Seems the Indians are being encouraged to abandon their Listeroids for pumping water... wtach out... the carbon loonies will be after
us before long...

"In [the London Times article] it was revealed that the leader of the UK Conservative Party, David Cameron, offsets his carbon emissions by effectively keeping brown people in a state of bondage. Whenever he takes a flight to some foreign destination, Cameron donates to a carbon-offsetting company that encourages people in the developing world to ditch modern methods of farming in favour of using their more eco-friendly manpower to plough the land. So Cameron can fly around the world with a guilt-free conscience on the basis that, thousands of miles away, Indian villagers, bent over double, are working by hand rather than using machines that emit carbon.

Welcome to the era of eco-enslavement.

The details of this carbon-offsetting scheme are disturbing. Cameron offsets his flights by donating to Climate Care (http://www.climatecare.org/projects/countries/india-treadle/). The latest wheeze of this carbon-offsetting company is to provide "treadle pumps" to poor rural families in India so that they can get water on to their land without having to use polluting diesel power. Made from bamboo, plastic and steel, the treadle pumps work like "step machines in a gym," according to some reports, where poor family members step on the pedals for hours in order to draw up groundwater which is used to irrigate farmland. These pumps were abolished in British prisons a century ago. It seems that what was considered an unacceptable form of punishment for British criminals in the past is looked upon as a positive eco-alternative to machinery for Indian peasants today.

What might once have been referred to as "back-breaking labour" is now spun as "human energy."

What's more, this is all done so that Cameron can avoid making changes in his own lifestyle, which we are supposed to believe is destroying the planet. Global-warmism is not just some harmless enthusiasm; it can be despicable and inhuman."

Hi FireBrick,

Glad to let you and others know...

The engine room was already roofed and roughly framed as an addition to a
larger garage and had been that way since I moved to this place 11 years ago. 
Other things always got in the way of finishing it until a Listeroid needed
a home...

The foundation walls are sitting on floating footings just below
ground level but there was no floor.  The walls were framed with
2x4s sitting at the outside of the 8 inch thick cement block
foundation and the roof held up by trusses.  So the basic structure
was in place with dimensions of about 9' x 20'.

The exterior walls were studded again on the inside and fiberglass
batts installed.  I had meant to use mineral wool batts on the inside
but too much fiberglass got delivered so I went with that. I had read
that mixing different insulation materials was good for sound deadening.

The exterior was clad with 1/2 inch chipboard, the interior as well.
The ceiling got R30 of fiberglass and sheathed with 3/8 chipboard.
Everything was covered in 6 mil poly and the joints well taped.

Door and windows had been taken off the house last year and were sitting
ready to be used.

The floor is close to 8" of 4,000 PSI concrete.  The foundation walls
and footing are all separated from the floor with 2" styrofoam insulation
board.  There's 2 inches under the whole floor as well. The end of the room
with the engine is also separated from the rest of the floor with 2 inches
of styrofoam to hopefully isolate vibration.  The entire floor has steel
mesh in the concrete, the engine end also has rebar. 

I had a roll of 1/2 pex tubing ready to put in to allow for heating the
floor in winter (hey, it gets cold here!) but the cement truck arrived
early so we didn't have time to get the pex installed.

The outside was finished off with vinyl siding. There is also 2 inches of
styrofoam on the outside of the foundation wall covered with wire mesh
and a coat of cement.

There are four 3/4 inch bolts in the floor. The ends had several piece of rebar
welded to them splayed out in order to increase the contact area with the
concrete.

Still to be done is interior paint, eavestroughing and some grading of
the ground around the perimeter.

The original doorway was on the side of the building and that was left
open to get the engine in.  It's all closed now but the new door location
will allow the engine to be removed if necessary, but only just.

The engine, btw, is a 10/1 from John Ferguson.  John also made the
base the engine and generator sit on.  The actual install went smoothly
as a neighbour did the big lift with his John Deere.

In the floor, but just not viewable in the interior pic, is a large plastic
sump liner. It's covered with a sturdy piece of plywood.  The idea is I can
pass electric lines and hot water lines (supplemental heat for the house)
into this hole and thence out underground below the footings.  There's another
real sump hole with a pump near the new door to keep things drained below the
floor.

I'm pretty happy with things aside from the ceiling height which is under
8 feet.  I'd have preferred 10 or more but didn't feel removing and replacing
the existing trusses was worth the cost.  I'd also have made the room wider
if the foundation hadn't already been there.  More room to move around the
engine would be safer plus I'm having to have a custom rectangular cooling tank
made as a 40 gallon water tank would be too tight a fit.  The 3 windows won't
help keep the noise in but I'll trade a bit more noise for more light any time.

I started the work last fall but had to stop over winter.   As warm weather arrived
my time and energy to put into the project were limited so a local handyman did much
of the work for me.

Cost? Just over 3k. More than I'd planned but I wanted to have something that looked
okay and would be comfortable to work in.

I can't yet comment on how the room is actually functioning because other than
a quick test run the engine has yet to get to work.  This week I should
have the steel across the frame to the bolts to hold it to the floor....

If you have any questions or would like more pics just let me know.

RobC

I used kitty liter followed by a product called pour and restore (It does wonders on motor oil and paint) but the fine pores in the surface seem to hold just enough veg oil to make my life hell.

A couple of years ago I came across a website where the fellow was extolling the virtues of antifreeze as
a means of preserving wood and killing molds and fungus.

You might want to try putting some on part of your problem area and see what happens.  Cover it
over to keep pets and kids away.

Rob

Cujet,

I've come to the same conclusion re filtering waste engine oil.  Yesterday I bought a Frantz
setup on eBay. Similar to MotorGuard in the use of TP but the thing I stumbled across is a
demonstator kit... with a motor and pump I hope to easily suck oil from one tank and output into
a clean one. I put a pic in my photo album...

http://listerengine.com/coppermine/albums/userpics/10013/frantz1.jpg

I was speaking to Ralph Wood about MotorGuards and he reckoned a small one
should be good for a quart a minute and maybe 2 if the oil is warm.  I'm assuming the
Frantz will be similar.

Rob

I came across a company who make anti vibration dampers and found
some I thought might work for my 6/1... upon enquiry the price was
right at just 8 bucks each but they said that these 2 might be more
suitable when I explained the Listeroid's weight/rpm etc.

I haven't priced them yet...

http://www.vibrationmounts.com/RFQ/VM02015.htm

http://www.vibrationmounts.com/RFQ/VM05023.htm

Rob