3-0

 7:12 am - Tuesday - October 29th - TWW - 38° F, humidity 60%, wind 9 mph out of the west by southwest.....partly cloudy today with a forecast high of 54° F.  On this date in 2012 TLE and I had the pleasure of meeting Jack McAuliffe, the father of modern day micro brewing, in Arkansas.....

 

.....the name of his brewing company was New Albion Brewing.

Monday was quite a cloudy day, which meant solar energy was in short supply.  Each morning I start up our Honda EU2000i generator to begin recharging our Bluetti solar charger bank.  The sun does not hit the Bluetti solar panels until around 9 am when there is sun.  I can usually get them back to 100% within 2 hours with the Honda, then I turn it off and let the sun keep them going all day long.  We've been connected to power thru the Bluetti solar bank for 6 consecutive days without an interruption.  We just live as if were were plugged into an electrical pedestal.  We have continuous 30 amp service, which allows us to use most of our appliances, except for the A/C.  We could use the electric heaters, but that would dissipate our power too quickly, so we use our 3 gas furnaces when we need them.  Otherwise, life is normal electrically speaking.

We got a little rain early Monday morning, but never more than a sprinkle, which got me to thinking....I need to get those Bluetti solar panels off the ground when the rain does come, so I gathered up three tables from around the property, including one of mine, and set one on each table.....

....so now they will not end up in the mud after it rains.  Speaking of rain, we'll probably get some rain here Saturday and Sunday, and possibly snow on Monday.  

The house on the property has a solar system with two (right now) 150 amp/hour lithium batteries, and a 12,000 watt inverter.....

....until a few days ago they would lose all power between 2 and 6 am every morning, so the batteries were obviously not getting fully charged.  The question was 'Why?'.  The only appliance drawing any power was the refrigerator, so I focused on that.  I plugged the fridge into one of my Bluetti solar chargers and found it was drawing 145 watts, and rarely ever shut off.  Since there was nothing in it I left it unplugged. What do you know?  By the end of the day the batteries were up to 30%, and by Monday afternoon they hit 82%.....

.....by Tuesday they'll hit 100%.  We are planning to add more solar panels to the existing bank of 12, or 14 on the roof already, as well as one, or two more 150 amp/hour batteries, so eventually they will get recharged within a day, not three days.  Needless to say, the old refrigerator has been removed from the house, and a new one will be here, hopefully, this weekend.

Speaking of solar I recently ordered a Dual Axis Solar tracking system from Eco-Worthy to supplement our own solar, as well as a wind generator.  I should have them by this weekend, so we're excited to set them up, and become less reliant on the Honda.  The Dual Axis system will have six 100 watt solar panels, which is twice as much solar as we have now....

.....once we can get those systems online electricity will become less of an issue.

Since we will be having overnight lows in the high 20's beginning Tuesday night/morning we needed to be sure the water tower plumbing is properly insulated.  I had two lengths of 'heat tape' left from our Grand Canyon adventure back in 2017, and there were two other longer lengths already in the pump house, plus I had some insulation left over from another project so, I employed all of those things to make sure nothing freezes for the next week....

.....to cap off the day I finally installed all six wheel covers for the trailer and Newell, and setup the steel piers under the trailer to stabilize it.  Since the suspension is leaf springs the trailer tends to bounce around when adults are walking around inside.  Once that was done it was after 3:30 pm, and I was ready for a hot shower, and some recliner time.

Charles and Phyllis left to head back to Phoenix around 1 pm, and will be back on Friday, so we are once again left to our own devices...lol.  By the way, Charles and Phyllis were quite busy both days they were here working on house projects, so I don't want to leave the impression that I'm doing all the work.  They have both outworked me during the time they were here. 

I watched part of game three of the World Series in which my Dodgers once again emerged victorious over the New York Yankees, 4-2.  They now lead the best of 7 series three games to none.....is it possible they might 'sweep' the Yankees?  Wouldn't that be glorious!

Thanks for stopping by!