Liam Madden

Hi Permies People!

I want to praise the little post production elements that you included which make a big difference. The creation of easily navigable sections and the important visual notes and illustrations really take it from a B product to an A for me. There is so much background knowledge that in the live settings is taken for granted but I'm grateful the thought went into making sure anything that was assumed was made explicit before it went to print, so to speak. Well done.

I do have some questions that I hope someone with knowledge can address:

1. The Gamera comes with odd European output pipe diameters that don't precisely match US sizes ,ie 150mm to 6". How is this navigated?

2. There was guidance provided that juice box chimneys that are 6" should go into an 8" stratification pipe around 4" down. What is the guidance if the stratification pipe is 150mm or 6"?

3. Is there a ratio of optimal or at least tolerated length of pipe in the thermal mass to the BTU of the burn engine?

Respectfully,

Liam

paul wheaton wrote:So much work went into this movie.  What do you all think?

I am impressed and definitely feeling inspired and demystified enough to build my own. As some feedback, I think the film would have benefitted from: 1) A 2-5 minute animated/illustrated demo of how a whole/completed system works on the interior to give people a bit of theory from the get go and 2) a two minute sell on the economics of wood to BTU of this system vs others. I know you guys cover this stuff in other places, but for the video to be sharable to the average guy on the street, I think these two additions would help.

Not Comprehensive, but the best I've found so far. http://www.nuttrees.net/index.html

Hi Wayne,

That's terrible to hear about the root fungus. Swales on contour will hold the water and let it sit, which increased the risk of the fungus. That's one reason why I'm inclined to do slightly off contour water management, to keep things flowing and draining. Your story is very instructive to learn from. I think I'm gonna stick to a system instead of random plantings to help make a more efficient management plan. It seems like it'd be hard to maximize efficiency with random plantings, but there are certainly virtues other than maximum efficiency to be had...

On the peach/frost issue: I'm not sure if your comment was rhetorical or not, but I definitely see a huge difference in frost/temperature between the low part of my slope and higher up. I plant the more vulnerable stuff higher up accordingly, but my neighbor has a 30+ year old plum tree (same family as peach) near the bottom of the hill and it is kicking tail and produces abundantly. So... who knows, I guess all we can do is try to learn from other's experiences, and nature will throw curves at us constantly. Thank you for helping me learn from your experience.

Respect and gratitude,

Liam

Hi all, My name is Liam, I live is southeastern VT, zone 5b. I am strategizing a landscape design (roughly 10 acres) that will integrate animals into a diverse tree-pasture system. (Silvopasture).

I have a question pertaining to orientation that you might be able to help me with... the land is eastward sloping, so if I put tree rows on a (roughly)  keyline contour, I'd be using the sunlight inefficiently for my shrub layer, ie the trees would obstruct half the sun from the berries next to them... I'm inclined to plant tree rows on an east west axis so that smaller plants still receive all the southern sun, even if it's perpendicular to the "keylines" (mine will be much cruder and incremental than a formal keyline system... kinda like a rough Sepp Holzer strategy). Do you have any thoughts on the sunlight efficiency vs water management question here? Does it defeat the point of channeling water gradually across the slope (keyline) if my plantings are perpendicular to the "keylines"?

Respect,

Liam

"You never change things by fighting against the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." - Buckminster Fuller