Eileen Kirkland

Hi Benjamin,

Looks like my last reply didn't post, maybe the attachments I made with your cool tools on your linked website were the problem. (?)

(The part of the plan labeled section AA is through the middle of the house showing where the interior doors to the bathroom and medium bedroom are. I don't know why it isn't the house front, which is the north side as shown in the photo from the street.)

It should be 6 of the larger panels I think, definitely not 8 as I said. (My husband and I started this plan considering a roof extension that would add 2m to the northeast corner of the house adding to the 5.3 dimension to cover an outdoor laundry area. It's probably too shady but I still had that extra area on the brain.) My measurements were on the ground so once we add in the pitch it adds almost a half meter of roof. 3.46m x 5.3m. You're right that my plan is for the right hand side in that photo where the trees rule out the east/left.

Six big panels gets me to 3510KwH and I think it's 3.29 KwP peak power with panel efficiency rating listed as 21.4.

My brother in law is a nuclear physicist, not an electrian. He did the electrical for the garage/workshop (all AC) at the site and it wasn't an issue with our insurer. He might consider DC too hot/dangerous and nobody wants to work on the roof so I'm enlisting my native speaker to get some estimates for professional work.

The power company estimate for a package including installation was around 7,000 euro which would clear the hurtle of permissions and open up a possibility for selling back. My husband didn't get specifics about hardware when he asked though, so I would want to know more before doing that. I watched a lot of YT videos today that showed a range of features on inverters that go beyond the basic. They're probably not all available in Spain, but it might be worth ordering from Germany or wherever to get something better than what Obramat has.

If you could tell me more about what redundancy or solution is needed to avoid post-blackout kind of problems you mentioned. I'm very interested. Is it just a matter of losing all of your programmed settings or of needing to install something that alerts or disconnects when the battery is low?

Thanks,
Eileen

Hi Benjamin,

I'm grateful for your insights! Here's the plan which shows the roof shape. As built it isn't exactly the same (fireplace not in this position on to the east, but the west is the same other than a pantry bumped out where the back porch was. Roofline there didn't change). West is the bottom of the page in the plan/roof photo.

Roof is labeled 30 percent pitch. Missed that the first time.

We are a family of four with two adults on computers for hours at home most days. Big fridge and freezer. 80 gallon aquarium. Multiple loads of laundry each week for twin boys. European style run for hours and call it efficiency. There's a second fridge and workshop of power tools in the garage on this site. Not built as a four-seasons house so hard to heat and cool. AC and space heaters. Only one of us is a Permie ;)

I don't have good info on usage since inlaws previously used it July and August only with occasional weekend caretaking the rest of the year. In our current four bedroom flat we used 150kWh in the last month and 225kWh was the highest month's usage in the last year. This flat has gas heat so next winter in the solar house it will be electric heat or the fireplace.

My goal is to capture what I can on the usable roof and build in some resilience against outages. I don't think we'll be independent or try to sell back to the grid. Spain sometimes has solar tax incentives but has also pulled the rug out from under some big solar investors in the past so my husband isn't factoring any government incentives in.

Thanks in advance!

Oops, read the post below where I attached both photos instead of duplicates

Thanks in advance!

I'm suffering from impostor syndrome and have forgotten my high school math.

Location: near Cubelles in Catalunya, Spain
Slope: wish I knew, picture attached.
Roofing: Individual red tiles (So...brackets? hooks? How do I best mount panels?)
Best roof orientation: western half of roof (mountain is to south, east has a fireplace chimney)
Area of available roof: about 16 square meters (3m north/south side of rectangle, 5.3m east/west side)
Energy goal: 5KWH (? based on current usage in a different house, solar plan is for what has been a summer house but we'll be there fulltime soon)
Mechanical room: pantry located at the southeast corner below panels
Gear options: Local big box Obramat has...

Battery: PYLONTECH US5000 4.8KWH lithium battery 48V. (Larger are available but for the price jump a second battery later if needed seems sensible to me. Please correct me if I'm wrong. This is an on-grid house built in the 1980s.)

Inverter choices:
AXPERT KING II or HUAWEI (about 100 euro more for the latter). Both 5KWH, 48V  Opinions of brands?

Panels:
JA SOLAR either 505W or 565W. Sized 2.1m x 1.1m or 2.3 x 1.1m, 26kg or 28kg, about 10 euro more for the larger panels. (So 8 or 10 fit depending on how they're secured?)

My husband thinks his brother can help with hooking up the electrical end of things if someone else does the part up on the roof. I think he or the hardware store employees can point us in the right direction for cables, fusebox, etc.

Am I crazy to think we could semi-DIY this rather than go to a specialist designer/installer? Is the latest tech that much better than what' s easily available? When sold as kits or packages 5kwH is priced at least 10,000 euro for what looks to me like about 3,500 worth of gear. Of course the labor cost isn't nothing but it seems like there's a few thousand worth of padding for those afraid to put it together themselves. That's me, terrified but a cheapskate.

Open to advice and rudimentary education about electrical systems!

Thanks,
Eileen

The place: Catalunya, Spain about 5km inland from the Mediterranean near the town of Cubelles

The context: some time in the 1980s  a drunken excavator operator carved out the wrong part of the mountain so that the house had to be re-sited farther up the slope. When my mother-in-law complained he walked off the job and kept all of the money. Eventually the good sunny site was backfilled with construction rubble and English ivy was planted to hide the mess. The local birds and squirrels have helped plant a large briar through the mature ivy. A few fir trees volunteered recently, but it's mostly ivy and bramble. The home is in the greenbelt area of the development and is beside one of the never-built vacant lots offering alternative habitat for what's currently in this spot.

Present day: I would like to reclaim this steep area to grow better more useful things. It has been building up a soil layer from leaf litter for many years, but itsn't especially stable and I really don't know what all was dumped under there 40 years ago. I can picture a small apricot-guild orchard if I add some some terracing for stability and/or putting some solar panels there to help power the garage/workshop/house if what's underneath turns out to be a terror.

I wish I could rent a ruminant but absent a helpful goat I've been removing ivy and brambles by hand weekend after weekend. I don't want to fight ivy for the rest of my life. What are the permiest ways to get rid of ivy/brambles permanently? I'm also assuming that biochar when it has dried out would be better than trying to compost something so invasive, but I'm open to suggestions. This is a hard place to work since it's about ten feet above the ground story at its lowest point. The area will be frequently seen but infrequently walked upon once I've cleared and replanted it.

PS. I'm looking for recommendations for delicious apricot cultivars suitable to this area, too. Thanks, E

I really appreciate this thread! I'm considering buying land again. Forgive a foolish question please: do you ever consider starting your food forest in the scrubby/wooded area rather than on the cleared land? (As in consider the cleared part phase 2 when thinning of the scrub can happen to shift some biomass?).

I currently live in Sant Cugat del Vallès, near the Collserola preserve. I've had a few years to take my walks in the frequently-cleared firebreak zone near the edge of town. The dry season is DRY (but still wetter than Málaga I'm sure). Lots of interesting plants to observe when there's any precipitation, but everything but the broom looks desperate for months.

What I imagine trying to do is a kind of succession of edibles and support where anything makes shade already. The land I'm considering is actually in Tarragona, any details would be speculative, but I'm picturing trying to use mulberry and fig as the main shade pioneers and winter seeding 'pasture' areas with sorghum, clover, white pepper, mustard, plantain, etc.

I'd be an absentee in the harshest seasons and a camper in the moderate ones (My husband's family summers in Cubelles), visiting with poultry but not expecting them to manage year-round.

I'm from the deliciously damp American Pacífic Northwest so I'm very much a fish out of water (but I have lived in/near Barcelona the last eleven years).

The mostly-flat, cleared plots always appeal to me more when looking at land. (I'm very pro-sheep but probably not rich enough for a flock), but I'm getting the impression that uncleared land from scratch might be less miserable.

Apricot, almonds, pomegranate, garlic, onions and beans would seem a great victory to me. Herbs and flowers, too. Do the pines, etc. prevent a succession plan? I appreciate your insights before I make my (admittedly hobby) purchase. I'm outgrowing my balcony! Thanks.

Lorinne Anderson wrote:I love this thread! It hurts my heart that most of the kids I deal with have never so much as climbed a tree, or own rain boots/gear...

I think the key for kids is to remove the "dirty" taboo. Kids NEED to lie on the ground, watch ants at work; ponder a slug or snail from the creatures perspective; dig in the dirt, playing with worms and beetles. They need to beachcomb, find shells, rocks, sea glass. They need to climb trees, get sticky with sap, pick strawberries or cherry tomato's they watched grow from sprout to bud, to flower to fruit; watch the bee's and hummimgbirds pollinate; see how water perks up a drooping plant.

Stuff peanut butter into a pinecone, roll in birdseed and watch the birds enjoy. Build or install proper bird houses. Go on quests to FIND bird nests and or other animal/insect homes... Show that all living things need food, water and shelter, just like them! Show them that EVERYTHING has a life and a purpose (even those we don't like or are afraid of). Share the wonder of a spiders Web hung with water droplets; or watch one encase a bug for dinner later.  Seek the rainbow on a sunny day, dampened by a rain shower. Find shapes in cloud formations (Look, a duck!); watch the stars; stay up late, lay down on the ground, snuggled up in blankets during meteor showers...

LET THEM COLLECT STICKS, SHELLS, ROCKS, SHED ANTLERS, FOUND BONES and the like. Use them for art projects, mobiles, windchimes...let them "weave" with flexible green sticks, then see how they harden as they dry.

To me it is all about experiences, experiments, and just plain silliness sometimes. As long as it is FUN, the "learning" of empathy will naturally and spontaneously occur as the various cycles of life unwind, and the rest of nature just carries on about her business.

But most of all kids need good rain/snow/hiking boots so they can squelch in mud and splash in puddles; good outdoor gear so they are comfortable, not cold or wet. Then turn them loose, be it a back yard, a park, or ANY outdoor environment, let them play, explore, and GET DIRTY!

Yes! We wore 'play clothes' nearly all of the time growing up and when I came home filthy my mom would say, "You look like you had fun!" I've got to admit that I find this legacy harder to pass on in urban Spain than I did in rural Washington State. We've chosen to live near a nature preserve so we get our chance to appreciation capital N Nature, but I think our balcony projects are key, too. I'd love to see more kids growing seeds from their kitchen scraps, having a worm bin or compost bin, keeping quail or rabbits. I try to do lots of my noticing out loud, the plant that's come up in the cracks, the mushrooms on the stump...we celebrate every butterfly and talk about leaf litter and animal scat. Sometimes I let myself have a slightly melodramatic moment about how we are the chosen ones here to see this new butterfly or this plant's first leaves. Be in the now.

Hi Daniel,

We haven't purchased property. I had one I was serious about but it was sold to a neighbor instead.

This year an historically bad drought approaches so perhaps there will be more for sale, but I haven't had much success using the idealista.com site. It's a good opportunity to see what is listed, but it's disheartening overall because research and conducting the sale definitely should involve a local agent. Initial inquiries by my Catalan husband often reveal errors or what may be deliberate misinformation.

Much of the best agricultural land in Spain is held by aristocratic people paid EU subsidies to not farm it, but be 'ready' for specific uses. I still watch for listings but for now am mostly just trying to learn local plants, keep quail and worms, compost with dedication and enjoy a purple palate in my spring garden. I still think all of the time about orchards, sheep and regenerative agriculture but at the moment am very tied to my husbands's job location and stability for kids in primary school in Sant Cugat del Valles (about 40 minutes by train from Barcelona).

I do wish you luck! Be sure to share when you find your place.
Eileen

I'm looking at a property with about six acres cleared to nearly flat arable dry land with a small stream running north to south through the middle of it for passive watering. It also has about four acres of pines at its margins. If we buy it, my long term plan will be a mixed herbal ley with deep rooting dry climate favorites like chickory, cocksfoot, and perennial ryes to establish sheep pasture. Off grid-electric fencing ideally.

I'd also like to put in orchard trees like apricot, almond, fig, mullberry, apple, pomegranate, lemon...ideally they'll get a significant head start on the sheep. I'm trying to figure out the mojo on placement and which should be guilded together or kept separate. My husband has an allergy to olive pollen so that's the only one to definitely leave out of the mix.

Can I please also have your opinons/research on which trees should get priority for placement closest to the stream? Like, is there a known hierarchy for which mediterranean climate crop trees need the best proximity to water? My gut says apples and figs would be thirstiest (and apples might not really belong) but I think that the orchard would be apricot heavy since those are harvested in the months we're most likely to be able to be at the property if we get it. My twins are 9 and I'm imagining retiring/summering in/near one of the tiny towns with fewer than 100 residents once the kids are into higher education. If I start the trees soon that timing should work nicely :)

I like to use up quail eggs as waffles.

About 35g flour per egg with a splash of milk and sprinkle of cinnamon. I mix flours because the  whole wheat flour from the grocery store Spain comes over-leavened and so cut in half with unleavened spelt flour. (That works well for my wafflemaker, which opens on the side away from the hinge if they rise to much and cooks very unevenly. In yours, who knows?)

I use sprayable olive oil and make our batter sugarless, but let my kids spread a little Nutella/Nocilla on them. Kudos to the marketing genius who normalized having ready-made chocolate frosting hanging out in the cupboard as a 'spread.' In the interest of marital harmony I do not fight this at all. Nocilla 'the Spanish version' gets extra credit for coming in jars that can be used as pretty nice-looking glasses when empty. Maple syrup is hard to find here and overpriced/of poor grade when you do. I top with fruit.

OR

For a twist I like to make veg waffles with a puree of butternut squash, carrot, onion and garlic seasoned with cumin. I put York ham and Emmental cheese inside on top while still warm and fold it to eat like a sandwich. Basically it goes soup for dinner then butternut qwaffles for breakfast with the leftovers. Various Mexican-style taco/burrito spices are good too but usually overly salty when from storebought packets, so I've gone to cumin as the flavor I like best from the mixes.

Alas, no one else in my family will eat this, but I'm convinced it would be a winning food truck idea in the American Pacific Northwest ;)