Benjamin Dinkel

thomas rubino wrote:Oh, it would be nice to share it with the neighbors, but selling to the power company is a losing proposition.

It often is, but depends on where you are. Here (in Spain) there's contracts in which you use the grid as a virtual battery. You only pay them for what you take more than what you've given them. Which to me is a pretty sweet deal.
Unfortunately I'm 100 meters from the next connection point and a neighbor got a quote for around 10k euros to get connected...

Hey M,

first of all congratulations on your purchase. And for thinking outside the septic tank concept!
You're right. With a composting toilet and a working grey water system the septic tank is not necessary. And the saved trees might benefit from water and nutrients.

I really hope you'll encounter a designer/engineer for your system.
Are there no companies that specialize in grey water use around? In Europe I could come up with at least a couple of leads.

Matt, I can understand the direction you're going. But if you design it the right way (with a potential septic tank that get's added later on by the new owners or you before selling) I don't see the problem.

Or my favorite:
Get grid access and give it to your neighbors, be that for free or even selling it to the grid!

Heat some water for taking a bath

Pre-Heat the thermal mass of your house (in winter)

Run a dehumidifier (if you have moisture problems)

Run an electric food dehydrator

Day 9 (of continuos work) was a bit of a frenzy.
We applied a coat of clay and lime plaster with a mesh.




And then a last layer of lime plaster with whitish sand and rubbed it all into its final form.




Now the clients need to patiently wait for the plaster to dry before giving it all a coat of silicate paint

Day 8 we just did some minor touch ups and built a wooden structure for the sofa cushions.
We had a fire in the morning and evening to speed up the drying.
And the barrel stayed warm all day. And it started easily.

Tomorrow we'll plaster everything

Today we finished leveling the cob of the bench, added a fun round window back rest, installed a chimney thermometer and covered the chimney pipe. The rest of the day was spent on the prep of a different project on site.





Yesterday evening the clients experienced a stalling burn after 15 min. Tonight we tried again and got a good hot burn going for at least 30 min before calling it a day.

Most of today was spent adding mass to the bench we completed yesterday.



Tomorrow we’re going to make it look pretty but most of the mass is now installed.
The amount of material that needs mixing and moving in any build still surprises me every time.  
The Timelapse looks great on the camera already, I’m excited to stitch it all together.

Huge progress with little fotos today.
Connected the barrels to the chimney, installed another revision door, connected the barrels to each other and started cobbing around and on top of the barrel bench.
By the end of the day we had it all airtight and started a test run.

Started smoothly, no smoke, good heat in the barrel.



We have a lift off for yet another rocket!

Very cool! I’d love to see and hear the two but am busy building a rocket mass heater for a costumer.
Will there be a video to watch afterwards?