Here in this thread I'd like to share ideas, as well as brainstorm - About off-grid things which we all can build. Feel free to talk anything which you think will work. Which will give people like us satisfaction plus independence. This also includes urban off-grid too. So I'll start off with 2 things I want to make. A solar cooker/oven. And a solar food dehydrator. I believe that these are essential things related to food security. Because we know what happened with someone people during the recent global pandemic... I'd also like to talk about water supply. Because absolutely nothing is going to get achieved in the long run without water. As whatever food we may have in storage, will eventually run out, or someday spoil. So the only way to have something self sustainable, is only possible if we are independent when it comes to water supply. Energy is now easy, thanks you wind and solar power. So this too we can talk about.
I made a solar food dryer, but it was a bit too efficient, it cooked the tomatoes On my last house I installed an evacuated tube water heater. The tubes had a solid copper rod zigs in them that conducted the heat to a manifold that water was pumped through. Very efficient but the sensor was in the manifold which got hot during the day. When the sun went down it thought it was still shining so it kept pumping round. We had to switch it off till it cooled down otherwise it would radiate the heat from the hot water back into the air. One night when I was away, the previous Mrs Zigs switched it off but forgot to switch it on again the next morning. It was a hot sunny August day and about 3pm she heard groaning coming from the attic space. The temperature in the manifold was 175 Celcius
I'm really glad you talked about it @Zigs - This is exactly what this thread is all about. Sharing experiences, resulting in accumulation of knowledge. There by increasing in wisdom - So thank you Zign! Solar water heaters are indeed a very good thing when it comes to reducing the carbon footprint of our homes. But as you mentioned, it also can be dangerous if things ever went wrong... Obviously, we all need to buy one or build one which wouldn't have that design flaw. Of course, in my part of the world, last think I would want is heat. As we want to cool things down... However for those who aren't getting roasted alive all year, these videos below will be helpful for getting ideas.
I just found these videos on how to build our own solar food dehydrator. Because it's an essential piece of equipment when it comes to long term food storage. So if anyone needs ideas on how to build it, what options to consider - All the information is collected right here for anyone to see!
Here in this post I'm now going to cover Hydroponics and Aquaponics. Now let's see Aquaponics. And this here is how you do saltwater Aquaponics - Also sometimes called Maraponics. Strange isn't it? As I'm sure many wouldn't know about this. Yet this too is a thing now, (for areas which don't have a lot of freshwater). And this here is also something pretty essential. Which is reusing/recycling waste water, by using plants to clean water. And this below is something else which is absolutely essential - Bell Siphon.
Not being funny Shahbaz and I know it's good to put all the information together in one place but most folk will just scroll past a thread thats got loads of video links in it. Whole point of a forum is to discuss things. I put the odd relevant video in some of my posts but I know most of them don't get views, I can tell by looking at the view count on my youtube channel. I'm not having a go but you must have noticed you don't get many replies when you flood the posts Annyyway... I think I may have put a few pics up already of our solar set up but here's a short recap. We've got a modest 12 volt system on the shed, The panels feed 4 12 volt leisure batteries in an insulated box, these power the lights in the shed and the cactus house, the CB radio and charging sockets for phones, camera, portable lights and batteries etc. There's also an inverter to step up to 230volts A/C so we can charge the hedge cutter and chain saws." We have this so we don't have to rely on the grid which will fail, as it already did in Portugal, Spain and parts of France last summer. We don't do this to reduce our CO2 output which is a load of nonsense. We need CO2, it's the gas of life that all plant life needs. If it goes below 150 ppm the plants will die and us with it.
I know exactly what you mean @Zigs - But there are 2 reasons why I do this, (I already know that nobody will bother to be a part of this conversation, (majority shy away from things which make them exercise their minds)). 1st, in case anything ever happened to my storage. Worst case scenario being that if my country went to war with our most annoying neighboring country. And the conflict went nuclear (as I'm sure that it someday will) - I'll still survive, for sure, as I've taken steps, but will my data also survive a massive EMP from a nuclear detonation??? So that's why, I'm dumbing all the information over here in parts. So that I'll be able to find and rebuild my own archives later, bit by bit. Of course I'm not dumping everything here, (or Frank will ban me). This is just like a tiny glimpse into my memory palace, (which will function like a lighthouse for me). Enabling me to remember what else I need to collect from elsewhere, and on what lines... 2nd reason, we never know who else (while searching on Google) might accidentally stumble upon this thread. So at the very least, we'll get another member who'll be just as crazy a doomsday prepper as me. Or the information collected here will be of use to someone else out there. So in both ways I'll be very happy. And the 3rd bonus reason is, that anyone who wants to, can pick and choose whatever information they are interested in. And just discard the rest - That's the benefit of having all the information in one place. So don't need to watch every video and learn everything. Just only what they are interested in.
Another big problem, which I at least am now often facing. Is that YouTube is getting saturated with low content useless videos. So finding videos from which we actually learn something, is getting difficult. And this problem has now gotten worse since YouTube introduced YouTube Shorts (small length videos for vertical mobile phone screens). So passing past all this clutter is now very annoying. Therefore whenever I want to see a good video again, as it would be time for me to make something - Finding it again using the same keywords, now gives different results. While the clutter is increased further by YouTube Shorts and other worthless videos. As old videos get buried down in this mess of search results. So here I've already done the hard work of filtering out the low quality videos. Which frankly speaking people uploaded only to fuel the monetization of their channels - That no longer have much content in them. So that's one colossal wastage of time which I've cut through here. Therefore me now finding those same videos neatly categorized here, is very convenient. Because this problem with YouTube clutter, is only going to increase with time. Otherwise sometimes I update software, or the hardware. And my list of favorites gets lost or accidentally gets deleted. But here I can find my stuff again without much difficulty.
