This weeks preps check-in
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It was an interesting read. From 1981.
I know the new place has shallow wells and high ground water. Will take a bit of being up there to know if the lay of the land will work. And if my equipment can do it.
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A lot of useful information back in the day.
I think a walkini will work, but not a root cellar. Don’t know until I get up there. But the knowledge is in valuable.
Combine the best of both worlds, how your land is built and how to dig, build or adapt a root cellar to it.
You may have gotton lucky and blown an internal fuse, open it up and have a look. But next time buy an inverter with reverse polarity and shortcut protection.
Out of curiosity, how do you stop these flooding from rain or groundwater?
This type of root cellar would be more conducive to high water levels.
You don’t have to do this “front” style. Build one that your wife likes.
You don’t have to do this “front” style. Build one that your wife likes.
Is that colonel Crockett up there?
If you have a high water table and you dig down too far, you can’t. Most folks dig water run=off ditches and channel the water around the root cellar. Using cement block is recommended for the walls. Coat those well with tar. Also coat the roof, plus put on a metal roof…draining in the right direction. Cover it with soil to insulate.
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Build a mound. The Indians that lived along in Mississippi River and its tributaries (the "Mississippian Culture") had that one figured out a thousand years ago. That way when they buried someone they would be high and dry.
I bought some of these a couple weeks ago and they are great!
Their called Fireballz, their eco friendly and burn up to 17 minutes. Lightweight, non-toxic, waterproof and odorless.
You should be able to find them at shows or go to www.fire-ballz.com.
Their called Fireballz, their eco friendly and burn up to 17 minutes. Lightweight, non-toxic, waterproof and odorless.
You should be able to find them at shows or go to www.fire-ballz.com.
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Been a good week for getting ahead on midterm and long term storage.
5lbs of red peppers freeze dried and 30lbs of tomato’s canned.
Read through a cook book of depression recipes. Got into a debate with wife about using lard vrs shortening Have seen her looking up my facts. Her reasoning was 40yr old medical “evidence”. Since she has gotten rid of the “non stick pans” and going strictly stainless or cast iron, I think I will win.
5lbs of red peppers freeze dried and 30lbs of tomato’s canned.
Read through a cook book of depression recipes. Got into a debate with wife about using lard vrs shortening Have seen her looking up my facts. Her reasoning was 40yr old medical “evidence”. Since she has gotten rid of the “non stick pans” and going strictly stainless or cast iron, I think I will win.
Hoping you win EW! Lard is good for you. I explained to my husband back when we went through that conversation that the easiest way to tell which is better is if it is God/Nature Made. If it isn’t, don’t consume it!
Lard (Lauch, right?) is good to dry, it last for months then. I dry lard and other vegetables from time to time, is very usefull for soups and sauces.
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Lard is rendered pork fat.
Lauch we call "Leek" - I had some for supper last night cooked together with chicken and potatoes.
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There's nothing to see inside the inverter. Last night I connected a new 400 watt inverter. Turned the light on and it worked fine. Went out this morning and the red fault light was on and the inverter was very hot. Something isn't wired right, but I can't figure out what it is.
There's a wire from the solar panel to the charge controller, then from the charge controller to the battery. From the battery to the inverter. The cord from the 20 watt LED light is plugged in to the inverter. That's it.
Using the wrong gauge wire somewhere?
A bad ground or connection somewhere?
Possibly a bad inverter to start with?
All I can think of right now, hope it helps!
I have a decent brand 2000W inverter and 450Ah of Trojan batteries, four 225Ah 6 volt packs. If I connect it to the old fridge downstairs for two days and nights the voltage drops so low (10.5~11) that it cuts out and the Red light comes on. Then I have to switch it off and on, a reset, and it's fine again.
Mine has a fan and it runs if there is a heavy load on. I don't know if it's temperature controlled or what? Make sure your fan is ok. It shouldn't get hot unless you are overdrawing it. 400W isn't much. My 2000 barely gets the fridge started. 20 W light isn't much. What capacity battery?
Edit: I remember those other wires you speak of, odd wires, something to do with battery type from memory is it?
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It probably doesn't have enough juice to start the compressor when the battery bank is low. Turning it off and then back on again probably lets the battery bank recover just enough to kick off the compressor. Once the compressor is running the inverter will keep running until the next cycle.
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You know, something just occurred to me Arctic. If you are only using the inverter to run lights, why not just run 12v lights hooked up directly to the battery? Less efficiency losses that way. Unless you are using LiFePO4 batteries, you'll need some sort of low voltage cutoff to keep from ruining the batteries when they run all the way down.
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Contents: Wax, Wood Shavings, Cotton Wick
I made fuel pellets from sawdust and wax years ago.
Absolutely. I ran a 12V system in a large shipping container workshop, the choice of lighting available today is amazing, I was like a kid in a candy store. I also retrofitted a mains desk lamp with a 12V halogen light, sometimes LED's are just not quite right. Easy to retrofit a fluro to 12V too. Or just buy them.
Back in the 1970's a knew a woman who had wired up a whole house on 12V incandescent bulbs, run off old car batteries. I spent a couple of nights in the upstairs room and the voltage drop way up there made the lights pretty dim. 24 or 48 is better for long distance and the range of DC to DC converters now mean that you can drop down cheaply on the spot
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The RV campers that came with BOL2 had 12 watt incandescent bulbs (12 v). I replaced them all with LED bulbs that use 1.3 watts each. They are brighter than the incandescent bulbs.
I have 7Watt LED stripe and 15 W rope lights hooked up so if ever needed, I can go from the inverter with 220V or just cut the wire plug at the head and directly hook to the battery with 12V. The solar panel even provides enough that I can go directly from the control block to the lights at 12V.
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Funny thing, I disconnected the solar panel this morning and everything works fine. The inverters reset themselves and the lights work fine.
Very odd? Very difficult to diagnose what's going on from here in Australia too of course lol. I'll tell you one thing I do, I learnt this from an electronics technician. Whenever I build a system I first draw it out on paper, I like faint graph paper for the plan. It's a circuit diagram basically and it lets me get a feel for what's going where and the correct order of things. Later I leave it near or with the construction so I can refer back to it in the future. It's amazing how much a project resembles a pile of spaghetti when you remove the cover 2 years later.
There are some basic conventions to these diagrams too, that aid in making them intelligible.
Or a sort of flow chart even, like this.
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That is my system at BOL2 exactly!There are some basic conventions to these diagrams too, that aid in making them intelligible.
Or a sort of flow chart even, like this.
