Those of us homesteaders who have been hoping the cost of solar panels would continue to fall until we can finally afford them on our houses and outbuildings have been watching with some trepidation the news that solar start-up Solyndra has filed for bankruptcy. What does it mean in terms of the push to secure truly ‘green’ jobs here in the U.S., as well as our struggle to get our nation off filthy fossil fuels like coal and gas, and to phase out ill-conceived nuclear power generation before Megalopolis ends up a ‘dead zone’ for 300+ years.

The New York Times reports that Solyndra’s bankruptcy bodes ill for the entire solar industry. But does it really? While we can be sure King Coal and Big Nukes would dearly love that to be true, that doesn’t necessarily mean it is true.

Solyndra’s collapse marked the third time in as many weeks that a solar company declared bankruptcy. Evergreen Solar Inc. of Massachusetts and SpectraWatt of New York also filed for protection.

Three investment-heavy solar companies in three weeks? What’s going on? Some analysts loudly tout the idea that the solar industry itself is in trouble – and there obviously is some trouble – but how bad is it? According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, part of the problem is that the cost of materials to make solar panels has been falling drastically as more and more investment in the technology has materialized, and more companies jump into the fray. In such a situation some of the most heavily leveraged companies who got in when material costs were high are going to fail simply due to their debt load. Solyndra also produced commercial rooftop systems with a unique cylindrical collection system, and that system proved to be entirely impractical in residential applications. This, analysts say, indicates that the company badly misunderstood the marketplace they’d entered.

Solyndra also produced the thin film solar panels I was hoping to use on my metal roof, so maybe their leftover stock of that will go at super-discount price now that the company is defaulting on its more than half a billion dollars in federal loans. Worst part, of course, are than 1,100 ‘green’ energy workers are now unemployed. Hopefully they’ll be able to find new work in the field soon. German energy giant just announced that it is getting out of the nuclear business altogether, and will refocus on its alternative and renewable divisions. ABC News reports that the Solyndra bankruptcy is unlikely to hamper government investment in green jobs or renewable energy sources, so that’s some good news.

Besides, despite the loss of those 1,100 jobs at Solyndra, the solar energy sector is still employing more than 100,000 people and has added more than 6,700 jobs just in the past year. Green job growth appears to be healthy despite some start-up upheavals in non-competitive sectors. These are good jobs, we need more of them.

The bottom line is that Chinese governmental investment in solar production is the biggest factor effecting cost of solar panels, as U.S. companies just don’t have access to the kind of sweatshop, prison and slave labor that the Chinese government can deploy. Much as American corporations would love to pay workers $2 a day for 16 hours of daily work, that’s simply not going to happen no matter how long they drag out this 2nd Great Depression.

The government’s exposure on these bankruptcies should definitely not prevent the necessary investment in alternatives, especially given the recent dramatic breakdown of half a century’s empty promises that nuclear energy would be “clean, safe, too cheap to meter.” The price of those is going nowhere but up, and they already cost more in initial investment than any other energy source. I figure the solar market will balance itself out over time, and those companies that install and maintain solar panels on your roof that turns THEM into your utility company (at a guaranteed rate, something you’ll never get from a public utility) seem to be doing great.

At any rate, I’m still hoping that by the time we’ve got the money to invest in full energy production for this homestead there will be available technologies made right here in the U.S. of A. that are both affordable and will do the job with enough extra to sell back to Duke. Why, maybe Duke will get enough from that distributed generation to cancel any and all plans for new nukes nobody needs or can afford. You never know…

Links:

U.S. Solar Industry Job Growth
Solyndra Bankruptcy Unlikely to Hamper Green Jobs
House Judiciary chair: Solyndra bankruptcy
Solyndra Bankruptcy Reveals Dark Clouds

One of the biggest long-range planning issues involved in making a successful transition from a seriously inefficient and wasteful fossil fuels economy toward a more healthy renewables-based way of life is the problem of our petro-based system of agriculture. Those huge tractors and combines that dominate the endless landscapes of Big Agri-biz operations can translate into an entirely unsustainable 10:1 ratio of fossil fuel use to food on the table. Obviously as the cost of petroleum fuels keeps on rising, our society at large must come up with more efficient alternatives. Fortunately, there are a couple of alternatives that bode well for the future.

Huge swaths of the American breadbasket where staple monocrops are produced by the square mile would probably be better off going with Rudolph Diesel’s engine which he invented in 1893 to run on peanut oil. The Big machines could be run on SVO biodiesel that could be produced in a centrally located co-op type operation from oil crops cooperatively grown just for the purpose. These could then power the growing of those massive amounts of staple crops like oilseed, sugar beets, corn and other grains needed for both humans and livestock that are most efficiently produced by agribusiness concerns. Less petroleum consumption for this purpose, combined with programs aimed at lessening big ag’s dependence on petro-based chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides would help a lot.

But is biodiesel the best alternative to the small producer? Smaller, more diverse farms, organic operations and homesteads that participate in Community Supported Agriculture programs and/or agritourism offerings don’t need those huge multi-purpose machines to grow just a few acres’ worth of truck crops, culinary herbs, grains, etc. Luckily for us small-timers, there’s electric tractors.

Electric tractors come in a variety of sizes and conversions from standard small farm size tractors produced by the usual manufacturers to your basic lawn-tractor sized unit that is mostly a glorified riding mower or 4-wheeler/golf cart. Such small units can easily handle the standard machine jobs involved in 1-5 acre fields, often able to plow, till or seed those 5 acres on a single charge. These machines can generally accept any of the standard tractor attachments that any similar sized gasoline or diesel tractor can accept, and while not exactly cheap, are generally not much more expensive than standard models.

Electric tractors actually get more oomph for the buck than traditional tractors or regular transportation EVs that need to be lightweight and go fast. This is because tractors are more efficient at their jobs when they are heavy and going slow. The trick for homesteaders is the power supply for charging the batteries, and of course that must factor into whatever power sources – solar, wind, micro-hydro, etc. – you are using to lessen your dependence on the grid. There are even conversions out there for your basic Small farm size Allis or Deere or Ford tractor that sport nifty overhead canopies (shade!) of solar panels that charge on-the-fly.

On more graded land such as we have here in the Appalachians, any kind of riding tractor or mower type machine is more dangerous than a walk-behind with low profile. And while power for that could be provided by a mule, it’s kind of exciting to find that someone on the electric implement front has already thought of that. Even better, these electrical implements make no noise in operation beyond the noise of the tines working the earth.

Below are listed some great links with lots of good information about electric tractors, tillers, mowers, cart-pullers and such that interested homesteaders will find useful. Several homesteaders I know who have livestock are already using rechargeable battery powered electric 4-wheelers to pull trailers loaded with hay and feed and such to their stock, haul logs cut at distance to where they are split for firewood, and to get that firewood to the furnace/wood stove. More useful actual farm implements attachable to riding mower type vehicles, or conversions of that old Ford might be a great project a homesteader who is already involved in CSA and/or agritourism projects could even find grant money to support.

Useful Links:

EEEVEE: Electric Tractors
The Natural Farmer: Electric Tractors
Permaculture: Electric Tractors
Modern Electric Tractors Incorporated
GE Elec-Trak E15
FreePower: Solar Gardening & Lawn Equipment
SunPony Charging Tiller

A friend left a little 16-foot travel trailer in our back yard a couple of years ago when he had to sell his land and move east to tend his aging parents. The plumbing got wrecked because he forgot to unhook it before pulling it out, but the electricity’s still fine, and I’m presuming the stove, fridge and heat would work if we cared to replace the propane bottles. We’ve been using it as a combination storage shed and guest bedroom, but had to drape a tarp over the roof to stop leaks in the corners that led to a nasty accumulation of mildew.

What I’d most like to do is convert it into an actual camp-cabin style “Tiny House” that would blend in with the forest scenery better than white with turquoise trim on your basic aluminum trailer siding. Maybe build a Tiny House shed while we’re at it as well. Tiny houses are often built on wheels to get around local building codes, and of course this trailer is already on wheels. But that’s not really necessary here because there are no building codes out in the wilderness – unless you wish to obtain insurance, that is.

Of course, we could probably do better by selling it cheap just to get it hauled out of here, and then building a little camp cabin instead. By building from scratch we could get more width and height out of the space, which goes a long way in the ‘tiny house’ realm toward making the space usable and comfortable at the same time. Wish some help from our grandsons we could probably supply all the logs necessary from right here on the land, though I’d still need that mule I’ve been meaning to get in order to get them transported from where we cut to where we want to build.

Our primary problem is the fact that we don’t have much accessible flat land. What is accessible is already in use for our 28 x 28 cabin (with half basement and loft) built into the side of the mountain a hundred years ago, and about an eighth of an acre of back yard. Where that ugly travel trailer is parked using up way too much of it. There is flat land down at the creeks on both sides of the ridge, but it’s not accessible by road, only by trail. And the climb uphill to the driveway and house cabin is darned rugged no matter which creek you start from. But what we do have is what’s left of an old logging road that goes to the top of the ridge, which we could grade a little less steep and gravel to a parking area that would provide good access to that ridgetop.

And while we could build up foundations on that ridgetop for camp-sized cabins (about 14 x 16 plus porch), I’d rather leave that land as is because it’s part of our trailway from the top of the knob to the access route for the old Mount Mitchell trail. Over which one of these days I’d really like to take guests on two-day nature hikes during the spring, summer and fall. They could rent the cabins for a week at a time, we’d make a little money, and a good time could be had by all.

So what I’m thinking about are bridge timber decks going off the far end of the ridge, onto which we could build the camp cabins. We camped at a state park on a lake in Tennessee once where all the campsights were on this sort of extended deck, with hookups and big enough to host several tents or a big Winnebego and still leave room for the truck-wheel campfire and a nice built-in charcoal grill on a pole. Sort of a do-it-yourself flatland. Our decks need be only 14 x 20 feet or so in order to comfortably host the cabins, which would then sit perched up amongst the trees and with lovely picturesque views of the highest Black Mountains peaks beyond.

We could supply water by tapping a spring on the other side’s creek and doing another ram jet to a raised cistern farther up the ridge (again for gravity feed), but we can’t provide flush toilets with septic tank and drain field. Way too expensive. I have, however, been doing a bit of research into your basic waterless composting toilet systems. Which should work fine for short-termers, and if we get long-termers they can do the emptying maintenance themselves. Thus there could be showers – grey water can be piped back down the mountain with no environmental damage so long as the soaps are degradable – and toilet facilities as well as water for drinking and cooking in the kitchenettes.

Or, I suppose, if we wanted to have several camp cabins up there, we could just build another one as a shower and toilet station for all to use – using your basic composting outhouse technology. This arrangement would have the added advantage of being useful to players on the top 10 holes of the disc golf course, thus keep them out of the main house.

My goal is of course to have a way to make some extra money off the place, tap a few of those 10 million tourists that pass through this region annually in search of mountain air, grand scenery and wilderness adventures. And also to have available space not in my own very small house for friends and family who love to visit but can crowd me out quickly when the weather’s less than fine. Besides, there’s nothing I hate more than having to wait in line for our sole bathroom every time I need to use it.

But on an encouraging note, now that land prices have fallen so significantly that nobody’s making any real money off that “real estate boom” that busted a few years ago, people in the city who have been harboring dreams of the homestead life could get started by going small. An acre of unimproved, forested land in my county is going for just a couple of thousand dollars these days if you’re willing to buy 5 or 10 acres at a time. An off-grid (solar, wind and/or hydro) site-built Tiny House or camp cabin can be a good investment on top of that while the work on clearing and planting a garden, learning and managing wilding crops, sheltering and fencing some livestock, etc. is being done. Better amenities and a larger home cabin can thus be not something needed immediately. Then the self-sufficient starter cabin is just a lovely added feature of your homestead – a private studio or workspace, a guest quarters, a rental cabin, a children’s play house, whatever.

It’s a thought. So think about it!

Useful Links:

Tiny House Blog
Tiny House Design
This Tiny House
Tiny Pallet House
Vermont Tiny Houses
Envirolet Composting Toilets
Sum-Mar Composting Toilets
Biolet Composting Toilets

As part of our plan to revamp our water supply system to get rid of the energy-sucking 220 pump and replace it with a ram jet, and concurrently installing geothermal collectors to supply a steady supply of cool air in summer and warmer air in winter, I’ve been checking into other ways of cutting our grid energy use. It will be years before we’re in a position to purchase solar panels or a wind generator to get the homestead off the grid entirely, so every little bit of electricity we don’t use from Duke Energy helps our bottom line.

A friend in Arizona long known for his bicycling prowess sent me a link to David Butcher’s Pedal Powered Generator website, which is chock full of information about getting a little exercise while charging up some batteries used to operate things like LED lights, computers, televisions, electric motors on your assisted transportation (Moped), even a washing machine. Though that last takes some real muscles for the spin cycle. I’ve often thought that as I’m sitting here at my desk surfing around on the internet I should be pedaling a stationary bike to power the machinery that lets me do that.

Butcher’s site offers free Do-It-Yourself plans, some videos for instruction, some hints for potential uses of your generator, and power stats for various appliances you may want to power in this way. you of course will need the DC batteries to charge, and the AC adaptor for many appliances, but those are available all over the place. MNS Power has both DIY plans as well as systems for purchase along with video instructions for installation of all components.

And for those who really get into the swing of things human-powered, there are even sites out there where you can purchase 12 Volt appliances you can power directly. Things like LCD flat screen TVs and DVD players, refrigerators and freezers, various kitchen appliances, fans and heaters, lights, etc. There are of course the usual cellular phone chargers, Bluetooth kits, appliances that come with their own built-in inverters and such. I particularly like the 12 volt refrigerator/freezer, which while quite small, could be powered by solar panels most of the time or switched to pedal power if the sun’s not shining enough to keep the batteries charged.

Refrigerator/freezers are one of the biggest energy hogs in any household, yet they are important for keeping food safely at temperatures where bacteria can’t grow enough to make your family ill. This is of course a much bigger issue in the summer than in the winter, when a simple window box or porch-mounted ice box could be used instead.

A friend in Pennsylvania once rented an old farmhouse that had a nifty water refrigeration system built-in. It was a concrete trough that ran across the width of the cellar. Spring water came in through a pipe at one end, and drained out of a pipe at the other end to a rock-lined depression that took the water to a stream. The spring water was about 40 degrees all year long, cold enough to keep things cool enough. Deal was, she had to use those Tupperware type containers to keep water away from the food, and bricks to keep those containers under the water. Still, it worked, and kept melons very nicely.

Knowing we have to do something about the water system (because the cistern cracked) has put me in a mind to be looking around for the many energy alternatives that homesteaders could be using to keep their footprints small on this earth. There’s much more available today than there has been in the past, as there are many more people both in the cities and countryside who are trying to save energy or become more self-sufficient. One of the best sources of information I have lucked upon in my surfing safaris is Home Power Magazine, which offers articles and plans for all sorts of generation systems, appliances, collectors, etcetera.

Please check out some of these good sources of information and get yourself thinking about how much more your family could do to nudge your homestead ever more toward independence.

Useful Links:

Home Power Magazine
12 Volt Appliances
David Butcher: Pedal Powered Generator
Free Plans Bicycle Power Station

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

Awhile back I wrote about making your own soaps, and how much fun that can be even though it’s a lot of work. Besides, who are we dedicated homesteaders if we’re not people who actually enjoy working around our homesteads and doing for ourselves? It’s officially late October now, which means I’ve got a different soap job to do at my homestead.

I do this soap job every spring and fall, mostly just because I can. Besides, it saves my hard-strapped household of four adult-sized humans about $120 every six months on a single necessary household item, even after the not too high costs of ingredients and processing. Since some of the ingredients are also used to make bathroom and kitchen scouring powders, good ant and mouse repellants, and insect sting/burn/rash treatment, I figure the savings to the homestead overall for a year is pretty close to $300.00. That’s nothing to sneeze at, even though my labor is donated free!

This soap job is all about getting our clothes clean. Yes, I do way too much laundry – I still think my daughter and grandson pull clothes out of the drawers or off the shelves and toss them into the dirty clothes hamper if it’s not what they want to wear today instead of refolding and putting them back where they belong. They were gone out of state all of August and September and I didn’t wash more than three loads a week for just hubby and I. But I can’t seem to catch them at it, so I just do the washing (and the drying, and the folding, and the putting away…). It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it!

I don’t make laundry soap from scratch – we use way too much of it and let’s face it… do our tee shirts, socks and underwear really need the same kind of delicate cleansing as our faces? Instead, I use pre-made soaps. Keep a bowl down in the bathroom for the dregs of bar soaps that get too small to use, for this specific purpose. I also have family and friends who travel for their jobs quite a bit, and who pick up those little motel soaps for me. I keep them in a basket in the bathroom closet, they come in faster than I can finish off with a project like this.

What I do is turn all these soap bars and leftovers into liquid soap. That means putting a big soup pot on ‘low’ on the stove (or on top of the wood stove if it’s cold enough to be heating the house), and breaking or carving the bars and leavings into small pieces to dissolve in the hot water. I have found that the smaller the pieces (flakes and shavings are best), the faster they fully dissolve. Keep stirring and adding more until I’ve got a good gallon of thick liquid. All in all, it ends up being maybe 20 little bars and the bathroom dregs.

At this point I pour the hot liquid soap into my container, which is a clean 5-gallon plastic bucket (with lid), and add another 3 gallons of hot water while stirring to thin it down a bit. To this I add 2 cups of regular baking soda and 4 cups of dry borax powder. While the soap is still warm, slowly and while stirring well. I buy the soda and borax – cheap generic brands – in the biggest boxes I can get at the grocery, once a year. Mixed in equal parts these make a handy scouring powder for sinks, toilets, tubs, counters, etc. all year long.

The mixture will cool into a gel. I use a plastic soup ladle to dip it out, about a cup for a standard washer load. My washing machine (a heavy-duty basic 1-size floor model I got a great deal on when our last one died) only takes a ‘medium’ load. I start the fill, get the soap and add it while the water’s filling before putting the clothes in. Then load in the clothes and let ‘er wash! I leave the top up if I’m doing whites so the main wash water won’t drain, then turn it back to start for a second agitation (with the same soapy water) when I add bleach.

The clothes come out as clean as any expensive laundry soap I’ve ever used (and I’ve probably tried them all). They come out smelling great from the various scent ingredients in the commercial soap bars, and they’re also very soft without using any fabric softener at all in the wash or sheets in the dryer due to the various lotions also included in those commercial soap bars. The soda and borax enhances the de-greasing and basic cleaning ability of the soap.

Now, people don’t think about making their own anything anymore, but this way of recycling bar soaps is environmentally sound as well as very satisfying personally. As the grocery bill goes up and up and up every week, it’s really nice not to have to pay $5 or more on a regular basis for laundry soap. If you’re going to be a committed homesteader (I always say), you should at least learn how to do as many things for yourself as you can. So I do.

Having posted with pride about our new honest-to-hillbilly deck, I thought this might be a good time to talk a bit more about the many tools a homesteader needs in order to keep the place in order, do the gardening and landscaping, renovate and repair home and outbuildings. I can do this because during the deck project we had a total of 4 hammers on hand, and two of them ended up without handles before we were done. Frustrating.

The very best thing you can do, of course, is to purchase the absolute, best quality, longest-lasting tools – any tool – you can possibly afford. Yet in today’s economy, getting the best quality tools is often beyond the means of those of us trying hard just to make things work. Here at my homestead we’ve got a shed chock full of old chain saws, string trimmers, handle-less shovels, pitchforks, axes, mauls, sledgehammers, pruners, etc., not to mention a whole collection of broken hammers, screwdrivers, various saws and power tools bought cheap over the years and which didn’t last long enough to get to the second job.

Worse, I’ve an energetic daughter and some grandchildren who work hard on occasion, but can’t ever manage to put the tools back where they belong. Which means I find rusted things all over the place, often with wooden handles that long since rotted into compost. It’s extremely frustrating, and having to replace the tools every time you start a project is a regular pain in the ass. Not to mention expensive.

My friend and local homesteading hero told us many years ago to “Buy The Best” because that way you don’t have to keep on buying over and over again. Great advice, but not very practical if you’ve got to have an axe (the last one has only half a handle) and you’ve got just $20 to spend right now. And my hugest complaint about ALL homestead tools with handles – when the heck do the handles get to the modern composite resin/graphite world, just like golf clubs?

Luckily for all us non-wealthy homesteaders, There Is A Way. Why, we can purchase ‘best’ quality tools secondhand! There are a number of ways to do this, and you won’t be sorry. Often you can acquire the super guaranteed-for-life item at or below on-sale cheap stuff at Walmart if you just spend some time looking around. There are estate and farm auctions, there are whole secondhand warehouses, and there are a good many sites on the internet where even with shipping costs the ‘best’ tool comes in cheaper than the Walmart Special.

You could go local to the auctions and auction houses that will let you inspect the items and brands pre-auction, you could go to Craig’s List or Freecyclers and hope for the best, or you could check out some of the links below and surf some of their cross-links too. The ‘best’ of our tools is a Craftsman tiller my father-in-law bought for me when we first moved here. It’s still in the shop right now for its 5-year tune-up, but that thing’s a true workhorse that may never really die. We went ahead and put out the bucks for a Stihl chain saw about 7 years ago, and it’s still going strong on its 4th chain. Which is better than the several cheap ones under the shed that didn’t last 2 seasons.

What’s your most elderly tool, and are you glad you bought the ‘best’?

Links:

Used Tools
How to Buy Good Used Garden Tools
Used Snap-On Tools

Great news this week on ScienceDaily, picked up by Nanotechnology News and other outlets that researchers from Swansea University have developed a paint coating for steel buildings that will generate electricity even in low light situations.

Note that this isn’t solar panels on the roof, but the enameled coating on the siding itself. Meaning that metal buildings – including garages, barns, equipment sheds, airport hangars, outlying megachurches and community buildings could all be generating electricity (some from the infrared spectrum current solar cells cannot capture) while they’re just sitting there enclosing space. Put a few regular panels on the roof too and it could be generating more than it uses on a regular basis.

But when I went looking at just how innovative this development is in the overall scheme of things keeping affordable alternative energy options safely insulated from regular people who might just put them to work, I found that the idea isn’t all that new, and isn’t anywhere close to being marketed to consumers of things like metal buildings (commercial or residential). Why do you suppose that is, given the sheer amount of money being funneled into research and development, as well as into actual production?

For instance, National Geographic reported in January of 2005 (more than 3 years ago) that Spray-On Solar-Power Cells are True Breakthrough. Just like in the ‘new’ news, nanotechnology able to harness infrared as well as visible light was formulated into a plastic to be sprayed like paint onto stuff (including clothing and cars) to produce “portable power.”

Have you bought any solar powered clothing or cars lately capable of charging your cell phone or car battery? …I thought not. In January of 2007 (just over a year ago), researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology reported that they had developed a buckeyball-based solar cell that could be sprayed like paint onto flexible plastic sheets. Inhabitat cited one of the researchers as predicting…

“Someday homeowners will even be able to print sheets of these solar cells with inexpensive home-based inkjet printers. Consumers can then slap the finished product on a wall, roof or billboard to create their own power stations.”

Have you printed out any usable solar cells on the ol’ Epson yet? Not to worry, says Konarka Technologies, which has actually developed the inkjet solar cell printing process for big production facilities (but no reports on whether any big production facilities are actually buying it).

When can the average homeowner expect to be able to purchase house, slab and deck paint that generates electricity at Home Depot for a comparable price to regular exterior paints? When can we expect to buy roofing tiles or sheets at Lowe’s that have inkjet printed plastic coatings that not only generate electricity, but add to the life of the roofing material?

The technology is out there. The government is pouring money into development. So far, none of it’s found on the shelves at Home Depot or Lowe’s. Why is that?

If we COULD buy it for a reasonable price when it’s time to paint or re-roof, We the People surely would. I’d sure hate to think that this might actually be the reason we can’t buy it. They’ve had time to incorporate and patent, they’ve had public money for R&D, they’ve reported for years that it’s easily done and the technology is easy. They can make more money off us if they wanted, I’d sure buy the stuff and so would millions of others. What’s the holdup… really?

There are more reasons to be energy independent than just to save money or avoid the hassles of what happens when the electricity goes out. The American Energy Independence organization lists some of them on their web page, that every homesteader should read for no other reason than to spur them into immediate planning and action.

As I write this post on the second day of 2008, oil has hit $100 a barrel on the NYMEX [New York Mercantile Exchange] exchange, sparked by concerns about violence in Nigeria. We’ve lost more than 3,000 of our brave young soldiers in Iraq, a war of aggression launched almost entirely over control of the world’s second largest petroleum reserves. Combined with news last week of a looming world-wide food shortage being pinned mostly on the eagerness of bare subsistence farmers to produce more lucrative energy crops (like corn and soy for ethanol and biodiesel), the more that we can do for ourselves, the better we’ll weather the coming storms of necessary change. We can lead instead of follow.

From the Energy Efficient Homes resources page I found a list of the top 10 energy efficiency tips that all of us can put to good use in steadily lowering our energy demands even as we plan for the future of providing our own home-grown energy sources. Those tips are aimed at businesses, but are just as wise for homesteaders. Here are some great hints we can all put into use…

• Turn your computers, printers and other office equipment OFF when they’re not being used. That means at night and all day any days you aren’t actually using them. A household can shave nearly $45 a year off the electric bill just by getting into this habit, and when you’re planning for your kilowatt needs in the future, these not-used kilowatts will count significantly.

• Install an “occupancy sensor” in hallways, bathrooms and other areas of your home where lights don’t need to be on all the time. These sensors can be purchased for about $20, and can save the homeowner $40 or more per year on their electric bill, per sensor! Since it’s notoriously difficult to get children (and others) to be as aware as we’d like them to be of turning out the lights when they’ve left a room, this expense will also factor significantly in kilowatt planning for the future.

• Lower the thermostat on the water heater. Is your water hot enough to scald? Then the thermostat’s set too high. Every 10º lower saves you energy usage and money. If your best temperature for hot baths and dishwashing is, say, 110º, that’s where the thermostat should be set. That way nobody ever gets accidentally scalded, and you can just use the hot water faucet when you’re washing up. You simply don’t need water hotter than that out of the tap.

• Turn off your water heater at night and whenever you’re away from home or the house is empty. If your heater is behind a wall (like mine is), this can easily be accomplished by flipping off the breaker. This should also be done for water pumps on your well or spring. You could install an automatic timer, but that can be rather inconvenient if you need hot water at night or on Sunday. But just by doing these two things a homesteader could shave lots of kilowatts off the usage profile and save more than $100 a year on the bill.

• Set the heating system thermostat low at night and when you’re away. Your house really doesn’t need to be warmer than about 68º even when everyone’s home, since it’s not that difficult to figure out why they make sweatshirts, flannels and sweaters. At night you can turn it down to somewhere around 55º and still sleep quite comfortably – that’s why they make blankets, comforters and quilts! Your pipes won’t freeze and you could save $1500 or more every winter on your electric bill!

• Close your drapes or blinds when it’s either hot or cold outside. If you have no window treatments (I don’t, I’m not that concerned about bears seeing me naked…), think about installing some that offer a measure of control and insulation value. I get a lot of heat energy gain during the winter because I have big windows on the south side of the house and dark wood siding. In summer the sun is high enough overhead not to shine directly in, so this works out fine. If I did have a heat gain problem in the summer it would be worth my while to install a retractable awning for those south-facing windows, or simply roof over the deck on that side of the house.

• Install energy-efficient light bulbs – fluorescent or LED – everywhere they can be used. These do not work outside or on dimmers very well, but efficient light bulbs that do are currently in development. They’re expensive at first, but last much longer than your standard incandescent bulb while producing more light per watt. The investment is well worth it – use the money you’ve saved from some other area of conservation!

• Mind your weatherstripping around doors and windows. Reduce drafts and your home will feel warmer at 68º than it might at 75º when the wind’s blowing through. You’ll also avoid cold spots that make you want to turn up the heat or plug in a space heater.

• Think hard about installing sky lights in outbuildings as well as over your primary living space. This will lead to less use of electricity to light these areas during the day, and can pay for themselves by that savings alone. Sky lights don’t have to be fancy, expensive things that inevitably get installed by someone who insists you’ve got to purchase a whole new roof first. Any handy homesteader should be able to cut a hole in the roof of the shed, barn or bailey with a saws-all and install a safety glass or plexy panel with enough caulking and flashing to keep it from leaking.

When we lived in Florida I discovered a US Navy jet airplane graveyard off the Naval Air Station where you could purchase old canopes for $100 or less. These things are cool to the nth degree! We got one and installed it on the roof of an old city transit bus we’d turned into a motor home, and it impressed people wherever we went in it! I’m quite sure at least one rock band whose members we knew went right out to get one for their tour bus, though I don’t keep up with celebrity gossip enough to know if their bus is famous for it.

Below are some very useful links to information, products and services you may find helpful for your own planning. Get busy, homesteaders!

Links:

Energy Efficient Homes

BHM: Home Energy Information and Resources

EnvironmentalLights: LED, CFL Lighting

Full Spectrum Lighting

Good Shepherd Wool Insulation

We have all heard the litany… global warming, unsustainable consumption habits, the real human costs of petroleum dependency and the ever-rising cost of all forms of energy. When it’s difficult for regular middle class city and suburban dwellers to maintain their few hours of home down-time due to rising costs, the burden on rural homesteaders can easily be impossible to bear.

The smartest thing that anyone committed to sustainable and self-sufficient living should have already begun planning their off-grid strategies. Even though it may take years to accomplish the dream, the sooner you start moving in that direction the sooner you can hope to get there.

There are many things to consider before taking your homestead off-grid, and this series will take a look at some of those things as well as offer some resources so the homesteader can begin his or her own research. In this post we’ll examine the current and projected future costs of different on-site energy sources, energy storage vs. backwards metering, and best alternatives for your particular homestead.

One of the first things a homeowner needs to become aware of are the various federal and state incentive programs available to them if they choose to meet some or all of their own energy needs with ‘green’ sources. These incentives have been steadily increasing at the same time the per-watt price of the technology has been steadily falling. In some places the cost trade-off – where the cost to install is paid for by the incentives and further energy is basically free-for-upkeep – is down to 3-5 years. Which is a point when someone planning to live the whole rest of their lives on their homestead has no really good excuse not to go off-grid! The Database of State Incentives offers a clickable map with details for all 50 states and is updated as incentives are tweaked or changed.

Once you have a good idea of how much you can offset your costs with incentives and tax rebates, you’ll need to have a good idea of exactly how much electricity you use. Gather at least 6 months’ worth of electric bills – including the hottest and coldest months – and write down your actual kilowatt usage. If your bill includes a breakdown of peak usage include that in another column. Some utility companies don’t include that information on monthly bills, but will supply it if you ask them nicely. It is important for you to know your peak usage so you will be able to supply enough energy to cover that.

If your overall kilowatt usage over the months falls within a fairly small range of variation but your peak usage looks really high, you’ll need to figure out what is using the most energy of all your activities and appliances. There are significant ways to lower a homestead’s energy demands, both overall and peak, but that requires knowing what you use and a willingness to pare your usage wherever you can.

Decisions about heating system and appliances you’ll need to replace in order to consume less electricity will also have to consider whether the homesteader plans to store energy on-site in banks of batteries, or whether the homestead chooses to use the commercial grid to its own advantage as a supplier. Batteries are expensive to install and maintain, probably best for homesteads that are remote enough to have never been on the grid in the first place, and younger homesteaders who have a lot of time and energy to spend doing things the hard, old fashioned way. Battery technology is getting better all the time, but no cheaper. In a later installment in this series we’ll be getting into actual costs of on-site storage as well as the pluses and minuses of such a system.

My homestead is currently on the grid, and our electric company is required by regulatory law to provide us with a “backwards meter” if we ever install our own electrical generating capacity. If we want it, and since I do not want to hassle with the whole battery-bank expense, we do want it. The deal is that we purchase our energy from the utility the same way we always have for running our appliances, power tools, lights and such. At the same time, the electric company must purchase all the energy our system produces. If we’re producing more than we’re using, it goes back out on the grid for other people to use.

Now, the price we pay per kilowatt from the utility is more than the utility will pay us for the kilowatts we produce. Having looked into the cost and hassle of battery banks, I am fairly convinced the price difference is reasonable so that we can avoid on-site storage. We have been slowly but surely replacing appliances over the years with more energy efficient models, and are keeping ultra low-use and pedal powered models in mind as they develop for our next computers, radio/stereo, TV/video replacements. And of course we’re buying nothing but low-watt flourescent bulbs for lighting, even while keeping a stash of mantle-type oil lamps on hand.

We heat with wood, which is handy because we live in the woods. Fuel’s in no short supply, though it takes some work. We don’t have air conditioning because we don’t need it. Though we do have to run a dehumidifier in the basement all summer to keep things from mildewing. It’s a new, energy efficient model, but we could probably do without it entirely by insulating and covering the concrete floor. One of those building projects on the list (along with new siding, windows, roof, doors…). A homestead is a long-term project, so I don’t feel too guilty that we’ve spent 15 years planning and still haven’t accomplished our dreams!

Another big energy drain comes with the washer and dryer. Not to mention the energy used to pump the water 200 feet up the mountainside. I could hang the clothes out to dry, but although that makes them smell great, it’s a lot of work I’d rather not do and I get hives from stiff clothes irritating my skin. I’m thinking I’ll want to keep these appliances, though I’ll probably replace the dryer again with an even more efficient model one of these days. The refrigerator is a big ‘tron user too, but new ones are outrageously expensive. But I figure that as the models have become ever more energy efficient, it won’t be too long before we’ll be able to upgrade ours to a newer model recycled from someone who goes us one better on a new $2,000 double door monstrosity.

The sump pump in the cistern down at the spring is a 220 powerhouse, having to pump so far uphill. We’ve long planned to fabricate a creek-powered ram jet and bypass the house to pump another 50 feet to the top of the ridge behind the house, into a newer, larger cistern that will give us gravity feed pressure to the house. Yet another of those ‘someday’ projects.

So start your homework by organizing your needs and understanding your usage, check out some of the links below to help. Stay tuned for the next installment!

Links:

The Economics of Going Off-Grid

Grid-Connected Solar or Wind Systems

Paring Down for Off-Grid Living

Solar Power at Half the Cost

Off-Grid – Life Unplugged

MSNBC: ‘off-grid’ community

Wholesale Solar