Sure are a lot of challenges when you set out to be a sustainable, alternative energy facility. We bought two used oil burning stoves – one for each house. There has never been a place to dump old oil on Eagle Creek – probably it got poured on the ground in the past. So we decided to provide ourselves and our neighbors with a way to use the old oil that was both useful (saves cutting firewood and keeps the houses warm) and environmentally friendly (stoves exceed EPA standards). We put the cabin furnace in and immediately found out that the fan on the stove used too much power for our solar energy system. Doug is researching a small hydro plant to give us extra power. Hopefully, we could even charge a small electric vehicle to run to the barns etc. That would be a blessing since we are a 3-hour round trip to the closest gas station!
The bigger house has even more problems. First the stove wouldn’t fit on the back porch. So we have to tear off the old porch – needed replacing anyway – and build a bigger porch for the used oil furnace and solar batteries. Then we will have the same fan issue – not enough power to run the blower and have lights at the same time. We can’t do hydro there – so it is either add more solar panels and a tracker or put in a wind generator. Sooner or later we will get it all done. Any volunteers to come build porches, dig tracker holes, etc.?
Wilma
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