A little follow up

I thought I'd write a follow up to explain a few more of the things that I have planned for the greenhouse that I wrote about yesterday.

When I say it will be a solar greenhouse, I more correctly should have called it a passive solar greenhouse shouldn't I have? I mean really, aren't all greenhouses solar? The thing that makes it a passive solar greenhouse has a lot to do with a couple of the things that Eric and Rhonda both mentioned. Thermal Mass. If you look again at the drawing I did. The heavy square shapes on the left side of the picture are the thermal mass walls that I hope will serve as both insulators and solar collectors. In the final iteration of this plan, I want the north walls to be made of stuccoed straw bales. Straw is a great insulator, and the stucco should hold some heat. In addition, as Rhonda mentioned, the floor is already solid. I paved it with recycled urbanite (old concrete) when we first built it. I also plan to build a low wall along the south end of it from more stacked concrete to capture more heat as well.

The idea of the roof design, is so that the over hang of the top piece will effectively shade much of the inside of the greenhouse during the Summer months, while allowing and reflecting light back into the house in the winter months. That sun should warm the concrete flooring and radiate that heat back out overnight. Eric, I am aware actually of the paraffin powered pistons. They're on my list for sure.

As for the pergola structure that is already in place, most of it will be re-fitted to become the greenhouse. I don't know about the existing trellising, but I definitely want to have some kind of support inside so that I can grow year round.

I can't tell you how exited I am for this project. It's been a long time coming. If this unseasonably warm weather of ours keeps up, I may have to start working early!!

Stay tuned.
P~

Vegas, Ghost Towns and Solar Panels.

Hi again everyone, Posting from Cardiff by the Sea California today; home for this leg of the vacation.
In my last post I mentioned that we had spent the night in Vegas. I had to share the picture that we took from our room with you. This is being taken from the Excalibur resort looking towards the Luxor. I thought it looked like something out of Star Wars or some sci-fi movie don’t you?


When we left Vegas and headed for California, we came across a town, named Yermo that advertised their Ghost town. We got off of the freeway to check it out but found that it was not the quick stop we thought it would be, but instead was an “attraction”. I had the strangest thought right then that while so many of us talk about our sustainability or lack thereof, and wonder what will become of our society if we keep on living like we do here Is a place that is, in essence, celebrating a failed city. We pay to visit and enjoy a way of life that was not able to last because it focused on only one thing. Funny?



At any rate, after getting off the freeway, I noticed this sign pointing the way to a solar plant. Now you have to know I wanted to see it. I mean come on, I’m in the middle of the California desert and take an exit where one direction points to a failed past and the other direction points to a promising future; if that’s not divine intervention what is?
We got directions and headed off to the plant to see what we could see.


The directions actually ended up being not very good, but was another happy blessing. We found our way to another icon of american history. Route 66. We laughed at how this was once the travel artery across the country. we have come so far, and yet all we really did was make a bigger road a mile away. At any rate, I think this is one of the greatest thing about driving across the country. We have so many little hidden things that we can find, and I love to share them with my kids. one day they just won't be there anymore.



So now that I made you wait until the end of the post. here are some pictures of the solar panels that we were finally able to get. There was a big no trespassing sign, so I couldn't go up to the main entry and ask about a tour but I figured I had to turn around, and my truck takes a little bit of space to do that so I had to drive down the road a bit to an open spot.

These are the photos that I was able to get from the edge of the array.

You can also see an arial view of the array from HERE.I was pretty impressed with what I saw, but was disappointed that I couldn't get in any further. I will be researching this facility and will probably post some more information soon.
P~