I did a lot of calculating and design work on the utility systems for the little house. These are the systems I decided to install. I have proven all the systems out and will optimize them in the little house.
Water: This will come mainly from a hand dug well. The water in the well has been tested chemical free, but since it is a shallow well, it must be assumed that there are little critters in it. Thus it will be heavily filtered before use. Potable water will be treated with an ultraviolet system. There will be gutters on the eaves leading to two barrels that will serve as cisterns for additional water supply in the winter. In the summer here, there is very little rain, so this is a winter only system. I will use a hand operated washing machine that I already use. Water is already pumped by hand, so it will continue to be done by hand until I get enough solar panels. I have the parts for a dual water heater, solar/biomass, so I will heat water with that.
Cooking: Cooking heat will be supplied by a wood cookstove made from an old washing machine and tin cans. I didn't invent this stove but I did some improvements to it to get it to burn more cleanly. I use this stove in my present kitchen. This neat little burner system burns its own smoke, so it can be used indoors. When I find my digital camera, (Arghhh!) I will put up pictures of it. In the meantime, if you want to know more about this cool little stove, google +"midge stove". You will have enough reading for a few hours. This stove will burn mostly twigs from the ground around the property. The trees shed them continually. For longer cooking, I will use wood pellets. They are denser and burn longer. They are made from sawdust, which is renewable and also a waste product.
Electricity: There will be three sources of electricity and three power busses in the house. The house will be wired for 120VAC, 12VDC and 5.5VDC. The 12 VDC and the 120VAC will come from the alternative powerhouse via solar. There is a 300 watt controller, a 400 watt inverter, batteries and a fifty watt solar panel in the powerhouse. I will add solar panels as I can afford them. I have been using this system for my laptop and larger lights for about six months now.
The 5.5 VDC bus will be powered in two ways. It will run LED tap lights that I use most of the time. This system is already in use in the main apartment. It is powered from two sources. One source is an antenna and ground system that uses the power from a small nearby, a half mile away, AM radio station. It can recharge a four pack of AA nicads every day, which will run the lights all night. It is not technically renewable and the station does go off the air occasionally, so I have another ground based system to help it along. Even though the radio system is not renewable, it is using waste energy, since the energy I capture would only be dissipated in other objects. It has absolutely no effect on other listeners. This radio station also runs speakers in the day time loud enough to be overpowering, especially during conversation, so I have them on a volume control. It runs the speakers at night, but just loud enough to listen to them comfortably. It also provides the power to run a tiny FM radio I got at the dollar store for a dollar. I simply charge up the 2 AAA nicads in the FM radio from the AM power and it gives me enough power to listen to the FM as much as I want. The ground based system was invented over a hundred years ago. It will power LED lights for all the light I need, but does not put out a large amount of power.
Heating will come from a small wood stove, Oregon approved, so there is very little smoke from this stove. It is a commercially made model.
Clothes drying: The simple principle of evaporation will be used for clothes drying. I sold my dryer in 1997 and have hung my clothes to dry ever since. It works quite well, if a bit slow. In a summer breeze, the clothes actually dry faster than in an electric or gas clothes dryer. And its free to boot!
I have not figured out refrigeration yet, but I did an experiment this year that proved to me that I don't really need it. So I may go without it until I come up with something workable.
So there you have an outline of the power and water systems the demo house will use. I am currently using most of these systems and they are very reliable. I will give more details as I progress on the project.
www.winterlakeresearchcenter.org
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
What I Wanted in my Renewable Energy House
I now knew what I wanted to do with my new little house. I decided on some basic criteria. The house had to be efficient. It had to be convenient to live in. It had to have all the normal house stuff that we Westerners take for granted, such as good cooking facilities, indoor plumbing, bathroom, shower, electricity, etc. But there was a big catch. In keeping with the spirit of Winter Lake Research Center, all utilities, including electricity, cooking, heating and other utilities, had to be from renewable sources. The only exception is telephone service.
I have been living in the main apartment with renewable energy for about a year and a half now. About fifty percent of my current energy use is renewable and a further fifteen percent is alternative, in other words, unusual but not renewable.
I decided on a mix of solar, biomass and other exotic technologies. I wanted the house to be a full demonstration house to make a point. The point is: "See, it can be done on limited means".
Here are a few pictures of the house from April 3, 2009. It is gutted out and ready to be renewed. The square footage is 175 square feet.
www.winterlakeresearchcenter.org
I have been living in the main apartment with renewable energy for about a year and a half now. About fifty percent of my current energy use is renewable and a further fifteen percent is alternative, in other words, unusual but not renewable.
I decided on a mix of solar, biomass and other exotic technologies. I wanted the house to be a full demonstration house to make a point. The point is: "See, it can be done on limited means".
Here are a few pictures of the house from April 3, 2009. It is gutted out and ready to be renewed. The square footage is 175 square feet.
www.winterlakeresearchcenter.org
Voluntary Downsizing
This new blog is about my adventure of downsizing into a very small, off-grid, renewable energy house. I have lived in conventional houses most of my adult life. I did a little wandering in my younger years and lived in some very cramped spaces, such as the piano-like crate in Seattle. It was in a blackberry patch along the railroad tracks and nobody ever discovered I was living there. I had a wonderful time, but life eventually got its hooks into me and dragged me off.
I have always wanted just a little more house. There was a wife and three children and there just never seemed to be enough room. My wife was killed in a traffic accident and the children all grew up and moved out. I moved from where I was living with one child still a minor, to Oregon, where I currently live.
I bought a three story , burned out commercial building. Over two years of constant hard labor, my son and I renovated it. We built a shop, a three bedroom apartment and a store front all in this one building. It is still not finished, but quite livable. For a short time, I had enough space. Then my elderly mother moved in and brought all her stuff. It was fun having her here and getting to know her again, but she had a lot of stuff. Once again, not enough room.
Then my mother got ill and died. We distributed her stuff to my siblings and things got a little roomier. Then another relative moved in, who liked to collect stuff. Same thing, no room. Then the relative got married and moved out. Then my son got married and moved out.
At that point, it was just me and a three story building. Guess what? Too much stuff! No room to put it all! I was getting more than a little frustrated with the situation. Here I was, with more room than I had ever had, and it was crammed full. I couldn't find anything! I made a decision to fix the situation, so I made three rules (the only exceptions were tools):
Rule 1: Don't get anymore stuff, unless it is absolutely vital.
Rule 2: If I hadn't seen an item or used it within a year and a half, bye bye item.
Rule 3: Everybody elses stuff has to go away, now.
I began to burn loads of wood stuff, leftover lumber scraps, old rotted pallets, a big pile of brush.
Then I took all recycle stuff except project stock to the recycle center, newspapers, magazines, cardboard of all kinds.
Then I insisted to every one who had stuff stored at my place that they remove it post haste. There was a lot of resistance to that concept and some of the stuff just magically appeared on the sidewalks in front or their various living places. That process is almost done. There is only one pickup load of "other peoples stuff" left here and it will go away next week.
I then went through all my stuff and applied rule no. 2. That process is about three quarters completed. I sold, gave, donated, dumped, etc. all the stuff I would never use. I abandoned all the thousands of project that I wanted to do and just retained the ones for Winter Lake Research Center. That let me clear out a tremendous amount of just stuff, not needed stuff. I began to have some room to breathe again. I could find everything I needed and I could keep the place clean. Then I made a mistake. I had so much room, I put beds in the spare rooms to let people use in an emergency. Guess what? There are a lot of emergencies! Once again, no room!
So I closed the free hotel and took most of the beds out. I made an announcement at church that I had free beds and they disappeared quickly!
Once again, I had plenty of room. But I discovered something surprising. After I had disposed of most of my stuff, I now had too much room. I was only living in three rooms and there were seven rooms total. Plus I was beginning to have some extra room in the downstairs workshop.
I could see that I would be rattling around like a little dipper in a big water pail. I decided to move to smaller quarters. I began casting about how to do this. I really don't want to move away from this spot, but what to do? There is not much property here to build a small place and it is very expensive to build.
Ah-ha! All at once it hit me. I had just kicked the chickens out of their house. They had a fine house, but I didn't have time to properly care for them, so I gave them away. I decided to live in their old house. I did some measuring and it is only a hundred square feet smaller than the actual space I am using now. Problem solved! I just have to rebuild the chicken house into a people house! Since this post is way too long, I will break it up some. So goodbye for now.
www.winterlakeresearchcenter.org
I have always wanted just a little more house. There was a wife and three children and there just never seemed to be enough room. My wife was killed in a traffic accident and the children all grew up and moved out. I moved from where I was living with one child still a minor, to Oregon, where I currently live.
I bought a three story , burned out commercial building. Over two years of constant hard labor, my son and I renovated it. We built a shop, a three bedroom apartment and a store front all in this one building. It is still not finished, but quite livable. For a short time, I had enough space. Then my elderly mother moved in and brought all her stuff. It was fun having her here and getting to know her again, but she had a lot of stuff. Once again, not enough room.
Then my mother got ill and died. We distributed her stuff to my siblings and things got a little roomier. Then another relative moved in, who liked to collect stuff. Same thing, no room. Then the relative got married and moved out. Then my son got married and moved out.
At that point, it was just me and a three story building. Guess what? Too much stuff! No room to put it all! I was getting more than a little frustrated with the situation. Here I was, with more room than I had ever had, and it was crammed full. I couldn't find anything! I made a decision to fix the situation, so I made three rules (the only exceptions were tools):
Rule 1: Don't get anymore stuff, unless it is absolutely vital.
Rule 2: If I hadn't seen an item or used it within a year and a half, bye bye item.
Rule 3: Everybody elses stuff has to go away, now.
I began to burn loads of wood stuff, leftover lumber scraps, old rotted pallets, a big pile of brush.
Then I took all recycle stuff except project stock to the recycle center, newspapers, magazines, cardboard of all kinds.
Then I insisted to every one who had stuff stored at my place that they remove it post haste. There was a lot of resistance to that concept and some of the stuff just magically appeared on the sidewalks in front or their various living places. That process is almost done. There is only one pickup load of "other peoples stuff" left here and it will go away next week.
I then went through all my stuff and applied rule no. 2. That process is about three quarters completed. I sold, gave, donated, dumped, etc. all the stuff I would never use. I abandoned all the thousands of project that I wanted to do and just retained the ones for Winter Lake Research Center. That let me clear out a tremendous amount of just stuff, not needed stuff. I began to have some room to breathe again. I could find everything I needed and I could keep the place clean. Then I made a mistake. I had so much room, I put beds in the spare rooms to let people use in an emergency. Guess what? There are a lot of emergencies! Once again, no room!
So I closed the free hotel and took most of the beds out. I made an announcement at church that I had free beds and they disappeared quickly!
Once again, I had plenty of room. But I discovered something surprising. After I had disposed of most of my stuff, I now had too much room. I was only living in three rooms and there were seven rooms total. Plus I was beginning to have some extra room in the downstairs workshop.
I could see that I would be rattling around like a little dipper in a big water pail. I decided to move to smaller quarters. I began casting about how to do this. I really don't want to move away from this spot, but what to do? There is not much property here to build a small place and it is very expensive to build.
Ah-ha! All at once it hit me. I had just kicked the chickens out of their house. They had a fine house, but I didn't have time to properly care for them, so I gave them away. I decided to live in their old house. I did some measuring and it is only a hundred square feet smaller than the actual space I am using now. Problem solved! I just have to rebuild the chicken house into a people house! Since this post is way too long, I will break it up some. So goodbye for now.
www.winterlakeresearchcenter.org
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