Inventing a Geothermal System

As plans for the new water system move forward, we find ourselves in sudden possession of quite a lot of high-end good-sized PVC piping of various lengths, assorted odd couplings, some strips and scraps of new carpeting (good for insulation of trenches), and a surprising amount of aluminum ductwork. Salvaged from various places. Not being content to leave what look to be perfectly good but not immediately needed lengths of such pipe and ducting behind, we’ve been rescuing as much as we can get from the dumpster-side repository at the contracting facility next door to hubby’s day job.

Some of these lengths of thick-walled new pipe are 3 or 4 inches in diameter, so I’ve been considering how we could use them as we head into this major project, other than as the ‘head’ flow from the new spring to the ram jet in the pumphouse. Given as it’s nearly July, I have also been scouting around for some form of air conditioning that doesn’t require an air-tight home and way more not-cheap electricity than we care to use. We only need it occasionally during the hottest hot-spells of summer and only at times when it’s inconvenient to spend the afternoon in the basement, out under the shade trees, or down at the swimming hole. As part of that research, I’ve been looking at geothermal engineering concepts and technology as well as at modern iterations of good old evaporative cooler (a.k.a. “Swamp Cooler”). Which looks great and works well in places like Arizona, but is not so great here in the southern Appalachians where it’s around 85-90% humidity all the time. Geothermal still looks good, so…

A Do-It-Yourself heat pump! But without the compressor/heat element assist. This could work.

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Filed under Alternatives, Building, Conservation, Cooling, Energy, Environment, Future Planning, Heating, Homestead, Renovating, Yard | Comment (1)

When the Electricity Goes Out

Over the past two weeks a rather spectacular one-two punch of severe weather wreaked havoc across the eastern half of the nation from Texas to Virginia. Many of us were stunned by the huge, mile-wide F4 tornado that plowed a deadly path through Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, Alabama. That monster and as many as a hundred other tornados killed more than 300 people in 5 states and injured thousands who literally had no place to hide as the winds flattened homes, apartment buildings and businesses completely, even to blasting out the concrete slabs and tearing up streets and sidewalks. It is the deadliest tornado outbreak since the Great Depression.

A friend who lives on a well-planned homestead in southern Tennessee posted on FaceBook about the damage from a tornado in his neck of the woods that downed trees and power lines wholesale, but spared him and his family and even his goats. He was feeling darned lucky even though the devastation across TVA’s service area – and the station blackout that shut down the three reactors at Browns Ferry – made it likely that his ‘stead would be without electricity for days, maybe a week or more. We who live on the land know from experience that we aren’t the first people in line to have our services restored after a nasty storm. First in line are the people in urban areas where shelters and hospitals and emergency services must be restored as quickly as possible to minimize the human cost of nature’s wrath.

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Filed under Alternatives, Cooling, Economics, Emergency Preparedness, Energy, Food Storage, Home-Products, Homestead, Solar, Sustainable Living | Comment (1)

The Most Refreshing Summer Tea

During the very hottest portion of the year I get really very sick of lemonade and regular old iced tea. Worse, I find that I can’t actually drink iced tea after noon if it’s been brewed honestly because it has even more caffeine than coffee. Plus, I live in the south where “regular iced tea” comes complete with about a full cup of white sugar per glass. I don’t like my drinks to be sugary, but I get pretty sick of plain old water too, despite having the Planet’s Best Mountain Spring Water right here in the tap.

So I make some cool summer teas from the first plants in the garden and the last to die out in fall – the mints. In fact, cool summer teas are the #1 thing to do with all those exotic mints – like apple mint, pineapple mint, chocolate mint and lemon mint (as well as good ol’ peppermint). To these I like to add a bit of rose hips, just for the tart flavor and excess vitamin C. I harvest those when they turn red in the fall, then freeze them in a jar for later use.

Now, the very name of the mints tells you all you need to know about the specific taste undertones you get out of them. I like to make my tea fresh, as making it of dried herbs requires less material and no simmering (I use the dry for hot wintertime tea). So in the following recipe, use your mint of choice!

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Filed under Cooling, Garden, Health, Recipes, Wild Herbs | Comments (2)