warm. so unless you have some serious cold it shouldn't freeze unless the end destination of the water is going to collect in a puddle or something like. then it will freeze.
you could also wash your pots and dispose of the water seperatly.

the planks from the company that installed mine on a near flat roof put the array in facing north 10 degrees! they could face south if they had brackets that were long enough but they havnt got them. the best they can do is flat - FLAT. id prefer more angle towards south if they could but they refuse saying - 'the brackets holding them up need to be certified parts' hmmmm or you just get some strong metal drill a few holes - whack a bit of paint on - fit it. that's too hard for some companies...

or you buy a generator - would be cheaper if your grid tied

the panels will very very rarely get near their design limit - mine havnt yet... its only april...

the local authority wont allow you to connect to the grid??? - ahh you mean they wont pay you for generating.... more like.

not to worry tho - if you have your own at least they can power summink.

the ones to the grid cant be separated from it [well mine cant] would be nice to have the option to flip the charging from grid to house at will.. come the apocalypse I will have power.. lol

ideally you need to do these few things to get it basically right.

1. find YOUR position on the globe - all you need is the line of LATITUDE - something like 54 degrees

2. you need to make the vertical bit that sticks up at the same angle to the face of the sundial

3. set the sundial flat using a spirit level. so now you have the face 90 degrees to the sun at high noon [note high noon or when the sun is directly overhead is local time as its different as the sun moves across the sky]

4. the sticky up bit lol [well I don't know what its called!] - point that towards north using a compass.

you will have to work out the hours on the face - this is quite tricky.. I did this once with a book I found - works very well if you follow the instructions.

you may be able to find a ready made face pattern.

theres a calculation to marking them out on the face - not easy