We have sort of hit a wall this year. Looking back on it, almost nothing happened that was supposed to. First off, we sort of ran out of funds and time. What with the $4.87 per gallon gas this summer, expenses from my children, the ever increasing cost of health care, and all the time I put into starting my solar business, it seemed that the house renovations where put on hold.
My list for 2008 was as follows:
- Build a shed in the back yard. Nope.
- Remove the old deck from the front of the house. 1/2 done.
- Build a new porch on the front of the house. Nope.
- Expand the garden and install raised beds. Done.
- Install a solar backup power system for critical household loads. No money
- Insulate the basement. Not yet, might still happen
- Build shelves and properly store all the stuff in the basement. Not yet, might still happen.
- Build two solar hot air collectors and attach them to the south wall. About 3/4 done, ran out of good weather.
I did manage to get one thing done, the garden. Actually, I am happy with that as we are still eating vegetables that we grew last summer. As for the rest, oh well, perhaps sometime in the future. With the involuntary four day without electricity experiment, I would bet #5 becomes a high priority. I do so love electricity and all of the things that it provides.
The one big thing that was not on the list but got done anyway was the basement water proofing/drainage system. This was expensive and kind of killed the budget for the rest of the summer.
A little hit at what I am working on now: Solar powered LED grow lights. Large versions to be used in commercial green houses.
As for next year, I am not making any predictions.
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Paul,Just stumbled across your blog this morning and it is excellent reading! I live in Pine Bush, NY (just a stone’s throw north from you) with my 3 year old daughter and HR director wife. I started a blog using wordpress too. I hope one day my daughter will have a story to go along with the pictures. I also love to do before and after pictures. I find wordpress to be easy to use and I am having fun trying to figure out how to place pictures properly! Anyway, thought I would drop you a line and introduce myself as one of your avid readers. Please check out my blog: http://www.oshea12566.wordpress.com Please comment often!
Brian
Brain, interesting blog, great story about the harmon pellet stove. I am at work right now, so I’ll have to spend some time tonight looking through everything.
Oh yeah the Harmon nightmare. Took so long to get a simple part. Other than that mishap, the stove is keeps the house warm, and oil bill down.
I was so fed up
paying the high electric bills, I decided to try out LED lights. I bought the LED lights to replace my old
bulbs – CFL and incandescent – and guess what – my electric bills did drop a
lot! I also found a great site to buy
the LEDs called Eaglelight.com that I would recommend enthusiastically. They
had good service (good phone and email support), great FAQs so I knew what I
needed, and competitive prices; also, their shipping was fast and the LEDs
were as good as advertised.
http://www.Eaglelight.com. Highly
recommended.