Morgan Louis

Thanks Glenn. I guess I do value my life enough to invest in a pro. If I ever had to go for it by myself, I would overbuild it. I would keep it small too.

I'm near the Loma Prieta fault line, and am thinking about some sort of earth sheltered home. Would the structural posts in a wofati provide adequate earthquake protection from the thermal mass on the roof?

My dome-yurt is off grid right now. I just charge my phone/laptop at work, But I looked up the rates in my area and the baseline is $0.77 per kilowatt-hour, but the total is like $1.19 after transportation and procurement costs.

Thank you both Tobias and Troy. I watched the videos by lds self reliance and found them to be exactly what I needed. And that deal on eBay for the two panels and charge controller is pretty nice. A few years ago I was looking on a site called alibaba or something and they had pretty cheap solar equipment.

Troy, when you said that this would not be a money saving operation, it confused me. Will I not eventually produce enough energy to pay for the equipment?

I have $100 in gift cards on amazon, I was wondering if I can build a small solar package with that amount.

Can you all help me build a little system? I haven't ever done or before so I need to get everything. Just enough to charge a cell phone or an led light bulb.

Thanks in advance!

Great feedback permies. Thanks.

I think a something like a grape hoe would be nice. I'll be digging in extremely sand rich soil. Even a rake will suffice, but I want something more efficient at digging deeper and forming a rough mound.

I'll be digging swales pretty soon, and I want to hear what you guys think.

I won't have any tree roots do deal with, so i won't need a pulaski. A mattock isn't necessary since i don't have very compact ground.

Is there a name for a tool that is like a pulaski but doesn't have the axe part?

Wranglerstar on youtube has a video where he compares two different pulaskis, one traditional and one a little different. It looked great for scraping the earth to remove vegetation, but how good will it be at digging a 3 foot deep swale?

Roy Hinkley wrote:They all pretty much work the same way the difference being what happens to the first flushed water. You can easily harvest the first flush in one barrel strictly for irrigation and have the rest cleaner for other uses.

This vid shows using a 55 gal barrel as a reservoir to hold the first flushed water for later use, the rest is cleaner and diverted elsewhere. You don't need to do this if the water is for irrigation only but it does help keep sediment from clogging up your water system over the years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch-YsD9rOGk

Hey Roy, that is a very well done video. Thanks for the link. Do you have another link to show how to connect the storage barrels to one another?

Thanks for the responses.

I intend on using the water for irrigation only. So all I need is a particle filter? Some sort of screen? That's great news to me, building a first flush diverter can get expensive.

If I need to drink the water in case of an emergency, how would you recommend treating it?

I am getting to install a rain water catchment system with 55 gallon barrels which previously contained honey. I get them for $10 a pop, and have a potential limitless supply from a local bread bakery.

The California drought has severely impacted me, since I started getting involved in permaculture about 4 years ago, I haven't had a year with average rainfall. With a normal year averaging 50+ inches, we now only get around 20-30 inches.

What little we do get, I want to be sure to catch as much as I can when it does finally rain.

One thing, do I need a first flush diverter?

If so, what is the best way (cheapest and most functional) to go about building one? A link to a nice tutorial would be helpful. The more pictures the better.

I'll be getting this done as soon as I feel like I have sufficient information, I'll be documenting this project on my instagram. Follow me at @centralcoastpermaculture.

Thanks.