Cabin has Solar Power...

Heading down to the cabin at noon on Friday and arrived about 2:30pm. There was no damage from the Snowmageddons that hit the area in the past few months except a fallen branch in the driveway that I could move by hand. The cabin was dry!

Set up the Harbor Freight 45 Watt Solar Kit and wired the panels in series behind the cabin. I used 25 ft of 14-3 Romex to run the output through the back wall. Situated the panels on a small outdoor table so I could rotate them with the sun to get maximum power. Currently using a 12 Volt AGM automotive battery for now, but plan on purchasing some good deep cycle batteries in the future. Hooked up the charger box and ran the leads to the battery. The battery was close to full charge, so it didn't take long to top it off with about 14.5 volts coming from the panels.

I played around with the 12 watt compact fluorescent lights that came with the kit and was surprised at how much light they gave off. A friend Hal (who lives on a sailboat) gave me a very cool light fixture with a bank of White LEDs and another bank of Red LEDs (for reading charts at night without ruining your night vision) and they worked great! He also gave me a smaller 12 LED bank with a switch that I will eventually mount inside the front door.

Fired up the Direct Vent heater and it worked fine.

Got up the next morning and made a run to the dump to get rid of the trash that was piling up and contemplated how I am going to finish the roofing by myself.

Went to Lowes in Farmville and got some R19 insulation for the roof. I wanted to get a higher R value, but the roof joists are 2x6s so anything with a higher R value would be squished into the space and not have the rated insulation factor.

Kept rotating the panels all day to face the sun and starting working on a cheap design using a Lazy Susan mechanism to make it easy to rotate them when I add another 45 watt kit for a total of 90 Watts. Played around with the Solar kit and actually had the battery up to full charge and was also able to charge my cellphone and a 18V Dewalt Tool battery. (OK.. I didn't really use the battery that much)

Contemplated how I was going to finish the front side galvanized roofing by myself and also attach the Roof vent without denting the metal. Think I have it worked out in my mind now...

Mowed the grass and tried cutting back some of the saplings that are springing up all over the place.

The future plan is to get two Kyocera 210 Watt panels as well as all the enclosures (to meet code) and create a 24V (4 x 6 Volt) battery bank with a MPPT charge controller. The panels, controller, batteries, pole mount, combiner box, etc sould be less than $3K and will give me enough power to pretty much what I need to do in a weekend. I will also add a A/C ->24V charger that I can run off a generator if I need more power. I am trying to do everything off 12v, but will probably get a 1200 Watt Pure Sine Wave Inverter to run other equipment. Once I set the larger system up, I will use the Harbor Freight system for pumping water for a shower or up from the creek using a 12V pump or just add them to the 420 watt system for a grand total of 510 Watts.

In the meantime, it is nice just to flip a switch and have light!

Bought a small Solar Panel kit...

Spent $200 dollars at Harbor freight for a 45 watt (3 panels, controller, and two 12V CF lights) Solar kit. While Googling for more information on the controller, I found a blog about "The Field Lab" You can get an idea of what John Wells has done out in the southwest Texas desert by checking out his website at http://thefieldlab.org . There's a live webcam on the site and also a link to his blog. Check them out! I read his entire blog (1 and a half years) over the last few days. It is incredible what he has done! I now have to make a solar oven and try some of his Beer bread recipes.

Hoping to get down to the cabin soon...

I finally have heat…

Been a while since I posted anything here, but I have been going down working on the cabin every couple of weeks. I drove down on Saturday morning a few weeks ago and it was raining most of the day.

The Direct-Vent heater arrived a few weeks ago and the project for the weekend was to get it installed…

The wall needed to be insulated and an interior wall installed in order to mount the heater. This was relatively simple, but took most on the day Saturday with only one trip to the Lowes located about 18 miles away. Purchase what I thought would be the correct fitting to the heater.

To make a long story short, the fitting wasn’t the correct one, so on Sunday I made two more trips to get ALL the required parts required. The heater is rated at 18K BTUs and quickly warmed the interior. I will now be able to go down on cold days and finish insulating the entire cabin.


The heater mounted to the wall…






The heater requires no electricity and runs off a propane tank. The first thing I had to do was select the wall area where it was going to go and cut out the access for the vent. I selected this type of heater because it is safe because all oxygen comes in through the vent, and all combustion gasses are vented directly outside. The heater is completely sealed off inside the cabin, so no worries about Carbon Monoxide or depleted Oxygen causing one to pass out in the middle of a cold night.



The Direct vent… not completely finished, have a little more chiseling to do...






Propane tank with regulator and fittings. I will replace the tank with a larger one in the future...




I threw down some grass seed about a month ago and I now have grass!

Been a while since I posted...

Went down to the property to see if the hail storm had damaged the roof. Only stopped by for a few minutes because I was attending the CrackerJack's fireworks shoot back on May 17th. No damage found!...

Drove down last weekend and dropped off our Junior handler, Demi, at a friends house near Richmond to attend Dog shows on Saturday and Sunday. Made it to the cabin by 6pm and everything was so overgrown I went immediately down to the Lowes in Farmville to get the cheapest (10% discount for Fathers day!) lawnmower I could find... Mowed the driveway and cut back all the encroaching small trees.

Brought down an old A/C unit that I had bought in Gillette, WY a few years ago. Powered up the generator and got the inside temperature down to 80 degrees F. (It was 94 outside!). Worked well enough to lower the humidity and make it bearable inside the cabin.

Too hot to finish the roof, but did get a lot of brush clearing done... Will post some pictures of "Nature taking over" in a few days.

Stopped by the Depot Diner and had a great time with my new friends. I really love the people in the area. They are very different from Northern Virginians...

Hailstones...

I heard through some Friends on Facebook that a big storm came through Dillwyn on Monday evening with hailstones the size of Golf Balls. Hope the roof didn’t get too damaged…

Almost finished with the roof...

Got up early Sunday morning and finished to back side roof. Looks pretty good except for the mud…


Finished the front roof with tarpaper and roof strapping. NO MORE TARPS!!!...

Roofing by yourself 201...

Drove down on Friday morning. Stopped by the dollar stores to get some required items to work on the roof. Last week I got some sample stain colors and put them on a pine board to check out the color. I think I am leaning toward the darkest brown stain. Sorted out the pieces required for finishing the roof.


Woke up at 6am, made pancakes and coffee. Started working by 7am.

I attached the panel to the rope using two vise grips.



This shows the method of getting the metal roofing on top of the cabin. The edges are extremely sharp and I didn't want to cut my head off while getting them up. I threw a rope over the cabin and slowly hoisted them up the ladder to the back side of the cabin.



Had to go to the front of the cabin, climb the ladder, hook up my safety harness, and slide the panel off the ladder and into position.



First panel screwed in place and it seems to line up fine.



Used some climbing equipment called ascenders to hold the panel in place while I climbed up onto the roof. This method worked well.



Attached a tow strap to one of the pier posts and them tied the strap to my climbing rope. Wore a climbing harness and hooked into the rope with another ascender. If I fell, this would keep me from falling to the ground and breaking my neck.



On a sad note... When I removed one of the tarps from around the ladder, a wren's nest fell out and two eggs rolled onto the ground. I carefully put the two eggs in the nest and moved it about twenty feet away while the mother wren watched me. She flew over to the nest, but wouldn't go in. About an hour later, I was aboiut to climb the ladder and I saw some egg halves laying in the leaves. Three other eggs had fallen out and the chicks had hatched. I gathered them up and put them in a bowl and got the out of the sun. tried giving them a drop or two of Gatorade (all I had) and they went to sleep. Came back about 20 minutes later and they were ready to eat again. This worked for about an hour, but they died...



Poor little guys... They are now buried on the farm.



This is where I ended up on Saturday evening.