... of waiting to fix that downpipe on the side of the house and it being in position for just a couple of weeks, I took it down today.
There were two reasons for that -
firstly - all of the rainwater from the house and the lean-to are just running off down the lane and turning the place into a quagmire
secondly - the water situation is starting to become a little tight- I reckon I have about 150 litres or so left.
And when it rains, the 6.5 sq.m of verandah roof doesn't catch all that much - 100 litres of water is about 15mm of rain. But add to that the footprint of the lean-to - 5m x 1.8m, or 9 sq.m, then the 100 litres of water becomes 6mm of rain. And then add that to the side of the house roof - with its footprint of 5.3m x 3.5m or just over 18.5 sq m then the 100 litres of water becomes just under 3mm of rain.
Sitting here the other day watching the rain filling up that water butt by the barn with all of the water off the barn roof has given me some ideas. So now with all of the guttering having been taken off and replaced to slope to the right rather than the left I can quickly recapture my water supply - always of course assuming that it's ever going to rain again.
This morning though I removed all of the wood from off the old vegetable patch at the side of the barn - all that we ripped off the one side of the roof. 3 of the beams are useless and will have to be cut up for firewood but of the others some of the wood can be salvaged and I might start shortly on the greenhouse, using the old beams as a frame. I also pulled out all of the weeds that were growing over the stone wall and now you can see that. This place is starting to tidy itself up a bit.
The automatic electric water heater is working too. It ran for almost three hours today and I put a thermometer in to see what the temperature was doing. 37°C the water reached in that time so not much danger of the sytem melting down, although if I make a sealed circuit with a smaller tank I shall either fit a thermal cut-out of have an expansion tank of some description. But it's still impressive all the same.
Ironically the water in the solar water heater reached a lovely 44°C this evening and so I had a nice steamy shower.
What with one thing and another things are starting to get quite luxurious around here!
If you had a bigger tank you could even have a bath!
ReplyDeleteI still think a thermal cutout is necessary as otherwise the water may reach boiling point. I also think a ballcock is necessary in order that you don't fry the heating coils by heating air. By the way the heater should always be at the bottom of a hot water tank.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that with this set-up (a 50-litre open bucket) there's any risk at all of the water reaching boiling point.
ReplyDeleteThe only way that water will be taken from the bucket is by me ladling it out so I don't reckon that a ballcock is necessary - in any case it isn't plumbed in to any circuit. One of the reasons that the element is fastened to a pontoon is so that it will always float on top of the water.
Of course you are right about the element needing to be at the bottom - there's a 10-degree difference in the heat at the top and bottom for a start. But I'm not intending to drill the side of this bucket to fit it like that - the bucket is too valuable.
After all, it's only a temporary trial unit at the moment. Things will improve in due course when I try something more permanent.