The project I would love to accomplish, is to harness the creek to produce hydro electricity.  This my second attempt to generate electricity from water.  The other is my homebrew turgo turbine.

It is very fulfilling to be self sufficient, I am lucky to have the location I have, the water oozes from the hills here in western Virginia.

I will expand on my solar performance data in the near future, but in the mean time, here is some performance data.

Because the charge controllers are remote from the house.  I keep a calendar next to them.   When I remember (which is not as often as I should), I record the accumulated amp hours on the charge controllers on the calendar, then reset the values to zero.  I then average the reading across the days from the previous reading.

Also, many times we produce more power than we need and  the charge controllers will go to float, effectively wasting energy and making the amp hours low.

I wish I had a meter, so that I know my actual power usage.   Currently, I can only estimate based on the amount of power we generate.

I will expand on my solar configuration in the near future, but in the mean time, here is a list of my components.  As you see there was quite an evolution.

Charge Controller
String 1 - Xantrex (Trace) C60 w/meter
String 2 - Xantrex (Trace) C60 w/meter

Inverter
Xantrex (Trace) SW4024 Plus
Trace SW4024 (Backup)

Battery
12 Rolls S530

Meter
Trimetric 2020
Xantrex Link 10

When we first came to our Mountain retreat, we had few of what you would call necessities for living. Thankfully one of these is air, which is still abundant.  The other were sanitation and water.  In this article, I will discuss sanitation.

As most people would agree, there will come a time when nature calls.  We found nature called within the first day.

So what did we do?  We went to the library.  We were surprised to find that the library contained many resources relating to the old fashion Privy.  Most call this an outhouse, some a johnny house. Many discussed the history of the Privy, which in times past, was the only sanitation available.

We also learned alot about the privy.  Such as the meaning of the moon and star that you would see on the door.  The moon and stars were used in days past to designate the sex of the outhouses. Originally the moon was for women and the star was for the men. The men's outhouse was usually in disrepair and not as well built.  As time went by, the women's survived longer because of the better construction and people remember seeing the moon.

We also learned that by putting lime (like you use in the yard) in the pit, any smell would be eliminated.  It didn't take much, just a cup here and there.

When we first came to our Mountain retreat, we had few of what you would call necessities for living. Thankfully one of these is air, which is still abundant.  The other were sanitation and water.  In this article, I will discuss water.

Living in the right place, for me is in the Mountains of Western Virginia.  Many mountainside springs are available for water.  I my area the mountains emit water all over the place.  This water is also of very high quality and doesn't have the mineral taste would would expect.

I have tried many prototypes of the years.  Most all of them have worked.  I have found that it doesn't really take that much of a spring head to supply the water for your home.

The first one I tapped was no more than a trickle of water, maybe about 1-2 gallons per minute.  For a comparison, the typical kitchen faucet is about 3 gallons per minute.   That much water going into a holding tank is alot of water over the course of a day.

My first holding tank was a 35 gallon plastic trash can.  I installed the inlets with 1 inch plastic pipe fittings, conduit nuts and washers.  At the top was the spring inlet. Just below and on the opposite site was the overflow.  About 4-6 inches from the bottom was the outlet.  This is above the bottom to allow room for any sediment.

The holding tank should be as high on the hill as possible.  For every foot of elevation you get about .4 psi of pressure at the bottom.

I used 1 inch polypropylene pipe to run down the hill to my cabin.  Do your best to keep the pipe going down hill.  Any humps will more than likely get an air lock causing you to loose some pressure. 

This system worked well for many years, but because the pipe was on top of the ground, it would freeze in the winter.  This was not much of an issue, because at the time we didn't spend much time at our retreat in the winter.

Since we now live here permanently we upgraded the capacity.  We found a higher volume spring (about 5 gallons per minute) and guided that to a 325 gallon plastic tank.  All parts are now buried and deliver water year around.