Green-Trust Off Grid

Water and Power Mods

2007-04-03T18:18:00.000-04:00

This week, two additions to our off-grid power system were ordered. First was a propane conversion for the emergency backup generator, second was a Solar Force 12 volt water pump to replace our aging and innefficient Gould Jet Pump. Information and pictures as we install these units will be posted as the projects progress.

Le Boise Alternatives

2007-01-02T20:12:00.000-05:00

DJ MacIntyre and Josée Guénette founded Le Boise Alternatives with the intent of making alternative energy more accessible.

The Le Boisé Alternatives company is based in the Gatineau Hills of Québec, one hour North of Ottawa, Ontario. We service all of Canada and can ship to the United States. Travel fees may apply.

DJ and Josée live in a home where alternative power is the only source of electricity.

In the year 2000, DJ MacIntyre and his wife purchased land in the Gatineau Hills, North of Ottawa, Ontario. Their intention was to build a comfortable home, where they could enjoy the peace and quiet of the woods and commute to their careers in the city.

Since the cost of installing conventional hydro was in excess of $100,000, they discovered surprisingly, DJ and Josee examined others options and concluded that the most cost-effective method (without sacrificing the beauty and peacefulness of the natural surroundings) was alternative energy. Currently, their home operates a 2.4 kW Jakobs wind turbine on a 100-foot tower, with a large battery storage system and mainly propane appliances.

DJ MacIntyre is a journeyman millwright, certified competent in the maintenance and installation of all stationary machinery, including power generation equipment, and trained in all aspects of plumbing, instrumentation, and welding. DJ's main work interest is in prototype design and customized set-up and installation of electrical and mechanical systems. There are no problems, he believes, just challenges. Learn how to build a log home? No problem! Build an electrical generation system from scratch? No problem!

Josée Guénette is trained in a technical field, one of the rare "hands-on" type that doesn't mind getting her hands dirty; actually, she seems to enjoy it! With her canine menagerie, she lives in a log home she and her husband built from scratch, in a wooded area due North of Ottawa, Ontario, about two kilometres away from the nearest hydro pole. "Work Smart, Not Hard!" is her motto!

Josée's interest in alternative energy stems from a desire to live comfortably off the grid. Alternative living measures involving a significant degree of loss in standard of living are not to her liking, and when something is not to her liking, her sharp engineering mind and creativity are brought to bear, and with her aptitude for project management, things happen. As a result, the system powering her home allows her to live with the modern conveniences.

Dharam's Visit to the Maple Ridge Wind Farm

2006-12-15T07:50:00.000-05:00

Dharam made a late night visit to the Maple Ridge Wind Farm, and caught a beautiful moonlit view of the turbines in operation. Installed in the Tug Hill area of upstate NY, the 120 turbines provide enough electricity for 500 homes each. More than 70 more turbines are being planned.

http://www.lacs-ny.org/windturbinepilot.htm

http://www.mapleridgewind.com/Events.htm

Wrapping the tank with insulation

2006-11-25T09:23:00.000-05:00

Now that Dharam's fuel tank is ready to be reinstalled, we are wrapping it in two layers of Reflectix to keep the heat in the tank. New mounting brackets are being welded on the bus, and the tank, fuel filter and the lines will be hooked up today.

Tomorrow we are pouring the concrete pads for the wind tower, and remounting the PV panels on the south side of our newly repainted home. Dharam did a great job spraying and rolling the new paint.

Larry and his Off-Grid Ham Radio Rig

2006-11-29T07:50:00.000-05:00

Our compadre, Larry Barr, of ESSN fame, is improving his solar power portable ham radio rig. He talks a bit about it and renewable energy in general on his new blog at http://rebelwolf.blogspot.com/. He's the Asst. Planetarium Director for Tarleton State University in Stephenville TX, and a fount of knowledge when it comes to electronics, mechanics, and related interests.

Heat exchanger installed in Fuel tank

2006-11-21T08:16:00.000-05:00

The heat exchanger has been installed in the fuel tank, the T's installed in the coolant lines, the tank has been painted and it's time to reinstall the tank.

Veggie-Bus Conversion continued

2006-11-19T09:26:00.000-05:00

Once we removed the tank and emptied it of diesel, it was time to clean it. We scraped the outside of the tank, and brushed on a strong basic soap. After letting that sit we power washed the tank. For the inside, we put two gallons of muriatic acid, sealed up the tank, and rolled it over, and over, and end over ended it for a while to coat the interior. We then drained the tank, rinsed it, and put a gallon of Ospho in it and did the rolling and over ending again. Ospho converts rust to black primer, and we hope it will help protect the tank. The next step is to install the heat exchanger. I removed and tested the fuel sender, and it's right on the money. Pics can be found in our photo album.

Skoolie Fuel Tank Removed

2006-11-18T07:13:00.000-05:00

In preparation for the installation of the heat exchanger, we removed the bus fuel tank. This was quite a chore, since it's been sitting in the elements for quite a few years, and the bolts and accessories were a bit rusted. Today we will clean up the tank, install the heat exchanger, and reinstall the tank. We will also install some of the electrics for his bus, including the shore power charger and transfer switch, the isolator, and the freshly rebuilt 150 amp alternator that Scott's Auto Electric rebuilt yesterday. It needed brushes and diodes, and Jim Scott cleaned it up nicely.

The engine is a CAT 3208, and when we are finished, will have 2 fuel tanks feeding two filters (the veggie tank and filter heated with coolant), then a manual 3 port valve. That valve will lead to an electric purge/lifter pump, then the bus injector pump. The return from the injector pump then leads to a sight glass, another 3 port manual valve, and then the fuel tanks. Total cost on the parts id projected to be less than $800.

Luray, Melvin, and Tim Martin are providing the parts and welding up the filter and the heat exchanger assembly. The fuel pickup line is mounted to the exchanger to ensure that the fuel picked up is hotter than the rest of the tank, preventing the need for the whole tank to be hot before switchover. We will provide photo's as we progress.

Dharam arrives with his skoolie!

2006-11-16T06:44:00.000-05:00

Last night our friend Dharam arrived with his school bus. We are helping him convert it to an RV, and will be converting the diesel to run on Used Fryer Oil (UFO). Dharam is a house washer by trade, so hopefully, weather permitting, Green-Trust will get a fresh coat of paint, and look a bit more presentable. Pictures of the bus and conversion will be posted as the project progresses. We hope to take Dharam down to Woodhenge to pick up a set of used deep cycle batteries as a house bank for his bus.

Dharam obtained his bus from a friend of ours, Greg Archambault, from FloridaChurchBus.com. Greg is bringing us a bus next month for our church.

Making Applesauce at Green-Trust

2006-11-04T16:39:00.000-05:00

Linda and I are busy today cutting up apples and cooking them down on the wood fired cook-stove. We are only doing a half bushel this time around, Ida Red's make great applesauce. It's 35F outside, and 78F inside, so cooking on the stove is a great comfort.

We are also making apple butter and apple crisp today.

Cider Apple Butter

8 lbs. apples
4 quarts sweet cider
3 lbs. sugar
1 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon

The apples are pared, cored, and sliced, then cooked slowly in the cider. When this is cooked enough, sugar is slowly added, along with the spices. Keep cooking and stirring the sauce until the mixture is no longer watery but thick. Good apple butter should be a dark color and be thick enough to cling to a knife.

We are cooking with wood, not gas.

2006-11-02T06:13:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we finally got the chimney installed on the new Todd wood fired cook stove. It was the first nice day weather wise in weeks, and probably the last. We picked up the insulated chimney section from Evans & White in the afternoon, and Luray Martin came over and we went to work. 2 hours later the chimney was done. Then we went to Church (both my wife and I have kids groups, I teach the 5th & 6th grade boys, she has the 4 & 5 year olds), and when we returned around 8pm, we started our first fire. It was a bit smoky at first as it burned off the oils and coatings used in manufacturing and shipping, but it heated right up. The oven came up to 350F with no problem, the water reservoir warmed up, and it brought the upstairs of the house up from 68 to 74 in no time. This weekend I'm making chili and stew. More photo's can be found in our photo album.

Permaculture Readings

2006-10-24T17:45:00.000-04:00

Our latest read is a book I borrowed from Jim Juczak at Woodhenge. It's called Permaculture - Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability. It's a comprehensive journey into the logic behind living sustainably, and opens up new thought processes for us, leading us in many new directions. It's written by the co-founder of the permaculture movement, David Holmgren.

Building the Wind Tower Components

2006-10-16T17:05:00.000-04:00

Jim & I were busy this weekend, cutting, grinding, drilling, and welding the steel pieces for the wind tower. We made the base assembly, and the guy wire couplers for the tower sections. The wind was plentiful this weekend, and jim's wind turbines were actively pumping amps into the Woodhenge battery pack. See the pics in our photo album.

Wind Tower Delay

2006-10-12T06:21:00.000-04:00

Due to weather and parts availability, we have to delay raising the tower. The sonotubes have not arrived, and we need a tamper to pack the ground around the tubes after the they have been filled with concrete and backfilled. Instead, we will be heading to Woodhenge this weekend to work on the tower assembly, and help out there with some of their projects. The Todd Cookstove is being delivered soon as well, so there will be a chimney installation project to handle.

Wind Tower Supports & More

2006-10-09T14:26:00.000-04:00

Bob Emmett from Camp Mandaville was here with his backhoe to dig the holes for the wind tower guy wire pads. We blew a hydraulic hose on one of the horizontal stabilizers, but were able to finish the job.

The concrete is sitting in bags ready to be mixed, and the rebar needs to be bent into long "u" shapes and inserted into the holes for concrete filling. Tower raising is still on track for this Saturday at 9 am.

This morning we found a Todd Woodfired Cookstove, and made a deal with the local dealer, Evans & White Ace Hardware. Seems it's been sitting in their warehouse for 5 years and they'd like it moved.

The folks at From the Heart Cabinetry are supplying us with wood scraps from their kitchen cabinet building business for kindling and fuel for the cookstove.

As usual, pictures and commentary of the construction and installation processes will be posted, and long term data on living with these systems will be provided on this website for free. Donations to help with the projects are appreciated, and allows us to keep this information free, and flowing to all.

Preparing the wind tower site

2006-09-30T17:33:00.000-04:00

This morning Jim Juczak (Woodhenge) and I mowed the wind tower site (blackberry bushes, saplings, hay and rocks), and staked out the locations for the pilings for the guy wires. We couldn't get the auger functioning, so we started digging the holes by hand. Numerous rocks later, it was decided to call for a backhoe, which we hope to have next week. We will insert rebar for the guy wire connections (6 guy wires per "corner"), and fill with cement. The pilings are 40' from the center at the four points of the compass, and 56' diagonally from each other. The 70' tower will be guyed every 10'.

About 11am we headed over to Luray Martin's for a "barn" raising. Spent the rest of the dail installing metal roofing on his new shop.

Axial Flux Wind Turbine Raising

2006-09-17T08:44:00.000-04:00

September 30th, the pads for the new wind tower are being poured. November 14th, the tower and turbine goes up and the power will be connected to the batteries. Jim Juczak from Woodhenge will be officiating over the technical aspects of the ceremony. Come and join the fun, and learn how to build and raise your own wind turbine from common home and workshop items. email for more info.

Off-Grid in Uganda

2006-08-29T15:18:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, Daniel Lugumya, the founder of a orphanage in Uganda that specializes in HIV/AIDS orphans, stopped by to chat about solar and wind solutions. Apparently, electric power is very sporadic and expensive in Kampala. We showed him our various solutions for generating power, explained how inverters and chargers work, and have decided to take on their mission as a joint project for Green-Trust and Woodhenge. Jim Juczak and I are planning a trip to Uganda in January to teach the kids how to build and maintain wind turbines, solar water heaters, and solar cookers. We gave him a inverter to take back to Uganda to run their PA system, dvd player and video projector for mobile video projection. If you would like to help with this project, please visit http://www.jcmuganda.org and donate funds for the wind turbine project. They will be grateful.

Trip to Woodhenge

2006-08-28T06:10:00.000-04:00

We had a good time at Woodhenge this weekend. Jim Juczak, Al McMahon and friends brought back Al's yurt which we unloaded. Site prep for reconstruction will start shortly. I delivered my old AIR 303 which Jim is reconstructing with new coils, and a Cowboy Hot Tubs wood fired hot tub heater. We harvested a bunch of veggies from Jim's organic garden, and discussed the future growth of both Green-Trust and Woodhenge. Phil prepared some awesome quiche and peach pie, as well as other wonderful organic meals. Jim is helping us plan our new well and cistern upgrades. I also worked on the new Woodhenge Website, so there is content now and Jim and Krista know how to update it. The new timberframe cabin will be setup soon, as well as new wind turbines, so check them out often.

Al McMahon - Autonomous Housing

2006-08-25T10:06:00.000-04:00

Hello,

It has been a while since we have had activity with this program and I am sorry.

This is a long term program.

Here are a few of the connections that I have been able to keep going during this quiet time

1) Green Drinks in Syracuse. A meeting of people who are builders, architects, students and designers that meet on the 3rd Thursday every month at Colemans to talk about common interests. These groups exist in many cities in New York. (further?)

2) Ithaca Green Hub. A group of green leaning individuals using the excellent resources in Ithaca to create a place where individuals and businesses can come and actually learn how to go green and have access and training to new materials and programs. A real starting point!

3) Some students are resubmitting the paperwork to SUNY Oswego for recognition of Autonomous Housing as a student group this semester and we are looking to engage on a deeper level then before. With students driving this it will gain momentum.

In addition Jim Juczak, Dick Degraff, the land trust and Steve Spence are wonderful resources of people and places where we can get hands on experiences and see real world applications of the ideas we are looking at!!

This is not a short term project and I do wish I had kept communications going more frequently. I appreciate your understanding and I will work at keeping more data flowing. I am looking at doing a blog but I want to keep the email communications up as well.

One of the things missing is a complete calendar of greenish events in Central NY and a way to plot the resources we have available. It is a project I want to work on over this winter.

We are moving the pieces of the Yurt from Fulton to Jim's Saturday. If anybody would like to help with this project pleeeeaaase let us know.

Thanks again, and please email me to let me know you are still getting these!

Best Regards.

Al McMahon
Autonomous Housing
315-652-7913

Work Weekend at Woodhenge

2006-08-24T10:43:00.000-04:00

About 8 people are showing up at various times from Thursday through Sunday to work on a variety of projects around here. Harvesting the garden, burying wires, building cabin, finishing outhouses, drinking 15 gallons of homemade beer, the last half gallon of hard cider, developing a permaculture plan for the property, you know, things like that.

We're also planning on picking up Al McMahon's yurt in Fulton, NY, picking blackberries, and listening to a folk guitar player.

For more info, email Jim Juczak .

Slab Wood Siding & LED's

2006-08-13T18:31:00.000-04:00

Saturday, Luray Martin and I sided the previously open sided woodshed with slabwood from his brother's sawmill, and lit it up with LED's wired to our home's battery bank. We wired sets of four 20ma 3.6 volt 120k mcd LED's in series, giving enough light for getting wood, starting the emergency generator, or otherwise navigating in the dark.

Based on the calculator at http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz, we used a single 1 ohm resistor in series with the 4 LED's. Our LED's see 14.4 volts while the battery bank is charging, have a diode forward voltage of 3.6 volts, and a diode forward current of 20ma.

The wizard says:

each 1 ohm resistor dissipates 0.4 mW
the wizard says the color code for 1 is brown black gold
the wizard thinks 1/4W resistors are fine for your application
together, all resistors dissipate 0.4 mW
together, the diodes dissipate 288 mW
total power dissipated by the array is 288.4 mW
the array draws current of 20 mA from the source.

More LED info.

Finetuning the Inverter Settings

2006-07-26T07:04:00.000-04:00

After we lowered the charge rate on the Prosine to 100 amps from 120, to keep from tripping the 20 amp breaker on the generator, we found that when the pump kicks in while charging at a high rate, the whole house blacks out for about 5 seconds. The pump is pulling about 95 amps at 12vdc, and the charger is supposed to cut back on charge rate automatically, but the starting current of the pump is putting it well over the 100 amps maximum I have set. What I need to do is get the 240vac generator circuit to the charger, and use a balancing transformer to convert to 120 vac at 30amps, or setup a cistern with my 12vdc pump, and use the jet pump on generator to fill the cistern when rainfall has not been sufficient.

Work at Woodhenge

2006-07-25T18:49:00.000-04:00

The weekend at Jim Juczak's Woodhenge went well. We helped a couple learn about solar energy by building solar powered LED lighting systems. These units were made up from two 5ah 6vdc lead acid batteries, a 1.5 watt pv panel, and 4 of our 120k mcd super white LED's. We also upgraded a 12vdc AIR 403 wind turbine to 24vdc, and made up custom battery cables. Topped it off with lots of good organic food, and in depth discussion about off-grid living experiences. We also helped Jim get his Woodhenge.Org set up, and he will be posting info there soon. Jim aquired some of our old gear, like a Cruzpro AH meter, and old AC Delco 2500 msw inverter, and will be picking up a Consul propane fridge and an AIR 303 from us soon.

Inverter News

2006-07-24T20:29:00.000-04:00

We kept blowing the circuit breaker on the generator when the well pump would kick in (90 amps at 12vdc) while charging the batteries (120 amps at 12vdc). Reset the dip switches for 100 amps of charging, and replaced the 14 gauge extension cord that runs from the generator to the inverter with a 12 gauge cable. Now the cable doesn't get warm either. Hey, some things you have to learn by doing.