Solar for Emergency Preparedness

Solar Emergency Preparedness

As summer comes to an end it's time to make sure we are well stocked for the winter months. Not only am I busy making sure the pantry is well stocked with home canned and dried foods, I'm also adding to the freezer stock. However, preparedness is more than just have a 1 - 2 year supply of food on hand. This is also the time of the year to stock up on sundry type items such as laundry soap, personal needs items, toilet paper, First Aid supplies as well as emergency preparedness items. I'll be making a few posts on getting prepared for winter.

During winter storms the prospect of having no electricity for short periods of time increase. The normal recommendations is to keep oil lamps with plenty of fuel and lots of candles in your emergency preparedness stores. In cold climates both serve to provide light with a bit of heat. I keep a good supply of homemade beeswax and soy candles on hand for regular and emergency use. However, in homes with pets or children using oil lamps and candles can present a risk of fire and/or injury if they get bumped or knocked over. Battery operated emergency devices only work if you have sufficient batteries. I've turned to solar devices as part of my emergency preparedness.

Pictured is the wind-up/solar powered radio, Coleman camp lantern, a few of our many flashlights, solar light stakes, battery operated lights, rechargeable batteries (AAA, AA, D), 6 V battery adapter and solar battery chargers. Not pictured are a couple of small camp lanterns that use only one 6 V battery and a wind-up flash light. The principle of using solar rests on turning solar energy from the sun into usable energy for lighting and heating. In emergency situations you cannot always rely on the sun however in most cases you will be able to get enough sunlight exposure to power emergency equipment such as the radio, some lights and solar battery chargers if need be. Combining wind-up power for essentials like flash lights and a radio makes good sense as these can be used without relying only on solar.

The light stakes are meant for garden use but can easily be charged in a sunny window to provide indoor lighting for the evening during a power outage. I like keeping a good supply of charged batteries on hand that can be recharged if necessary using the solar battery chargers. The 6 V battery adapter is a rather interesting find. It uses 4 - D cell batteries and can be used in place of a 6 V battery. I think these are great items to have in our emergency preparedness supplies.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2009

Plumbing Update

I know many readers have been waiting for the current plumbing problems. If you recall my last post talked about our plumbing problems (more here). The plumber snaked from the house and back the other way hoping to solve the problem. Ideally had this worked we would have noted a great improvement in our drainage problem.

Indication

Snaking should have opened the drainage lines but what we quickly realized is it caused the lines to collapse. The water wasn't draining properly then about a week later we noticed greening of the grass (red arrows) right in the same orientation of where the line ran and not really noticeable in the pictures the ground caving in. So we thought we found the exact location for the problem not realizing that we had a type of fiber piping that has been banned since the 1970's. In it's inception this piping was supposed to prevent root damage. However, as we quickly found out this piping does collapse causing major drainage issues. It is proving to be a costly repair for anyone who used the fiber piping!

Dangerous Wire

In Ontario it is supposed to be mandatory that you call for utility line locates prior to digging. Line locates are free but can take up to 2 weeks if it is not an emergency. In emergency situations line locates can be done within 24 hours. The fine if you hit a line without calling for line locates is $5,000. Now we knew from previous line locates there were no official utility lines as in from the utility to us where we were digging. What we also knew is the previous owner installed an outdoor plug off of which fed an outdoor utility light and the line to the dock lift. We disconnected the line to the dock lift so here is what we saw with the first backhoe shovel not even 2 feet under the ground and only a foot from the sidewalk where digging for flower beds easily could have happened was this totally illegal wire hook-up running from the main backyard plug to the utility light. I was shocked and yet happy we found this potentially very dangerous wire. How could anyone be this stupid? I'm not kidding! This unprotected electrical wire had the very real potential to kill someone. It's eerie too because my husband said to keep the backyard breaker off unless we were using it so he must have suspected a problem. So that is our next household project.

Pipes

It was decided after a bit of discussion to install a weeping bed that would be between the house and the lower clean-outs. This involved digging a trench from the back of the house to the clean-outs or about 100 ft. Three quarters of the trench was filled with 1' of gravel then the solid piping from the house was connected to two lines of holed piping that reconnects into solid piping that connects to the final drain. What this means is any storm, grey or rain water coming from the house ends up being filtered into the ground so it doesn't reach the water. In our area this is a more expensive solution that is eco-friendly as well. We are very, very conscious about what goes down our drains even though all but the kitchen are hooked to the municipal sewage system. This means nothing from the kitchen even though it is all phosphate free will not reach the water. Rain water is collected and used for the gardens. Now eventually any excess will reach the water but not much and by then it has been filtered so again another eco-friendly solution.

End of Day

It really was a depressing day in a lot of respects. My husband and I watched as the entire backyard was essentially destroyed. All the sod, seed and work we had done was gone. At the same time I couldn't help but think perhaps we finally have the problem fixed meaning no more water in the house.

Over the past 2 years we have had water levels in the house as high as 3" on several occasions. It is never pleasant to deal with flooding problems. So while our backyard now looks like this as of last Friday I'm looking forward to flood free days indoors. I think too that with the improved drainage our millipede, centipede and earwing problem will disappear even though I definitely have those issues under control. Our main concern right now is to solve all of our drainage issues. Once those are solved any of the side effects of drainage problems should go away including moisture loving insects.


Garden Gnome
©2006-2009

Quick Plumbing Update

As of tomorrow it will be two weeks that the patio has been dug up with a hole about the size of a grave. The good news is everything appears to be draining fine. The bad news is our plumber is on holidays so we still have the hole. He is supposed to come out the first of the week. So there's where we sit with out plumbing problem. I'll update more as soon as the plumbing is being worked on. In the meantime tomorrow I will post how we finished off the down draft vent.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2009

Why Install a Broan® EcoVent?

Broan® EcoVent
August 16, 2009

One question immediately arises with the final installation of our Jenn-Air® down draft system and that is why use a Broan® EcoVent? In the winter of 2006 we installed our Jenn-Ai® slide in range (more on my range here) with down draft system in our previous house then moved it here in June of 2007. At the same time we installed our front loaders in the old house in February 2007 and also moved them here. All three appliances are high efficiency appliances but what we noticed as a flaw was the venting on both the dryer and the range. Both had regular vent covers. Cold air despite everything we did came back up through the vent! I actually resorted to placing a folded up towel over the down draft grate of the range.

When we moved here we looked for an eco-friendly, energy efficiency dryer vent (more here) and found it in the Broan® EcoVent. This is a Canadian made vent cover designed for Canadian winters. It is larger than regular vents because it is insulated preventing cold transfer. It has a unique floating ball check valve that prevents back draft as well as insects entering and the design also prevents rodents from getting in. It definitely solved our dryer vent problems. I decided I wanted this vent for the Jenn-Air® down draft even though it meant reducing the air flow from 5" to 4". The problem is and there has been complaints over the vent cover meant for the Jenn-Air® down draft ranges which includes both back draft and rodents getting in. We live on water front property so rodents are a huge concern! We also live in Canada so cold back drafts is a major concern in terms of energy efficiency. Reducing the air flow but using an energy efficient vent cover made a lot of sense. First the reduction would actually create a stronger flow of air from the range increasing it's efficiency. Second using this vent cover virtually eliminates the back draft and rodent problems making this vent cover an extremely eco-friendly choice for the down draft system. It meets all of our needs as well as providing energy efficiency!

Garden Gnome
©2006-2009

Hooking Up the Down Draft

We moved here in the spring of 2007. I have a down draft Jenn-Air® slide-in range with down draft system (more here). Hooking up the down draft in our previous house was as simple as attaching the down draft to the floor the going through the outside vinyl sided wall. It took minimal effort and about an hours worth of time. Here it was a different story. The house is earth bermed with the lower, main living level mainly below ground. That meant the vent had to go through a cement foundation wall that was about 12" thick and on the only on ground level. So the vent would span from the lowest level exiting on the ground level. This past weekend we decided to hook-up the down draft after securing the necessary equipment to do so. It was a DIY project.

Our first step was work in the walk-in pantry that is below the only room on the ground level which is a large entrance. We marked out the area in the pantry where the vent would be going through then carefully dug around to make sure there were no wires (1). Next we used a 4" cement drill bit (2) and marked on the outside (3) where we would be drilling. We decided drilling from the outside in would be a lot less mess indoors and it would keep the noise for the most part out of the house.

The drill bit was attached (4) to the heavy duty drill then we started drilling. I'm telling you drilling through cement is very loud, dusty work and slow going work. You definitely need ear plugs and don't push the drill. Let the drill do the work for you without forcing it.

The drill went through the cement foundation wall (5) in about 4 inch segments. This actually took a lot more time than expected as you just can't rush the drill. Once the drill hit that mark my husband wacked out the plug (7) with a hammer and huge screwdriver. We ended up with 3 full sections of plugs plus a small one. They looked like the big beads the Flinstones might have worn! Then he drilled further until he finally broke through (6). Breaking through really meant we were able to free the hole of any debris and not actually drilling completely through. Had we drilled completely through we would have had quite the mess in the pantry! At the end of Thursday night we were left with a nice hole in our foundation that spanned from the outside into the pantry. We stuffed the hole with an old towel and called it a night. My husband was sore and achy from running the drill and it was getting hot an humid out so we figured on finishing the hook-up over the weekend.

We had all the materials ready for the hook-up that included rigid ducting, flexible ducting, elbows, a reducer, eco-friendly vent cover and metal duct tape (9). The first step was to install the eco-friendly vent cover on the exteriour (10) in the duct lined hole (11). This is a special Canadian made vent cover that is heavily insulated and saves energy (more here). I should mention when doing this type of DIY project go as energy efficient and eco-friendly as possible even if it costs a bit more. The vent cover is not only heavily insulated but during insulation a heavy application of caulking is applied assuring no air leaks later. The insulation and automatic valve closure via a specialized floating ball means there will be no transfer of cold air into the interiour of the house during the cold weather. The automatic valve also ensures that rodents and insects even if they somehow got through the vent grate system would not be able to get into the vent pipe itself.

The down draft system of a Jenn-Air® is an extremely powerful venting system. The main blower that moves the air to the outdoors is attached to the floor (12) which means moving these types of stoves is not quite all that easy. The back of the down draft (13) is the main area of interest. A short flexible metal hose runs from the air intake to the down draft exhaust (not shown but basically in line with the plug in 12). A rigid duct pipe runs from the outside vent (14) to the down draft exhaust (15). Each bend is carefully sealed with metal duct tape to keep the velocity in the duct.

The actual opening of the Jenn-Air® down draft (13) is 5" but we used an adaptor to reduce that to 4" for two reasons. First we wanted to us the high efficiency vent cover by Braun which in our climate saves a lot of money and second by reducing the duct size we increased the velocity of air being expelled so increased the efficiency. Unlike a dryer vent there is no concern over lint build-up either so the ducting should stay relatively clean.

Once everything was hooked up we gave the down draft a test run. Oh my, it was wonderful! Surprisingly it was a lot quieter than the last installation and in fact is barely noticeable when turned on. The stove is now 100% fully functional. I am a very happy camper!

Garden Gnome
©2006-2009

Plumbing Problems

We have had on and off plumbing problems since buying this house. We actually are dealing with two drainage systems possibly three, faulty design for both and roots. The first system is the municipal sewage system. The two bathrooms and laundry room drain into the municipal sewage system. Shortly after moving in we discovered a problem with this system which we thought was fixed until another problem appeared the following spring that involved using a porta-john and digging up the neighbours' yard. That ended up being a rooting problem so once the roots were removed that system has been working fine. During the second repair we installed additional drain clean-outs for that system and the system that drains into the natural water body. Ground water, rain water and the kitchen grey water drains into this natural drain system. This means we have to be careful to use a no or low phosphate dish and dishwasher detergent as well as scrap plates before washing either by hand or in the dishwasher. Before you ask, yes this is a perfectly legal, acceptable and common drainage system here. Now we know there is a septic system that we suspect may still be in use for rain water drainage but we haven't found it yet.

Just outside of the kitchen patio doors there is a pit, brown circular object at beginning of the arrow. Water from the kitchen, rain water and two drains from the patio (one pictured end of arrow) (1) drain into this and from there travel down another solid pipe to the natural water way. We suspected a blockage of this solid pipe that forced water up and back into the house. The only solution was digging up the patio.

We discovered a corrugated drainage pipe that was obviously bowed (2) and (3) so now things got interesting. When the solid pipe was snaked, the snake went through the 'Y' joint instead and snaked the corrugated pipe instead of the smooth pipe. We do not know and the plumber can't figure out why the corrugated pipe is there in the first place unless it was a shoddy repair. At the same time we found the solid pipe (4) that had obviously been patched at some point. The end solution is we are tying all of the drainage pipes together in one solid fashion so nothing can get inside the pipes. The pit is going to be replaced with a clean-out. What we will end up with is a solid plumbing system into the natural system with 3 clean-outs covering all bases.

Pictured is the machine our plumber uses to snake the drains. A large coiled, flexible metal rod attaches to the front. It is then fed into the drain and the machine is turned on forcibly clearing any blockage. Additional rods are added as required. When the blockage is cleared is shows as a thick, black and very smelly sludge. In a normal system you would not see this as it would go directly into the sewage system. In our case we could both see and smell it!

Once we got the blockage cleared we discovered another problem. The pipe end in the pit (1) was more than half blocked with cement reducing the diameter considerably which reduces the flow of water from the pit. This creates a greater chance of water backing up into the house. Then when the blockage was cleared it was obvious the patch in the solid pipe wasn't sealed. So we are replacing the solid pipe from the pit that will no longer be a pit to the connection of the first patio drain.

The majority of the work happened Tuesday afternoon. The good news is there is no flooding in the house. It has drained and dried up. The trench my husband dug has also mostly dried. As you can see from the bottom picture the water coming out of the drainage pipe has cleared considerably. The bad news is the plumber wants to leave the open trench as is for at least one week before hooking things up properly. That means we are left with a nice trench, piles of bricks and a pile of dirt for the next week.

Garden Gnome
©2006-2009

A Simple Inexpensive Solar Heater

Heating costs continue to rise and while energy conservation through lowering the thermostat combined with insulating and sealing your home helps keeps those costs down there are other ways to help reduce your heating costs. A logical place to look for a free heat source is the sun. Many of us already take advantage of solar energy during the winter months by opening window coverings on sunny days to help warm rooms and closing them on cloudy days and at night to keep the heat in the room. Using a few recycled items we can take advantage of those sunny windows to boost that heat output by using simple homemade solar heaters. Over the next month or so, I will be making a few posts on homemade solar heaters.

These solar heaters are not meant to be your sole source of heat. They are meant to supplement your existing heat. The more you use the more savings you will see on your heating costs. Keep in mind that if you live in an area that has a fair number of grey days with little sunshine, the solar heaters will not produce any heat. They also will not produce any heat in north facing windows.

I found the following video that shows how to make a rudimentary solar heater using recycled pop bottles and beer cans. Aesthetically this solar heater might appeal to you but it is a very inexpensive way to get a good idea of the possibilities of using a solar heater. Surprisingly this solar heater will work quite nicely in a sunny window. It would be a good project for parents or teachers to introduce solar energy to children.

This homemade solar heater follows the basic principles of all solar heaters. There is an air flow that goes through the collector (tin can) that is heated then released. The glazing (pop bottle) intensifies the heating effect. The air flow moves from the bottom of the bottle (cool air) to the top of the bottle (hot air) due to physics. Hot air is not as dense as cool air so it rises. This simple solar heater takes advantage of this principle.

Despite its looks this heater will work and can be modified to fit the size of your window. The best part is you are using mainly recycled materials so the cost is minimal. The kind of pop bottle really doesn't matter as long as it is a clear 2L size. Beer cans are taken back to the Beer Store for a cash deposit back so I would recommend using pop cans and adjusting the size of each solar unit to fit the can. The tape will make a somewhat adequate seal. What I would suggest is to run a bead of clear silicon seal around the bottom portion of the unit before pushing it into the upper portion then running a smooth bead of silicone on the resulting outside seam. Also hand painting is rather tedious. A spray bomb of flat black paint will have the cans quickly coated in a lot less time than brushing on the paint. When it comes to mounting this particular solar heater you will want it a few inches from the window sill simply for air flow but I don't think hanging the heater is the best way to go. Eventually the glue will give way causing the individual units to fall as well. What I would advise is using wood dowels. Attaching two dowels within the window frame on which each solar unit could sit then another dowel spanning from distance between the window frame would create the perfect spot to simply set as many units as would fit across the span of the window. The air flow would not be restricted either. So this simple design has a lot of potential. It would be an ideal way to add a bit of free heat to basement windows!


Garden Gnome
©2006-2009