D Nikolls

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Hey Sk8r Boi. If the layout allows it (a stairwell usually), it's best to create a suction in the coolest, farthest part of the basement with the intent of pumping cold air into the warmest part of the upstairs. The result is a constant circulation path.

Squirrel cage bathroom fans do this quite effectively and are fairly efficient in their electricity consumption.

The fly in the ointment is that this also moves moist air from upstairs and deposits it in a cool basement. The resulting condensation can cause a new set of problems.

I'd say your version is less work and should be effective, dependent on just how leaky the basement and the rest of the house is. It seems possible that pulling air up, combined with the natural chimney effect, would result in sucking more outside air into the basement, rather than pulling air back down in a circuit.

I definitely agree that squirrel cage fans are a great option; another good one is modern EC ducted fans such as those sold for grow tents. I'm using an AC Infinity CLOUDLINE S6 as an attic mounted bathroom exhaust fan, I've been really pleased with it.

John Weiland wrote:

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:.....

Otherwise it's Sk8er Boi and other assorted doodles. Ugh.

Just had to laugh at this ....   no relation at all to what I'm about to ask.  lol

So farther (further?) above there was discussion of ways to move heat/cooling around the house.  As old man Winter is again knocking at the door (although not quite in earnest yet...), I'm wondering about  ways to move main-floor heat down into the basement.  Yes, I won't go into why that crack-filled basement is so poorly insulated in a place like northern Minnesota, but our winter heating is a mix of propane furnace (basement location) and woodstove (main floor).  I like to try to keep the furnace reduced in use when possible and so try to use the woodstove to provide as much main floor (900 sq. ft.) heating as possible.  With the transition just two years ago from a heating oil furnace to a more efficient propane unit, the basement is now colder.... cold enough that there is worry of pipes freezing and some creative and difficult heat tape wrapping has become necessary in certain reaches of the basement ceiling.  As this house is over 100 years old, somewhere along the way there were floor registers introduced.  These are not hooked up to any kind of ducting....just grated ports to the basement to allow for air transfer.  I began poking around on the "old information gravel road" (Internet) for register fans that might be able to pull warm air from the main floor and push it downward into the basement, to be used on days or nights most concerning for freezing.  But I'm finding that such fans appear to only work in one direction??....to pull warm air more efficiently from a heating duct/register into the main floor room.  Any ideas of such a fan exists that would have a reversible fan for pushing air downward....without having to tip the decoritive side facing down?  Any other potential solution are welcomed....Thanks!

If I needed to pull heat down in such a situation, I might put the fan/s, blowing down or sideways, near the basement floor, connected to a length of ductwork run to the existing registers, leaving the existing grate in place above..

Seems like the heat would be more likely to circulate if it's starting off down there, rather than just hanging out near the basement ceiling.. also, most fans perform a bit better sucking than blowing, and this setup would let you use larger fans if you so desired. Just necessary to cobble up some ductwork, which is pretty easy to do if you have very low visual standards, and are careful to wear good gloves..

D Nikolls wrote:I don't regard my 8" PTO chipper as a great investment.

A smaller one would be effectively useless. Mine is alright on a 65hp diesel. It was noticeably wussier on a 50hp.

I only had the 50HP at first. I would stage everything, then chip where I wanted the pile.

Now the idea is to park the 65hp loader where I want to do the chipping, near the material, not where I want the pile. I chip into an 8x6 trailer with 6' walls, and take that where I want the chips with the 50hp tractor.

Nice plan until the loader lost reverse on day2. But chipping into a trailer has been much better, if you want to make use of the chips in specific places. If your terrain is manageable you could pull it with a pickup...



Yes, you can buy a chipper cheaper than hiring it done. But, it is quite time consuming, and you will spend a lot of time running your tractor, at high RPM, drinking diesel.


If I could do it again, I'd try to buy a used self powered diesel chipper, more capable than my pto unit... I would hire a tree company once a year until I found such a unit.

In your case I think I would hire a tree company to pound through it with their chipper once I had done the staging...

It's been a few years, I fixed the 65hp loader and ran the chipper a few more days in those years, and my assessment is about the same. This PTO chipper is too small for efficient chipping of the material I want to chip, and too big for chipping small stuff.


Specific to my unit, I will not buy another Range Road product. The chipper relies on 4 belts to power the chipper drum, and the tensioner system is absolutely awful. It is very difficult to adjust, as there was zero thought given to accessibility, and it does a lousy job. Every year I blow the belts, a totally pointless waste of time and money due to the shit design. The safety cutoff is backwards, and there is a mild but persistent hydraulic leak from the tank lid.. the company was never able to provide a manual of any sort despite buying new directly from them.

Tommy Bolin wrote:[quote=D Nikolls
At that time it cooled ok, but the top freezer compartment iced up badly and often.

Over time the compressor ran an ever increasing portion of the time; when it was pulled from service it would no longer keep cool enough and ran constantly. Slow refrigerant leak?

By that time I'd gotten married and found that life with my wife required more fridge space, and I had no faith in the unit, so I didn't look into repairs. The AC convertible chest freezer was about 30% the cost, keeps food much longer, and generally feels better built. It's also very power efficient due to extra insulation and top opening  

The ice on the freezer walls is a function of the cooling system, the evaporator coils are in the walls, and there is no fan to circulate air like a conventional freezer. My backroom AC chest freezer does the same, but does not get opened few times a day, so no humidity to freeze. My Unique chest freezer has an interior clear partition under the lid, I suppose to create dead cold air space for insulation and to allow you to check contents without letting heat in. Also works to limit humidity, therefore frost on the walls. I throw a towel over the contents of my backroom freezer, and in fact all my ice chest/coolers for the same reason, helps create a dead air space over the contents.
I have proven it to myself. I was structural superintendent and carpenter's foreman in Death Valley when Furnace Creek was renovated in 2018, built the new 'Oasis'. I have a Grizzly 100L, the original 'super insulated' cooler. Left out all day at 120+ degrees F. I sat on it at the end of the day to have a cold beer and burned my butt. Okay. Got the heat gun out, 162 deg surface temp. 72 degrees surface inside. 38 at the wall just under the towel. Towel keeps the ice from having to chill air above the ice line.

Poor cooling is a different deal. I'm no fridge tech but seems like weak compressor or refrigerant loss. Have to look into that. Thank you.

That's a cool trick with the towel!

Ya, I get that the icing is inevitable with the design of that particular fridge. I hadn't anticipated it being such a nuisance, having not had one like it before. While there is some condensation with any fridge or freezer, a freezerless fridge is at least comparatively quick and easy to wipe down, and if you need a freezer compartment a fully separate compartment in a larger fridge/freezer is far less obnoxious in my experience.

Tommy Bolin wrote:

D Nikolls wrote:I will never buy a 'Unique' brand product again. My DC fridge and propane range have both been lousy, particularly the fridge........
.............. twin Victron inverters with higher idle consumption could be turned off probably 85% of the time.

I'd like to ask what was wrong with your fridge? I'd like to stock spare parts, if necessary.
We bought a set, 24V DC 16?c.f. fridge and 9 c.f. chest freezer, can also be run on 120AC. I was under the impression they were made in Canada, having never seen one in person. Fridge at least appears to have been shipped from Vietnam. Been very happy with them, although the chest freezer has seen very limited use. Soft, ramped startup to avoid large power draw and compressor wear, quiet. The fridge and freezer draw about 65-70w ea. running. My only complaint would be the fridge doesn't have enough insulation for a 24V DC off grid in my opinion, was hard to tell having never seen one.
We also have have about a decade of part time service from a Unique propane fridge at one of the other cabins, great unit.  
I doubled the usage I get from a 100lb propane cylinder to well over three months by taking our old, reliable, but small Consol propane fridge out of the loop, replacing with DC. Might take years to pay for the new fridge, which seems to just keep incrementally climbing in price, and we never would have had the option to upgrade to our current freezer capacity just on propane. Also, propane was unavailable locally for just a short time during Covid terror, lesson learned. I can now stock enough tanks for almost 2 years of service.  

I'm sure I've written this before, but I have done everything up here on microgrids. Every building and large task, (houses, garage, skid shack, domestic lake water pump, yard water, fire suppression) has it's own power. Allowed me to build over time with less expensive sourced equipment, no hugely expensive cabling, large arrays or inverters/controllers. Our needs are very modest, small house, no TV or large draw appliances. A 30 yr old Trace 4k 24V inverter runs the house. Rock solid, hand built in the U.S.A. I bought a pair of them, never used, at a great price from a solar dealers storage room. Much of our lighting is simple rechargables. As I build out my work and living spaces, I expect to upgrade.
The garage inverter grid runs a 6c.f.70W MagicChef AC chest freezer in a cool, insulated, back room, our primary storage freezer. Low power draw, on a timer set to run during daylight hours. Purchased cheap, used, 6 yrs. of great service.

I ran a dedicated 24V DC circuit for the new appliances. On the advice of my supplier I added a Victron 24-24V converter to avoid exposing the appliances to the high voltages of battery equalization as well as a steady, unvarying supply voltage. Seems like a formula for longer DC appliance life.
We live remote and leave home for extended periods of time. Having an inverter running when gone just seems like a short-sighted, unnecessary, layer of complexity, risk, wear and tear. We have gotten more than 35yrs of part time service from the 4024 Trace in the other cabin. By babying this one I expect to get a couple decades from it.
Only thing I would do differently from my current setup would be to bypass the cheap, Chinese junk inverters, controllers, small pumps I experimented with building here. Kindergarten, disposable, 12V is fine for a small RV or whatever, but anything that needs real, permanent power runs better on 24V and quality, modest sized 12V is not that much more expensive.

The fridge exceeded rated power consumption while still pretty new; it just ran the compressor more than I would expect. The insulation is pretty thin, and all the parts were on the flimsy side.. At that time it cooled ok, but the top freezer compartment iced up badly and often.

Over time the compressor ran an ever increasing portion of the time; when it was pulled from service it would no longer keep cool enough and ran constantly. Slow refrigerant leak?

By that time I'd gotten married and found that life with my wife required more fridge space, and I had no faith in the unit, so I didn't look into repairs. The AC convertible chest freezer was about 30% the cost, keeps food much longer, and generally feels better built. It's also very power efficient due to extra insulation and top opening..

I will never buy a 'Unique' brand product again. My DC fridge and propane range have both been lousy, particularly the fridge.

I replaced it with a convertible chest fridge/freezer. Ac powered. Cheap, locally available, efficient, bigger, keeps food fresh longer. Inverters stay on overnight now.

Doing it again, I might well plan for a dedicated lower capacity high efficiency inverter that would run fridge, small water pump, ac lighting, etc. Then just skip all household DC wiring, and the bigger twin Victron inverters with higher idle consumption could be turned off probably 85% of the time.

Kara Ann wrote:This is a timely topic, even though October is still a way out.
Currently here in Washington there is a state wide burn ban through Sept 30.
(Darn - I want to make Sepp Holzer's 'bone sauce to keep the deer out of my trees, but it will have to wait!)

In a class with Joel Salatin, he told us that the number 1 cause of barn fires was electricity within the structure (faulty wires or heating devices plugged in), so he is a big advocate of off grid barns and other outbuildings, relying on day time sun and night time headlamps as needed instead of being attached to the grid.
Something to consider in planning the farm buildings...

I can very much believe that. The old farm buildings here used to have power, and it was all just standard household wire stapled wherever.. easy to see how it could be damaged.

If I ever need power somewhere that I don't want to put it in a wall, I use armored cable or conduit.. the safety factor is worth it to me, and the cost encourages me to keep enjoying my headlamps..

No trench needed; as long as you have plenty of manure and/or other suitable stuff to cover the wood, it will work just fine as an entirely raised hugel. I've used less-rotten wood to build a frame for a raised bed around such hugels and been entirely happy with the results.

Probably you are already aware, but best to be very sure there are no persistent broad-leaf herbicides in that horse manure, they can pass right through the horse and fuck your plants up if the hay was sprayed!

Ned Harr wrote:I enjoyed this video (https://youtu.be/nV7G9_6hwF8?si=f5ChxPDTg4aFza4I) but it included a claim I fear is too good to be true, that raw land is frequently overpriced by 25%, 50%, even 70%.

Was that your experience? Did you ultimately pay less than the asking price for your land, and if so how much less?

For those who have watched the video, what else did you find resonated with you as true or as especially untrue?

I shopped for years, and found that in my region there was very little price movement on the part of sellers, and if something was overpriced relative to demand, most sellers were content to let it sit. Sometimes a property would be listed on and off for several years and then be pulled with no sale occurring. One property near me is listed nearly every spring for the last decade or so, hasn't sold yet..

The property I bought was one of a size and price matched set, all owned by one extremely wealthy man. They all sat on the market for years. He dropped the price by around 10%, and every one of these properties sold within a few months, I think all within 5% of the new asking price. This was the biggest drop I can recall seeing for empty acreages in all my search..

Most other properties I looked at moved quickly, near asking price. I was outbid on some; once I had a signed agreement but walked during the conditions stage.. seller had a backup offer in place already.

This assertion may be true other places, particularly more remote places, but it does not appear to be true here.

What type of metal roof is it? If it is a standing seam of any sort there may well be clamps that can fasten things to the ribs without more holes..

If not, you could possibly use a system of rails attached to the existing brackets, and then mount new panels on the rails.. assuming the brackets can handle the weight. It's not going to be easy to diy this without roof access, or cheap to have someone do it for you, though.

If it is through-fastened roofing, that won't work.. but there would be a lot of existing holes for screws that are generally supposed to be checked and tightened at regular intervals, as they will tend to loosen and leak over time; I wouldn't fret about a few more holes with this sort of roof!


I doubt there is a ready-built adapter meant to solve this issue, as panels have never standardized enough in size to make this look like a really compelling business opportunity, especially with all variety in installations..