Have you ever dreamed of cooking a meal on a wood-fired stove? Did you grow up reading Little House on the Prairie? Are you interested in cooking using locally-sourced, non-fossil fuels? Then sign up right away for the woodstove cooking workshop put on by Holin Kennen. The class runs June 19, from 9:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. … More Learn to Cook on a Woodstove — With Friend of LTI, Holin Kennen
A chainsaw and log splitter can make quick work of a cord of firewood. But they’re dependent on fossil fuels. How do saws and splitting axes stack up? We tested it out this spring as part of our Low Tech R & D series. You can find this and other tests at the project page. … More Firewood: Saw and Axe vs. Chainsaw and Splitter — Low Tech R & D
Today we’re announcing our new DIY project: a backyard coal plant. … More Backyard Coal Plant — New DIY Project
Bill gates was on Fox News Sunday this last weekend. He was there to promote his new book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. If this interview is anything like the book, Mr. Gates has a deep flaw in his solutions and ideas about the future. It’s not his fault. Most people are working under … More Bill Gates’s View of the Future Is Dangerously Flawed
Since October we’ve been installing solar panels, an inverter, and battery here at the institute. Last week we got permission from our energy utility to operate our system. It took longer than expected, but we’re up and running. You can read about our site evaluation, system design, components, system layout, and part of the installation … More The Institute Has Solar Power
Last year I built prototype solar panels and summarized the preliminary data gathered in some test runs (see this project’s archive here). I’ve been collecting performance data over the last year and am now ready to present the results. Data Collection The data for this analysis comes from three temperature loggers (Elitech RC-4, P.S., we … More Solar Hot Water Panels Year 1 Data, sort of — Lab Note 1.08
Avid readers will notice that we haven’t been posting much over the last month. That’s because every free moment has been given over to installing our solar panels (see the earlier posts here). Here I’ll recap the physical installation of the panels and other components. In the next post, we’ll go through how we ended … More The Institute is Getting Solar Panels — Part IV: Installation
We’ve been chronicling our addition of solar panels (see them all here). Today we’re going to go through the layout and electrical diagrams of the system. The Layout The panels will be mounted on the back of our garage. This is for a few reasons. First, our house’s roof slopes west–east while the garage is … More The Institute is Getting Solar Panels — Part III: System Layout
We are installing solar panels on the institute and we’re doing it ourselves (see our blog posts on this topic here). If you’ve considered doing it yourself but want to get a little hands-on experience and an idea of the scope of the job before going forward, this workshop is for you. The federal tax … More Upcoming Workshop — Installing Solar Panels, Oct. 5, 1–3 p.m., Free (Space is Limited)
We’ve been chronicling our addition of solar panels in Part I and another post evaluating our solar resources. In this entry, we’ll go through the different components of the system and how we chose them. We have received no compensation from any of the companies mentioned. The Panels Many types of panels are out there … More The Institute is Getting Solar Panels — Part II: Components