Wired article on distributed power generation (micropower):
A look at the Ohio power company that seems to have been the start of the trouble:
Interested in Off-grid or Grid Inter-tie? Home Power magazine is a good place to start:
Here’s the article on the Peterborough Examiner Website. No pictures in the online version, but I’ll be grabbing a couple of the paper issues today. I’m pleased that they put in Jo’s quote about there being no incentives for people to try renewables as well as J.P.‘s line about the artificially low cost of hydro in this province. How can we convince people to conserve when power is nearly as cheap as water? The bill for fixing the hydro rate at 4.3¢/kwh is now in the hundreds of millions and will likely exceed a billion dollars by the end of the summer. I can’t help but think that money would be far better spent on education and grants for renewables. Get some solar panels up on some roofs and some good metering so that people are more aware of what they are using.
All of the attention in the media is around which part of the grid failed, where it broke, and how decrepit the whole transmission network has become. But there has been very little comment on how overloaded the system is, how all of the power the air conditioners, incandescent lights, and billboards are constantly drawing. Small amounts of conservation can add up to huge savings. If you are one the grid look around your house, your place of business, your community and ask yourself, “Did the failure start in Ohio, or did it start right here?”
I’d like to believe that articles like today’s will make a change but really I think we’re just a form of oddity, “Step right up, gaze in wonder at the people who live off grid.” Just another stop on the blackout media tour. I’d like to think that this blackout could be the start of a change but really I suspect that they’ll cobble the grid back together and life will return to normal. And now I’ve just learned that CHEX TV is on thier way out to do a story on us. It is going to be an interesting day.
Several pieces of good news today: the bank came back with our appraisal, which directly effects our mortgage, and it was VERY favourable, and the insurance company is going to cover the generator, so we should be getting a new one soon!
Today we were visited by a reporter and photographer from the Peterborough Examiner. They were interested in people who lived off the grid. A topic that we expect will be of great interest for the next little while. The article is supposed to appear in tomorrow’s paper, I will post a link to the online version if there is one.
Hah! And everybody thought that when the media came to take a picture of me I’d be getting out of the back of a cruiser with somebody else’s coat over my head.
I think the word I’m looking for is ... schadenfreude.
This update is actually one week late. The septic system is done and covered over and half of the final grading is complete. So we can now flush whenever we feel like and we don’t spend any more time worrying about the level of our holding tank. We’ve also got a layer of topsoil laid over the septic bed and I’ll be seeding it this week (if the rain keeps coming). We’ve had unseasonably cool and rainy weather this month, which is just fine by me, and means that the grass might get a hold before the August heat hits us. Of course we took pictures to document the whole process.
In other news we’ve started the process of getting a mortgage now that the house is largely done and we’ve started closing out our permits. The health department permit (for the septic system) is closed and on Saturday we had our final inspection for our building permit. The inspector, who has been great through this whole process, told us that although we had a few outstanding issues he would close the permit. So now all we have to clear is our electrical inspection.
That is looking to be the biggest hurdle. The inspector was happy with all of the work Dad and I did inside the house he had issues with the off-grid system. His problem wasn’t with the quality of the work, but with a bunch of stuff that ended up sounding to me more like he didn’t like all this new-fangled off-grid stuff than anything else. Anyway Simon and JP, calm as always, will be taking care of all that and I’m happy to let them. If you’re going off grid good installers are worth their weight in gold.
Joanne’s brother-in-law Gene works at a company with a CNC routing machine and he graciously offered to help with the kitchen cabinets. This machine can take a 5x10 sheet of sheet stock (plywood, melamine, etc) and cut it to size according to plans programmed into the computer. It automatically drills all of the shelf and hinge holes as well as the holes for knock-down connectors and dowels (think Ikea, only much stronger). Gene programmed the kitchen according to my rough design. He also ordered us hinges, connectors, and drawer slides - and let me tell you these drawer slides are something else. They’re made by a company called Blum (Austrian) and they are the Rolls-Royce of cabinet hardware. Smooth as silk and they automatically close themselves when they get to the last 3 inches of inbound travel. Sweet.
Dad and I had to make a jig to finish some of the drilling that the machine can’t do but after two solid afternoons of work we have a pretty close to full working kitchen. We’re just missing the hinges (on order) and one cabinet (we ran out of wood).
Joanne’s favourite part is the large, tall pull-out pantry. Now we have to decide how to finish the wood. It’s all Baltic birch plywood, but we’re leaning towards a dark mahogany stain for the drawer and cupboard faces and Tung oil for the countertops. Tung oil is clear with a yellowish tinge.
Joanne has spent the day organizing the kitchen and has found, much to her amazement that she my actually have *gasp* too much storage space. But never fear, there are at least two more boxes of kitchen stuff at my parents.
Here are some pictures of the kitchen, and the cool machine.
The house is officially broken in, we have had our first party. Friends and family, city and country, everyone came out for an evening of house tours and BBQ. Special thanks go out to my Mom and Dad who helped us paint and clean to get ready, and to Phil who ably handled the BBQ.
Here are some pictures from the night.
We pulled the last part of the barn down today. It took quite a bit of doing. Despite its lean it was quite sturdy. We finally got the last section down by pulling with the bulldozer.
We’ve been held up a bit with our other stuff though. The septic system isn’t going to be done until sometime next week—if we’re lucky. And we’re picking up our kitchen cabinets on Tuesday.
Here’s the barn pictures, plus some views of our new grading around the front of the house.
We got the trench filled in today. Tomorrow we start on the septic bed.
I’m having a hard time deciding if the +31C (+38C with the humidex) right now is worse than the -20C (-30C with the windchill) we had six months ago. Of course there weren’t any Deer flies out then…
I’m going into town tonight to see Tina’s band play. They’re called BobCajun - guess what kind of music they play. My feet are killing me though, I’ll probably skip the dancing.
Sorry about the break there. Things got busy work wise and I loaned my camera out so I didn’t even have any new pictures from around the house.
Eric has arrived though, and so big things are afoot. Eric is the excavator, he’s going to be doing the final grading around the house, installing the septic bed, and right now, he’s digging the trench for the wind generator cable. It’s quite the trench. It’s about 3 feet deep, 2 feet wide and runs 680 feet from the top of the back hill all the way down to the house. The trench is dug, and the wire’s down in it, tomorrow we’ll back fill the whole thing. First we dump in about half the dirt then run a line of trench tape down, the tape lets future diggers know that there’s a buried cable in place and to beware. Then we fill the rest.
And Eric has just returned, so I have to go work. Here’s the pictures from today and I’ll post more tonight or tomorrow.
