Building a Round House
Part 6 - "Utilities"
Summer - Fall 2006
Providing the nitty-gritty infrastructure of country living!
Water

Drilling the well.

Well-head during testing. We got off easy with good water and flow rate
at only slightly more than 300 feet.

Pressure bladder in basement. All set to go.

The iron in the water (getting worse with each month, it seems) has made
laundry problematical. So we now collect (or "harvest") rainwater
and pump it into the washer for laundry.
In a few years, we'll probably install a complete rainwater system to
use for everything. In the meantime, we've added a larger tank to the
shed to handle all our laundry needs.
Septic

Cleared septic field. Tanks will go in foreground; drainfield in the back.

Back-filling around the three tanks. From left to right: distribution
tank, aeration tank, settling tank.

Above: System and drainfield complete and seeded. Below: Controls
Electricity

The power line will also carry the phone line. Yellow arrows point to
power poles being installed. Utilities will be underground for the last
1000 feet.

Preparing to lay the power line next to the road.

The transformer is next to the old deck. Power and phone cables in trench
at side of road.

The backup generator runs on propane.
Propane

Propane finally arrives with the first snow flurries of the season.

The "tankless" hot water system--hot water only when needed.
Photovoltaic Net-Metering
It's difficult to justify on economics alone, but the "Bailout Bill"
improved the federal subsidy for "alternative fuels", so we
plunged ahead with a net-metering project.

First there had to be a trench between the solar array site and the house.
What a mess!

The pole for the solar array is embedded in 7 feet of concrete.

The array is complete. It now needs some landscaping! Max output is a
bit over 3 KW.

The angle of the array can be adjusted for the season.

An inverter matches the solar output to the electrical grid.
May 22, 2009: Watch the meter run backwards!
8:30 AM. Just
beginning to make solar power for the day.
Noon. Making
about 2.5 kW
4:00 PM. Beginning
to taper off--producing about 1.9 kW.
8:00 PM. Sun
is behind mountain. No longer producing power.
Today we added 13 kWh to the grid, while producing 20 kWh, then using
an additional 6 kwH overnight. (Must be the continuously-running septic
system pumps that makes that number so high.)
Continue to Part 7 | Return to Index
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Susan Wells Rollinson, rollinso@cfw.com
Remodeled July 2006. Updated 12/10/09.
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