hydropower or other alternative

Started by jenn_dun_80, June 14, 2013, 05:50:37 PM

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jenn_dun_80

I bought 8.5 acres in the country. No building codes, permits, requirements ect. There is water and electric at the road. I don't have the money right now. f for septic. My plan was always to do grey water and composting toilets and by pass the septic. In order to get electric I need water hooked up and in order to get water I have to have a septic. So I need other options. There is a creek that runs through the property. They said it's seasonal but from what I've seen it's usually always full when we are there. But I haven't been through summer yet. I've heard of electric from water but not sure if it would be enough to power a home. Still trying to figure this out. I can't seem to find the hydro for dummies information. I've thought about solar but don't have a ton of money to put into it right now. For now we will most likely put an rv or there while we build or small storage building made into a room. So it wont need to run a ton of stuff. I'm thinking propane for stove, heating and maybe even fridge. I can bring in water and store it for drinking and showers so I'm not worried about water. Anyway I'm just looking for ideas on my best option that will get us to the land fastest since I'm paying for land and rent where I'm at now. Thanks so much.

rick91351

Where are you located?  Sounds as if you are planing a full time residence? 

I really don't think there is a hydro for dummies because you can not just tap into and take water out of - or use water out of creeks in most places.  UNLESS --- You have water rights to the creek.  Most western states you can not just tap in to creek because all the water is already claimed - filed for and paid for.  We have a stream that ends on our property part of the year.  Part of the year it runs in to the watershed.  We share water rights to that creek with another ranch for irrigation.  If there was anyone above us they could not use out of it because we have the water rights to it.  They were filed on that creek even before Idaho was a state.  You might think that is unfair.  However say you spent several / several thousand for a hydro system.  Then the neighbor above you the day after you installed your system takes all the water for his new fish farm / brewery and bottled water plant.           

Say you can use this water, how much drop do you have?  How or where are you going to waste the water?  It is not a good idea to just let it run out on the ground.  To much water does not do wonders for your soil especially year round.   Do you have enough drop to waste it back into the creek?

If you do not have knowledge of the amount of flow year around.  (You say it is seasonal or you were told it was.)  That of course is not favorable for what you need.  Say you do have water rights under state protection.  There are a number of firms that do manufacture the equipment and make it sound so easy. 

You say there are no building codes, permits and requirements.  Have you personally looked in to this?  Real-estate agents are the worlds greatest at over looking the truth or not having true knowledge.

Have you talked to the power company and found out how much it is going to cost to hook up.  Some places very very reasonable others not so much.  One person on the forum their power company ran it to his site for nothing so he posted a couple years ago.

So off hand I would say solar or grid power is your best way to go.

As far as a composting toilet a few on this forum use them and like them or put up with them.  A word to you about septic systems and your house placement.  If you think you will want to discard the composting toilet in favor of a conventional septic system.  You need to get your property perk tested before you build.  This will dictate if where you want to build and and the septic are compatible.  Us we had to move our septic system and building site about 500 feet from where we want to build because there was to much ground surface water.  Yet to look at it is dry desert grass and sage covered.  A couple feet down there is water four feet down it came rushing in this was mid summer.....

   
Proverbs 24:3-5 Through wisdom is an house builded; an by understanding it is established.  4 And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.  5 A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength.


jenn_dun_80

Thanks for the reply. I did call the county to check regulations before I bought the land. The creek end on my property at a pond so I'm not sure about water rights. I'm in Oklahoma. I'm going to look into solar. I was thinking hydro because I was reading that  would produce more energy than solar. The power company only charges $1100 for the first 300 ft and then $8 a foot. The place next to me has it so its shouldn't be much. The issue is I have to have water and septic on the lot first. They won't even let me put electric to a rv unless I have the water and septic first which I don't think I'll have the money for septic  until March since all my money went towards buying the land a few months ago. I was trying to wait until next year or later to move but we are needing to move sooner.

Don_P

If its' conventional septic it'll be cheaper to do that and get grid power than developing hydro or solar power.

I've been climbing up the chain trying to get approval to restore an old springhouse and drain a mudhole the cattle have made there. Water regs can be time consuming and daunting. We have a one year window before my state's extension sunsets and the fed Chesapeak Bay act kicks in. After that a disturbance will have to be 20% more absorptive than it was when you started, they are trying to slow down runoff. At the end of this month 2 of our state entities regulating streamwater quality will join under one agency which will help. It is not hard to get the army corps involved in a stream disturbance and I wish you well if they come to "help" you rectify something you've done. I do like having water on the property but that bottom is effectively not mine at any time other than tax time.

rick91351

Quote from: jenn_dun_80 on June 15, 2013, 07:40:22 PM
Thanks for the reply. I did call the county to check regulations before I bought the land. The creek end on my property at a pond so I'm not sure about water rights. I'm in Oklahoma. I'm going to look into solar. I was thinking hydro because I was reading that  would produce more energy than solar. The power company only charges $1100 for the first 300 ft and then $8 a foot. The place next to me has it so its shouldn't be much. The issue is I have to have water and septic on the lot first. They won't even let me put electric to a rv unless I have the water and septic first which I don't think I'll have the money for septic  until March since all my money went towards buying the land a few months ago. I was trying to wait until next year or later to move but we are needing to move sooner.

Holy Cow if you can get power run that cheaply look not further.  And I think my house would be 300 ft off the power line.    ;) 

Mom was from Supply and Laverne Area (Dust Bowl Era).  Best friend worked out of Bartlesville for a major international ministry.  Then moved to Tulsa because he had to fly out of there anyway and that seemed all the time.  My 70 or so year young cousin lives in Edmonds and daily baby sits great grandkids.  I am a sort of Sooners fan.  A cousin about my age graduated from Norman.  One a little younger from Stillwater.  All that to say I'm sort of Okie at heart.  I have been around all around OK and Western Ok you would not have enough drop for hydro in maybe 20 miles.   :D  Might be doable around Bartlesville.   ;D

Sort a thumb-nail 101.  You need to gather water in to a structure of sorts then through a penstock into a pipe of some sort and dropping it down into a hydro-generator or a hydro-turbine.   Down is as much a key as is head or amount of water.  Down or drop gives the water the push.

There are several companies selling hydro turbines and generators.  They make it sound so much easier than it really is. 



       
Proverbs 24:3-5 Through wisdom is an house builded; an by understanding it is established.  4 And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.  5 A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength.


MountainDon

#5
With grid power close by and relatively cheap the only reason I'd explore solar or any other alternative energy system is if I simply wanted to be independent. Our cabin is off grid completely. One of the driving reasons for that was the $55K price from the power company. I have about $8K in the PV solar system I set up. It works well for the cabin use, however, if this was for full time residence the system would need more PV, more storage and likely a second inverter. The $$ add up.

I will admit to liking the fact that we have power when our friends in the developed area a few miles away don't because of an outage.  :D  That part does count large on the positive side for alternative power. But there are a few things we can not do as the small system does not have the reserve capacity.
Just because something has been done and has not failed, doesn't mean it is good design.

cbc58

QuoteThey won't even let me put electric to a rv unless I have the water and septic first

what reason did they give for that?  rv's usually have contained systems.  i don't see why you couldn't get away with an rv or tent, porta potty and grey water pit temporarily so that you can utilize your land.

hpinson

It's not uncommon for electric companies to require proof of water and/ or septic prior to running, restarting, or repairing electrical service.  That is the case in New Mexico; it is statutory.  Here, there was no exception for an RV pad or camping electrical service or at least that is what I was told by the regulating agency. 

However, there are alternate permittable solutions for human waste-- certain approved composting toilets, approved outhouses -- and these alternates vary by state.  The alternatives in the long view may not be much less expensive than traditional septic, and all have their share of quirks, which you, your family, and visitors may or may not be enthusiastic about.  Southwestern states at least seem to at least looking at alternate solutions, and greywater disposal law has come a long way. 

No getting around the need for a water source, though many around here have no well and have their water delivered into a big tank by a local drinking water service.  That actually can be very economical if available water is deep or of poor quality.

cbc58

QuoteIt's not uncommon for electric companies to require proof of water and/ or septic prior to running, restarting, or repairing electrical service.  That is the case in New Mexico; it is statutory.  Here, there was no exception for an RV pad or camping electrical service or at least that is what I was told by the regulating agency.

Tks. for the info.  In NH I had no problem getting electric hooked up - as long as the power company got their monthly service fee they were happy to do it.  Not sure I understand the logic in NM for not allowing this -- what is the thinking behind it.. if you don't mind me asking?


hpinson

#9
I don't really know for sure. I would suspect it has something to do with discouraging "Colonias", which are unpermitted edge-city squatter housing that have popped up around the New Mexico over the years, mainly around Las Cruces/ El Paso, west of Taos, West of Albuquerque, and a few other places.  Typically these dwellings (mainly RV's, mobile homes, and shacks) dispose of blackwater via a pipe to an open septic pit.  That is a public health hazard, in that insects and animals can enter, and then spread disease, and contaminate ground water, which has happened in several incidents that I can remember seeing on the evening news.  These are the vectors of disease like Dysentery, Typhus, Polio, Yellow Fever, and Cholera which have been pretty much eliminated in the first world, but which you still see in places like Haiti, that have no such restrictions. It wasn't too long ago that these were major problems in the US (my Dad had Yellow Fever, and his sister died very young from one of these illnesses), and the reason they are no longer problems is modern blackwater sanitation technique.

So the idea would be to legislatively force builders to address basic human sanitation prior to building any dwelling. That makes sense. However the way the laws were worded, they are narrow in scope, and do not take into account the need for water conservation in a dry environment, nor innovation. Based on personal experience, in getting a permit for an outhouse, this is changing to some extent. There is a long list of state approved alternate (often costly) septic system solutions, and some fairly sensible approaches to greywater disposal. Some other states are probably similar.  Humanure disposal, which works very well, is still illegal most everywhere as far as I can tell.

Don_P

For us the power companies got stuck many times for the direct and indirect costs of building and maintaining a long line into a RV site only to have the site abandoned. If there is a house going in, proven by investment in water in and out, they are reasonably certain they will recoup the costs involved. For us greywater is about as expensive as a conventional system.

waggin

When I looked into micro hydro, I was surprised at how little power it produces in a small stream like what I have at my place.  Do you have significant elevation change on your stream?  Any idea of how many gallons per minute it might be flowing? 

I don't remember where the calculations are, so I'll attach a link I found online to a table.  Scroll about half way down until you find it.  Note that using 10 gallons per minute and 75' of head (elevation drop) in the system, only results in 60 watts being produced.  That's one 60 watt, incandescent light bulb's worth of power production.  Granted, if you have everything shut down, then you can store that and only use electricity when needed, but then you're looking at the expense of batteries and all the other components.

http://www.backwoodssolar.com/catalog/hydropower.htm

Your hook up costs for electric are a bargain.  If you can get by with a gravity septic on the land you buy, I'll join the chorus and recommend you go for the grid for power, water, etc.  At this point, all of this stuff is fascinating to me, but for the money, I can't beat the grid.
If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy. (Red Green)

Don_P

Along those lines, I made a simple calc a couple of years ago from a formula I found online for an old fashioned overshot wheel to get an idea of the power generated while toying with the idea of a battery cart parked down by the creek.
http://www.timbertoolbox.com/Calcs/waterwheelHP.htm

Getting sufficient head for a turbine would be a problem for me. Although there is 600' of elevation change on our property, so it is far from flat country, the creek has only about 40' of drop across our land and that would take hundreds of feet of pipe to take advantage of.

Dave Sparks

I learned about water and wind power on my sailboat. At first I really thought I was in the cat birds seat towing a water generator and spinning a four winds wind generator. After some time I started to realize how much maintenance I was doing. After even more time I realized that the boat with solar panels was making pineapple rum punch drinks while I was still working. I then realized that I had to anchor where it was windy and the guy with solar panels had not combed his hair since breakfast.

I like soar panels or the grid.
"we go where the power lines don't"