larry kidd

Which bay area?

Shoes, tool handles are easy enough to make, shoes not so.

Tommy Bolin wrote:I have 1500+-ah of series/parallel 24 volt L-16 type lead acid US Batteries. No grid here anywhere close.
Looking at Battle Born's website, for American tech, I would likely need about 15,000USD worth of heated batteries, to replace them. Mine cost, in 2023, about 2600USD through Oasis Montana, no sales tax, picked them up in Missoula, no freight.
LA batteries, for all their apparent shortcoming are:
Stone
Axe
Simple.
....and pretty dang heavy.
Been around for well over a hundred years. I'm not sure I want a battery that takes it's own brain to function, even if that brain is American made.
We leave our home 4-6 weeks in the early winter, the temps inside get down to about 10F.  Therefore the self heating batteries. Our winter sun is actually decent. My snow covered yard opens to the south, our lake freezes/snows over. One big reflector. Solar panels work better in the cold.
You could spend less for LiFePo I'm sure. But if you told me you believe the circuitry and safety features of some cut rate Chineese battery you bought on TEMU/AliBaba/Amazon, for which you will have NO recourse in 2-4 years, were equivalent to the units sold by a Nevada based company, I would say my belief is you are delusional. In my mind because of complexity and 'newness' of tech, the lithium is not yet close to proven.
Go to the Battle Born website and look at the list of tests and compliances they subject their batteries to and provide the same data for the batteries you seem to want to recommend to me.
I may or may not not get 3000 cycles to death a LiFePo battery seems to promise, but I never run my batteries to less than 70%, and the 4v lead beasts these batteries replaced lasted about 30 years. I don't kid myself that these batteries are the equivalent of the 4V KWatts we had, but I also could apparently replace my US Batteries like 5-6 times before the cost breakeven for lithium is approached.
My only caution for a high capacity LA like these is to mind the charge rate they like for bulk charging. These batteries like almost 40A of charge to begin.
300W panels are cheap, charge controllers and cabling are not, doing that on a budget is tough, possibly not having to panel up is a plus for lithium. Some of the current charge controllers or control/inverter options no longer support three stage LA charging, something else to consider.
Battery prices in Canada are quite high. I can buy in the States and pay the 10% duty and come out money ahead, even with currency conversion.
When your lithium batteries are 15 years old you can tell me how wonderful they are/have been.
I'll be waiting/listening.

If we are all still around in 15-30 years I'll be happy to.

I built my system from parts so I can also replace parts as needed IE: the BMS / brain if it goes bad

Two years and three months until financial freedom for me!  

Michael Cox wrote:I've got a slightly temperamental drain from our kitchen sink. Every year or so the pipes clog but not in the u-bend, further down. I've dismantled the trap many times, messed around with a plunger, bought one of those flexible snake things - no joy.

Today I caved and had a "drain engineer" call by. £190 call out charge... steep but I was impatient and had no time to shop around for quotes. Came home from work early and waited for him. From the time he arrived at the door until he left was less than 5 minutes.

He unscrewed the u-bend, then screwed a flexible hose to the pipe fitting. Lay down on the floor and blew hard into the pipe - I heard the blockage *pop* free. 2 minutes to close the pipes back up again and confirm that the water was draining well, before he went on his way.

I'm simultaneously impressed, infuriated, and looking to buy a suitable flexible hose for next time.

There was once an old machinist who was cut loose to increase profits. Then the company had issues with their biggest most profitable system. The company tried everything and hired numerous people who all failed to get the system working again all the while they were loosing millions. Finally they decided to call the old machinist and see if he had any thoughts. He agreed to come see. Quoted a crazy high price to fix the system but also noted if he failed there would be no charge at all. They didn't want to pay his price so he left. A week or so later they had exhausted all possible options and called him back. He was now busy so turned them down they came back and said they would pay his price and he said the price was now X4 more because he'd have to pull off another job. But that if he failed there would still be no charge so they told him to go ahead. He went in with a drilling hammer tapped once in a specific spot and the machine roared to life. It took all of 15 seconds. Then he handed them a very large bill something like $1 to hit xxx $1,000,000 for knowing where and what to hit and how hard to hit it. You're paying for a lifetime of knowledge the most valuable resource there is according to many! They paid the bill and rehired him as a outside consultant...

Edward Finch wrote:In my mind, the ideal groundcover would prevent any unwanted seeds from making contact with the soil, would draw in and seal in all moisture from precipitation, and would have entirely undemanding roots that offer no competition or inhibition to whatever else I have intentionally planted. Any additional benefits such as soil building (e.g. clover) or edible parts are nice but are not part of the core mission.

Of course we don't live in a perfect world, and nothing is going to live up to those high standards, but I'd love to hear about the plants that come closest in your experience.

Thanks.

What's the end goal? Is it just ground cover? If so then single species is not really the best idea. Mix it up, variety almost always works best!

Do you have any Milwaukee battery operated tools? They have a nice little 175W inverter that hooks to the M18 batteries. If not other companies likely make something similar.

Juniper Zen wrote:

larry kidd wrote:What kind of soil? What grows there?  Can you plant stuff that doesn't require much if any upkeep now or at least two weeks before frost?

Ever heard of Daikon radishes? They will drill deep roots and allow that winter water to get down in the ground. There are many other things you can plant with them. Fella named Gabe Brown does some good you tube vids about soil. Not specifically what you're after but I know they cross over from my own use! Those radish roots have been know to go over 25 feet deep. Plant them now and everything else you can think of or learn of overwinter. You don't even have to till the grass. Just scratch the ground and cover 1/2 to 1 inch. They are also great for eating and wildlife. I've had 22" radishes 2.5" across.. Fixed bad drainage issues here in heavy clay soil.

Some deep cross hill French drains might do the same but costly and not as likely to work.

Whoops, forgot to say that it's very heavy, compact clay soil.
What currently grows is wild grasses (I think mostly rye and oat).
I can plant whatever I want there, but they need to be plants that I can mow later, due to the fire fuel issue.
Wow, 2 foot radishes! That's amazing. It sounds very promising and I will see if I can get some seeds ASAP. Thank you!

We also have heavy compact clay here. Not sure how cold it gets in 9B but another plant that helps break up heavy compact clay soil is buckwheat and it grows crazy fast like 6-8 weeks from seed to harvest if memory serves. Not that you'll want to harvest it. I'd let it keep reseeding if it were me. Sadly it doesn't tolerate frost or freezing at all! I've had the radishes overwinter here in zone 7a many times.

Seriously checkout Gabe Browns videos. You may be surprised at how much you learn. You also my reclaim a lot of water by combining all these plants locking it in the soil for summer cutting the fire risk way down!

Do you all realize how much calcium is in hardwood ash?

Better yet do y'all have any idea how much better ash is for improving soil over lime? Not just for raising PH but for the full balance. It contains somewhere over 150 minerals and elements / supplements!

Think of char or charcoal as a sponge and safety lockbox combined. It sucks up all sorts of stuff and often locks bad things in while letting good things out at a slow metered rate.

Look up and study terra preta.

Diversity is the real key to great soil!

Always make slow incremental changes no big burning changes!

What kind of soil? What grows there?  Can you plant stuff that doesn't require much if any upkeep now or at least two weeks before frost?

Ever heard of Daikon radishes? They will drill deep roots and allow that winter water to get down in the ground. There are many other things you can plant with them. Fella named Gabe Brown does some good you tube vids about soil. Not specifically what you're after but I know they cross over from my own use! Those radish roots have been know to go over 25 feet deep. Plant them now and everything else you can think of or learn of overwinter. You don't even have to till the grass. Just scratch the ground and cover 1/2 to 1 inch. They are also great for eating and wildlife. I've had 22" radishes 2.5" across.. Fixed bad drainage issues here in heavy clay soil.

Some deep cross hill French drains might do the same but costly and not as likely to work.