Homestead mailing list

["Donna Warren" <djwarren AT aeneas.net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: homestead-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:homestead-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Robert Walton
Sent: Friday, February 05, 2010 5:21 PM
To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [Homestead] Shaking the grid


Time to share stories about alternatives thought I may have written about
them before.

Water pressure:  
When I was a child, we visited friends who had a wooden water tank in the
attic, some piping which I cannot possibly describe (I was about 8 years old
at the time) and a pedal thing in the basement at or below ground water
level.  When we visited them, my brother and I would squabble about who got
first chance to ride the bike, no forward progress and a view of the stone
basement walls.  The tank was filled by kid power.

Water heating:
I got a water heating tank from a junk yard, removed its shell, painted the
tank black, put a loose wrap of plastic around it and put the whole thing on
a platform.  Water went through a garden hose to the tank, from the tank to
the hot side of a shower head in the basement.  Was nearly scalded the first
time I used the shower.  Phase 2 was to run a tee off the hose, one to the
water tank, the other to the cold side of shower.  Had to be careful, in
August the water in the hose was too hot.  So in the shower, the cold water
was hot and the hot water was hotter.

Cutting downed tree trunks into stove chunks:
Put heavy plastic on each side of the trunk (ground was usually damp) sat
one on each side with a two man crosscut saw between and rocked. Could beat
a chain saw, given the time it took to get one started.


Donna, tennessee