Summer sleeping quarters

First super storm sandy brought down millions of trees in our area. Luckly our house, barn and cabin were spared
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Finally got some money to put metal on the barn. WE are building it as money allows so progress has been slow. We've had tar paper on parts of the roof awaiting metal. The paper needs changed out every few months and it's been a PITA. Been chnging tarpaper every few monts for about 4 years. The was at the tail end of the Sandy storm. No electric for about 2 weeks mae life interesting. Anyhow, weather had changed to full on winter so progress has stopped until later this spring
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More on the house's hot water replumb soon. Currently Firefox clipboard stopped copy/paste so I'll need to figure out what's up before I can post pics
 
You're a machine Troy.......

Don't hesitate to recruit some of us Northerners btw......my son is starting to learn to swing a hammer, so you'll have another helper. Granted, that hammer is a rattle, but all in due time......
 
Big Rich said:
You're a machine Troy.......

Don't hesitate to recruit some of us Northerners btw......my son is starting to learn to swing a hammer, so you'll have another helper. Granted, that hammer is a rattle, but all in due time......
Hahah I love that man. My kids used to love to drive nails. I can remember boards that had so many nails you couldn't tell there was a board underneath.
And yeah man anytime anyone want's to come out I'd appreciate any help
 
Ok like I promised here are a few pics of my latest project. We now heat our water with our woodstove. The stainless tank beside the stove was free from a neighbor. It was part of a salt water treatment system in someone's home and certified to use in a pressurized system. The tank is now being used as a storage/buffer tank that circulates heated water via thermal siphon. Once it reaches temperature a small pump kicks on and circulates that water into a second storage/buffer tank hiding inside a closet located directly behind the stainless tank. The controller is set to cooling with a sensor on the stainless tank. Once the stainless tank reaches a preset temp the circulator turns on and runs until a preset lower temperature is reached. Its actually very quiet and you don't even hear it running.
These tanks feed a third tank in the system. When running there is about 112 gal of hot water available. Anyhow, there is actually much more to the system with proper safety measures installed. I don't recommend doing this because if you don't know what your doing it can be very dangerous.

Early numbers are very encouraging. Up to this point we have been averaging 70-75 KWH/day. We tend to use a good bit of hot water because we also use it to cycle thru our floors if the suns not shining (our house is passive solar) Anyhow, we now average 19-21 KWH/day. We should see a massive difference in our electric bill.
Sorry for the crappy cell phone pics


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This photo is before I plumbed the discharge for the P/T valve for this tank. Still gives a good idea of whats going on
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I dedicate the rest of the thread to finishing the cabin. Honest
 
Nice work Troy, that is just awesome. A few batteries and a wind generator and you could almost go off grid.
 
Thanks guys.

Hey mike your correct I'm getting close. There are still some measures (life style) I need to take to lower usage even more but it takes time, planning and commitment. However, when said and done I'd like to be below 15 kw/day. That goal is one reason I was initially hesitant to wire the cabin.
Anyhow, I'm actually shooting for a micro hydro turbine. To reduce cost it would initially need to be grid tied then eventually batteries.
A majority of the year we have more water then whats running this unit that generates 16KW/day. Check it out, it's pretty cool:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovLMeu0AN5w



7aliveatlast7 said:
my word...you are such a man's man. i consider myself one, but i can't hold a candle to your awesomeness!

Haha I appreciate the kind words brother but I'm actually a softie. Here's proof: Shot this the other day on the farm. Hope I don't get my man card removed but best to come clean haha.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzFHOPSDxMc
 
That's a cool solution Troy, I forgot you had some running water close. That with some solar panels and a small wind turbine with batteries and you may get 100%. Here if you are on grid but use 0 KWH you still pay like 40.00 a month for the privledge of being connected and if you actually send power out you get nothing for it and you pay 40.00. Some provinces will net your bill to 0 and some will buy back your excess but here they do not. Sucks but we are starting to look at drastic reductions in power here anyway if we can. Last months bill was 563.00, mind you we heat with electricity, have 2800 Sq feet to heat and average temps were -25.
 
Damn Mike that's outrageous. There are a lot of little things you can do that can add up to huge savings. Do you have a plug in watt meter? You use them to measure watts and amperage use of appliances. I picked one up made by Reliance Controls at Lowes for about $35.00 and worth every penny. Makes it easy to find energy hogs. For instance I was shocked to find that our computer, when operating, uses 325 watts. That's equal to 3-100 watt light bulbs and one 25. When it hibernates its half that.Still too high. I decided to put my computer on a power strip and when not in use, shut it off at the power strip. Lots of other stuff you can do as well. have you considered a pellet stove for heat? Mine uses very little electricity and pellets are pretty reasonable. Its not my only source of heat but we burn very little (so far about 15 bags this year). Justin has one now and he can probably tell ya a little more than I can. Other things are super heavy insulated curtains. Remove your screens in windows that face south for more solar gain. Pay extra attention to chalking and possible air infiltration places. Last, (or maybe could be first) a little extra insulation in the attic. Man I hope you can do something. I hate to hear about high heating and to be honest I believe cost could easily skyrocket. I almost hate to tell ya but your monthly electric total is close to my entire winter budget to heat a 4000sqft house for 8 months. I'm sure we don't see your temps but it still gets pretty cold here. Recently we've had several days with highs in the single digits If there is anything at all I can do please don't hesitate to ask. I've been at this battle a long time.

Anyhow, We can grid tie if we purchase a special meter that can turn backwards when producing more than consumed. Last I checked the meter cost about $250 and I believe the power co pays about .04 KWH.
 
There is info all over the net on things to do that save. I can tell you first hand that it can be done. We are still chugging along at 19-21kwh/day down from 70-75kwh/day. That's a massive difference. = A lot more money in my pocket


Moving on to the cabin yesterday I purchased enough 2x4 studs (40) to finish framing the inside. I also picked up a 125 amp service panel, enough 12-2 wire and all the boxes to rough in the wiring. Since the main service wire wont be ran until later in the spring and I don't want to run saws and planner off 200' of extension cords running from the house, I moved the generator down. I purchased a breaker for the generator so once its wired the generator can power the service panel and power tools can simply be plugged in to the closest outlet.


This is where phase II of this project begins. As you can see she collected a little junk over winter and A little cleaning is in order.
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can't wait to see it getting worked on again. my wife and i packed our bags, we're all ready to move in when it's finished ;D
 
Thanks Troy. We are doing most of those things as we can. I will be doubling the attic isulation and blowing it in so it fills all the space. We have a lot there now but it is bats. Also we are going all digital programable t stats and thet help. Gone almost all cfl bulbs etc. And we have a few older appliances to change out as well.

Sent from my MB525 using Tapatalk 2
 
7aliveatlast7 said:
can't wait to see it getting worked on again. my wife and i packed our bags, we're all ready to move in when it's finished ;D
haha might have a little line ahead of ya but you are more than welcome anytime. That's one of the main reasons I'm building it
 
Maritime said:
Thanks Troy. We are doing most of those things as we can. I will be doubling the attic isulation and blowing it in so it fills all the space. We have a lot there now but it is bats. Also we are going all digital programable t stats and thet help. Gone almost all cfl bulbs etc. And we have a few older appliances to change out as well.

Sent from my MB525 using Tapatalk 2
All sounds good Mike and you should see a difference for sure. One thing you can do is go to your attic with a can or two of spray foam insulation. Follow the wiring where it leaves the attic and enters the walls. Simply fill the holes around the wires. you won't believe how much of a difference it will make. Also if you have forced air make sure all the ducts on the hot side are insulated. Same with hot water pipes. Insulation makes a massive difference and pays for itself very fast.


DesmoBro said:
that's awesome is it wood power? I love that Vintage stuff they don't make em like that anymore...

They really don't. The stove is in fantastic shape for its age. Rich and his wonderful wife actually dealt with the seller for me. Without them the deal would have never happened. Anyhow, the stove is set up for natural gas but I plan to convert it to LP.
 
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