Snowed off and on all day yesterday, sometimes heavily, sometimes with interludes of sun enough to make the batteries nice and happy. Overnight, apparently, came the deluge…
Three inches overnight is far from a record even for this winter, but it’s still a lot of snow at one time for around here.
So I figured I’d better get my ass in gear. Hadn’t even brewed the coffee yet and I was all Nanook’ed up, taking care of chickens and slipping around on my extension ladder cleaning off solar panels with a long-handled squeegee in the early-morning cold.
And no sooner had I done that than all the clouds dissipated and Neighbor D called wanting to go to town early. So I could have saved all the panel cleaning – my all-time least favorite job – with a little patience. But I thought it was supposed to be cloudy all day.
So one thing I have lots of at the moment is electrical power. 🙂 But now they’re saying “clear and cold as hell at night for the next few days.” And I’m so spoiled by how well the Lair is holding heat that a few single-digit nights in a row seem like a daunting proposition. So I’m thinking now maybe I want to crawl under the Lair while I can, run a gas hose inside and do something really decadent, like run my little propane heater overnight.
Probably won’t go quite to that extreme. I have religious objections to wasting heating fuel on the unconscious, unless necessary for unfrozen pipes or something like that. I’m spoiled, I’m not crazy.
One thing I have decided as a result of following your adventures: if I ever find myself needing to use solar panels as a power source they will most definitely be mounted at ground level. I don’t much care for ladders in any case, let alone when it’s a gazillion degrees below zero and accompanied by all that white stuff.
Ground level works fine, Kentucky, as long as you can arrange to avoid shadows. Most of the solar panel towers – for panels not mounted on roofs – are quite low to the ground, but in very open areas where trees and buildings don’t overshadow them. It’s only when you put them on those convenient roofs that squeegeeing them becomes a problem.
Ground mounted panels aren’t dangerous to clear, but they’re still a pain. Once you sweep the upper panels, the bottom ones are buried under the packed snow. The good news is that light snows will slide off nicely if any sun comes along assuming you change their position into the almost upright winter angle.
http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w50/coloradohermit/snow4-10-06.jpg?1452372902385&1452372930797
Hope the pic link works.
That woodshed seems to handle the snow load pretty well. Also, it looks like you won’t need to be chopping up pallets out in the snow this winter to keep the Lair warm.
I was very skeptical when I saw my first simple hoop shed, thinking the wind would shred it. Instead it holds up to wind very well, and of course will bear quite a lot of snow weight though you’d never want to try and stand on it. If you can find some surplus stock fencing you can build one for the price of a good tarp, as big as you want.
3 Inches of snow, meh, you just got a dusting. That being said you have more snow than I do right now and I’m in the Great White North. Panels and snow are an I issue that I’m happy I don’t had to deal with. Just taking care of the snow here with a snow blower is enough grief for me. :^)
” . . . as long as you can arrange to avoid shadows.”
Planning, my good fellow, planning.
🙂 🙂 🙂