I’ve been sitting inside watching rain fall and wind blow, wondering where Spring went but this is supposed to be well over by tomorrow. Or maybe the next day. It certainly isn’t as bad today as it has been – the mud’s even drying somewhat.
Anyway, I had five days’ worth of laundry to take care of this morning, before the forecast afternoon rain…
…and I didn’t have to worry about the pressure pump running the batteries dry in the gloom, because yesterday I got totally fed up with “you can’t have a shower even though the inside of Ian’s Cave is warming up nicely, because it’s too gloomy for the pressure pump. You’ll make the whole system shut down, probably right after you’ve soaped up” and I did something a little rash…
The Honda was sitting in my powershed, drained of gas and under its nice cover, just waiting for the next time I needed a power tool – and I decided that Ian’s water pressure pump is now classed as a power tool. I hauled the generator and a gallon of gasoline into the back of the Jeep, and Tobie and I went for a ride. I had my bloody shower yesterday, and I’m bloody going to do it again today, and nobody can bloody stop me.
Really, the electricity situation at Ian’s has become such a problem that I’ve decided to do something I really didn’t want to do. See the solar panels in that first picture? Well, they’re facing more-or-less due east – Ian put the rack there “temporarily” back in 2009 because we needed power to assembly the frame of his dome. And it worked there perfectly well until 2020 when the pressure system and shower went in, and it continued to work well enough until about a year and a half ago when his big batteries died. And nothing’s been right since, and I’m sick of it.
I can move the rack, it’s just sitting on the ground, with the Jeep if I have one other set of hands to ensure the whole thing doesn’t upset while I’m doing it, and Neighbor S has offered to help. I just need to extend the power leads about 25-30 feet. Amazon sells the extension for not a lot of money. Then I should be able to get some ABS or even flexible conduit to run it over his porch/gazebo thingie. At worst there might be a little digging. I really don’t want that panel rack in his front yard – originally it was supposed to go up on top of the dome but that’s never going to happen – but in its present location it only gets good sun in the morning and that’s just no longer good enough. So that’s my big project for early summer.
Meanwhile, I’ll be running his pressure pump with my Honda, and I’ll have all the hot water I want. No more sweating whether the power system will keep running till I’m done with my shower.
Does Ian’s system have an MPPT charge controller?
I think so.