ronie dean

Vinegar. I keep white vinegar in a spray bottle - for bucket or urinal rinse with rain water and if smell remains then spray vinegar in and smell is gone. For common flush toilet - use a bucket of water to flush (the bowl won't fill back up) spray toilet with vinegar and add a cup to the little water that remains - use toilet brush.  If you have extra stuck on stains - leave the vinegar on and spray more vinegar on several times. For septic systems - after you use the vinegar and clean the stain, add baking soda to the liquid to buffer the acid of the vinegar.

Thank you, Pearl Sutton, for your story and the kind words... I hope you can get all the light you need. I wish I had the stuff it took to always be self employed - I just worried that I couldn't make the tax bill and heat and... Years ago people lived on faith day to day earth to mouth - I guess it took me longer to get there...  

Thank you Karen...I love Johnny Cash and have never heard this song before. Have a Bright day.

I did notice that Karen. I like the 40 shades part too. My sis has SAD too.. Does turning on a lot of bright lights help? or maybe having a green house to hang out in on sunny days maybe?   I love the Spring most of all too...that is why I am thinking of selling everything and moving to Lake Chapala Mexico - where it is Spring all year long.

Karen Donnachaidh wrote:Good for you! I love a story with a happy ending. It takes number crunching, but it takes a lot more (as you know). Strength, courage, faith, determination...... P.S. I love green!

Thank You Karen! When asked what is my fav color I always say Green same as everyone else's favorite color.. I guess some could make Gold as a favorite...but if they were stranded in a world with one color - you can't eat gold.

                                                                Everyone's Favorite Color is Green

I must have missed this area years ago...not sure how that happened. When I was a kid I found the Seed catalogs that came in the mail and I started dreaming of transforming my parents little country spread into a Garden of Eden. I thought of all the penny items - veggies and fruits and flowers and how they would be beautiful and practical and the kid just believes he could plant these and spend the rest of the time enjoying beautiful flowers and eating perfect apples, grapes and such. Dang this story is already to long so lets skip a few decades,,, .. Looking back at idealist me, I see that I have only changed a little. I still look at the future through rosy lenses sometimes. Reality and making a living and life gets in the way of dreams... I still ran towards a goal of making this country Eden someday, even though I knew that it takes a lot more than pennies and harvesting... Twenty years ago I bought some land in the country and began to plant. I found out quickly that I didn't have time to be gone 6 days a week for work and try to spend a few hours working the dirt each week... Working getting a paycheck each week does have advantages. Money to invest and grow and plan for a day that I would not need a job and could quit the rat race and live the dream -  the country garden - the peace and quiet. -----

I envy you folks that can get a place in the country and work the land day to day with little money and hoeing the dirt and making food for the day. I think of taxes and bills and heating in Winter - water and sun in the Summer- and having enough to get though... I often wonder if you don't have a much happier life than someone like me who has to crunch all the numbers get everything paid first and then be able to live the farm and country life. ...

Several years ago I started crunching numbers as to how much longer I have to work to "afford" to quit regular paycheck and live the dream. I looked at several options and crunched the numbers... and I found out that I was ready. In 2016 I gave notice and ended working for someone else and started working for myself all the time. I could've done it a long time ago.

These peppers grow great in sunny window indoors all winter, Don't make hash browns or fried potatoes without chopping a Peter Pepper in

Hey Ben, Hope it is warm where you are. Sorry, if all you want to do is make enough for phone, then my advice is little value to you. Unless you might think of a way to make a simple mechanical device (clothes washer is coming to mind) you are well in the right zone to have a simple electrical charger for your situation. A deep cycle battery and generator might be more expensive than setting up a barrel that can be turned with your "free" muscle energy that does the laundry.

Best of luck and warm weather to you. Hope to see a follow up as to your experience with the muscle power.

How much electricity do you want from the pedal machine? If you want just enough for a few LED lights and want to spend the hours pedaling, maybe might be worth it.

I think it is a waste of time and resources to generate any decent amount of electricity with pedal power. It's possible, but quite involved. You are far better off hooking the bike to the appliance and grind your grain with a mill. Pump some water, hook it to a sharpening wheel, hook it to a makeshift washing machine. ...................

If you think you can make an 8 ft diameter wheel that runs perfectly straight and spins perfectly and most likely has a fly wheel that is also perfectly true, and you want to spend a lot of hours manually spinning electricity, you might get enough electric to run a few things.

I think finding a temp job for a week and getting a solar panel or two then instead of pedaling electricity you spend time with other chores and let the sun do the generating. 25 years of sun electricity for a weeks work in 2018.

Creighton Samuiels wrote:

ronie dee wrote:Water H2O isn't what causes rust, it's oxygen O2 that is the culprit.

While this is true as far as that goes, corrosion of metal is an electro-chemical reaction, and requires the water to create an electrical circuit.  Without an electrolyte somewhere in the mix, cold steel is unlikely to rust even when exposed to oxygen.  This is actually how rust-preventive paints work, because it's easier to keep moisture out than keep oxygen out.

I hope that OP is still not planning to lay the cans sideways as Creighton Samules' post that the cans should be upright is correct. Possibly they should be inverted with the tops down. That said, I think that using cans. filled with cob/clay/dirt, isn't a great way to build a house. It seems that earthships and earth bags - even rammed earth would be far better and tried and proven. There is nothing that will keep these cans from rusting. It will be major labor intensive and probably expensive to even try to keep the cans from rusting. The structural support from the cans is very temporary - so don't count on the cans being structural support for your roof in the long run.

Almost every action that we experience in the universe is a electro - chemical reaction. Rust is an oxidation reduction reaction. Oxygen is reduced and iron is oxidized. Water is not an electrolyte. Electrolyte=mineral=salt. Minerals in the water are electrolytes.

Earthships, earth bags, rammed earth, cob, cord wood, all seem easier and cheaper than steel cans. You can build with cans but do you really want to?