First I was a little bummed out. Dropped in to see my buddy and asked
him about the pump. When he tried to find it, all he could find was an
old hand diafram(?) pump. Then as we're sitting there having coffee,
he mentions an older guy up the road had just had a yard sale, in
which he had a couple of different pumps left on the last day, so he
may still have them. So I take a drive up to meet the guy and see what
he had left... and there it was, an old piston pump, with 1/6th hp
110v motor already hooked up... with a short pipe plus foot valve on
it... 25$

Water problem solved for now just like that...

Then, I stop off at another buddies place and he mentions his brother
is living on the back of their property with no grid connection, but
has power, so I take a drive around to his place. Three little solar
panels hooked to an old car battery power his lights, radio (car
radio/tape player) and water pump. The water pump is a jet pump, so I
was a little surprised. I asked what the motor was on it, and he got a
funny look on his face and said, uhm... I'm not really sure, I kept
rebuilding and rewinding it until it did what I wanted. When I had
first got there, he had been outside welding up a little trailer for
his four-wheeler using a home built gas generator/welder. Next time we
head out, I am bring along some of the plans for the windmills and
such that I have been collecting up. He has the skills, and shortly
will have the info he needs to get off gas totally, and along the way,
help me out...

I've spent a large part of my adult life dealing with rip blades and wood. While you can rip slivers, the waste that the blades hog out isn't what you want.

Something more like what you get from using crosscut chain for ripping will actually be pretty close. We've done a lot of chainsaw lumber-making here also. Uneconomic until you get to the unusual requests. 6"x12"x50' oak beam? No problem, assuming a decent tree. Those shavings compost nicely. Waste from rip blades, decidedly less so.

You certainly can stack blades, that's what gang-rippers are (old ones often available cheap). But with heavier bodied blades to prevent body deformation. Freud makes an excellent blade with 20-odd teeth, 10". You won't find anybody stocking it, generally only sold to gang-rippers. Don't remember the model number offhand, but I'll dig it out if anybody's interested. NOT HarborFreight priced, my last one cost $45.

Alternatively, if you can find somebody using a Lucas sawmill, they'd be delighted if you hauled off their rip chips. Or even more so, anybody still using a large diameter blade mill.

I've been backed up with unrelated projects, but intend to have a sitdown with my retired machinist buddy to see what he can come up with. Given the volume required, it would seem best to have something working the speed of a commercial chipper. So far, he's never failed to figure out how to build whatever I dream up. Not that he knows much about wood.

Those links to commercial heat producers tickled my fancy. Still thinking about that. Real interesting.

If/when we come up with something functional, I'll yell. We have a stockpile of commercial paper blades, 4' wide with a hardened edge, razor-sharp. I used a pair for a tractor bucket cutting edge. Pretty amazing to push up against a 2" sapling and shear it off.

Straw.

I throw the straw in the cages every so often and due to the wire floors and
the rabbits moving it about it just makes a fairly even layer on top of the
manure. Once the area beneath the cages if filled, I fork it out and toss
more straw down on the bottom. Usually by the time I clean out from
beneath the cages, the bottom layers of straw and manure have started to
compost. When I hit the spot were all the rabbits pee, it can be a little
smelly, but, once it is mixed in with the rest of the manure straw mix it's
not noticeable unless your right on top of it.

Good straw works wonders for absorbing the excess, and between the worms and
fungi, break down fairly quick. Once it is broken down, it gives the soil
good texture.

It should be some what fluffy, and not just a collection of course stems.
The course stems do not do much good except to put down over mud so as not
to track it every where.

Question:

 We have been trying to calculate the number of PV panels and batteries
 required to use on a stand alone system in a 5 sun hour per day area to
 provide 2000 KWH a month with a 4 day storage for cloudy days.

Answer:

First, How Many Batteries
2000 KWH/mo
Divide by 30 days 66.67 KWH/day
Times 4 days storage 266.67 KWH/daH
Multiply by 1000 for WH 266666.67 Watt Hours
Divide by 12 volts for AH 22222.22 Amp Hours
Divide by 200 Ah Batteries 111.11 200 AH Batteries

Now, going back to 66.67 KWH/day
Divide by 5 hours per day 13.33 KW to be generated for 5 hours
Multiply by 1000 13333.33 watts for 5 hours per day sun
Divide by 12 volts 1111.11 Amperes solar output
Divide by 3 amps 370.37 Harbor Freight 45 watt panel sets

Note, that this does not take any inefficiencies into account so in
practice you would need 10-20% more batteries and solar panels than
this shows. You also didn't say how often those 4 day cloudy periods
occur - in practice you need enough extra capacity to charge those
batteries on top of your daily usage, so the estimate for solar panels
could be low by another 20% or more.

Mostly this shows that the cheapest solar power you can make is the
power you DON'T consume and don't need to make. So, the first step is
always to figure out how little energy you can thrive on and then
design a system to exceed that.

Of course, once you are conserving to that level you may find the
resulting electric bill, and, for that matter, your carbon footprint,
might not justify further action. On the other hand, you may, like
many on this list, be far away from the grid or just want nothing to
do with connecting up.

You mentioned your battery charger 6hp generator kits you had been playing
with. What is the fuel burn on that per hour at full load?

I intentionally ran a tank through my 16hp ac genny over the last two
weeks to see how long it would go on 7 1/2 gallon tank. Been running it
aobut an hour a night just while doing the laundry and top the batt's off.

I'm up to 14.5 hours and thats with an hourmeter on the generator. Its
about ready to suck dry , but 1/2 gallon hour doesnt seem too shabby.
Granted the generator is real lightly loaded.

But I would like to have a smaller setup with direct high current dc out
to charge the batteries. But to be worth it, it would need to be lower
fuel burn than what I am getting with the tecumseh.

Its able to run the Trace at about 60 amps charge and run the rest of the
house while charging.

Probably one reason for growth is the same reason I'm heading south. In
Indiana, our property taxes last year increased anywhere from 25% to
100%. Mine went up 65% (which was an increase of $1,000 for me). I
believe there is another raise slated for next year again. For those of
us that don't have a whopping retirement fund, we look for other places
to relocate. I'm wanting to finish my degree at ETSU, so I'm looking
closer to Church Hill. I hope that I do not have the same experience as
you. It's worrisome, to say the least.

Hi Will and everybody,
 
There are also low-temperature composting proponents.  I'm one.  What I get is less nutrient loss, no seed loss, and zero pile maintenance.  No turning, no temperature measuring, no watering.  The final product is actually nutrient-superior to high-temperature composting.  And full of worms.
 
What's been working for years here is to let plants I want go to seed, uproot anything I don't want and head them to the compost pile.  When I spread compost, I'm seeding my beds (which already had plant-broadcast seed).  No tilling needed or advised, just spread compost.  Then harvest.
 
Compost tea works, but I don't bother.  No need that I can see.  Just like saving (or purchasing) small seed and planting, no need.  I've found that saving select large seeds will ensure specific crops I want.  Might not have had a substantial fall snow pea crop otherwise.
 
For winter, in our 4166 heating degree-days, I place recycled sliding door glass (singles) over the beds after removing all tall plants.  We get continuous harvest until spring.
 
That's the extent of my effort, providing a substantial part of our diet.  What I don't get are tidy mono-crop beds.  One learns quickly which veggies grow well with which.  Cull what you don't want, just like any weed.  You are absolutely correct, healthy plants don't have insect/disease problems.    Even potatoes are bug-free here without any help from me.  Compost is the magic.  No bug deterrent required. 
 
If you have specific compost needs, Other Homes and Garbage ISBN 0-87156-141-7 contains the information necessary to select your compost pile ingredients.
 
Low-temperature composting requires some manure added to speed things along, similar to MEN's Pain-style compost pile when they didn't have the proper-sized chips.  For veggie-growing, you really want to know what's in that manure you're composting. 
 
Some broad-leaf herbicides are still active long after the trip through the animal.  Here, horse manure is plentiful, free for the hauling.  Wormers fed to horses don't survive low-temperature composting.  I make efforts to learn about the hay fed to the horses.  Adding manure directly to your beds is risky, I don't.
 
If I can get the Department of Transportation to bring a load or few of wood chips here, they go into the compost.  If not, my compost is mostly green material plus manure, adding whatever leaves are convenient. 
 
As my house is self-heated/cooled (PAHS), without my input, we have no need of compost pile heat.  Which was a question I needed to answer about creating a Pain-style pile.  For me, the answer was helping solar in my lumber kiln.  Particularly summers, when trees shade the kiln.  Chippers are under consideration, but not multiple saw blades.  I've got a nearly limitless hardwood supply and large yellow machinery.

I have two of the 2200 XR APC units with external 48vdc battery banks.

they run video/audio studio and work very will with the grid and off grid.

that model has built in cooling fans, and seems to work great. I don't
use my solar for charging the batteries except when the grid is gone.

if you get the XR units, they come with anderson power plugs for
setting up a larger battery bank.

I also have a 1200 watt 24 vdc unit I hacked an Anderson on and it
runs on a stack of xternal AGM's

they work great for what I do with them, but if I was going to have
fulltime inverter to AC setups going, I would probably buy a Xantrax
ProSine or a Xantrax SW2024

The only thing that is not electric in this house is the oil heat.
I have Electric water heater, Electric clothes dryer, Electric range
and oven. (we don't really cook on these much at all. Mostly
microwave, toaster oven and George F. grill)

I just got done entering all my electric bills for this house over
the last 5.5 years into a spreadsheet. When I first moved into this
house it used 25kWh/day.
First goal was the theoretical amount I could get from a car
alternator if I could run it 24/7. I pegged that at 1HP or 746 watts
just for the sake of argument times 24 hrs for about 18kWh/day.
Next goal was the theoretical amount I could generate if I could
afford to panel the whole south side of my roof with solar panels.
This is about 4kW times 4 hrs of sunlight or about 16kWh/day. Last 3
bills have all been about 15kWh/day.
Next goal is half of what this house started with or 12.5kWh/day.
After that just as low as I can go.
The short term goal is to be able to survive using an alternator
hooked to a lawn mower engine or later a diesel engine, my 3 panels,
4 batteries and a big PSW inverter when the grid goes down. I would
not be able to run the clothes dryer which I could do without or the
electric water heater which would be harder to do without but I could
run everything else in the house even if I had to do it one thing at
a time to stay alive and warm. In the mean time I am able to use the
power I do get from my panels and system to replace grid power by
doing small tasks around the house like lighting or running 12 volt
fans for house cooling or once in a while running my whole computer
room or the dishwasher or clothes washer or something like that.
Long term goal is a roof full of panels and a small windturbine, more
and better batteries and no more need for the grid.
According to the DOE in 2001, national average household electricity
usage was about 29kWh/day so at least I'm beating that.

I used to sell this type of equipment.  You need what is refereed to as a screen or grate.  With the size opening of what you want your material to come out.  The smaller the opening the longer it will take to grind it down.  All of the machines that I worked with had either fixed hammers and bits, or swinging hammer mills.  There is a company in North Wilkesboro that manufactures some small ones for flour mills and can be used for wood on a small scale, I can get there name if any one wants it.  I hope this helps. 

I've run my share of wood through a regular chipper/shredder and my
experience was that unless you've got at least 10 or more HP running it,
you have to wait for chipper to speed up after each pass at a good-sized
limb. I have been expounding upon an idea I have had in my head for some
time regarding a way to build a very reasonably-priced wood
shipper/shredder that might feed more evenly. I would alternately stack
about 10 sharp carbide circular saw blades with washers in between. I
would tighten down the shaft with enough torque to keep blades from
spinning, install bearings at both ends, then install drive pully at one
end. I would then install whole assembly in a 1/4" steel tapered box
section (like existing chipper/shredders) and you got the makings of a
pretty decent shredder. I say shredder instead of chipper because so
many teeth are involved. If a person used a stack of carbide blades from
Harbor Freight on sale, the overall affect would be cheaper chipper
blades that might stay sharper much longer and feed much smoother. A
person might need to feed wood into it slowly so as not to over-feed
unit and jam it. It might be even better if it had a set of syncronized
feeder rollers. Thinking more about how it would feed, I came up with 3
zones. The first zone being where the saw is coming towards the wood in
a bite/push fashion, the second zone would be the center area with a
bite/neutral while the 3rd would be the bite/pull zone. If the wood was
guided mostly to zones 1 & 2, there would be no over-feed with jamming.
Just a design thought. In another post, Bobby Yates came up with a
modification that might prevent any pieces of wood getting stuck in
between blades by adding a beveled washer on both ends to make the stack
wobble just slightly, say 1/8". We are now passing the manufacture of a
pair of wobble washers to the group. How could it be accomplished the
best? I might draw up something if it is needed for better
understanding.

If you got the time and the space, let nature do the composting for
you. It happens automatically with any forest! Given enough time, a
solid hardwood log will fall apart in your hands! If you do not have
that kind of space and time, we look for ways to speed up the process. A
shredder is just one of the ways to speed the processes.
I had two reasons for thinking this simple shredder idea up. 1) I
needed a way to shred wood waste from limbs and other wood rubbish
without spending lots of monies 2) My goal is to use the uniformly
shredded material as part of the feed for making good compost. My goals
had never included harvest of the compost heat. The reason for that is,
to maximize the composting process I need to stir the batch as often as
necessary to control heat. Not enough heat and you never get good final
product. Too much heat and you get charcoal and burnt product(even
fire). If you get the heat right you get a rich compost that has gotten
hot enough to sterilize all the seeds (good and bad) and is full of good
micro-organisms. Some of this compost is applied to ground around
plants, some is brewed to make compost tea. All this process does is
provide an ideal environment for multiplication of good microbes. The
resulting solution is gently sprayed on leaves and ground for almost
disease-free, healthy plants without the use of chemicals!
You need a good accurate 3ft long probe to be able to test core
compost pile heat. Buy the digital one already made up for this process
and you will spend at least a couple hundred $.
Buy the Harbor Freight digital meat probe on sale for $5.99, take it
apart, wire up an extension for the probe end, use longer 1/4" pipe, and
you make the same thing for under $10. My goal here again is to save
monies.

I hauled water the first 2 years I homesteaded and it wasn't that
bad. There are companies that will bring you water but can be
expensive. A sand point well can be drilled if water table is less
than 50 feet or a power drill can be rented for deeper wells. look
for streams or artesion seeps on your property and ask your
neighbors how deep their wells are. Rain water harvesting should
also be considered and is the cheapest and best water available.

A first flush water diverter allows the
first few gallons of rainwater to flush the roof of dirt and not be
caught in your water containment system. Its hard to desribe with
words but it is a length of 3 inch pvc with a drain hole in bottom
that attaches to the gutter down spout that fills up with first flow
of rain and then diverts rest into your containers.

Also reccomend a 1 micron filter with carbon element to protect from
ghiardia which is present in bird poop!

I do not use my rainwater for drinking unless its an emergency and I
always filter and boil it if I do.

Hi all - John in the N.W. UK here, ... waves "hello" ...
New on here but not new to forums !!

Experienced with Electronics, Electricity in general and many types of
engines large and small ( I race model aeroplanes !! )

I have always wanted to produce my own power and recent huge increases
in energy costs have prompted my to look at this again.

I have been trying for ages to come up with a good answer to the
following.

I would like to find an engine that produces a minimum of 20BHP (and
maybe up to 60)

It needs to be very quiet and economical.

(I can't afford the money, space, etc etc of a Lister CS by the way :( )

Fuel choices are recovered oils or possibly LPG / Propane ( I run an
LPG powered VW camper )

Right. I was trying to build an inexpensive shredder that reduced small
branches (6" or less) to sawdust size. I had collected several inexpensive
saw blades. I mounted them on an arbor on an old motor. It seemed to work,
but did get a chip tightly wedged between two of the blades. After just a
few test runs, the motor died. I did not feel the failure was caused by the
cutter, but was inherent in the used motor.

There is an old television antennae mounted on the roof of a house I
used to live in that suffered a damaging fire. (It's as tall as the
house and makes a great lightening rod). The house will change hands
sometime within the next year.
My question is...Is there any thing I can use that big old honking tv
antennae for?
I am having a small clearing cut/bulldozed in my maple forest for some
future use, maybe a camp or permanent home. I'll start out with a
small trailer and fence in a garden area. I'm close enough to tap into
township power and water, BUT it is too expensive for my budget, so I
will definitely camp/live "off-grid".