Glenn's Underground Cabin Update

[Bradon Wesche]

Yes please share as much as you care to Glenn.  We are all VERY interested to see more of the process.

[stadia]

Great, I'm anxious to see the pics. I'm building with squared timber also

[Ernest T. Bass]

I think perhaps a separate topic.. After all, this thread is entitled "Glenn's Underground Cabin Update". Maybe we need to start fresh with, "In the Beginning, Glenn Created Hole".

[glenn kangiser]

....and it was a big hole, and Glenn looked at the hole, and the hole was good.....

OK guys - here you go.  Hang on - it may be a wild ride..

http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=9098.0

[glenn kangiser]

The dogs came along to help me work in the garden today.



OK so they weren't a lot of help... 

.. but I did get about 25 feet of rock wall and terrace added and some eggplants and squash seeds as well as a few carrot seeds planted.

[PEG688]

  Three dogs now   Did I miss the new addition, or did you start out with three?

   They look like a great help. 

[glenn kangiser]

Spike - on the floor is the newest addition - about 2 and a half years old.  Susie - the whitest one on the seat found him when we were prospecting.  The other is Susie's sister, Princess - all about 3 and a half years old or so.  Their puppy pix are back in the older pix here.

Last year Spike thought the corn that was freshly irrigated was the coolest place to be and destroyed it 3 times.  I hope he is over that.

[glenn kangiser]

The above is a prime deer garden eating area.  I made a little video showing how to make a string fence.

Not made clear in the video is that if you start to do a section, start at the far end from the string, tie it off and continue toward the string box so that you can pull more and tie it as you stretch it at each post.  I said nylon string but actually what I have is polypropylene string similar to poly bailer twine.  You get about a mile of that line on a roll from a farm supply etc. pretty cheap.

Click the pix to watch the scary guy on the video.



Note - while it works for me- no guarantee it will work for you.  Our deer are rather small usually.  I can't even guarantee it will always work for me.  My dogs sometimes chase the deer off ... if they happen to wake up...

[glenn kangiser]

Got the Bobcat nearly done.  The old seals were well worn.  Hope that is all of the problem.

Here is a pix of it on the service lift..... [ouch]

[speedfunk]

neat vid glenn.  Us humans can win against deer.. I know it ..

[John Raabe]

Great video - clear, simple, helpful, fun.

Now you are a screen star!'

[glenn kangiser]

Thanks, Guys.  It was kind of scary though.  Sassy says I'm learning from Paul Wheaton...   Thanks, Paul. [ouch]

[Ernest T. Bass]

Scary making the video, or watching it? FWIW, I liked it a lot.. We literally throw out garbage cans full of used poly baling twine in long lengths.. If only we had a deer problem. Figure out how to keep goats in (or out) for cheap, and I'll be all ears..

[glenn kangiser]

Both....  I'm a one shot wonder ... actually I did it twice but liked this one best - minor mess up on the other but it would have been OK....

I had a sheep and a goat - earlier in the update...

The goat was smart enough to show the sheep how to get out, then I could never keep either of them in.....

I'm afraid that is beyond my area of expertise, Andrew, besides your dad would kill me if I turned you into a 120 pounds of walking ears.....  how would you do chores or build anything?  ....

[Ernest T. Bass]

I really don't think my dad would mind that much; as things are now I do way too much bossing and not nearly enough listening... Out of curiosity though, what would the other 40 lbs of me be?

[glenn kangiser]

I can't imagine it being waste, so I think it must be brains.

[Ernest T. Bass]

This is starting to sound like an old low-budget horror flick... 

[glenn kangiser]

We have been running just a bit short on power lately pumping extra water for a bigger garden and trees as well as hot, hot, hot......... so I finally unpacked the 520 watts of panels I had sitting in the shop for the last six months and put them on the roof, hooked them to an MPPT controller and the batteries.  Seems they weren't charging the batteries sitting there in the box.

Dave Sparks mentioned during our last visit,  that at the cost of panels now it hardly pays to buy or build a tracker.  Just buy more panels and face them a bit the direction you need the most help.  Save the extra available power with a tracker for sometime when you really need it.  [ouch]

I just framed them and put them on the roof.  Good enough for now, eh? ...

We are thinking of getting another batch from Sun while the price is still pretty low  - around $2 a watt- who knows what the near future may bring.


http://sunelec.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=5&products_id=645

BZ MPPT 500 controllers are now down to $175.  I'll take 2, thank you.


http://www.thesolarstore.com/charge-controllers-mppt-charge-controllers-products-mppt500-mppt-charge-controller-watt-45amp-p-62.html

[Tickhill]

glenn, I am considering using sunelec.com as my source for new panels, I got a quote today for 3 Sun-PI-200 and an Outback FM60 charge controller, the shipping seemed to be fairly reasonable at $235 for FL to MS trip. Did you have any issue with sunelec.com shipping/damage??? Thanks

[glenn kangiser]

My panels arrived in good condition via UPS.  Didn't take long either as I recall.  The panels seemed to be great quality and there were no issues on hookup.  I noted around 66 OCV before hooking it to the system around midday.

Some of the panels get an oversize charge due to their sizes - some ship at regular rate.  Seems there are significant charge differences for shipping to a home rather than a business in some cases.

Using the BZ controller I was able to hook them all in series for around 84 open circuit volts maximum.  The BZ is good for 100v so I think I have enough buffer even for cold winter mornings.  It will output to 12, 24, or 48v as I recall although they have an HV model optimized for 48v.  I run 24v.

[glenn kangiser]

Note that there is likely not a better charge controller than the FM60 MPPT controller.  Morningstar MPPT controller is rated good also.

I use the BZ's because I'm cheap - not because the are best, but they work great in 500 watt increments like we prefer to add on in.

[glenn kangiser]

Also - note that with the FM60 it is most efficient if all panels are the same type - size - brand etc.  

You can add to it later with other panels that are different but the efficiency of one will limit the system to it's best combined performance rather than the best for all of the panels in the system.   The lower performing panels will limit the higher performing panels so you will lose some of the benefit of the good controller with a mixed panel system.

Note that it may be hard to find the same panels at a later date to fill up your controller capacity - seems there are millions of sizes and shapes out there.

That is why I don't buy a bigger controller than the amount of panels I can get that are the same.  Make sense?

[Tickhill]

Yes it does, thanks. My father and I started last year "experimenting" with solar and wind at his shop. We currently have 155 watts between 2 panels and an Air-X and a PrestoWind turbine. We don't have wind but we have good breezes. I have just about given in to the realization that solar just sits there and does its thing without asking for much other than a clear shot at the sun. I just love to watch the turbines spin when I get a chance to sit down for a while.
Glenn, what is your current RE arrangement, quantity/capacity of panels, battery banks, etc.?
Last year I gave ~$350 for used 80 watt panels. Prices have come down.
Thanks for everyone's willingness to help. Hope to start a project soon and will definitely start posting soon.
God Bless,

[glenn kangiser]

Renewable Energy... hmm ..... I don't stop to think about it a lot so let me see...

We have around 3500 watts of panels - about half or more laying on the roof of the shop.  We have a Bergey XL1 wind generator (1000 w) but we are not in a super great wind area.  We probably get a total of 1 or 2 kwh per day from it.

We are running 2 Trace 4024 sine wave  inverters piggyback to make 240v at about 35 amps, or 120v off of either of them.  Same as a regular house pretty well - just a bit smaller.

We have 16 batteries currently in pretty good shape.  375ah 6 volt L16 ranging from 2004 to 2009 in service.  I recently went through and pulled out 2 with bad cells - added EDTA to all and got them back in shape.  We had 20 batteries but the two with bad cells were in two strings and one more was low before the EDTA.  Now I have 4 strings of good batteries and 2 that are good but not in the lineup.  I need to do something to keep them good or they will go bad sitting there. 

We have 2 freezers, 8cf and about 20cf, a french door refrigerator w/freezer below and ice maker, a 1934 general electric monitor top refrigerator which is our most efficient but rather small fridge,  washer,  propane drier with standard electric motor, a 1.5 hp (6 to 10 gpm) water pump that pumps about 600 gpd of water from around 300 feet.

Normal lighting w/compact florescents, a big microwave, coffeemaker, toaster -and toaster oven, occasionally use the Miller 135 wire welder in the shop, swamp cooler only turned on occasionally, room fans -usually at least one in use most of the day and night.

We are reasonably energy conscious but not fanatical about it, and just try to expand the system yearly as we decide we want to add things, especially as the cost comes down.  The low prices may not last so I think now is a good time to build up a bit more.  I like the excess to be able to do more in my shop with solar power too.

We have a Lincoln Commander 400 stick welder with a 3 cyl Duetz diesel and 10000 watt generator built in for back up power and battery charging.  I charge batteries directly with the DC welding cables and combined with the charger in one of the Trace inverters.  I set the welder on about 160 amps CC plus the Trace tapers it's charge.  The welder could easily overcharge the batteries if not monitored but it is good for several hours if the batteries are low.  It has a low fuel shutdown sensor that is not working shutting it off every half hour or so.  I leave it that way so that I don't have to worry about overcharging and I just reset it and restart it if I want more power.  It also provides power for my Iron worker that will shear 1"x6" steel bar or various other sizes.  That is a bit much for my solar power inverters.

[Sassy]

Welcome, Tickhill!     Is that name because you have lots of ticks?  We have lots of ticks here to part of the year...  they love the dogs but don't bother us too much.

Glenn forgot to add that we have an above ground pool (5000 gal) that we run the filter on for 1.5hrs day during summer, also have a salt-water chlorinator for it that takes a little bit of power...  can't think of much more - I use a regular vacuum cleaner & we have 2 laptop computers, printer/fax machine, DSL which is on most of the time - turned off for a few hrs at night.

We're careful to turn off lights (those probably take the least power of everything).  I don't iron any clothes, lol!  If I had a good clothes line, I'd hang some of the stuff outside - used to hang all my wash out on the line...  it's so dusty around here in the summer, though, steep & rocky - so it's hard to find a good place. 

Can't think of anything else we run off our solar/wind generator...