VERY long story short: We’re getting a 3.9 kw (DC) solar photovoltaic system installed on our house that should have a “payback” of 8 – 10 years.

Now, all the sordid details:

Why we need / want solar: I posted earlier about how we’ve been looking for ways to save electricity.  Unfortunately we’ve hit the point balance between conservation and significantly changing our lifestyle.   We realized that changing consumption would only get us so far… we needed to begin production!

My Solar Love Affair Begins: I’ve always been fascinated by solar power.  As a kid I loved electronics and did weekly bike rides to Radio Shack to spend all my money on motors, LEDs, etc.  I remember getting my first solar powered calculator and falling in love from that day forward.  I was so enthralled that for my high school “Senior Project” I chose to write about solar energy (thermal and photovoltaics).

Fast forward to 2010: A few entrepreneur friends and I went to a “green” networking event and the place was full of solar companies.  I thought I’d pass by and hear their sales pitch.  One of the more aggressive companies was able to get me to fill out a “free consultation” card… a few days later I had a voicemail for an appointment.  I was honestly dreading the meeting.  I always thought solar energy for the house would be cool, but wasn’t really considering adding residential solar power to our home because:

1. Our roof has about 5 years of life left.  No sense to get solar installed then have to have it removed / reinstalled when the roof needs to be replaced.
2. I heard that the “solar break even” or “solar payback” periods were 12 – 15 years.
3. We’re not sure we are going to stay in the house we’re in.
4. I kept thinking “The solar panels will just get more efficient and cheaper.”

Well, I figured I’d have the guy come by to do his solar song and dance.   During the appointment the most interesting things I leaned:

1. The goal of a solar install (at least in the California Bay Area)  isn’t to remove your need to be “tied to the grid” but to remove you from the top tiers of electricity prices.  For example, if you use 200% of your “baseline” you get charged $0.50 a killowatt hour!!  NOTE:  If you are tied to the grid (and you probably will be unless you want to spend $20k more on a battery system) it is required that the grid be powered for your inverter to function.   That means if the grid goes down at noon then your inverter turns off and your panels, even with full sun, will not produce a single watt of power.  A bummer for sure because if the power company is down for 3 days, you will be too, even with a 4k watt power plant on your roof.
2. Based on the above, if you use a lot of electricity (like we do) then your break even happens much quicker.  We average about $160 a month just in electricity (about 30 kwh/day). I’ve been told you should be at about $80+ a month if you are thinking about solar for mostly monetary reasons.
3. We could just replace the roof section where the solar array would go and leave the rest of the roof for replacement down the road.
4. Rebates and Credits:   There is a 30% Federal Tax Credit of on a solar system install and California State “Go Solar” rebate of $1.10 per watt installed.
5. The CA rebate was VERY CLOSE to dropping down to the lower “step” of $0.65 within a couple weeks, so if we wanted to do solar, now was the time to do it.   Going from $1.10 to $0.65 would be an opportunity cost of potentially $1,755 (3900 x $0.45).

After really thinking about the items above, we realized that we’d probably stick around in the house we’re in and that it financially made sense for us to get solar and to take advantage of the great rebates and credits.

Our final decision process was  as follows:

1.    Does solar make sense financially?  Fortunately this was pretty much already resolved.  I got in touch with a few people that have had solar for up to 3 years and all were very happy with the ROI and the efficiency of their systems / cost savings.
2.    Which panel manufacturer?  The manufacturer of our previous roofing material went bankrupt so we’re kinda sensitive to making sure the panels be covered by a solid manufacturing company.
3.    Which installer?:  I wasn’t about to sign a contract with the first company that came by (and he really was pushing us to do so).  I ended up getting a bunch of referrals and  read a bunch of reviews to narrow the ton of California based solar companies down to a handful.

Solar Company Competition: Below are the companies that did on-site evaluations (in alpha order).

• Akeena Solar
• REC Solar
• SunLightAndPower
• Super Solar
• The Solar Company

Each company had pretty good presentations.  In fact, I ran into a problem I didn’t expect:  Each company had glowing reviews and a really good value proposition.  After an extensive amount of research I had narrowed the list down to three companies: REC Solar, SunLightAndPower, & Super Solar.

SunLightAndPower: A large, well known, reputable company in the SF Bay Area.  They have many installs under their belts and the sales rep was extremely helpful and knowledgeable.  Their price was the highest of the group, but I felt like there was great value in working with a large company.

Super Solar: Owned by a former employee of SunLightAndPower who had been one of their top installers for about 10 years.  They are just a few person company which meant low overhead and a low price.   Unfortunately, I just couldn’t get past the fear of working with a small company.

REC Solar: Actually this company wasn’t even on my original list.  I was literally about to choose (that night) between SunLight&Power and SuperSolar when I was referred to REC Solar from a really smart guy I met online.  I found that REC Solar was the company that was partnered with Costco, so I thought I’d give them a quick chance to throw their hat into the ring.   They are a good sized company with a great reputation. The sales rep was amazing to work with, and the proposal was very impressive and competitive with the others I received.  Oh, and they were the only company on my short list that was willing to guarantee the  CA Rebate at $1.10 even if the application for my array didn’t make the cut before the drop down to $0.65!

In case you can’t tell, I ended up choosing REC Solar

Why REC Solar? Here are some of the highlights of why I want with REC Solar (Renewable Energy Concepts):

• Large company with a ton of installs under their belt
• Partners with Costco
• Very knowledgeable and friendly sales rep and engineering staff
• Guaranteed CA Rebate before the price drop
• Turn key installation.  They do everything including permitting with the city, etc.
• Availability of the TIGO Energy optimizer (up to 20% more energy from the array and a cool online monitoring system)
• Price per watt installed was very competitive with the competition

The system details:

• 3,960 Watts DC (3,295 Watts AC) Solar Electric System that would require about 323 sq/ft.
• Estimated 6,378 kilowatt hours produced per year (we use about 9,500 per year)
• 18 – REC220AE-US solar panels / modules (This REC is “Renewable Energy Corporation”)  + 25 year warranty
• SMA 3000US Inverter
• Tigo system components
• All labor + 10 year warranty

System Grand Total: $23,800

CA Rebate:  $3,440 (estimate based on shading, etc.)
Costco Member Savings $233.60
Costco American Express Savings $116.80
Federal Tax Credit $6,108.00

Net System Cost $13,901.60

Note: This “net cost” doesn’t include the new roof section ($2,400) or the tree trimming ($600).

Our “payback” or “break even” is estimated to be 8 years, and is calculated based on our current usage and a 6% annual utility rate increase.  I personally believe 6% is too aggressive, but this is the % that all the solar companies use.   Obviously the payback time gets longer or shorter if our kilowatt usage changes (3 girl household) and/or if our electricity rates change.

Another way I calculated the financial aspect of the panels is by setting it up like an annuity.

System cost: $13,900
Periods: 300 (25 year life expectancy)
Future value: $0.00 (assuming worst case that the panels aren’t worth anything after 25 years)
PMT: -100  (we expect to save at least $100 per month in electrical bills)

Based on the above, the annualized rate of return on this system is 7.2% using the “RATE” calculation in Excel.  Keep in mind that this is POST TAX MONEY, so when comparing it to another “investment” you’d need to add your tax rate.  So, if I’m in a 30% tax bracket my comparable rate would be more like 9.36%!  Compared to other investments (especially at 9%) I think solar panels also have  much lower financial risk.

When I asked my REC Solar sales rep about which of my friends would and wouldn’t be good candidates for solar he replied:

“Realistically, the cutoff for a decent ROI with PV is going to be around $80 per month.  There are infinite reasons to go solar that are not directly related to immediate payback and ROI (increased value of home, hedge against the rising cost of power, property tax exempt investment, very safe and stable part of an investment portfolio (think CD’s but with a higher ROI),  and an inflation beating investment) but the reality is the ROI would probably be around 4%-7% (not that bad!).

Also, one day the Plug-in hybrid vehicle, or all electric vehicle will be a reality, which will change the PV industry forever as people will see the value in creating their own “gasoline” for their cars with solar.

There’s also the little part about not buying power from fossil fuel burning sources.  Unfortunately at this point, there is not much of a monetary value associated with this (though there should be since the environmental effects do COST money).”

I couldn’t agree more!  In addition to the financial reasons to “go solar” I personally put a lot of weight into:

• The fun and cool factor of having your house powered by the sun
• The warm fuzzies knowing you’re doing your part to reduce your carbon footprint
• The joy of fully meeting up with your childhood love for solar!

The panels should be installed this month.  I’ll post part 2 with all the installation details when the solar juice is flowing.

Have you thought about getting solar installed?  Why or why not?  Post your thoughts below.   Oh, and if you’re thinking about getting solar, give REC a call and tell them Rob Ludlow sent you! 

(For part 2, see: Solar Power Installation California Bay Area – Part 2 )

Below is another great submission from Ken (creator of the HomeMade Rotary Trommel Screen).

From Ken:

“You may remember me as the builder of the red rotary trammel.  I later built a shaker screener because I needed to separate soil and larger stones from 1 inch stone I needed for a driveway.  I made it to screen a 3 cubic yard pile of dirt from an excavation.  I wanted the soil for filling low spots in the lawn, 1 inch and smaller stone for the driveway and the larger stone as fill to enlarge an area that needed good drainage.

The shaker is actuated by an eccentric weight and motor that came from a scrapped 5 gallon paint shaker 3/4 hp electric motor.  I originally planed on spring mounting the shaker section on a chassis, but realized I could just mount the machine on rubber tires and let the whole machine shake.  The rest is 2×4 pressure treated lumber, bolts, 2 5/8 inch axles and 4 10 inch pneumatic tired wheels.  The tires are barely inflated to act as springs.

Before starting the machine, so I run it a few seconds to see which way it wants to go, then drive a couple of stakes in the ground and tether the machine with bungee cords so it doesn’t wander away.  To date, it has over 125 hours of use with only one change of screen wire.  The first section is 1/4″ mesh, the second is 1″ mesh, so I get 3 products delivered into the garden trailers and wheelbarrow. The mechanism has since been enclosed.  I also added a board partially covering the screens close to the motor, to keep stones from being thrown out.

Below are a few shots of the sifter and mechanism.  Note that the pulley and opposite end flywheel have eccentric sections, normally they are set up to increase the action.  I found it was too violent so I swapped them l to r, which put their bob weights opposing the center weight.  That reduced the action to an acceptable level.

I had fun building it and it has elicited as much amusement as amazement from friends watching it at work.

Power Barrow – Power Donkey:

Because the shaker has three products (sizes of material) delivered into three receivers, and I have two little trailers and garden tractors to haul them, the third output went into a wheelbarrow.  Being dissatisfied with having to unload a trailer first, then transfer the barrow load into it, I built a powered, manually dumped wheelbarrow out of stuff I had laying around plus a murray garden tractor front axle and a forward-reverse riding mower transmission from eBay.  Tiller steering lets you walk ahead of or behind the machine.

The engine came from an old 3hp rotary mower.  The more than 10 cubic foot box, filled level with I inch gravel carries a 900 pound load up my back hill at walking speed. With a reduction ratio of about 48 to 1, rear axle torque is about 450 foot pounds, or about 800 pounds of pulling power.

I did have to fill the drive wheels with windshield washer fluid and put chains o them to be able to climb the hill.

Here is a video of the power barrow, or donkey, I built, in action.  The uphill grade is 17degrees or a 30% grade, the load is 9 cubic feet of wet gravel, crushed stone and saturated sand weighing about 160 pounds per cubic ft., totaling about 1440 pounds.  The next load it carried was the full 10 cubic ft., 1600 pounds, which translates to 480 pounds of pulling power or 320 foot pounds of torque at the rear axle. The 3hp Briggs engine didn’t even slow down on the hill.  I’ll have to see if it will pull a loaded trailer uphill, too.

Below are some pics of the donkey, showing that it was built by mounting everything to a piece of 3/4″ pt plywood, then adding stiffeners as structurally necessary.  The 3hp Briggs engine came from an old rotary push mower, the fwd/rev transmission from an old riding mower, the countershaft, rear axle bearings and trailer hitch from the paint shaker I used to build the shaker screener  the total reduction ratios provided a 2mph speed at 3000 engine rpm.

The mower engine depends on the blade for flywheel effect, the engine flywheel is really only a blower for cooling air and a holder for the magneto magnets.  To compensate for the missing blade, I added a heavy 8″ diameter cast iron v-belt pulley to the crankshaft.

I finally weighed the material shown in the barrow video.  It comes to 100.7 pounds per cubic foot, so the actual load in the video is 906 pounds.  The next trip I filled it to a full 10 cu. Ft., about 1007 pounds, which did not slow the machine going up the 30% slope.

The loaded donkey will not pull a trailer with a 400 pound load up the slope.  It would need a bigger engine.  However, with the loaded trailer, it is a pain to maneuver, and puts extra strain on the driveline.  It would be no problem on a lesser slope.”

1. Produce - We’re in the process of getting solar panels (photovoltaic) installed.
2. Reduce - We’re working on ways to conserve on our power usage.   This is the area I want to explore in this post.

First, a disclaimer:  We are already pretty conservative with our power usage and we want to reduce our consumption in a way that won’t require a total shift in our lifestyle.   So, aside from moving into a tent we’re looking at other ways to reduce our usage.

Some of the things we’re already doing to conserve electricity:

• Compact fluorescent bulbs – All our bulbs in our house are fluorescent except for the ones on a dimmer in our bedroom.  I need to either replace with dimmable fluorescent bulbs or just remove the dimmer and replace with an on/off switch.
• No AC – Yup, we can pull this off since we live in a pretty moderate climate.  There are a few weeks of really hot days in the summer, but if we manage to evacuate all the hot air from the house using a whole house fan we can cool the house without gobbling up a ton of electricity.
• Turn Stuff Off – Pretty self explanatory… if not being used, turn it off.  (more on this later)

We’re still using a lot of power and here are my guesses why:

• Two houses in one – My little family lives in an addition built onto my mom’s house.   My mom uses barely any power, but between the two families we have 3 computers that are on almost all day every day, 2 refrigerators, and a large freezer.
• Computers – Did I mention on ALL DAY EVERY DAY?  Yup, I work from home, my wife is a stay-at-home mom, and my mother is semi-retired and spends most of the day on the computer too.   Based on my calculations (see more below) each computer, monitor, printer system is using about 120 watts.
• Young kids – Lights left on, lots of laundry (efficient washer & electric drier), etc.
• Raising Chickens – We often set eggs in an incubator which draws a bit of power. Then once they hatch they need to be under a heat lamp which is often 250 watts for 24/7 for the first few weeks.
• Heaters – We don’t have central heating and haven’t installed a gas heater yet.  We primarily use a wood stove for heat but in the kids rooms we use a radiant heater during the winter to keep things comfy.
• Stuff that’s always on – DVR, and the tons of “vampire power suckers“.

Regarding these “vampire” items that draw power in standby mode even when off:  I understand the idea of putting everything on power strips / surge protectors that can be shut off, but I have 2 major problems with this:

1. Who in the heck wants to shut something on and off every single time they want to use it?
2. Who wants to deal with the associated problems of loosing clock settings, DVR downloads, etc. when the power goes off?

Sure, I want to be conservative, but this is an area where I just accept the cost of doing business, i.e., choose my battles and keep the convenience of leaving all this stuff on all the time.   This is a battle I’m choosing not to fight. 

One area that I wanted to improve was my own computer area.  Some items “need” to be on all the time.  Stuff like the DSL modem & router (all 3 computers rely on these) and the shared laser multifunction machine.   The rest of the stuff could be switched as needed when my PC is on.

The first thing I did was draw up how I felt my system should be laid out.   My main goals:

1. Have everything end up going through a kill-a-watt monitor that would show me how much juice all my devices are using.
2. Manage which items needed to be through my UPS for emergency backup. (Side note:  I’m putting a lot of things through my UPS, but if the power kicks off I’ll quickly turn off stuff like speakers, lights, etc.)
3. Give me quick access to turn on/off certain items when needed
4. Keep certain items on all the time, especially “shared” items.

So, I began the process of plugging in and arranging all the various items.

Here is my overall design:

As I plugged in each item I kept track of the power usage during its regular use.  Computer and monitor were “while fully on” while printers were tracked in “standby” mode.

So, the stuff that is “Always on”  totals about 28 watts.  That’s about 20 kwh a month or $2.62 a month at our baseline kwh rate.  I’m happy to spend $2.62 a month to not worry about my wife always asking me to turn on a printer or having to wait for my DSL modem & my router to startup every morning.

The “with computer” stuff is probably on about 14 hours a day, so I’m guessing that comes out to about $8 a month.

After spending hours on all this today I realized that either my math is really off, or I’m not using nearly as much power with all my computer / office stuff as I thought I was.  For example, right now my whole system is only using 176 watts (speakers on, music playing, blogging, etc!)

I guess I’ll need to continue my quest for the big power suckers.  I’m assuming the big ones will be things like the refrigerators and freezer.  I’ll plug my kill-a-watt into these items and use the kwh measure to get a 24 hour read on how much juice they are pulling.  For other items like kitchen lighting, ceiling fans, dryer, garage lights, etc. that are difficult to plug into the kill-a-watt device I’ll go out to our new digital meter while my wife turns stuff on and off (I tried to do it tonight, but the readings were all over the place since she was baking a birthday cake, running the dishwasher, etc.).

So, what are your thoughts?  Are you an electricity miser?  Which battles do you pick when it comes to power consumption and conservation?

Automatic Compost Sifter – Screen
Sieve – Screen Shaker for Soil and Compost

Over the past few days I’ve been corresponding with another visitor of the site who has his own design.  He sent over a video (below) which really impressed me and I implored him to send me more information and pictures which he kindly did!   Below is the HomeMade Rotary Trommel Screen by Ken:

“I had need for about 6 cubic yards of broken stone to level a steep area on my property.  Because rain water flowed through the area, I wanted just stone, no dirt to impede the water flow.   I have about 1500 cubic yards of broken shale and soil available if I could just screen out the dirt. 

To this end I built my rotary screener out of:

• a 55-gallon steel drum
• 2-24 inch id bicycle rims bolted to the drum.
• 4 caster wheels
• Four 3 foot long bars of 1-1/4 x ¼ steel bars
• A clothes dryer motor and belt
• Some 2 inch angle iron
• 2-8 foot long 2×4 pt lumber
• ½ inch mesh wire cloth.
• 2 inch angle iron
• Miscellaneous flat and v belt idlers

To keep the drum bicycle rims running in the casters, I used the drive belt on the motor/outlet end and a long v-belt bought from home depot for $1.99 on closeout at the inlet end.

I found the drum speed was too fast, around 55 rpm, throwing dirt all over the place, so I added a ¼ hp motor driving the washing machine motor at half speed, which worked out well. Both motor mounts are pivoted so the drive belts are tensioned by motor weight and the bungee cord

I didn’t want to throw the dirt and stones; I wanted them to slide down the screen as they moved toward the outlet. 

I made the screening opening 24 inches long so the dirt would fall down into a wheel barrow or garden tractor trailer and the stone would fall out the end, also into a wheelbarrow or trailer.

I installed the 2 side deflectors so the screenings would only drop straight down and not on the casters or frame of the machine.

I later added four easily removable wheels for ease of movement.

The barrel is tilted by having the inlet end casters raised on a 2×4. 

The barrel is 35 inches long, the machine is 48 inches long.  I originally cut 4 windows in the barrel for the screenings to fall through, added the steel bars and cut out the spaces between the windows to get a full circumference for screening. 

As soon as I get an other barrel, I’ll simply cut it in half and use the bars to space the halves 24 inches apart, making it 59 inches long.  That way I’ll have more space to toss the material in and more overhang on the outlet end to make it easier to position the trailer or wheelbarrow.

The screen wire permanently attached to the barrel can be of a larger opening size, for larger screening and a smaller mesh liner can be laid in and attached with twisted wire ties to the main screen for finer screening.  I used this process with window screen to separate pea gravel from sand. “

A big thanks to Ken for sharing this with us!  If you have any questions or comments please post them below.  Also, if you want to make an article submission for our site please comment below.

We’ve had a lot of interest in the Automatic Compost Sifter – Screen post. One visitor of the site, Richard Buxton, posted a comment and sent a picture. I was so impressed I asked him to submit some more details so I could post it up as its own article. So, below we present the “Son of Sid”:

A sieve-box moves backwards and forwards by means of an electric motor. Sifted material falls through a mesh base and a guide chute into a wheelbarrow below. The sieve-box is hinged to allow debris to be tipped out.

Two open boxes; similar to kitchen drawers but without bases, are nested inside one another and arranged so that the inner box may be tipped up on a piano hinge for clearing any material that does not fall through the mesh.

The two nested boxes have four small, in-line castors underneath to allow lateral movement along two rails. These full-length rails are supported on six anti-vibration mounts (Elasto Mount – AT type) that attach through angle brackets to the inside faces of the long-rails of a supporting table-frame.

Movement is provided by a reciprocating saw clamped to a board and firmly anchored across the running rails. The Saw mechanism is connected by means of a push-pull bar fixed to the outer of the two nested boxes with a gate latch and 10mm bolt.

The reciprocating saw has been modified to disable the original power switch and the simple speed control electronics have been removed and adapted to provide a slower rate of reciprocation. A watertight enclosure fixed to the saw mounting board contains the removed speed controller circuit together with an illuminated on/off switch and a speed adjustment knob as operator controls.

The running rails are joined together by cross batons in the manner of railway sleepers so that all moving components and all anti-vibration mounts act in unison. As the reciprocating mechanism moves so does the sieve-box assembly.

The fitted mesh is ½ inch square but a finer mesh of ¼ inch may be dropped in on a sub frame for a finer particle size.

• Overall dimensions of table-frame: Length1340 – Width 560 – Height 950
• Sieve box: Length 610 – Width 455 – Depth 120
• Original speed 300 – 3000 cycles/min. Modified speed 0 – 200 cycles/min.
• Power consumption estimated to be in the order of 100W

This view shows the sifting box tipped up.

You can also see a rudimentary mudguard covering the castor wheel but some
sifted compost is visible on the running rail so I think I will need to fit full length
mudguards instead of these boy-racer ones.

Son of Sid has a very smooth action
The speed controller is subject to variation due to ambient temperature but luckily the purely
accidental selection of components I used (potentiometer and two resistors) allows me to adjust the speed accordingly.

If I load it too heavily I need to turn the wick up a little to get him running properly and as he empties I can turn it down.

The concept idea came from Sid the Sifter and my motivation was nothing more than laziness.

People often say, “Here’s something I made form bits I had lying around.”
True I did use a few lying around bits but I bought most of it – the most sexpensive of course being the saw
which cost £36 ($52)

This picture shows motor, control box and combined tool store and cup holder. (I am NOT responsible for the brickwork in the background).
Three quarter view. Notice tipping hinge and strain relief bracket on table frame – slotted into carrier box to reduce tipping strain
The Design
Speed controller: The Red Wheel is a combined switch and speed potentiometer - on the full speed setting the switch bypasses the speed control. I removed this control completely – five soldered connections
Speed controller reverse: You can easily see the five joints all in a circle that hold the potientiometer on the circuit board. The new control potentiometer connects to the two pads on the left. I used a 120K linear pot and added ballast resistors by trial and error to get the speed range I wanted. I think the total resistance was close to 850k – up from 500k on the original

A huge thanks to Richard for all the great pictures and information!

It all started back on 5/4/08 when I received the following email:

“Hello Rob,I stole your idea and took it on one stage… hope you like it!  Check out Sid, he’s just doing his job… that’s all!Cheers for the inspiration”Attached was the following video:

I was blown away at the design!   I promptly asked for more a few picture of the mechanism which I received (click thumbnail for larger image):

I also received a little more info:  “I used some old drawer runners for the carriage to slide smoothly and the spinning crank bit is an old component from some office furniture, I think it is a bracket that you bolt a leg onto and then screwed the plate onto the underside of a table/desk top.  Quite good as it has a “Hex” shape recess to take an M10 bolt, so the shaft can’t wear out and start spinning around.”

My only question / suggestion to this amazing design was, “Any thoughts on how to make this so you don’t have to dump out the contents?   I’ve wondered if a gravity fed system with an agitator would work.”

The reply came: “You were so right about the – having to stop every 4 shovels to take out the stones!  A radical free think was required this morning and now Sid sieves, sorts and spits without the need to stop… ever!  I end up with rocks over 1 inch in the barrow and stones between 1/2 – 1 inch in the blue box which I recycle to create the walking areas between the raised beds!”

Here’s an updated video:

WOW, no more shoveling. But it got even better with the next design that did 3 individual sortings at once!!!:

Well, just when I thought I had seen it all, the design got even better:

Just amazing!!!    This beautiful contraption makes my little manual compost sifter look like a couple of dumb boards nailed together.

If you have any comments on this design or would like to share your own version please comment below!

A month ago I discovered my niece has 7 sheep and she needs to get rid of a couple.  I contacted the owner of the property behind our place and the said we were welcome to try out sheep weed abatement, but if the neighbors complained we’d have to get rid of them.

So, here are the new editions to our urban farm:

St. Croix Sheep: Maggie (dark brown) and her son Joey and Leo in the back

We had to separate Maggie from one of her other children and she’s not happy about it.  Her bleating for her other son is not making the neighbors happy (we live in a pretty urban area… there just happens to be an empty lot here) and we’re hoping she’ll calm down soon.

Here’s the “pre sheep” lot (click for larger version)

I’ll continue to take pictures as things progress… that is assuming the neighbors don’t call the animal cops on us.

Anybody bets on how long it will take these sheep to clear the weeds in the 1.5 acre lot?

• Adding gutters to the house
• Plugging holes in the wall with hydraulic cement
• Using 4″ irrigation draining pipes to pull the water as far from the house as possible
• Cleaning up existing irrigation drains and water paths to make a clean exit for the water
• Making some small changes to the grade of the landscape to encourage water away from the house
• Addition of a large sump pit and pump to the basement.

Last year I was unable to fully test the combination of all my efforts because it was a really dry year… well, California (specifically the Bay Area) got slammed over the past 48 hours by one of the worst storms in the last 10 years.

First thing I did when I got home from work was head down into the basement to survey the damage and take some pictures.  Here is what I found (click thumbnail for larger image):

When I got down there I noticed that even though the floor was a little wet, it wasn’t flooded (thank goodness).  I then noticed that the pit was about half full of water and that the water was relatively clear and not completely muddy like it was in the past.  I attribute this to the filter fabric and then gravel I put in around the pit.

Next I noticed where the water was coming from.   On the west side of the basement where I had chiseled out some cracks I never got around to plugging any of them.  In the picture below you can see why the floor is wet in places.  The water is coming through some cracks (about 4 feet high), then running down the wall, then travelling in a “ditch” along the side of the wall and onto the floor.   My thought all along was if I couldn’t plug all the holes adequately I could just channel all the water along the perimeter and into the sump pit:

This is the best picture of all.  This section of the basement was by far the worst.  Water was POURING through the walls and I’ve even got a video of water pouring over the top of the walls.  Well, click on the image below to check out how dry this portion of the basement is:

Things I still need to do:

1. Plug the holes in the west wall.  There are still holes / cracks where the foundation meets the wall, but I’m hoping those are minor
2. Cut a hole in the cap of the pit basin to accommodate the pipe from the pit
3. Finish the plumbing from the pit to the pipe in the wall
4. Pour cement around the outside of the sump pit to clean up the rough edges
5. Continuously monitor for new leaks and plug them
6. Add an emergency water level alarm that will notify me if the sump pit fails
7. Continue to change the grade outside of the basement to take even more water away from the perimeter
8. Possibly adding french drains around the perimeter of the house to remove even more water

I’m really excited about how things have been progressing.  I’d actually like to see the torrential floods continue so I can really put these changes to the test.

One item that is still puzzling me is the whole question around the “water table” around the basement.  My dad never wanted a real pit dug into the floor of the basement because he was worried that once we had one that the water would just come in quicker and we’d be constantly pumping out water until we lowered the local water table.   I’m not totally sure what to be looking for, but so far it hasn’t seemed like the pump is constantly on.

If you know about water tables or have any thoughts / comments on the above please add your comments below!

I took about a cubic yard of compost (yard clippings, kitchen scraps, chicken litter), screened it, and sifted it onto my lawn with a shovel and then used the back of a garden rake to distribute it evenly over a few of the areas that were brown.  I had also read that you can use 1 part compost and 1 part sand as a top dressing to help even out dipped areas in a lawn (slowly adding 1/4 – 1/2 inch of material until it evens out the dip).  Well, I have an area around my water meter that is sunk down a little and I’d like to raise it up.  I mixed the compost with some sand and spread 1/2 inch in a foot radius around the water meter.

Well, about a week and a half later I couldn’t believe my eyes.  The 1 foot radius area around the water meter has sprung to life.  The grass was lush green and had grown about 1/3 as high as the surrounding grass!  You may not be able to see it in the picture, but the transformation was extremely obvious.  Unfortunately I didn’t see the same results in the other areas of the lawn.  The only differences between the two applications were:

1. This area tends to get more water than the other areas I applied the top dressing.

2. The other areas didn’t include any sand.
3. I applied considerably more top dressing to this area (to build up / level the ground) than in the other areas.

So, now I’m here scratching my head.  What was it that caused the transformation?  I’ve discussed this with many people and it comes down to two items:

1. Water retention:  The compost / sand mixture acted as a mulch and kept the water in the soil longer. 
2. Nutrient Addition: I didn’t think compost could deposit nutrients very quickly, but a friend who spend their professional life working for the agriculture department suggested that the nitrogen in the chicken manure could have given the plants a boost.

Maybe I should try a controlled experiment and have marked sections of my lawn setup with areas such as a control section, chicken manure section, fine mulch section, etc.

Post your thoughts & comments on my gardening forum.

A few other issues I’m contending with are regarding the sump pump: First, the sump (the hole in the basement) isn’t very deep, only about 3 inches. Second the basement floor doesn’t drain toward the sump as well as it should. This leaves puddles up to half an inch deep in places. I rigged up the pump float switch so it will turn on sooner and drain the water down further even though we don’t really have much of a sump hole. I also installed a check valve so the water doesn’t drain back into the basement once the motor turns off.

• If I can’t get the water to stop entering the basement I’m going to have to come up with a way to get water to the sump and out of the basement. I’ll probably have to make the hole deeper and possibly wider. My dad was initially concerned that going deeper, thus breaking through the slab floor, would open up another entry point for water. I also need to resolve the puddling issue. I could pour more concrete and try to slope the floor more aggressively towards the sump, but this doesn’t sound like a very easy solution. I did come up with an interesting idea I may try. I’m thinking about utilizing the troughs (pictured here) and building a canal along the entire interior wall that will carry the water into the sump. I don’t know if I would use some kind of rubber or maybe even bricks and adhere / seal them to the basement floor with an epoxy or contractors adhesive (like Liquid Nails). Hopefully it won’t come down to this.

• After quite a few cycles of rain, finding leaks, chiseling, patching and sealing leaks, and then waiting for rain, etc. I decided I’d just patch all the vertical mortar joints in the blocks. After I did this, I noticed that when the next rain came I had successfully stops the ‘big’ leaks. There were still many places where water was leaking into the basement through capillary action in the blocks and through hairline cracks in the poured wall. While this still needs to be addressed, this is much better than the geysers I started out with.

• The next thing we did was to get gutters on the house. The more I investigate, the more I believe that when we get the waterfall effect it is because we don’t have gutters on the house. Gutters won’t solve all our wet basement issues, but they sure will help. Here is a picture of how much water can come off the roof during a really good rain storm:

Update: 7/11/07:
Well, we’ve got gutters on the roof and I’ve done some water management around the house. The goal was to take all the surface water as far away from the house / basement as possible. I was anxious to see the effects this would have on the basement this last winter, but unfortunately it was an unusually dry winter, so while we got a little water in the basement it was nothing compared to previous years. The big project I completed about 2 months ago was the major enlargement of the sump pit. I jackhammered a 36 inch diameter hole through the 18 inch concrete and dug another 2 feet down into the super hard clay. I lined the hole with filter fabric and poured in about 3 inches of gravel. I layed a 2 foot deep 36″ diameter piece of corregated pipe into the hole and poured gravel between the side of this pipe and the filter fabric. I fully expect that this will significantly effect the amount of water sill coming in through tiny cracks in the walls but I doubt there is enough drainage along the walls / bottom of the basement to eliminate the water pressure completely. Below is a pic of the new sump pit:

Basement Waterproofing Pages: 1 & 2