Ken, I frequently see your posts, and have even addressed a few posts to you - which you provided great responses to. You definitely make this website more valuable! Kevin from West Chester, OH

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We've Been Googled!

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 12/12/2011

Well, looks like Google Earth has finally found Tanglewood!

Looks pretty danged neat if I do say so myself...


Steven in Colorado Springs

Photos

Pretty danged good shot, all things considered.

Of Inverters and Backup Generators

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 12/12/2011

Bummer of a week, but at least there's light at the end of the tunnel.

The Inverter: As I mentioned a few days ago one of my two Outback inverters (VFX3648 models, top of the line) burned up in a fury of voltage-consuming fever. This has left me with a single inverter that can only handle 3600W, which seems like a lot until you realize that a microwave is 1500W and the well pump is another 1500W, so if they should come on at the same time while you probably have a couple of lights or a TV or something like that on--well, you may find yourself in the dark, as the inverter cuts off power to prevent an overload (they are apparently something like 10 times faster than a regular circuit breaker). Kinda a pain to deal with when you have a big house.

Solar LeRoy came up to take a gander at it and after some consultation with the kind folks at Outback (who said, "Yeah, sometimes that happens") he took it off the wall and back into town. Rather than ship a 50-pound mostly steel box across the country, Outback is sending him a new set of electronics and cards for the inverter; he'll replace them, run it through a couple of tests and then hopefully bring it back in a day or so.

The Backup Generator: We got our Ecogen what seems a long, long time ago now, (back in the heady warm days of mid October) and have been trying to get it up and running ever since. All kinds of things have interfered with getting it up and running... we had trouble getting it set up on its pad, then we had trouble getting a proper regulator for it (the first one was too small), and then the timing didn't work for Solar LeRoy to come hook it up, then when he did hook it up he had to wrestle with wretchedly poor installation instructions (to adapt it from 120V to 240V), and after all that, we had a problem getting a silly manometer before we could hook the thing up. But eventually we DID get it all hooked up, fired it up--and it stopped after about a minute with a neat looking "Low Voltage" error on its status screen.

Ooookkkkkaaaaayyyy.... what the heck did that mean?

So out comes the local Generac guy, Generac Luke. He's a great guy and real easy to talk to, and tells us all kinds of stuff about this generator. Apparently Generac came out with them because they had so many customers using their "regular" generators as off-grid backup jobs, and since they're not really built for that, having lots of complaints and problems as a result. The first generation sold out so fast that they were flabbergasted and quickly came out with a second and it promptly sold out too. Our model is a third generation, incorporating some fixes and efficiency improvements but (apparently) not any better documentation--the whole device is so new that most of the Generac techs don't even have updated installation and repair manuals for it yet. 

So Generac Luke pokes around and runs some tests, then calls Generac, then does some more tests. He finally decides that the control board is bad... and, of course, they don't have any on hand (new generator, remember?). They've ordered a couple (so they can more quickly respond to other folks in the area should they need to) and the replacement should show up in a week or so. So there's that at least.

In the meantime though we are flying without a net... no backup for the system, and carefully watching our simultaneous power usage so we don't overload our single inverter.

The joys of living off grid! The good news is I know it'll get better soon, and since we're nearly at the darkest time of the year, the daylight (i.e., power producing) hours will soon be increasing...

Yay!


Steven in Colorado Springs

Inverter Down!

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 12/7/2011

Well now, this is a kick in the head...

For Pearl Harbor Day one of my inverters got bombed!

At least that's how it feels. We had just returned home from a day in town and had unpacked groceries and whatnot, starting to settle in for the evening. I fired up my laptop to check on the status of the solar system (a really neat piece of software called LogMeIn lets me watch the WinVerter readouts from my house) and saw that our power usage was a bit higher than I thought it would be, around 900W versus the 500W or so we "normally" use.

Okay, not a big deal--after all folks just got home and were turning things on, etc. It would settle down in a bit, surely...

Nope. In a few minutes it was 1,200W. Then it went to 1,700W a couple of minutes later. Then 2,200W. Then 3,400W!

Good grief! What the heck was going on? Were people nuking food in both microwaves and running the well pump simultaneously?!?

I ran around the house to check... no well pump usage, nothing unusual going on anywhere. By the time I got back to the laptop the house energy draw was a whopping 4,500W!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I started turning off systems in the house, trying to figure out what the heck was going on...

...and then suddenly WinVerter's power usage report plummeted back to 600W and one of the inverters was reporting "ERROR" in big, friendly red letters.

Uh oh. Pulling on my shoes and coat (it's about 10^o F out there right now) I  head up to the shed, where I opened the door to inhale the rich aroma of burning electronics....

Yep, long story short one of my inverters just died, taking about 2V of my stored battery power with it. I fortunately have two of the things (I remember when the various solar bidders I worked with last summer had tried to talk me out of that to save money... hah!) so as long as we watch our power usage so we don't have two "big draw" appliances on at once we should be okay. I doubt that there's any damage to the batteries as all of the cabling is designed to theoretically support both inverters running flat out (about 7,200W in total). Solar LeRoy is coming up to take a gander at it tomorrow but I suspect he'll basically say "yep, it's dead". Then we'll order a new one since this is under warranty.

High hassle factor, but at least I have redundancy!


Steven in Colorado Springs

Instant Driveway! (Some Assembly Required)

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 11/29/2011

Admittedly cutting it a bit close to the heavy snow, but today I got 30 tons of driveway gravel delivered for my latest "shovel ready" chore.

Glad the Gator has a snowplow blade on it... this isn't exactly what it's meant for, but it'll work a dang sight better than having to do everything by hand!  ;)

The chores never end with a new house, do they?


Steven in Colorado Springs

Photos

Long shot of the gravel piles looking up the driveway. At least he was able to dump the heavy stuff along the driveway apron... that will make things a LOT easier.	Yet another view. The larger/lighter stuff is 3/4" granite; the smaller stuff is 1/4" breeze with fines. It'll help hold the larger stones together.	Yet another view of the unsuspecting driveway and the soon-to-be-spread gravel.
At this point I think I just couldn't stop taking pictures...	Lots of gravel...	Closeup of lots of gravel...

The LED Experiment

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 11/26/2011

While we're waiting for the last little bit of a gauge hookup to arrive so we can use our new Ecogen generator, I decided it was time to tackle some of the excess power usage in the Tanglewood in the form of lights.

As most folks know (especially if you're off-grid) lighting takes up a significant portion of your power requirements, with estimates up to around 20% or so of the energy "budget". When you're off-grid that's significant, and so the most common thing for folks to do is restrict their lighting use, have a lot of windows, use task lighting, and of course put CFLs pretty much everywhere.

Which is more or less what I did with most of Tanglewood's lighting, but there were some holdouts that were mostly due to our being rushed in final few weeks of construction. The main lights downstairs are a really cool iron rose look sporting 6 halogens per fixture (total of 24--at 35W per), and there are three more just like it upstairs in the library. All of the guest bathrooms have these gorgeous track lighting fixtures that serve as accent lights, and each of them also uses 6 halogen bulbs. The apartment has a fixture that somebody put pure incandescents into during the last few days of construction (75W per), and then just for good measure the master bathroom has two fittings which have these tiny little incandescent bulbs that plug in with pins... and are 35W each. Don't forget the master bedroom with a lovely ceiling fan/light fixture that has three more 40W incandescents.

Then there's the exterior lights, four of which are carriage styles sporting two 40W incandescents per fixture while the larger pair flanking the front door each carry four 40W bulbs. Don't forget the exterior onion lights around the computer room tower and the master bedroom wing--a total of 9 fixtures, each of which has a 40W clear bulb.

All told the "old fashioned" lighting in my house totals some 100-ish bulbs with an average wattage of 35W per bulb... way more than if they all held CFLs! The average 65W equivalent CFL runs between 13W and 15W per fixture, making them far more efficient generally if I were to simply replace now that we've got some time to breathe a bit.

Of course the kicker is that they don't make CFLs for all of these fixtures, especially the weird pin and halogen ones. Pondering what to do here, I decided to investigate LED lights.

Let's be very clear--LED lights are barely mature enough as of this writing for use in houses. They cost WAY too much and the brighter ones use nearly as much energy as their equivalent CFL bulb, making them simply not worth swapping out even as replacements. But they do come in a wider variety of styles, however, and some of those looked to be perfect for my use.

So my first purchase here was to replace the three bulbs in the master bedroom chandelier, reasoning that since this was right here it would be easy for us to judge how well they worked. I couldn't locate any 40W incandescent equivalents, but did find some really neat looking 35W jobs (made by a company named MaxLite). I ordered them about a week ago and they arrived today, so I figured I'd jot down my initial thoughts.

The bulbs arrived in a hugely oversized box, nicely packaged in three individual smaller boxes. Each bulb is rather fat, but about the same length as a typical candelabra bulb, with the LEDs inside stacked on top of each other looking somewhat like little crystal block pyramids. Two of them were very cleanly set on pins inside the bulb itself, while the third appeared to be a bit crooked (as if its pins didn't set properly all the way into the bulb base) and I wondered if it was going to prove defective.

Taking out the older bulbs I screwed these new puppies in and turned on the fixture. They lit up instantly (a big advantage over CFLs) and produce a sharp white light which I like in this environment but which might annoy others (I think MaxLite offers different shades). They seemed a bit brighter when they were first turned on, though possibly I've just gotten used to them, and while they are indeed slightly dimmer than the 40W incandescents that were in the fixture before, it's not a huge difference.

Pros: Instantly on full brightness, great power usage (1.7W/bulb vs. 40W before), and a neat design with the crystal pyramids. Definitely a talking point.

Cons: Still pricey (these were $10/bulb), not quite as bright as the incandescents they replaced, and one is a bit sloppily made (not what you'd expect for this price).

I think I like 'em though. My next batch will be replacements for the halogen bulbs in much of the rest of the house--we rarely use those particular fixtures right now (outside of the bathroom) simply because we know what a huge power drain they are. Replacing all of those with LEDs will put a big dent into the energy budget of the house!

Amazing how there are still a zillion things to do around Tanglewood even after what felt like non-stop summer chores!


Steven in Colorado Springs

Photos

The boxes holding the bulbs. Not really too exciting, huh?	A closeup of one of the bulbs. As you can see, it's rather fat as chandelier bulbs go.	A better shot showing the "crystal pyramid" construction of the LEDs.
My ceiling fan with bulbs blazing away.	Closeup of one of the bulbs in action. You can just barely make out the pyramid structure, though it's not at all obvious if you're not staring at it.

New Solar Power Record

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 11/2/2011

Wow... what a day of contrasts!

We had a big storm move in overnight, and I ended up working from home today just like last week. The roads honestly weren't that bad when I first got up, and from the radio I could tell that they only had rain and light fog in town. However, the forecasts for the afternoon and evening were bad enough that I wasn't all that sure I'd be able to get back to Tanglewood come nightfall. Since I had enough paperwork that I could fiddle with remotely and I don't have my new SUV yet, I decided to play it safe and stay home.

Turned out to be a good choice. We had everything today... it started out overcast and snowy, then it rained, then a bit later the sun came out as I was preparing lunch. Now that was a surprise, so I scrambled to get up the panels and sweep them off (hadn't done so because I didn't honestly think we'd have a chance to make any power) and it was shortly after that that we hit a new record on solar power generation--7,500 watts!

Now, my system's theoretical wattage generation is about 6,900W, so we were performing at about 8.6% above our planned output there for a bit. That's because of a known "benefit" of solar panel systems--they like cold weather, and the brilliant sunshine combined with their roughly 20-degree panel temperature led to some excellent power generation for around 45 minutes. I was so startled I nearly didn't get a screen capture of this nifty event.

Of course it didn't last long, and clouds moved back in. While I continued to make power throughout the afternoon, it was nothing like this "perfect hour", and eventually it began to snow very hard towards the end of the day, easily adding another inch or two on top of everything.  I don't think I'll have too much trouble getting out, though, so I'm not concerned there.

On the backup generator front, we still don't have the right hose to connect everything (why the heck doesn't Generac at least SELL such a critter?) so this latest storm has motivated me to really Get That Done. I'm tired of falling back on the gasoline construction generator--though I'm sure I'll have all new issues about the Ecogen once we get used to it (we hairless monkeys complain a lot).

But dang, it's fun living in the mountains!


Steven in Colorado Springs

Photos

This is my driveway... I think I'll stay home!

Wow... 7,500 watts! That's what I like to see...

Snowstorm (or Al Gore Never Mentioned Sweeping Off Your Solar Panels)

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 10/26/2011

Okay, now this time we had an actual snowstorm!

We got between 6 and 7 inches of snowfall depending on where I measured, and we generated nothing at all from the solar panels today, as the snow kept coming down steadily throughout the daylight hours. We had to sweep the snow off the panels three times, and since the nifty neato backup generator isn't hooked up yet, I resorted to connecting up the little construction generator I've run in the past to tide us over through the evening.

Tanglewood came through it all with flying colors, too... power was good, house was warm and snug. I'm quite impressed.

I actually stayed home at Tanglewood and worked from here today. I wasn't really worried about getting down the canyon, but I had some concerns about making it back up in my little Fit.

Tomorrow is supposed to be brilliantly sunlit, so things should be back to normal quickly.

An excellent storm!


Steven in Colorado Springs

Photos

Looking towards the backyard... we got about 7" of snow over here.	The meerkats got a nice set of snow hats out of this storm.	The dogs didn't like this much at all, as it happened...

The Generator Has Arrived

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 10/12/2011

Just a quick note that our EcoGen off-grid generator has finally arrived!

It looks really nice; I suspect it's going to work out great. For now, it's living in the garage until we can put together enough manpower to move it up to the pad I've been building up at solar shed.

Huzzah!


Steven in Colorado Springs

Snowstorm!

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 10/8/2011

Turned out that the weather forecasters were just a bit off in their estimates, and we turned out to get a little bit of snow overnight.

It really wasn't too deep anywhere (maybe an inch), but it ranks as our first snowstorm, nonetheless. Kinda pretty, I thought.


Steven in Colorado Springs

Photos

Looking out the kitchen patio door.	Standing at the same spot, looking down the rooftop deck crenelations.	Looking towards the propane tanks. You can see I'd already been in and out today.
A not terribly good shot of the apron outside my garages.	Looking up the road towards the solar... the trees kept a LOT of the snow off the ground.

Interlude: More Solar Thinking

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 10/5/2011

Having lived with the solar system for a while now and having experienced my share of accidental power outages, I've learned some stuff that I thought I might pass along:

• Make sure you buy enough batteries to match your load. I have 24 DEKA 8G8D Gel batteries on my system. They're rated at 225AH per battery, set up in six strings of four batteries (48V) each.
  
  By my calculations then, that means they theoretically are holding around 64,800W (225A * 12V * 24 batteries) of power. Cut that in half for no more than 50% discharge, and that's around 32,400Wh of power, or about 32.4kWh. Derate that by 85% to account for the conversion from chemical storage to electrical output, and I've got around 27.5kWh of useful storage.
  
  This number seems to be borne out by the performance I had recently with a couple of dark, rainy days. I got about two days on the batteries (we used about 15kW each day--this is a big house) with some conservation measures on that second day and a bit of generation even with the cloud cover. Unfortunately that meant pretty heavy battery discharge of around 50%, and you don't really want to run them down that much every day since that will shorten their life considerably. You really want more like a 20%-30% depth of discharge (DoD) to maximize things... and in my case my usage is working out a bit higher than that.
  
  So that means I've got two choices going forward--buy more batteries (good idea, but expensive) or pick up a backup generator (which is on the agenda anyway, and always a good idea in the event of disaster). So that particular finding gives me a couple of my chores for next year, at least...
  
  My batteries did match my projected load, but now that we've got an extra person living here (my brother) overall loads are higher than I'd planned for. To get the lifespan I want and the autonomy I'm looking for (days without sunlight) I'll have to make some upgrades.
  
  
• Battery technology stinks. Beside the aforementioned problem, batteries have a raft of other problems. They're heavy. If you have lead-acid ones, they need regularly checking of water and charge levels. If you have gel or AGM ones, you can't accidentally overcharge them or you ruin their lifetime. No matter how they work, you ruin their lifetime if you undercharge them regularly. They all get less capable if they're cold, but lead acid ones have the added bonus of freezing and bursting if they get too cold. The greatest development in the last decade has been to put straps on the things. It's extremely frustrating.
  
  
• You definitely want to oversize your system. Trust me on this one. I've had a fair share of arguments on this particular point with various solar system designers, who point out that if you "live with the cycle of the sun" and "adjust your expectations" you can avoid putting a lot of "wasted" money into your solar system, buying fewer panels and batteries as a result. While I think their intentions are good, I simply don't agree--as an engineer I'm a firm believer in the machines accommodating me, not the other way around. Designing a system that just barely meets your needs if you are careful and timing your energy usage to coincide with periods of brilliant sunlight just means that you're one light switch away from disaster--and that's just not a situation I care for.
  
  So if you can, buy more panels. Buy more batteries. Buy a bigger inverter. Plan for the future.

Getting Ready for the Backup Generator

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 9/25/2011

Spent I spent the better part of  he day clearing the area where the backup generator is going to go and building a pad for it. With the recent power problems, we've finally decided to knuckle down and get this puppy ordered—that way we're covered for winter just in case there are more cloudy and nasty days than my system is rigged to handle.

I decided to build the pad just uphill from the solar shed, since I plan to rebuild that shed later (hopefully next summer) with the leftover BuildBlock I have stashed down the hill. It needs to be relatively close though, so that the system can start it up if the batteries are getting ready to fail (this is a capability Outback provides called Automatic Generator Start--good design) but I don't want it particularly near the road, since that might tempt folks (not that we have a lot of stray traffic up here in the mountains).  

As I said, it took me most of the day but by late afternoon I'd built a nice pad for the generator. Dealing with the slope bothered me a bit, but I used a variation of the method I hope to use eventually for the solar shed when I rebuild it. I leveled out a rectangle of the right size, then stacked up cinder blocks left over from Tanglewood's construction (I'd been wondering what the heck I was going to do with those things anyway). Once I got the first ring of block in and level it was all rather simple, being a bit like laying a retaining wall. I did pound in some rebar all around though to reinforce the entire structure since I'm going to put a honking big (and pricey) generator on it, but fortunately cinder blocks make that easy since they have hollow compartments.

After this was all done I filled the whole thing with pea gravel to make a nice, vibration-resistant base. That took about 1,500 pounds of stuff but fortunately I'd bought a good ton, so I even had some left over. I'm thinking that will end up going into the window wells since they need something to keep them from turning into muddy messes.

But that's down the road. For now I'm just happy we're ready for the generator!

Steven in Colorado Springs

Photos

Looking downhill across the pad to the solar shed. It ain't pretty, but it'll serve.	Looking at the narrow end of the genny base.	From above. If I've laid things out correctly, the new shed's door will come out right here at this pad.

Propane Tanks Refilled -- Ready for Winter (I Hope)

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 9/19/2011

The new propane tanks freshly installed a couple of weeks ago were filled today. Took pretty much the whole truck's worth of load, too (he had one other stop down the canyon and they didn't need anywhere near as much as I did thanks to the two empty 1,000-gallon tanks). I now have 2,000 gallons of propane (they only fill to about 80% to allow for expansion, so 2,500 gallons of capacity translates to 2,000 gallons of LP) to face the winter with.

Now to collect data for a couple of weeks and get a feel for what our usage is... which of course is highly dependent on the weather.


Steven in Colorado Springs

Out of Power, Round Two

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 9/9/2011

Well now, at least I know the general limits of the system now.

We've been the "lucky" recipients of two straight days of rain since my last entry, and it greatly stretched our batteries, to their limit. As a result, we lost power briefly this morning--it wasn't much, and it happened about a half hour before the day's sunlight hit the panels. We just didn't quite have enough reserves to make it happen. Fortunately today's a nice sunny day and we got ourselves recharged by about noon.

I've talked to folks about the need to moderate usage a bit better, and I reckon it's about time to get that backup generator ordered!

Ah, the joys of living off-grid...


Steven in Colorado Springs

Milestone: New Propane Tanks!

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 9/7/2011

I've known since I had the first 500-gallon propane tank installed last year that it wouldn't be anywhere near enough for us once we would actually be living at Tanglewood. I've had the tank topped off a couple of times so far this year, once just before we moved in, and once afterwards. I'd been planning to get my reserves upgraded since we moved--and today was the day!

I took the day off work to help them get installed and work any remaining leveling issues, and Colleen helped as well. We'd done fairly well a few days back when we worked on the drainage and the installer was partially happy about it, though I think he wished he was installing the new tanks on a concrete pad (as do I).

It took most of the day, and I managed to smash my finger between a brick and a rock (nice blood blister under my nail--ouch!) but by the end of the day I had 2,500 gallons of capacity ready and waiting to be filled. I'm not exactly sure when the plan is to get them filled, by the way... turns out AmeriGas is trying to get all of their mountain customers done before the end of September (apparently their previous policy of topping them off by the end of October got them into some trouble in some areas last year). Of course if the weather is still good later this year I'll probably ask them to come up and top them off again, but we'll have to see about that.

Of course being an engineer, I'll be taking careful measurements from here on out to monitor our usage and such. It'll be interesting in the extreme--I'm still learning about this house and what its power and heating requirements will be. Of course I have high hopes that the efficient boiler and radiant heat systems that I installed will be up to the task, but this winter will truly be their first real test.

But it's good to have the tanks in place... it's a good milestone to finally got checked off the list!


Steven in Colorado Springs

Photos

The tanks nestled in their cutout below the driveway.

Closeup of the tanks. You can see the 500 gallon in the background, and then the two 1,000-gallon tanks side by side to the right.

Neat Sunflower

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 9/3/2011

I just thought this sunflower (growing in an otherwise desolate backyard by the well) looked fantastic, so I thought I'd share.


Steven in Colorado Springs

Photos

Gorgeous.

Biggest Solar Day So Far

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 9/3/2011

Just a quick note about today's solar production... it was amazing!

We generated just over 37 kW today, a new record as near as I can tell. Not sure why we did so well--it was a brilliant sunny day to be sure, but I wouldn't have said it was any better than others we've had this summer.

Not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth though, especially after our recent outage issues. At a guess I reckon the new charge controller is working fine...


Steven in Colorado Springs

More Deck Roofing Work

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 9/2/2011

It's been a bit due to the weather, but the roofing guys were finally able to come up today to finish up their earlier re-coating work.

They arrived about midday, and after looking over the deck again decided the simplest thing for them to do would be to remove a strip of the upper surfacing layer completely. This particular section had the most "bubbles" from the earlier application, and as such was the most likely to have underlying problems. Some of the bubbles had water in them (which had leaked in from minor cuts) while others were just air pockets, but overall they were fairly unsightly.

So the guys pulled up a strip about 4' wide along the length of the deck as the sun was high, and gave it a bit to dry out any wet pockets that had been trapped, then put another five gallons or so of the rubber roofing goop on it. It'll take a good couple of days to finish drying and setting up properly, but it looks much better than it did, and the remaining bubbles are more cosmetic than anything else at this point.  Certainly there are no leaks at all through here, and once I get the deck proper built in this area you won't even notice it.

Good job guys! Unless something else goes wrong, this was probably their last trip up. I've still got a good four gallons of the rubber goop for anything patch work I might want to do too, so I'm happy.

Glad to get this one off the books and done!


Steven in Colorado Springs

Photos

Looks VERY nice!

Tweaking the Solar

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 8/27/2011

Solar LeRoy came up today to replace our apparently malfunctioning charge controller. While he was here we checked the health of the batteries and tweaked a couple of the system parameters (low-voltage cutoff, absorption points, etc.) to accommodate the change we made to the system when we installed the additional dozen batteries.

I've refined my list of annoyances at solar power somewhat since my initial blurbs on the issue a while back. Having lived with the system for the last several months I'm beginning to see (from the perspective of an engineer outside the industry) where many of the problems are:

• Batteries stink. There's just no two ways about it. As wonderful and clean as the solar system itself is, the batteries are the huge weak point in the system. They're big, heavy, and bulky. If you have lead-acid batteries, you have to check fluid levels and top them off periodically with distilled water, and if you DON'T have lead-acid batteries you have to be very careful not to overcharge them, lest you cause boiling within the batteries themselves. They're all incredibly sensitive to too much discharge as well, and given their chemical nature, one watt of power when they're fully charged isn't the same as one watt of power when they're half discharged--your overall system voltage can drop like a rock once you pass the halfway point if you're not careful.
  
  
• Current solar monitoring solutions are terribly designed.  I've mentioned this one before, but the design of the inverters seem to be oriented more towards using up some stockpile of 4" LCD screens in a warehouse somewhere than actually being particularly useful. Monitoring software isn't much better--the particular solution I'm using right now (Winverter) is a wonderful program that lacks virtually any  kind of online manual or explanations that are particularly useful. I mean, what's the difference between "AC Watts" and "DC Watts"? What are the "Bulk", "Absorption", and "Equalization" modes, and why are they significant? When do they trigger? WHY do they trigger?
  
  And the output logs--good grief! Unformatted text files with cryptic entries and an apparent inconsistency in data collection. Why in the world would they log "Float Hours" but not Bulk or Equalization? What's the difference between "Daily kWh DC" and "Daily kWh AC"?
  
  
• The interaction between components makes for too much "art" and not enough "design". This always bugs me no matter what the solution for any area of technology. Solar and solar system are things that we've had around for a good 50 years at this point, and yet if you ask a dozen different solar system designers what system you need, you'll get a dozen different answers (I know, I went through that last summer). The Q&A gets maddening:
  
  
  • How may batteries do I need? Well, that depends on your loading and your battery storage. 
    
    
  • Okay, so how many batteries do I need? Well, that depends on the size of your system and the type of battery you go for.
    
    
  • So what kind of battery should I get? Depends--do you mind refilling them? Can you keep them above freezing? Do you prefer to charge them quickly or do you want to avoid periodic maintenance chores?
    
    
  • Well, what's the simplest system I can go for? Not sure... are you planning to have a backup generator? Can you shave down your loads to use just a single inverter? If you cut out four panels, we can save you a charge controller--but of course if you decide to expand the system later, we'll have to rip all that stuff out and reinstall new equipment!
    
    
  Etc, etc. It really seems that a technology that's at least five decades old should have a bit more maturity than it does--look at the difference between a 1902 automobile and a 1952 model!

Drain Work and Getting Ready for the Propane Tanks

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 8/26/2011

It's been a busy couple of days for me, mostly involving lots of digging.

I've been wanting to properly bury the gutter drains the way they should have been during construction for months, but it's been a difficult process to get everything ready and to find time to actually do the work. Digging right now isn't particularly a problem, since the ground is relatively soft from the recent rains, but I want to make sure I run the various pipes away from Tanglewood as quickly as possible in a way that makes sense.

When the propane guy came up to top off the tank last month, he mentioned that he was "unhappy" with the way water flowing down the hill from the driveway was making the propane tank area muddy and potentially unstable. I've mentioned before that I dearly wish we'd poured a concrete slab there, but the hard fact is that we didn't, and it's just not likely to happen before winter at this stage of the game. He wanted me to do something about the excess water in this area too.

As it happened (yay!) I was able to address both problems at the same time. Looking at the layout I see three sources of water flow that are getting to the tank area. One is from the driveway itself, where it sluices down off the side on its way to a grove of scrub oak just downhill from the tanks. The second comes from the gutters on either end of the apartment garage, which aren't routed far enough away from the house, and so discharge into a minor torrent that runs along the base of the driveway "hill" and directly into the propane tank area (this is probably the major source of water hitting them right now). The third is water sleeting down the hill area in the backyard, which runs across the relatively flat but at present mostly dirt yard to run into the forested area down from the house and from there downhill to join the stream from the gutters. The forest itself is actually absorbing most of this flow, but some still gets through, particularly when we have heavy, soaking rains like we've had the last few days.

So today I was able to address the first two problems by extending out the trenches from both gutters and tying them all together into a larger pipe that runs along the base of the driveway. I used socked, ribbed and slotted 4" pipe for most of the run, covering it at the upper ends (where cars might drive) while filling the trench with rock below the main driveway run to better catch any water flowing down the hillside. The overall result is a large, buried pipe that diverts a huge chunk of water away from the propane tank area and into the scrub oak grove, where they will no doubt show their thanks for the extra water by growing even more robustly next year. I adjusted the curve of the pipes all the way down the hillside to help the water slow down a bit on its way to the discharge, where the undergrowth in the scrub oak grove should do a wonderful job of absorbing the water. At least that's how I hope it will all work...

Proper drainage is a huge problem for any house and when you've got a brand new one, my guess is that you're finding things that don't quite work the way you thought they would for at least a few months. I'll want to see a nice rainstorm again now at some point so I can see my new drains properly tested, but I think they'll do the job. I want to get some good English ivy or something similar growing along the hillside of the driveway to help further control any water that comes down, but it's so late in the summer now that I reckon that'll have to be a 2012 project. But it's a start...

It's simply amazing (and exhausting) how many things there are to do in a new house!


Steven in Colorado Springs

Photos

Standing near the junction of the gutter drains and the main line, looking down towards the propane tank area. I had to weave the line back and forth due to trees and rocks anyway, but it'll help slow down the water flow as well.	Looking "uphill" from that same spot towards the two gutter drains. You can see one clearly on the right where I've dug already; there's another on the left of the garage awaiting excavation.	A better shot of the trench, this time from the bottom end near where it emerges.
The buried and rock-filled trench just above the propane tanks. The rocks allow water to flow directly into the pipe from the driveway above rather than sluice across it to the tanks.

Lost Power Again?!?

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 8/24/2011

Well now, this was most unexpected. 

We woke up this morning to NO POWER! Investigating a bit, I found that one of the charge controllers (I have two Outback FlexMax FX-80s) was showing that it would only charge up to 36V rather than the 48V my system requires. Additionally the numbers I'm seeing on the WinVerter monitoring software look like we're only getting around 40% of the power we should be getting.

At a guess, the Outback has gone bad and so my system didn't charge properly over the last couple of days. The particular charge controller I'm having trouble with manages 18 of the 30 panels, which is just exactly 60% (18/30 = 60%) and so fits the numbers I'm seeing on what we've generated over the last couple of days. 

So I contacted Solar LeRoy and he's busy working on getting a replacement from Outback. This will teach me to regularly monitor the system! Time to work on getting something rigged up so I can access the monitoring software from the house proper.

Grrrrrr................


Steven in Colorado Springs

Milestone: The Connectivity Trifecta is Complete!

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 8/21/2011

At long last the trifecta of connectivity has been achieved at Tanglewood: internet, phone, and now satellite TV!

The DIRECTV guy came up to install today. After some consideration, we'd decided on a fairly large package--6 receivers, single DVR for the apartment and whole-house DVR capability (meaning anybody could access the one DVR from another receiver). Interestingly, the system only requires internet access for subscription and Pay-Per-View style services; there's a little device called a DECA (Direct TV Ethernet Coax Adapter) that forms a separate, internal network over the coax line between the receivers, the antenna, and the DVR... neat!

I course I stayed home for the day to help out the installer, and I'm glad I did. It would have been a big job for one guy (Tanglewood's a big house) and I wasn't too keen on having somebody crawling around in the attic hooking up coax lines, so I offered to help and he seemed grateful. He was slightly amazed that I'd already run all the coax and wired up the connectors for each room--apparently this doesn't usually happen and the only thing he'd been given on his installation instructions were some general "install service here" kind of thing.

Our biggest single challenge was the antenna itself, though not in the way I'd thought it might be. I'd assumed that the best place to put the receiver antenna would have been on top of the tower, but wasn't looking forward to drilling into my stucco for that. I also couldn't see how we were going to run the supply line down the roof and into the attic without snaking over a gutter, which I didn't like at all... as folks know, I've had more than enough gutter problems of late and I didn't fancy doing anything that might obstruct them. As it turned out, he didn't fancy the idea either and besides it ran counter to New DIRECTV Doctrine-it seems they no longer install antennas on roofs, preferring instead a pole-mount somewhere near the house. Apparently they've had too many problems both with installers falling off elevated areas and homeowners trying to clean off snow slipping at the most inopportune moments. 

So with this in mind he did a quick survey with a nifty satellite signal tester and figured out the perfect place to put it, on the hill behind the house just above the excavated area. This apparently has an excellent view of the satellite we'll be using, over the top of the tower (an area unlikely to have anything large installed that might block the view later). We ran the coax across the cleared area (which will eventually be covered with gravel as an erosion control prevention) and then up the rear wall through the attic eaves where the internet connection enters the house. I went up into the attic to pull through the cable while the installer climbed up a ladder and drilled a hole alongside the one I ran the internet through (we couldn't use the same conduit because it was already buried at the ground end, and besides I wasn't sure about having internet and cable so close to each other). It was danged hot (125^o F today) but of course well worth it!

And once all was said and done, all I can say is--HAVING TV AGAIN IS AWESOME!!!


Steven in Colorado Springs

Photos

The antenna all nicely mounted on the hill behind Tanglewood.	Closeup of the TV antenna. It's mounted on a nice big concrete base; apparently they carry bags of the stuff for just this kind of installation.	One of the DVR/receiver combos (for the moment just sitting on a box in the computer room).

Getting Ready for the Direct TV Installation

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 8/20/2011

Just a quick post tonight, as I'm basically exhausted.

Since I'd installed all the basic coax lines for the TV last year, I'd been waiting for a chance to hook everything up, and with the TV guy coming tomorrow I spent tonight terminating the cable connections. I don't honestly know if they would normally do this or not, but since it's such a big house and the attic is so frack'in hot, I figured I should at least try to do something.

This didn't seem anywhere near as difficult as building the Ethernet connections was! I honestly was worried that I wouldn't have the right tools, but it turned out that I had indeed bought the proper crimper back when I was buying the various Ethernet tools. The connectors are pretty straightforward and it appears from my online research that the "better" method is to use screw-on style connectors (as opposed to crimp-on style). That was positive since that's what I'd bought, so I spent a quality evening stripping coax line and screwing on connectors. Since it went so well I went ahead and actually hooked up the base plates as well. I'll ask the installer tomorrow if there's any real difference--I guess if there is, he'll be undoing everything I just did tonight... ;(

We'll see how well it all goes tomorrow when the installer comes out. I assume he'll want to put the antenna on the tower (at least that's where I think it should go) and then we'll run it down the roof and under the eaves to the main interface switch in the attic near the Ethernet switch. I just hope there aren't any problems with the heat in the attic... it's pretty danged warm up there!


Steven in Colorado Springs

No Power!

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 8/16/2011

Well now, this is a kick in the head!

I arrived home yesterday evening to find that we had no power! Not a watt. Things had gone dark at 4:30 PM. Really NOT what I'd have expected.

It took a bit of investigation to figure what had happened. Fortunately, we had enough power to fire up the monitoring computer in the shed, and between that and talking to folks I figured out what had happened.

The family did a lot of laundry today (three loads), which then had to be run through the dryer (two loads). They also took two long showers (~45 minutes each) and judging from the logs, both the laundry and the showers ended up running the well pump (a heavy load as any off-grid person knows) continually for nearly three hours. All of this would have been fine if we'd gotten good power throughout the day--but we didn't. Clouds rolled in and we had heavy rains all afternoon. The batteries were already depleted from the heavy well pump and washer/dryer usage (both devices need lots of energy to rotate big drums of wet clothes)--and they just didn't get past 4:30 PM.

So we spent a dark night by candlelight and oil lamp as I reduced the load to just the monitoring PC in the solar shed. The system charged up during a nice day of bright sunshine with no other loads on it, and when I got home this evening I turned everything on and was (finally) able to update the blog.

Heck of a lesson I hope folks learned. We have plenty of power, but when you have that many heavy loads together with very little generation... well, there ya go.

Glad it  happened during the summer. Hopefully that will make folks more cognizant of the weather...


Steven in Colorado Springs

Tanglewood: Things I Wish We HADN'T Done

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 8/12/2011

Naturally in a project of any size, there were some things we did that in retrospect weren't such a good idea, or maybe just weren't necessary. There aren't many of these with Tanglewood, since we were heavily involved on a day-to-day basis with the construction, but a few things did manage to slip by:

1. I wish we hadn't let the crews cut down as many trees as we did. This is more on me than anybody else, to be fair. Early on in the process I think that Builder Dale and Colleen were still figuring out exactly where the house was going to be and how they'd be able to access it for backfill work and the like, and as a result there were a lot of trees on their initial "hit list" that they wanted to cut down to make room for the heavy equipment. I countered that I was building in the middle of a forest for a reason, and I didn't want Tanglewood sitting in the middle of a big open space... it needed to be nestled among the trees. Colleen and I had some good arguments about some of the cut list candidates though I believe (she might disagree) that I eventually let them take down most of the ones they wanted. There were of course a few that in retrospect they didn't need to cut down after all (including a nice aspen clump at the edge of the backyard), and a large pine very close to the house deck that I insisted had to be kept, much to the consternation of the BuildBlock crew. There was also one near the entrance to the driveway that was the subject of a HUGE argument, and I absolutely insisted that it could not be taken down no matter how tricky it made turning around for some of the construction crews. I won the argument, and even better the crews steered well clear of the tree in question--they didn't even touch it.

2. I wish we hadn't used laminate flooring. At least in the bulk of the house, anyway. In the store I swear it looked like the perfect solution and it was certainly cheaper than going with engineered hardwoods, which was good for the construction budget. But once in place, I found I was less than thrilled with it. I think it looks sharp in the rooms where it's installed, but when I walk on it I can't help but think it just feels "cheap" or "hollow"--definitely not "solid" like I thought it would and what Tanglewood deserved. I can of course fix this over time, but it's an annoying finding if nothing else.

3. I wish we hadn't let the electricians buy the lightbulbs. Not only was this a particularly bad use of what I'm sure were billable hours, but they didn't really pay too much attention to what the heck they were buying. I ended up with a melange of every kind of lightbulb one might imagine, from the old-fashioned incandescent bulbs to various flavors and sizes of CFLs. Let's be quite clear that an off-grid house should NOT have incandescent bulbs anywhere--even my refrigerator was chosen in part because it has a nice bright internal LED light. Worse was when they mixed different types of CFL (cool white, bright white, sunlight) into the same fixture or series of fixtures, making chandeliers look funky and sconces look "unbalanced" around the room. They even messed up the outside security lights, putting in bulbs that were far too low wattage to be particularly effective. It took me a lot of work and trips to Home Depot to to swap things out on a room-by-room basis, and I ended up with a bunch of leftover bulbs that ended up being donated to charity.

Posted by Frank in Elkridge, MD on 9/8/2011 Frank's Forum Posts: 11 Journal Entries: 5 Interview Answers: 59 Average Forum Rating: 4.00 Frank's Selected Image 9/8/2011	Hi Steve, I've read most of your entries for the Tanglewood project. Thank you for your contributions. We will build our house using ICF to the roofline and at the moment we are meeting with the various ICF companies in the area. We have narrow our search to three manufacturers, Amvic, BuildBlock and Reward Walls.  What was your determining factor in choosing BuildBlock, and how much involved were you during the installation of the ICF?  Did you required itemized quotes? So far no ones wants to do it at this end. So far, our options are complete installation or labor only and none of them can tell how we could save money by using their particular company.  If you have the time, tell us how and why you picked BuildBlock and what was the ICF cost percentage for Tanglewood? Frank
Posted by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 9/9/2011 Steve's Forum Posts: 87 Journal Entries: 688 Interview Answers: 204 Average Forum Rating: 3.85 My Construction Website Steve's Selected Image 9/9/2011	Howdy Frank: I actually covered most of my reasoning for picking ICFs in general and BuildBlock in particular a few entries back. It was sometimes maddeningly frustrating, but it boiled down to a couple of key factors: Buildblock ICFs have a thicker foam (2.5") than most of the other brands do (1.5" to 2.0"). I felt this made it sturdier and less prone to flexing, which in turn I figured would help with preventing blowouts during pouring. The extra foam also meant extra insulating value and more room to work in for running electrical and plumbing conduit during construction (and even then it sometimes felt like another half inch would have made things SO much simpler!). Buildblock ICFs are clearly designed by an engineer. They are ruled every 1" very clearly at both top and bottom of the forms, and are fully reversible... it doesn't matter what direction you orient them in when you're stacking. The interconnects between the blocks I felt were better than most, as there's a wide variety in the industry--some forms use Lego-like connectors, some use straps, at least one big name (PolySteel) uses simple tongue-and-groove. Buildblock uses around a hundred interlocking teeth that I felt tied the forms together more firmly with less movement than some of the other systems. Note that there were LOTS of good systems out there; I just liked BuildBlock's better. One of the spreadsheets I worked out to help me decide things was one that estimated cost-per-point-of-R-value. Doing this fairly quickly broke out the various systems into three groupings that very loosely correlated with the thickness of the foam they used. (Note that systems the used recycled styrofoam tended to have lower ratings when measured this way, I presume because they have less control over what goes into the product. The difference was not much, but it was enough for me to ponder since my house is entirely off-grid.) BuildBlock came in at the top of lower-cost tier, indicating to me that it was a good value for the money. Only one other system beat BuildBlock on a strict R-value basis but it was around 20% more expensive (if I recall correctly--I don't have the spreadsheet in front of me). Overall I found ICF added about 10% to the cost. I went with a more expensive option for flooring (using INSUL-DECK) that further raised my cost another 10%, but with much stronger floors (and a quieter house) as a result. I love to talk about Tanglewood, so if you have more questions fire away! Steven in Colorado Springs
Posted by Frank in Elkridge, MD on 9/10/2011 Frank's Forum Posts: 11 Journal Entries: 5 Interview Answers: 59 Average Forum Rating: 4.00 Frank's Selected Image 9/10/2011	Steve, Thanks for the quick response. Nowadays, everyone is going with the 2.5" (all three we are looking at have 2.5" foam) foam and like you, I wish they would go to the 3" walls to accommodate digging into the foam for utilities. Did you have the option of choosing the installer? It seems that installers are all connected to one manufacturer, except one who I hear is the most expensive in the area because he has the most experienced and therefore most reliable crew. Did you get itemized quotes? We are using engineered trusses for our floor joists. Did you consider trusses for your floor joists?
Posted by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 9/10/2011 Steve's Forum Posts: 87 Journal Entries: 688 Interview Answers: 204 Average Forum Rating: 3.85 My Construction Website Steve's Selected Image 9/10/2011	Hey Frank! That's VERY good to hear that more companies are moving towards the thicker walls. Not only is it sturdier, but it makes it (somewhat) easier to run what conduit and such as necessary. For the installer we went with a local guy (a BuildBlock rep) that we'd met a couple of years back at the state fair, really liked, and who was amenable to our working in a big DIY component. We were probably underfoot way more than he liked, but by the same token the work we did was a big "sweat equity" part of the house value. As a result, my house valuation was double my actual construction loan--a very nice place to be! I misspoke in my earlier post... we didn't use INSUL-DECK for our floors but instead used Lite-Deck (I'd evaluated both of them, but Lite-Deck was a better price and came in some longer lengths, which was important for our construction). There are no conventional joists anywhere in Tanglewood, except for the computer room tower, where having another span of Lite-Deck was going to be problematic for various design reasons (not impossible, just more pricey than I liked). Our architect did the basic design and then the builder's engineer did some tweaking, but basically they're standard joists using those engineered wood I-beams. I think they may be thicker than normal, because I wanted added insulating properties, but that's about it. Steven in Colorado Springs

Tanglewood: Things I Wish We'd Done

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 8/12/2011

Sometimes while building Tanglewood we left things out, or we just didn't do them for time or budget reasons. Naturally it's easy to list regrets, but they should not be viewed as more negative than they are--most of these fall into the "nit noid" category that doesn't detract one bit from how much I like the house. They're simply a wish list of things we might have done differently if we'd had the time:

1. I wish we'd poured a concrete pad for the propane tanks. I'm dealing with this oversight right now as we move into winter, unfortunately. It wasn't a problem when there was a single tank out there to deal with, but now that I have two larger tanks (1,000 gallons each) coming in the lack of a level area is a clear problem. I can do some mitigation work by trenching out an underground drain to intercept water sleeting down the hill from the driveway directly into the tank area, but this won't be a complete solution. If I'd thought about it I should have squared off and poured a nice thick pad in this area during construction of the house, when it seemed like we had concrete trucks coming up on a regular basis. Now I've got to have tanks moved and could potentially be without propane for a few days while I work to level out the area and build a pad to accommodate the tanks.

2. I wish we'd extended the second floor. Tanglewood's already a big house and I'm in no way lacking for space here, but it would have been simplicity in itself to have simply extended the second floor to the end of the apartment wing rather than stopping it roughly over the end of the garage. I would have redone the central upstairs hallway to run all the way through to the end and parceled up the space to allow for two bedrooms on each side of the hallway rather than one, increasing total guest accommodations to four rooms each, slightly smaller than the current ones. While this would have meant more plumbing and more radiant heat work, that would have been a small incremental cost that certainly could have been the decision-maker in the end. Not a big deal, but seems like an opportunity missed.

3. I wish we'd insisted on burying the gutter drains. Builder Dale struck this out of the plan for budget reasons and while I understood and approved at the time I had no idea what a pain in the butt this was going to prove to be later. I've spent a big part of this summer digging trenches and burying pipe to mitigate the torrential runoff that sometimes comes from the gutter drains, which only extend out a couple of feet from the house. The overall drainage slope around the house is good (we saw that ourselves) but some areas look just terrible. Getting a proper lawn and landscaping in will of course help this a ton, but even then we'll want these drains properly buried to avoid cluttering up the yard with what's basically a utility line.

4. I wish we'd had more time to build the solar shed. While the shed is serving its function well, I don't entirely trust it, since much of it is sitting on stilts dug into a relatively steep (25-degree) slope. I wanted to level out the area properly and build something a bit more solid, and as a result I've got several levels up there to keep an eye on any shifting that might indicate a problem. The bottom line here is that we simply ran out of time on this, with the solar taking longer to order and deliver than we'd thought and then a mad scramble to get it all built and sealed up towards the end of construction. Colleen did an awesome job putting most of it together with leftover scrap lumber (of which there was an abundance), which was good since I'd ended up paying for the entire system out of my own pocket rather than the construction loan. In retrospect, I really wish we'd built it out of ICFs instead, which is why this is on my short list to rebuild the whole thing in a year or two with the leftover ICFs I have stashed down at the corner of the septic field.

5. I wish we'd made the main house utility room larger. This one's entirely on me really. While everything fits in the room just fine I ended up with less space than I thought I'd have (making it wider would have infringed on the main kitchen too much), my plans to eventually expand the radiant heat system to add some cooling capabilities might make things crowded. In retrospect, I would have shrunk the master laundry area (which is really larger than it needs to be) and shifted everything down that wall towards the master bedroom three or four feet, opening up more space in the utility room. This isn't a big issue, but it's likely to annoy me for at least a couple of years...

Steven in Colorado Springs

Tanglewood: Things I'm Glad We Did

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 8/12/2011

Building Tanglewood was a complicated and always evolving project. We compromised on things, we struck some things for cost or practicality reasons, we changed our minds as we built. As I've gotten settled in this summer, there are a a host of things I've very grateful we did. A few of the most significant ones:

1. I'm glad we oversized the solar array. This has proven to be a smart move despite admonitions from various online folks that I was "wasting money" and a general disgruntled "but it doesn't need to be that big" from Solar LeRoy. Let's be clear--they're all absolutely correct that one usually doesn't need a system quite this large, but I was thinking down the road and looking at power usage a few years hence. It's the natural tendency of people to use more electricity over time as they buy new things, and of course appliances age and get less efficient over time. The batteries are still a bit of a concern as I've noted before--I'm still not sure that having 24 of them is really quite enough storage given our loads and my projections as to what we'll do over the winter. Getting a backup generator will alleviate this (we're talking about what we'll get now) quite a bit, of course. Next year I plan to expand out the system to 42 panels (giving me approximately 9.6 kW of generating power) and possibly upping the storage to at least 36 batteries. Of course doing that means I'll have to build a new solar shed, as the current one simply won't hold all that hardware... but that's all part of evolving Tanglewood.
   

2. I'm glad I did all the coax and Ethernet wiring myself. This is already proving to be a real benefit to have full-speed hardwired Internet access throughout the house, and since I properly labeled everything as I went, I know what's what and where it all goes. It was a relatively simple task that the electricians wanted a ridiculous amount of money for, and doing it myself ensured it was both "done right" and helped me save some money. We did good here.

3. I'm glad I left room for the rooftop deck. Even though it's only a roof right now and I won't be installing the actual decking for a couple of years, this area is going to work out great. It's a large and spacious area with plenty of room for BBQ areas, benches and tables, trellises and planters that will be very inviting. Tying it into the computer room deck will be a special touch as well. I can't imagine what it would have cost to have the construction folks do the work, and given some of the other work I've stumbled across in the far corners of the house I frankly wouldn't have trusted it much. Plus there won't be any bears getting into the BBQ grill--a huge plus!

Tanglewood: Things Done, Things Not Done, Things Wished For

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 8/12/2011

Now that I've been living at Tanglewood for a couple of months, I've had a chance to ruminate on aspects of the house. This has naturally led over time for me to think about different things, mostly things that I'm glad we did, but to be fair there are a couple of things I wish we hadn't done as well.

For example, I'm amazingly happy with the house overall. I realized a day or two ago as I was muttering to myself about how it seemed like I would never get things put away and cleaned up that I'd been focusing nearly all my attention on just the first floor--there are two more floors of stuff and boxes and "how it works" that I haven't even touched yet! Virtually all of my unpacking, all of my sorting, all of my putting things away and cleaning things up and stashing stuff on shelves has been directed at the first floor of Tanglewood.  

The library? Stacks of boxes filled with books.

The computer room? Boxes of computer games, magazines, and unused hardware. Not even anything beyond a bare outline of an idea over what my computer desk will eventually look like.

The media room? Hah!

And don't even get me started on the landscaping...

But far from being bad, I'm finding all of this to be a challenge. It means there's a lot to do to make Tanglewood truly what it can be, and that's to the good. I suspect it'll be a lot of fun too.

As I work on all of this though, I thought I'd summarize some things I've made decisions about over the last couple of months. Being an engineer, I find it convenient to put these together in the form of lists similar to the What Went Right/What Went Wrong lists I put together a while back. I hope folks will find the "lessons learned" (in a fashion) to be helpful...


Steven in Colorado Springs

Another Big Cleanup Day

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 8/6/2011

Not a big entry today, as the "normal chores of life" kept me too busy from doing other things around the house, but I did manage to get the garage a bit more cleaned up and organized this afternoon. I need to get a bunch of the stuff that's currently sitting around on the floor out of the way so I can park cars in here before winter arrives, and to that end I was busy putting together more shelving and stashing things on them.

I didn't get all the way done of course, but at least I managed to get the recycles all bundled up. Time to make several runs into town; I'll see how well my Fit can take various loads as I commute to/from work.


Steven in Colorado Springs

Construction Trash in the Gutters?!?

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 8/5/2011

I guess I shouldn't really have been too surprised, but come ON... a bit of professionalism here, people!

Yesterday we had a near disaster when a heavy rainstorm unexpectedly partially filled one of the window wells on the apartment, dumping a good 8" or so of water into it before the rain stopped and it (fairly rapidly) drained out into the piping Colleen and I had installed during construction. Without being there at the time I couldn't figure out what was going on, but my assumption was that the gutter had come loose from the house and was letting water sleet down the roof and directly into the window well rather than catching it and carrying it away.

Turned out that was not the problem. I got up there with my handy-dandy long ladder this morning to find quite a sight--the gutter was chock-full of construction trash! Partially cut roofing tiles, about a box worth of nails, even a tamale wrapper--the construction people had apparently just let anything they happened to drop while they were up there roll down into the gutter! I found one spot along the roof (once I was up there I walked the entire house) where it looked like one of the workers had literally dropped a nearly full box of roofing nails and didn't bother to pick them up at all--the ones that hadn't found their way into the gutter were lying all over the shallower slope of the roof. Several of the drains from the higher gutters to the lower ones were blocked with chunks of roofing tile--including the one that let water flow away from the apartment window well. So it was obvious what had happened--the water came down faster than the tiny bit that could seep around the tile blockage, overflowed the gutter at that spot (which is close to the lowest after all), and it spilled over into the window well.

Grrrrr....

I've noted in the past the tendencies of various construction crews not to pick up their mess and/or leave it for the next guy, and this took up a a big chunk of Colleen's time during the build as she cleaned up trash that they should have at least tried to hit a waste receptacle with. But I swear I'd never even had an inkling of a thought that they'd leave crap up on my roof and in the gutters! Does it even occur to these people what kind of situation they're setting up down the road, or do they not even look past the next weekend?

I took a couple of pictures of the two five-gallon buckets' worth of junk I pulled down from those gutters. At least while I was up there I was able to check out the top of the tower (which I was curious about since we had some trouble with the deck covering)... it looked good. Must not have been very wet when they applied it!

Lesson Learned: If you use roofers, CHECK EVERY SINGLE THING THEY DO. Be ruthless about following behind them to clean up their mess, and instill in them an absolutely fear of not picking up trash. You may have to fire one to make the others pay attention, though that can be difficult if you're in a construction situation like Tanglewood's (far off the grid and up in the mountains). When the house is done, do a complete walk-thru to include the roof--don't just eyeball it from the ground and say "it looks good from here". Colleen couldn't do this because of all the ladder work and since it's a big house she just couldn't keep up with everything, and as a result we nearly had a bad situation here.

Honestly I cannot BELIEVE some people...


Steven in Colorado Springs

Photos

Not a great shot, but you can see a bunch of the tile and such that I pulled out of the gutters.

Most of this mess was in the back gutters. I think this might have been because their elevator was on the front of the house, so there at least they picked up some things "on the way" up and down. Still, WOW.

Near Window Well Disaster!

Posted to Tanglewood by Steve in Colorado Springs, CO on 8/4/2011

Wow... we had a close call today!

I was in town doing a bit of grocery shopping, when I got a frantic call from my brother. Seems that Tanglewood was in the middle of a HUGE rainstorm, bigger than anything that he or my mother had ever seen, and her large window well was filling up with water! He reported that it was several inches deep (I later measure it at around 10") and pouring in all across the length of the window well rather than coming in over the top of the berm, indicating that the gutter was either overflowing or just not catching everything. He couldn't see the gutter at all due to the storm, and of course I didn't want him to open a window!

Fortunately there was no seepage or damage to the interior at all. By the time I got home it was nearly dark and I couldn't really check anything very well, so I plan to hit it tomorrow once I get up (taking the day off of work) to try to figure out what the heck is going on. My assumption is that we have something wrong with the gutters... which would be DANGED ANNOYING on a new house, but at least it would be understandable. An unpleasant alternative would be that there might be some kind of issue with the steepness of the roof shedding the water too quickly--we honestly never considered that with the window-well design back when we built them.

I'll find out tomorrow. In the meantime there are some scary pics below!


Steven in Colorado Springs

Photos

Early in the downpour. You can see my mother's meerkat sculpture is already partially under water.	Close up of the sculpture. The little meerkat is nearly underwater!	Many Colorado thunderstorms are a weird mix of sunlight and rain. This was no different.