Where you going to run to?

I have a gun safe and dehumidifier.

Lived in Diego for about 4 yrs. Dead or in prison? You must be a wild thing!

 

No. Italian.

 

That explains every thing!

 

ICF construction is picking up in southern Utah for that reason.

You have to build for the climate, and keep it simple. Compared to standard 2x6 stick frame construction, my hobby farm home cost around 18% more to build using ICF. That was 5 years ago. Now the price difference is about 10%, call it under $20,000

No fancy granite countertops, no slate, no "bling." Nobody needs that. Just good solid "lifetime" construction. Also, steel/composite shingles by Decra, with a 50 year warranty.

Keeping the design simple helps a lot too. Complex roof designs, cantilevered build-outs, fancy-schmancy home theater rooms, etc all do nothng to help energy efficiency, add to the cost, and provide minimal returns

 

How about a pedal powered pump? Direct drive would be far more efficient than generating electricity, but the feasibility depends on the location of the pump. With a decently sized indoor storage tank, a few minutes pedalling each day is all you'd need. You might lose a little of that winter insulation, though.

Given the surprising amount of sunshine hours where you are, I think passive solar in combination with earth sheltering would work nicely.

 

Went to an auction where the former owner had Auto generators, driven by crude wind blades, driving some of his lights and what not in a few of his out biuldings

 

Wind power on the Prairies should be mandatory. We all know there's enough to go around.

 

Have you ever tried to pump water from 20' much less 220'? Lots of energy required! We use a solar submersible,,works great.

Icarus

 

I like tile. I can lay tile myself. I did my entire bathroom myself. Took it down to the studs and then tiled the entire surround and the floor. Did the kitchen too.

 

I have a 1/2 HP 240 VAC submersible pump hanging about 75 ft down the well. It has a very steady supply of clean, nice tasting water. That is, no H2S, iron, or other stuff. It's hard water, so I use a water softener to protect the dishwasher, hot water tank, and other appliances

I suppose a jet pump could be modified to work as you describe

I already have an 80 US gal water storage tank. It has a bladder system, so no waterlogging. It helps keep pump cycles to a minimum. Nothing buggers up a submersible water pump faster than frequent cycles

Oh trust me, I'm working on the winter insulation. It's a never-ending battle

Oh it does. On sunny days I leave the heat off. My yearly gas bill at that place is under $500. I'm thinking of putting black tile in the living room to help soak up more heat in winter though

 

That is a cheap and easy to implement solution. Still need batteries, charge controllers, and an inverter, but it's doable

 

G

Amazing

If you're bored, I could always use a little extra help putting tile in my living room.

j

 

A little hand pump can be quite effective. We've cut thousands of gallons off the monthly city water bill using this one to water our vegetables, keep our pond full and water the flowers. We siphon water to the pond while filling watering cans.

Yea, pretty quaint. But pretty relaxing and very inexpensive. In an hour you can pump at least a couple hundred gallons... turn up the steam and you might be able to hit 500...but wear gloves.

Total cost to install...about $200...but you need to have water within 20' of the surface.

 

Even though we aren't running, a lot of good ideas.

 

Where you are I'd suggest you run hot water through the floor. You'll need professionals. Make sure when they're done it's absolutely flat and you can lay really large tiles. They have some nice porcelain tiles out there that look just like stone.

Or....if you're single you can wait until the U.S goes down the toilet and I need to immigrate fast.

Do you like dogs?

Will my tools work in Canada?

 

I'm thinking far more could be pumped, and from further down, using leg muscles and gearing instead of arm muscles.

 

+1

Too bad nobody listens to us

 

I regret not doing hydronic heat when I built the hobby farm home. In a cold climate, it's nice to have a warm floor, and it's more efficient than blowing air around with a furnace

Several years ago when one of the neighbors was building his new home, I helped out. He has slab-on-grade and ICF walls. In this climate, you absolutely MUST use a thermal break in the slab. Otherwise moisture will wick up out of the ground, the heat will thaw out the frost/frozen ground, and the slab will subside

A company called Beaver Plastics .... (Waiting for snickers from male PriusChat members to quiet down) .... really, that's the name, anyhoo they make a neat thermal break foam board called Insulworks. You run the PEX tubing in preformed channels, a very neat and quick install

http://www.beaverplastics.com/beavercurrent/insulworks.html

Since you're only heating the thinset above this material, not the entire slab and ground underneath, it's FAR more efficient. You still must take care to protect the edge of the slab from frost heaving, and they offer a variety of products to do so.

http://www.beaverplastics.com/beavercurrent/frostcushion.html

http://www.beaverplastics.com/beavercurrent/gtec.html

My neighbors home has 4 zones in the house, and a separate zone for the 3 car attached garage. He's using one of those condensing super efficient Weil-McClain gas boilers. Though I think I would have gone with a geothermal heat pump, he's very happy with the system

My interest in replacing the laminate in the living room with black tile is to absorb the winter sun during the day, to assist in heating at night. This sort of thermal storage is very successful, that neighbor used it in his living room.

During the day when the sun is bright, in winter, you can NOT walk on that tile with bare feet. Even his cat will carefully skirt the area soaking up the sun. Apparently, by the middle of the night, his cat them sleeps on the black tile, so it must work. Yearly gas bill of $280, not bad for a 2900 sq ft home in a climate that can see -40 in winter

Yes

I'm afraid I may not have to wait very long. I'm really hoping I'm wrong here. If OPEC should happen to go off Dollar pricing and move to Euro pricing, as they have hinted, overnight the US economy is flushed

If you can get out fast enough, I recommend trying to cross either at Warroad, MN into the Sprague, Manitoba Canadian Border crossing, or at Emerson ND. Something tells me there would be long lines at official crossing points, and many others just walking across farmer fields from ND into Manitoba

I don't mind dogs. The bigger question would be if my two cats would like having a dog around. A neigbor at my former condo brought over his Chihuahua once, and it got ugly. If we hadn't intervened, the cats would probably have ate the poor thing

You must buy a special voltage adapter otherwise if you plug your American saw in here in Canada, it will explode and your body will be filled with hot shrapanel

Just kidding!

120/240 v 60 cycle with common plug/receptacle designations. About the only difference is that most Canadian electrical inspectors prefer the rec to be oriented with the ground UP, not down like in the US.

It's thought to be safer. The way the 90th percentile right handed person grabs a plug to pull out the rec, the thumb rests atop the top of the plug. In the US, that places the thumb directly across live and neutral. With the orientation "upside down" the thumb is placed across ground. A lot of aftemarket replacement plugs have the ground up as a result, especially the 90 degree ones

CSA electrical code also requires three "split duplex" receptacles for the kitchen area. In the States, you wouldn't think of plugging a microwave into one half of the rec, and a frypan into the other half, as the breaker would instantly trip. I always plug the coffee maker into one half, and the electric kettle into the other half, with no fear

With split duplex, carefully examine a replacement receptacle next time you're at a big box. Notice how where you wire in the live, there is a tab between the top and bottom. A plier easily breaks off that tab, which electrically isolates the top and bottom of the receptacle.

You use 3 wire plus ground instead of two wire for the receptacle. The neutral is still a single wire, but the two now-isolated live portions get the red and the black wire. At the breaker box, a ganged 15 amp breaker is used. That way, if one part of the isolated receptacle overloads and trips, it automaticially trips the other side too

I think these differences reflect damn good engineering foresight. You must also use dedicated receptacles - with their own breaker - for things like a microwave, a fridge, a sump pump, a furnace, even an electric clock. Arc Fault mandatory for bedroom receptacle.

A Canadian electrical panel called Federal Pioneer even offers a box with 64 slots, for about $220. Although not necessary, you can isolate every room in the house, which is what the inspector prefers. No more flickering lights or dim lights from a load in one part of the house.

Seriously, there is a voltage difference with industrial equipment. Motor Control Centers in the US will typically provide 3 phase 460 volts to motors. Here in Canada, the MCC will provide 3 phase 575 volts. It's thought the higher voltage is more efficient

Since Canada is the only market for 575 v, 3 phase large electric motors, they tend to be priced 10-20% higher than the same HP electric motor in the States. But they are more efficient

 

You are absolutely correct but the costs for drilling the deep well, pipe and pump will be significantly more...like thousands of $. This particular well is a driven well. A driven well is...well driven.

Here my soil is a hardpan, clay clay loam, sand...blah blah blah...no rocks and a high water table.

So, if you enjoy the same circumstances, go to your local hardware store and buy a screened driving point, mine is 5' long, and several 4' foot lengths of pipe, drive couplers, a drive cap and some sort of pump. Take a post hole digger and dig as deep as you can. Attach a length of pipe to your well point. Put your drive cap on. Wail away with a sledge if you are a Neanderthal like me or get a post driver. Fill the pipe with water. When you can't keep the water in the pipe you have hit water. That means the pipe doesn't stay full of water...the water begins to flow into the ground water strata.

Want to drink this stuff? Then test. Ground water is very susceptible to contamination from animals, septic systems and probably lots of other things. I do drink mine occasionally but see above self description of this poster.

You are correct...heck I could hook up AC and a sprinlkler pump with a sprinkler system and automate the whole thing. Not what I want to do though.

Heck, if people can pay good money for exercising on exercise machines I can enjoy exercising for free pumping a bit of water.

My pump is a cheap pitcher pump made in China...cost me 19.99 at harbor freight...boo hiss...but hey it works.

There are certainly more efficient and productive (water pumping capacity) pumps but hey this was a trial to see if I could drive a well and pump water all Summer...so far it is working.

My next step is to drive another well for what I am calling a "Backyard Food Production Complex". For this I want to integrate a solar energy system with a DC water pump which will fill my fish tank with well water. Fish effluent feeds the plants and plants feed the earthworms. Earthworms feed the fish.

Bottom line is yes I could get a more efficient pump, yes I could have a deep well installed and certainly I could use commercial power...but hey that wouldn't be much fun.

 

Jim, I was thinking more of Jayman's situation than yours when I suggested the bicycle water pump. In a power outage, having something like that could make a real difference. For you in your situation, the hand pump sounds just right.