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.

This old cabin is built right into the side of the mountain, thus the ground (basement) level stays almost AC cool all summer. I’ve previously considered installing an in-floor fan basically where the wood stove pipe rises through to the main floor and simply sucking that cool air upstairs, but in my experiments with portable fans to blow the cool air up, warm exterior air simply gets pulled in from the side of the basement that isn’t earth-shielded and then the basement level is as hot as the rest of the cabin. The installed in-floor fan is still a good idea, but needed to find cool air to replenish what’s blown up to the main floor.

This 100-year old chestnut cabin is anything but air-tight, and I must admit I like the fact that it “breathes.” We live on a beautiful mountain and love the fresh, green (and often pollen-laden) air, the constant breeze and such. Want to be able to refresh the air summer and winter to a certain extent, and this is where those pipes may come in handy to supply both cool air in summer and warm air in winter.

We’ll have to do quite a lot of excavation to get the water from the new spring and ram jet up to a new cistern above the house, which will also require a new supply pipe to the house from the hill-side rather than the bottomland-side. So I’m thinking we could hook these pipes together with ‘u’ joints (with an above-ground intake at the back end) as a geothermal collector about 2 feet deep out in the side yard. The ground doesn’t really freeze here in winter (just not that cold here), so the air that runs through this underground collector would pick up heat in the winter and cooling in the summer. Then we could hook that to a small in-wall exhaust fan into the basement level to provide cool air in summer for the in-floor fan to blow upstairs. Thereby keeping the basement level cool while circulating to the rest of the house. Working just the opposite in winter.

In the dead of winter the air from this collection system is likely to be only around 50º F. But during the day when the leaves are bare and the sun is in the south, we get a hefty amount of passive solar heating when the sun shines. And the wood stove in the basement (our “central” heat) has always worked great to make the place toasty on the coldest of nights. The geothermal should help even things out quite a lot, and likely even save wood. If we can pipe in 50º air to where the wood stove is cooking and it’s 25º outside, the whole system should be more efficient. And the house would still ‘breathe’ in a healthy manner.

So once we get from the creek and springs up here to the house (on our way up the ridge where the new cistern will be), we’ll be doing work on two projects at once. As it takes shape I will be sure to take lots of pictures and report regularly on the progress. Again, stay tuned!

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.

I am now quite jealous of the amount of serious planning my friend put into his move from the city to the land a few years ago. In response to a question about how his family was set for food storage in the time it would take to get the electricity back on, he said that’s the least of his worries. Seems he has a well-stocked solar powered freezer that doesn’t need TVA at all. Heck, as long as a homestead is capable of operating despite the ravages of storms and downed power lines, the need to use oil lamps at night can be considered romantic! I’ve gotta get me some solar powered refrigeration for sure, though this item on the wish list may have to wait (along with others) for the day when I finally win the lottery I never play…

At any rate, I went surfing the web on my computer – which fortunately didn’t have to go without electricity because the tornados jumped the mountains and didn’t come down again until they were between Charlotte and Raleigh. I found that there are several companies out there specializing in solar powered refrigeration. Backwoods Solar Electric Systems offers units from several manufacturers along with the peripherals you’ll need to get them up and operating.

If you’ve priced new, efficient standard electrical refrigerators lately, you know the nice ones are approaching the $2,000 range. A solar powered, direct current system for a refrigerator or freezer unit can cost twice that much when all the costs are added up – the solar panels, the converters, the batteries, etc. The appliances themselves are well insulated and energy efficient, but still suck up a lot of ‘trons during the course of a day – averaging between 200 and 800 watt hours per day. Size matters, of course, and an 800-watt solar collector takes up some serious room. Some come with an AC/DC switch so that you could use regular electricity and save the draw on your household solar for when the electricity’s out. That would separate the costs on the system so that household solar generation isn’t solely dedicated to the refrigeration in normal times, as refrigerators and freezers are big users.

The SunDanzer company offers some battery-free, direct solar units that are somewhat compact but surprisingly efficient and not more expensive than a regular new appliance without the solar panels added in. Solartron Technologies offers a modest size, ultra high efficiency battery refrigeration/freezer unit that can be operated with just an 85 watt solar panel that costs less than $500. The batteries and peripherals will hike the initial price considerably, and I know many homesteaders who would dearly love to be able to operate off-grid if they have to, but are reluctant to invest in those expensive batteries that need semi-regular replacement. It’s far easier to simply go with the backwards meter. For them, the AC/DC switchable for straight running off the panels in times when the grid is down will probably serve as well and involve less investment cost over the long run.

When you sit down to figure out what your homestead actually needs in the way of reliable electric power, the water pump from well or spring looms large (at least, at my place) along with food storage – refrigeration. I don’t know many homesteads that heat the house or greenhouse with electricity, as there are much better ways to get heat that are not so wasteful. Lights aren’t that big an issue either, as oil lamps are quite nice and most people I know don’t do their hard homestead work in the dark anyway. Who needs lights when you’re sleeping? If the family is unable to entertain themselves without television or desktop computers, you’ll have to add in that much generation capacity as well. Though I am dreaming of a stationary bicycle or the treadle and wheel unit from an old sewing machine as a way to generate computer ‘trons when the regular power goes out. That ram jet I forever plan to build and install down at the creek to pump water from the spring cistern to the top of the ridge so we can then get gravity feed to the house would save us a lot on the 220 pump that’s now in the cistern. We heat with wood and don’t need air conditioning, so refrigeration would definitely be our biggest user of generated power once we get the ram jet, solar panels and wind turbine installed.

So I’ve added solar powered refrigeration to my wish list for when I win the lottery and have the money to invest. Until then, if the electricity goes out for several days at a time from anything that’s not a blizzard or ice storm in the middle of winter (when keeping food cold isn’t difficult at all), I’ll have to stick with transferring cold items to plastic milk crates in the creek. Not very convenient, but workable because being spring fed, the water stays right at 40-45 degrees all year long.

And yes, I’m still darned jealous of my friend’s impressive foresight to have planned for this contingency when he built his place, as well as his ability to thumb his nose at TVA when the lights go out. A new modern malady for us back to the landers – Homestead Envy. I’ve got it…

Links:

Backwoods Solar Electric Systems
SunDanzer
Solartron Technologies

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!

Summertime Tea

2 cups mint leaves
1/2 cup rose hips
4 cups cold water

Put the water into a not-aluminum pot on the stove and bring to a boil. Add the rose hips and turn the heat to medium-low to simmer, simmer for 5 minutes. Add the mint and simmer for another 5 minutes to break down the cell walls and release the flavor.

Remove from heat and cover tightly, let steep for about an hour (or more). Strain into a 4-quart pitcher and add cold water to fill. Refrigerate, drink with ice, garnish with a slice of lemon or a sprig of mint.

You could add brewed green tea if you wish, and get green tea benefits too. And you can sweeten this tea if you really want to (yuck!). I use local raw honey in hot tea, but you can heat a half cup of honey in a cup of water, then add that when you’re mixing up the 4-quart pitcher. You can drink this iced mint tea all day long and into the hot night, it’s good for hydrating you (mostly water), is high in vitamin C, and isn’t going to hurt you. It makes for a great “sports drink” at softball games or when you’re cooking out or playing badminton in the yard too! Kids can drink it as often as they like too, and it won’t spoil their appetite or make them fat!

So get out there and trim those mints, make some tea and relax!