Jon Wisnoski

That's actually way easier than how I was taught before. I actually had about 8 inches of a started rope with that exact same braid, and that method shown is far easier to do and keep track of than the one I tried before. It is still exponentially harder to actually pull of with my fingers than 3 strand, but I feel like with enough practice it could probably be done at a decent speed.

Will give it a try.
Thanks Joylynn Hardesty.

Does anyone here have any experience braiding utility rope? Online, all the braiding tutorials are aimed at foot long para-cord decorative braids.

And so far any braids I try just end up being too time consuming to do and confusing with single color strands. I would love a braid style that can be done quickly and is easy to put down and pickup again and not be confused about where you are.

Right now the only one I found that works is the typical 3 strand hair braid. But its a flat braid which I think is a negative, and I definitely would like to try one with more strands.


Thanks

Thanks Bryant RedHawk.
But, question, is that window just copying windows that slide open, or would it include some sort of track? That was one feature I was wondering about the most. How important is it that I have opening windows?

I had heard about that small hole trick.

@Matt Coston: I had not even heard of those. They look really neat.

Hello fellow permies.

I was wondering if anyone here has experience in trying to save money by making their own windows. Windows can easily be one the single most expensive items when building a house, running several hundred dollars for a square foot or two.
Comparing this to the price of various see through materials, makes me wonder why not just make my own windows?

If anyone has any experience with this, I would love to hear it. I am particularly worried about fogging of internal panes.

Posting this returned better results than any of my searches.
Reading these related posts now:
https://www.permies.com/t/18906/Air-Supply-order-magnitude-improvement
https://www.permies.com/t/1450/rocket-mass-heater-air

Hello fellow forum goers.

I was wondering if anyone of you ever played around with heat exchangers, in the conventional sense instead of teh rocket stove thermal mass sense? All houses, no matter their heating methods need some air intake and exhaust out. Some of the more energy efficient ones use heat exchangers to warm up the incoming air. This problem of sucking in cold air is quite large particularly when using a wood burning stove that requires a large flow of fresh air to function.

Now most commercial heat exchangers are complicated and expensive, but I don't think that they have to be. Has anyone seen, or better yet designed and used themselves, any hand made heat exchangers for the warming up of intake air?

Thanks in advance,
  Jonathon

Thanks Frank Li, that is a great summery. Will check out those forums as soon as I have a second. The one thing you never did mention is the panels themselves? Do they wear out? Or do they just need to be replaced whenever you get extreme winds and or hail? Or are they pretty industructable?

Hello good people of permies,

I was wondering if anyone here knew of any good Solar Power infomation sites/booklets. Something to explain the current best options, and how much you should expect to pay for them, what to look for, what sort of maintanance/replacement costs you should expect?

Thanks in advance.

Apoologies if this post is covering old ground, i did not read most of the replies.

Animals mostly know how to keep water open. Even my bunnies would keep a small  hole in the ice in their waterer to get at the water. Replace it twice a day and they had access 24/7 (or close enough) even in -20 C. For the big tubs that you will not be able to clear every watering it should take weeks or more forit to completly freeze withball the water going through it. Then we just threw in a waterer deicer (all cattle stores carry them) to melt it. You could keep it in 24/7 but that just wastes power.

As for chickens. Yes they poop in waterers. But in a small one is not working for yiu, and you do not want to shell out for a insulated powered one, i woukd go for a bigger open one. Ours just have access to the snow and ice and the cattle water tubes.

Hello all,
I feel I am missing something very obvious here, but is there somewhere I can go for advice on how to do the architecture required for a small wood framed house?
I get the general idea, but there is a difference between something that looks similar to other wood framed houses I have seen, and something that will pass code and not fall down during the first storm.