Lister Engine Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: mike90045 on January 05, 2019, 05:12:24 AM
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Big storm moving in at midnight ( about 3 hours from now) Supposed to last about 5 days, and all power grid crews in Northern Calif have been called into work. The first day is supposed to bring gale force winds, so there are going to be outages.
I'm prepared for 5 days of running 3 hours a day to keep the batteries up, since solar won't be showing itself.
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I think I figure a quart (US) an hour, so 15 hours, about 4 gallons, maybe 5 - depending on how heavy I load it .
I think it's pretty happy running at 2300 watts, it does 2700 just fine, but is acting like it's working hard. I can't source really good bolts for hold down, Grade 8 is too brittle, maybe Grade 5 is too brittle too. I use good Stainless Steel, it has some give and doesn't snap with a ping, like a batch of Grade 5 did. I heard 1 go, and shut it down before the others took flight !
Good files, good hardware, both are hard to find.
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Hi Mike, just to p*ss you off it`s a very comfortable 34 degrees centigrade here, the solar is pumping out power which we are using to run the air conditioning indoors. We have found it much cheaper to run the AC on low to cool the house during the day rather than to run it on high to cool the place down once it has got hot.
Unlike Glort, I do miss the colder months we used to get in the UK. There is something very comforting about being tucked up nice and warm in front of a fire while the wind, rain and snow do their worst outside. It`s also a bloody good excuse to fill your face with high calorie food to fuel you for the following day, out in the cold.
I too have had some issues with high tensile bolt snapping. I think that they are cooled too quickly during manufacture and become brittle. You could try tempering them with blowlamp or just chuck some in the wood burner and fish them out the following day.
Take care in the oncoming storms,
Bob
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I too have had some issues with high tensile bolt snapping. I think that they are cooled too quickly during manufacture and become brittle. You could try tempering them with blowlamp or just chuck some in the wood burner and fish them out the following day.
Wow, I'd not thought of toasting them in the heater. A masonry heater gets quite a bit hotter than a fireplace or wood burner stove. It's refractory liner stays white and clean, from the intense heat, but the cast iron grate does not melt. So if I toss some grade 5 or 8 bolts into it for a cycle, will they come out butter soft and have the threads roll off ? The burn chamber easily gets to 1200F, the pizza oven maybe only up to 700F, the glass on it's door doesn't self-clean.
about 30# of wood, twice a day for a 2 hr hot clean burn.
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We're having a freaky winter here in the White Mountains of Arizona. A week with daytime highs less than 28F, one this week didn't break 18F, nights of -4F. Only 6 inches of snow but it's not going anywhere. Another snow coming, and then another. Back to back storms, week after week. After a wet and dark December.
And of course, this would be the time I find out I used the wrong power transistors for my new PV regulator. I have the old one back in now, using just the 1500 watt array. I should have the new board back up early next week. And I found my MB 300D's block heater wires were chewed off by rabbits right next to the heater. Grrrr.
The upside to my PV upgrade (adding 1500 watts to 875) is that even on cloudy days, my battery bank gets topped off. No Listeroid running on dark days. I just avoid electric cooking when it's not sunny.
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Conspicuous consumption doesn't get a rise out of me, Glort it's the old American way.
For those thinking of building, it's whole lot more economical to dramatically reduce the energy needs of the building. The cost savings on the heating/cooling plant alone pays for much of it.
Insulation has no ongoing maintenance cost. It can dramatically reduce both power and equipment maintenance and ongoing replacement cost. R40 sidewall, R80 ceiling should be the new standard for all but the mildest maritime climates.
I'm heating my modest super insulated 1100 SF home with two 20 watt 12v pumps (one for the collector and one for the house circulation). A single homebuilt copper/aluminum 4x32 foot flat plate solar collector with 1/16" polycarbonate glazing does the sun heat collection at about 85% efficiency. A basic propane water heater is the backup for more than 2 cloudy, very cold days. This year, I might use double my usual $50/winter. The backup propane is turned on for Dec-Feb. I keep the house at 70F. Due to superinsulation, only one zone is needed, the heat uniformity is lovely.
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Just a little bit of useless information seeing as you guys are talking temperature. To get the degree (°) symbol in any windows program, hold down the Alt key and type 0176. Same goes for square and cube symbols, Alt0178 and Alt0179
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Hi Glort
I've a little experience with septic systems, your's is aerobic, but you don't need the pump going 24/7, instead of turning down the the pump, put it on a timer. As you noted, with an excess of air the smell all but disappears, this is when the bugs are happy, as they run out of oxygen the smell reappears.
It will depend on your blower output, the size of you system and Lord knows what else, so set it at 50% duty, if the smell returns, up it, otherwise drop it until you can smell it then up it a bit.
Large (city sized) systems monitor the dissolved oxygen in the liquor so the compressors shut down when not required and aren't wasting power, not a problem for your good self!
Cheers
Stef
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Nice one Dax,
I thought 'this looks a lot better than my previous solution', however.......
I use an Acer Chromebook, I've no idea why but typing alt 017 opens a new tab with the calculator on it!
Living in France and trying to wade through the planning permission for a barn conversion has required the use of accents (as in Café etc.) on an annoyingly regular basis.
I found this site, it's got it all, I think!
https://www.groovypost.com/howto/type-special-characters-chromebook-accents-symbols-em-dashes
Don't panic, guys, it's not going to be necessary for anyone to enlighten me as to why these things happen, my interest in technology is so low I haven't even bothered to work out how to add a highlighted post from someone else's post or add one of those (idiotic!) emojis.
Cheers
Stef
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Nice one Dax,
I thought 'this looks a lot better than my previous solution', however.......
I use an Acer Chromebook, I've no idea why but typing alt 017 opens a new tab with the calculator on it!
Living in France and trying to wade through the planning permission for a barn conversion has required the use of accents (as in Café etc.) on an annoyingly regular basis.
I found this site, it's got it all, I think!
https://www.groovypost.com/howto/type-special-characters-chromebook-accents-symbols-em-dashes
Don't panic, guys, it's not going to be necessary for anyone to enlighten me as to why these things happen, my interest in technology is so low I haven't even bothered to work out how to add a highlighted post from someone else's post or add one of those (idiotic!) emojis.
Cheers
Stef
;D
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Glort, you sure have a great deal going with used solar panels and equipment there in Sydney. A result of your local power co. controlled absurd rules and regulations regarding grid tie equipment.
I spent about $1000 for my 1500 watt array, new, with freight. They are huge (to me) 300 watt panels. My system can be small because of my sealed combustion, propane refrigerator. I have just lights (incandescent), computer/projector, well pump and laundry on 120V, and 2 circ pumps, controls and audio on 12V. Even my solar hot water pump controller is custom analog and micropower; about 2 ma of 12v. The led indicator lights are on a switch to save power. I'm a fiend about parasitic loads. The typical off grid inverter and spark detecting breakers uses more power doing nothing but being on than my total useful power consumption. AC power is wasteful, so I only make it when I need it, since even my own design inverter draws 15 watts in idle current for it's 2 1000 watt toroidal transformers. I have a switch to turn on the inverter near my washing machine, right next to the switch for the well pump.
Your aerobic septic system is foreign to me- here we use an anaerobic system with no power and gravity only flow. Dual partition tank and leach field. The leachfield area is tested via perk test in a 10 foot deep test spot. My present leachfield is about 400 feet downslope from the house and 300 feet from the tank to avoid sandstone at 5 foot depth. With a trap before the tank, the septic gasses percolate up through the leachfield and aren't noticeable anywhere. Without a trap, the gasses exit the house vent stacks and can be nasty. Believe it or not, putting in a trap before the tank is not allowed according to our county building code. There's a subdivision on 1/4 acre lots with septic and not city sewer just outside town... it's ripe in the summer when there is no wind, I don't know how anyone can live there.
I have read about above ground septic systems using lift pumps and such, but they are only used where soil drainage or rock prevents a sub surface system. They run about $30K to $50K. So in my area where land runs about $500 to $1K/acre for 40 acre parcels, you don't see that done. Septic systems are now highly regulated and prices have nearly doubled for the exact same system but lots more inspections. The cost of having men and equipment waiting for inspectors who are never on time.
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i sure woudn't want my anaerobic system leachate perking into a shallow water table or area where there is surface water. No worries of either here in the high desert. If I was building again I'd look into aerobic systems like yours...and i'm impressed that you are even finding appropriate use for the resulting sludge.
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I think spending $15K on batteries might be OK if they last 40 years but is otherwise impractical. My set is $1000. and lasts 4.5 years. Designing for low power pays off big, and forever. When the sky rains gold coins in my yard I'll upgrade to AGM batteries.
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The human excrement component of household waste to the septic system is not problematic at all
It's the other stuff:
The grey goop from the "in-sink-erator" type of waste disposal
The alkaline-and-fat-heavy waste from the dishwasher
The vast volumes of "grey" water from washing machines & showers that dilute the poos-and-water mix in the septic system
The household cleaners, bleaches, shampoos, oven-cleaner residues - all that stuff
I have worked on drainage systems for over four decades and watched them develop in complexity as residential sections have become smaller and the burden of water and aggressive chemicals become larger
It doesn't have to be that way: Once the inspector has gone there's nothing to stop you bypassing the system for the "water" from showers, dishwashers, washing machines - just attach it to a hose and let it water the grass somewhere . . .
I have lived on rural small-holdings all my life and can tell you, hand on heart, that if all you put into your septic tank is shit, water, urine & toilet paper (and don't use chemicals to "clean" the toilet bowl, or run the water from the small wash-hand-basin into the toilet line to the septic tank) then you can have a simple, single-chamber, old-fashioned septic tank AND it won't need to be cleaned out for 20 or 30 years
I have seen the insides of dozens of them where old houses had toilets only into the septic tank and "grey water" through a fat-trap and sediment-trap system and then out to soakage. The "solids" in the septic tank build from the bottom up, the "floaters" sit on the top and are very soon full of worms. It can take 30 years for the solids to work upwards and the floaters to work downwards until there's only about 100mm of vertical space in between them - and the tank STILL works fine
What comes out into the soakage is a nutrient-rich liquid that is very low in volume as it's basically only a dozen or so toilet-flushes per day - maybe 100 litres? All you need if a few metres of soakage & some flax bushes for transpiration
Shit isn't a problem
Chemicals that kill the bacteria in your tank are a problem
(That, and Council's insistence that everything must pass through the "septic tank" system including shower & laundry water you could probably drink if you were stupid enough to)
In my own, un-permitted property I have what is effectively a hole-in-the-ground downstream of each of the two toilets. The soil is very free-draining and the water from a flush drains away in seconds. All that's left is shit and paper and worms. Each hole is the size of a Mini. I guess it might take 100 years to fill either of them up? The grey water just goes to keep some grass green
Excuse the rant :(
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Certainly a lot more should be done with gray water systems, especially in water poor arid areas. I had a lot on my plate when designing a home for off grid but did research gray water systems. The trick is to keep them dead simple and not try to store it or they quickly turn into a nasty maintenance headache; stored gray water quickly turns black and smelly, and pumps need filters. Because of the slope of the land and my desire to locate the house in a hollow between two hills for reduced microwave levels I had limited options for gray water use by gravity alone. Likewise the septic is downhill in the direction of view so using a Watson wick
https://permaculturenews.org/2017/11/14/watson-wick-flush-toilet-system/
was not viable. I have some old hippy friends who went that way 30 years ago and it has worked very well for them for a nice growth of fruit trees.
I really had no use for the sink and shower water in the house as downhill (N) of the house is the view of huge rock outcroppings so was a poor location for trees. I was able to use the laundry and roof gutter water for the house and shop/utility building to water two Siberian elms located between and just below the house and shop. This allowed me to use a much cheaper top loader washer and not be concerned about water "waste". The trees get nothing else since the first year and have done fabulously well. I use a relatively benign ''natural'' laundry detergent and no bleach. I've found that just eliminating the washer is a huge burden off the septic, as the rapid pumping of 25 or so gallons of water to drain the washer causes stirring of the solids tank and too many fine solids spilling into the leachfield. Likewise fast backwashing filters i have always put into separate drywells.
It would be nice to have more shade trees near the house but without the dreaded graywater tank, filter and lift pump there was just no way to make that work for my site in an inspection friendly manner for a slab on grade home. If I had been designing for a large family, I might have attempted it. Building a superinsulated house as a -55 dBm shield room for radio/microwaves and a no latex paint interior was about all the challenge I could manage on my limited budget and sweat equity plan.
http://www.eiwellspring.org/emc/HighlyShieldedHouse.htm
The figures listed are for dBm, a measurement of decibles of milliwatts of radiated power, though they are listed as dB. The measurement of radiated power is often listed in decibels of volts, such as dB mV/m. This is double the power reading, so -55dBm worth of shielding is equivalent to -110 dB volts. This is an extraordinary amount of shielding for a home, higher than any other home in the world at this time. It's more than I need at present, at around -80dBm (absolute) I can sleep and function well. The ambient levels near the house are around -63 dBm presently, and -52 dBm in other areas from two towers at 5.5 miles. The shielding added about $10K in labor and materials cost.
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Shower water is a good candidate too - especially if one has teenage daughters - as there is so much of it. If the shower waste comes through the wall in a 40mm or 32mm pvc pipe & elbow to a gully trap it's easy to divert, depending on elevation above a lawn or garden . . .
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Hi Glort, I too live on a property with a septic tank. The very first thing I did when I moved here was to divert gray water from showers, basins and sinks away from the septic tank. That grey water now keeps the grass green.
The biggest problem with our septic system is that the soak away meets the regulations regarding the rate of fall from the tank. Consequently, in a storm event the water flowing through the paddock, will back fill the septic tank. We then get bad smells until the ground dries out and the soak away starts working again. I have seen it so bad that raw sewage is running down the hill into the creek, but this is Australia where the rules out way good practice and common sense.
Where we live is the water catchment area for Grafton and Coffs Harbour, so the council are for ever sending out inspectors to check our sewerage arrangements. They can`t get to where I live when there has been heavy rain so they have no idea how much sh1t gets washed into the rivers and gets drunk by the residents down stream. I could never understand why it was OK for cattle, pigs, chickens, kangaroos, dogs and etc to sh1t in the catchment area but human waste had to be treated. I recently had a conversation with a local Ranger who told me that the inspector is n`t interested in my septic tank, he just wants an opportunity to come on my property and have a look for any improvements I may have made which would allow the council to jack up my council tax! Sounds about right to me, I`ve been illegally using grey water for six or seven years and the inspector has never noticed, too busy taking photos of my house and shed to inspect anything.
About 30 Km from here there is a small town called Coutts Crossing, there is a water purification plant which feeds Grafton and also a sewerage treatment plant. After heavy rainfall events, these facilities are under many meters of water, the sewage and drinking water wash out into the local river and run out to sea. Once the flood water resides they quickly start pumping drinking water to Grafton, despite the fact that it is contaminated with the river water and the effluent from the sewage plant. As far as I am aware we have never had any outbreaks of cholera, typhoid or other water born infections.
Next time that I get a letter telling me the council would like to inspect my sewerage facilities, I might just lock the gate and tell the useless snooping b*stards to go f*ck themselves.
Rant over,
Bob
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That sure is an interesting approach to water treatment, Bob. Chlorine is used to cover a lot of sins, but it's hard to imagine that there isn't a serious public health cost to such incompetence.
I found one local small town water supply that had been dripping motor oil into the deep well and pump to lubricate, but the EPA inspector told them no petro oil, it causes colon cancer. They had a 50 gallon barrel feeding the drip. They switched to white mineral oil; no one told them that white mineral oil is the same.
Humans baffle me.
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Hi Glort, when I was working in the UK construction industry we used to fit glass fiber septic tanks made by a company called Klargester (see photo). These were set in the ground and then surrounded with concrete, the trick was to fill them with water BEFORE back filling with concrete. I saw one crew forget this step and the tank launched itself out of the ground like a ballistic missile, still makes me laugh just thinking about it.
Bob
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Hi Glort, down at the canoe center we have a lot of aeration pumps and a lot of septic tanks, some of which only run during peak season. I have found that the better quality reciprocating pumps will last for years while the cheaper units will only last a year or two. The difference between them is that spares are available for the better units while the cheap Chinese units are a use then throw away unit.
I`ll have a chat with the service guys and see if they have any recommendations. All of these units are lubricant free to protect environmental water, they rely on PTFE wearing surfaces. In the past I have found that a small squirt of silicone based furniture polish can extend their life considerably.
Bob
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If you want to burn off excess solar (or use some extra battery capacity) just screw one of these into a small hot water heater.
They have a built-in DC adjustable thermostat. No fancy wiring needed. Turns itself on/off.
Note that they are available in a 700 watt/48 volt size also.
I have a 600 watt, 12 volt version that I intend to install soon.
http://mwands.com/store/adjustable-water-heating-element?filter=1 (http://mwands.com/store/adjustable-water-heating-element?filter=1)
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Mike,
How did you make out with the storm than hit?
Did the ROID do it's job ?
Veggie
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Storm is here now, and for 1 more day. Then we get a break of 1 day and 3 more days of rain.
Roads are closing from downed trees, and water ponding in the driveway. We cut down our leaning trees in the fall, so we should be OK. 3 years ago, a big tree fell just inside the gate, took half a day with the tractor and 30" saw to get the driveway clear.
The Listeroid can keep the batteries up with about 3 hours run time (8kwh generation) daily
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Really interesting reading about the waste systems. We're on a cesspool system. It's about 40 years old and still doing fine - I hope. We're in a very rural area that has mostly 5 acre parcels (about 2.5 acres to a hectare). That's coming to a close by my brother and sister do-gooders. Septic tanks are now OK but the super duper septic treatment systems are soon to be the standard. Our county has no real control or regulation of herbicides but crap in a hole and you'd think we'd poisoned the land for generations to come. The county sprays the roads with plant killer twice a year but take a piss outside and you're flirting with criminal prosecution.
I'd probably go the grey water way if I didn't have concrete slab floors. If I were to build new I'd most certainly have an easy modification system ready for the day after permit inspection celebrations.
Say what you might about the human poo for fertilizers some of the longest living societies on the planet do put poo on their veggies.
Chlorine is feared less than algae. We are so foolish. A great weapon against disease but we need not be at war every day. I often tell visitors that algae means the water is healthy enough to support life and the reactions should be recorded.
One of our mantras: If you can't sell it or eat it then don't plant it.
Cheers
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We have a conventional (non powered) 2 chamber septic system with conventional leach field.
We have some gray water from the shower that we use in summer, but winter, it goes to the septic system.