Thanks for that guys,
I read up more on RMS and now have a bit of a clue as to what it all means, gotta love the university of Google!
No Money and little power is where I'm -slowly - going with the barn up the hill.
After almost a year I'm getting closer to buying it, the outfit that controls the refurbishment of ancient barns have given me permission for the conversion but the local council won't give me the go ahead 'cos the first lot put a caveat on the permission to the effect that I cannot remove any soil to construct the track.
This is a bit of a sticking point as the last 40 meters goes up at about 1 in 4, and the only way to get a track suitable for vehicles is to put in a hairpin bend. Big digger and loads of soil movement!
So yesterday I went back to our 'county town', Tarbes, and got the name of the boss who, naturally, wasn't there. At least I got to speak to an underling, who was very nice but totally non committal, and came away with an email address to try and get an appointment. Amazingly my French held up pretty well, tho having a partner who is extremely fluent helps......
Although I've shaken hands on the deal I've said I won't finally commit until all the permissions have been granted and refusing to pay an architect €6500 has cost me time rather than money, with a bit of luck another 5 months should do it!.
In the meantime I've been keeping an eye on the stream and it seems to be fairly constant, even in the dry spells, so the mini hydro plant is still looking favorite.
I'm leaning heavily in the direction of driving a 24v truck alternator with a pelton wheel, running it straight into a pair of 120 ah 12v truck batteries and out through a 6000x inverter. The idea being everything is plug and play, relatively cheap and easy to install. It's also very familiar to me as it's essentially the same as the system I had on my Dutch barge.
I don't know if it has any merit, but I'm also thinking of installing a second loop of under floor heating pipe alongside one driven by the wood burner. The - vague - plan is to power it with the output of the alternator in the early morning dark hours, once the batteries are topped up. Nothing complicated, just a timer, circ. pump, 24v immersion element and a temperature controlled switch to cut out the element if the pump packs up and / or it all gets too hot.
I got the idea from Glorts ponderings on 'what to do with excess solar power'
Bit of a long post for me, you won't believe how crap my typing skills are, I'm killing an hour whilst waiting to set off with a mate's truck for the French vehicle control test!!
Cheers
Stef