Not only that, but it’s a supremely funky addition to our power generation capacity and is also, like the water wheel, proudly made in Benfeita! (Benfeita means ‘well made’.)

The axial flux alternator on the back of João’s quad bike in its green and orange paintwork

Following our experiences, sometimes disastrous, with 3 other permanent magnet alternators/generators we were already thinking along the lines of making one since it was clear off-the-shelf solutions weren’t appropriate for the marginal nature of this site. I was consequently more than excited to hear another local friend was going to be experimenting with making Hugh Piggot design axial flux alternators.

João completed the first one before Christmas and after a coat of epoxy paint, it came here for testing today. This is a high voltage version (many configurations are possible) of the 1kW nominal power rating specification. It has very low cut-in speeds which is exactly what we’re wanting when flow rates here are low. Coupled with an MPPT charge controller which can convert excess voltage into amps, the alternator is able to produce a useful input when most others would fail.

João and his alternator

Different sprockets for gearing which Wayne created mounting plates for over the weekend … and Wayne’s breakfast roll

Siting the alternator

In position before drilling out bolt holes on the mounting framework

Mounted, braced, connected and with chain fitted ready to go

Water turned back on

Alternator running

At the moment we have it on a 3:1 gear ratio which slows the wheel down quite a lot under load. The resistance creates some splash-back which equates to power loss. There’ll be a lot more fiddling with different sprockets and the charge controller tomorrow to find the ideal ratio and settings, but what we could really do with is RAIN. The current weather forecast though is predicting temperatures in the low 20s by the end of the week and no rain before next Wednesday …

Update

January 8th

3:1 proved the optimum gear ratio of those we had available to test. We figure the splash-back is going to be pretty inevitable when we only have 1 litre per second of flow to drive the wheel. These are summer flow levels, when it was never envisaged making use of the wheel anyway since we have more than enough solar capacity for our needs once the sun reappears from behind the hill to the south.

At these flow rates, the wheel is making around 21W after the charge controller has transformed the voltage – 0.5kWH in 24 hours. Around 20% of the power we could expect from ‘normal’ winter flow levels. This may sound paltry, and it is, but to me it’s vindication of the decision to stick doggedly by the wheel against the advice of hydropower experts on various internet forums who, pretty much without exception, all advised the installation of a turbine. Why? Because having run our data through the online calculator for the output of one of the more efficient turbines available, we would be making no more electricity with a turbine. The wheel is as efficient. It just needed the right alternator.

But our present flow rates highlight a different problem to address.

This is the second year in succession the winter rains have failed to materialise, so I am now considering how best to optimise what we can produce from the water even at these low levels. We can make 1.3kWH from the 1 hour 50 minutes of sun the solar panels get at winter solstice (if the sun is shining). If I can double that from the hydro component even at 1 litre per second, then we can limit the use of our propane generator to cloudy days only, which are not that common without rain as well. To do this, the only option open to us is to increase the head, so the next project is to re-site the wheel another 6-7m lower in the barroco and lay 150mm plastic guttering into the stream bed. This will channel the entire flow at these low volumes into the wheel chute with the minimum of friction, but still leave the system open to cope easily with the torrents of water, mud, debris and rocks which fly down this channel after a heavy downpour.

Reducing friction losses and re-siting the wheel will allow us to effectively double our head. Double the head equals double the power. Plus a little bit extra for the fact that the alternator will be operating at greater efficiency once we can increase its rpm to comfortably within its operating range rather than right on the edge as it is now.

The heating system I first put together in May has proved itself workable. With a few adjustments of radiator position and the purchase of a self-standing garden shower that fits into the garden hose system I’ve used for the pipework, the system gives us enough hot water on a sunny day for anything between 2 (luxurious) and 4 (frugal) showers, but until recently the only way to use it was to stand on the bare earth out in the open. The quinta isn’t a particularly public place, but we all agreed we needed a cubicle to enhance our bathing experience …

A view of the whole system with the cubicle partially complete – radiator, tank above, shower and cubicle

The water heating works like this. We start the day with an empty tank on the terrace above. As soon as the sun has warmed the water in the radiator until it’s almost too hot to touch, we turn on the cold water supply which feeds into the bottom of the radiator. The pressure pushes the water up through the radiator, warming it on the way and, by a combination of pressure and convection, the hot water rises to fill the storage tank. Adjusting the flow gives the optimum water volume to achieve the desired heat. Since there is only the one feed into the shower, we aim for a water temperature around 40°C so no further mixing of water is necessary.

And here is the evolution of the cubicle …

Layout of the floor, a mixture of schist slabs and granite river stones. (A necessary photo so I could see how it all went back together again after mixing the cement …) Round the circumference are 4 pine poles, stripped of bark, buried to a depth of half a metre and with the buried portion of the poles preserved with used engine oil

Floor complete and bamboo poles strung between the pine poles

The beginnings of the walls – young mimosa (Acacia dealbata) sprigs woven through the bamboo and pine poles

The quality control inspection team

The final position of the solar collector (aka radiator)

Wall detail

Schist shelving

Drain. There are two of these with the floor slightly sloping towards them. The water goes straight into the soil outside the cubicle and this area will be planted up with ornamental plants. In time we’ll experiment with edible ones

River stone floor detail

A small dry-stone schist retaining wall (complete with fish sculpture) to hold soil for growing ferns and strawberries. There is a tiny natural spring that comes through the rock at this point – it seemed a wasted growing opportunity just to let the water seep into the shower unused

Basketry walls at final height and with bamboo poles trimmed down. Mimosa isn’t the most robust of materials. It will become brittle with age, so I’ve planted ivy round the base of the walls and am thinking about Ipomoea as well. The idea is that the plants will become a living wall and hold the structure together. Maybe it will work, maybe it won’t. We’ll see …

The inside of the shower

The trimmed and finished cubicle

Is this the final configuration of the shower? No. The present system works well, but it’s a bit too high-maintenance to be wholly practical. Since our water supply is just a hose in the stream, the cold water feed can be a bit variable and prone to air locks, requiring frequent adjustment of the tap to reset the rate the water passes through the radiator. This will be sorted once we sort out our water supply properly, but someone still has to remember to turn it on and off at the beginning and end of the day. And there are other issues.

The tank on the terrace above isn’t ideal for the purpose. It lacks insulation that would prevent heat loss once the sun is off it. It’s also plastic and prone to leaking where the thread got damaged by a brass fitting in its previous incarnation as the washing machine supply. And since it’s not designed for this purpose, there aren’t any other threaded connections I can use to experiment with indirect or recirculating heating methods and I’d like to try those out. A standard foam-insulated copper indirect hot water cylinder would be a lot better.

Not only that, but a yurt sitting in the full summer sun gets pretty hot inside. Too hot to be really comfortable, even with the roof open and the covers lifted around the base.

Fortunately the local agricultural cooperatives sell shade netting. Even more fortunately, they stock it in 6m widths. This yurt is 5.8m diameter.

Back in April I cut some small pines up in the woods as part of necessary thinnings, stripped the bark and branches and cut them to a length that would give a more or less level height for the shade netting. I then screwed steel rings into the top of each.

I bought 12m of the 6m shade netting, doubled it over, and sewed it together along the cut and folded edges with fishing line. I then brought the selvedges of the netting together by weaving some braided steel cable through each, making a loop with an eye and clamp at each corner and every 2m to hold a shackle.

I cut a circular hole the diameter of the crown wheel in the centre.

We then fitted the netting directly over the yurt, using the top of the 3 straps girdling the circumference of the yurt to strap it on and clipping the shackles onto the lower straps for added security. It’s been in this position through the winds and rain of the last 2 months, and has done a good job of keeping the sun off the yurt covers on the better days.

Now with temperatures starting to climb again, it was time for the final part of the construction.

I preserved the bottom half meter of the now-seasoned pine poles with used engine oil and dug post holes either side of the yurt at 2m intervals. Large nails were hammered into the base of the poles roughly every 90° so that a good 80-100mm of nail protruded in each direction from the pole. The poles were sunk into the holes and backfilled with concrete to within 150mm of the surface, the nails buried in the concrete giving a firm fixing. The rest of the holes were filled with soil as I intend to grow beans up the poles.

The shackles on either side of the shade netting were then clipped into the rings at the top of each pole. The poles will also each be getting a coat of borax then linseed oil when we come to do the balcony wood up at the house.

So far the netting is performing very well. It keeps the sun off the yurt covers, as intended, and makes at least 5° of difference to the temperature inside. The structure isn’t designed to weather high winds or storms, so in these instances, the netting will be unclipped and tied down to the yurt as before.

That’s a shower! Bucket baths are all well and good and serve their purpose, but once in a while there’s nothing to beat the feeling from a shower.

After plumbing cold running water to the yurt, the next logical step was to think about hot water too. And thinking of hot water made no sense without thinking about a shower at the same time. It’s always been my intention to create a solar water heating system for summer use on the quinta, and to have a solar shower, but we never quite managed to get around to it last year despite having most of the raw ingredients sitting around the place waiting to be put together. So yesterday I finally got around to starting work on the first part of the system.

Here is the recipe:

Take one old single-panel flat radiator (obtained a couple of years ago through Freecycle in Scotland)

Connect it, test it, flush it through, rub it down, and paint it matt black

Build a shallow box to contain the radiator (from timber that was used for the temporary solar panel framework and for shuttering)

Insert 2 panels of 50mm cork insulation (left over from the roof) to prevent heat loss through the back of the radiator

Cut openings for the pipework and erect on temporary test framework

Put radiator into place and test

It works like this. The cold water supply enters the radiator at the bottom. A tap regulates the flow so it can be adjusted to keep pace with the rate the water is heated. The heated water exits through the top of the radiator and, through a combination of convection and pressure (no pump is necessary), rises to fill a 200 litre tank on the terrace above. (For this to work, the solar collector must be below the storage tank.) The hot water in the tank can then be brought back down again to feed a shower and a hot water supply to the yurt.

There was enough sun this morning before the daily thunderstorms arrived to establish that this works. The radiator still needs a lot of flushing, judging by the colour of the hot water filling the tank, and its box needs a glass or perspex cover to magnify the heating effect of the sun and minimise the cooling effects of air, wind and rain. I’m going to make an insulated cover for the collector to minimise heat loss once the sun is no longer shining on it or to shut off the heater if temperatures get too high. The tank on the terrace above also needs an insulated housing to keep the water hot once it’s no longer being fed by the radiator, but so far this is looking promising.

I was wondering how the radiator would perform given that the input and output are on the same side of the panel, but increasing the flow of water and testing which parts cooled down first showed that the water does in fact circulate fairly effectively.

Main concerns at this stage are that I might need to replace the hosepipe and plastic tank with pipes and tank designed for much higher temperatures, but the radiator holds a large volume of water and by keeping it moving through at the right rate, it ought to be possible to prevent temperatures from getting too high.

For the last year we have been living in this yurt, our water supply has been fetched by the bucketful from the nearby waterfall and scooped from there to first a plastic washing up bowl, then a kitchen sink (which I got through Freecycle in the UK before we moved with an outside kitchen in mind). The sink had been sitting around for a good 6 months before it occurred to me that it would be so much better than the bowl and I could easily rig up a waste pipe to the vegetable garden. Today I took that one stage further, and as part of sorting out a better irrigation system, I ran a supply to the yurt as well.

It’s all done with garden hoses, a combination of ½” and ¾”, and the other end of the system is just a hose end stuck in the stream and weighted down with a stone, so every time there’s a big rainstorm, the hose will get washed out of position, but it’s a vast improvement on the bucket.

It’s also a vast improvement on the funnel-in-the-waterfall irrigation method for the yurt terrace, and an even greater improvement on the funnel-in-the-stream method for the top terrace since that never had enough head for a decent flow and the funnel was always moving out of place.

I redid the plumbing for the washing machine at the same time. That should work better now too.

A few days ago I went up into the woods to cut pine poles for the purpose with Valeri, our new WWOOFer, and today we started work.

Lashing 3 long poles together to make a tripod. The middle pole lies in the opposite direction to the outside pair.

Close up of the lashing. A timber hitch attaches the cord to one of the outside poles followed by loose figure-of-eight pattern over and under the 3 poles. This is finished by frapping turns between the poles and and a final clove hitch. The middle pole is then flipped over, tightening the lashings, and the tripod is formed.

One complete tripod. The bark has been left on the poles. Purely for aesthetic reasons: it will make them more prone to being eaten by wood-boring insects, but since the whole thing is constructed from pine and pine isn’t a particularly durable outdoor timber, it will likely rot just as fast. By the time it does we will probably be ready for something different.

Second tripod completed and table supports in place secured with square lashings.

Checking spacing of the 2 tripods to make sure the 2.5m planks for the table and seats sit right.

Lunch time: an opportunity to test the table height.

More square lashings and a longer pole create the supports for the seats.

Table in place and checking height of seat. Table top comprises 6 planks which are screwed onto two short planks forming cross pieces underneath. The cord strung between the 2 tripods is for hanging lights and has no structural purpose.

Almost complete. Seats need cross pieces to hold them together. Each of these will be propped by vertical poles to prevent sagging. Then seats and table will be sanded and treated with linseed oil. And runner beans will be grown up the legs …

We now have a table that can seat 10 in comfort and 12 at a squeeze for the price of 10 planks of wood, a roll of nylon cord and a couple of days’ work. Many thanks to Leen van Melle for the workshop and Valeri for her help.

The lashings I used are detailed in this information sheet from the Scout Information Centre.

I spoke too soon.

We purchased this alternator from Presto Wind in the USA on the basis of its advertised power curves and a couple of videos showing no evidence of cogging, which was the problem with the first generator we tried. As soon as it was installed, it was running well over its claimed threshold for generating usable power, so it was just a matter of waiting for the bearings and rotors to run in and then the batteries would be getting some much-needed juice 24/7. Or so we thought …

After emails going back and forth for well over a month now, we (that’s me and my neighbours, who are installing a wheel on their part of the stream, and Wayne, the systems’ engineer) have a decidedly unpleasant taste in our mouths from our dealings with Presto Wind.

Our M-24 units are not producing anything approaching their advertised power curve. To begin with, when we had more water volume (it hasn’t rained in well over a month), they were producing about 50% of what they should be. Now it’s not even 30%. They’re not even producing enough power to contribute to the batteries and because of the particular way the company have responded and dealt with this, I’m taking the step of writing about our experience in some detail so others can read and judge for themselves.

At first we thought we must have got something wrong, but checking and rechecking the wiring found no errors and all connections were tight. I reported the low output to Presto Wind. The company asked was I sure the tachometer I was using to measure the rpm was accurate, but if we weren’t getting the expected output then something may be wrong. So far so good. I then, over the course of many emails, supplied full details of my system (and relevant details of my neighbours’) with photographs of all wiring plus regular updates on the rpm of the units and the power they were generating, making clear on every occasion that this was being measured open circuit with no load, which is the same conditions under which they produce their power curves. And we weren’t using a tachometer. We were counting wheel revolutions over a timed minute and multiplying that by the gear ratio, so we knew the rpm of the M-24s (+/-5% depending on whether you calculated the ratio by gear wheel diameter or number of teeth).

I frequently had to hassle them into responding after supplying them with information and getting no reply, whereupon I would be asked questions I’d already answered. After repeating myself several times and resending photographs, I was beginning to wonder if they’d paid attention to anything I’d sent, but still didn’t think more of it than that.

Eventually the company responded by saying there was nothing more they could do to help, claiming the underperformance could all be explained by water flow, wheel size, and other system components which, together with 35% efficiency, would easily explain our results. It wasn’t their PMA. It was physics. The units were installed and we couldn’t return them. I pointed out, as I had several times already, that not only was the water flow data irrelevant since we knew the rpm of the PMA (which they were obviously aware of, having asked about our means of measuring it), the rest of the system was completely irrelevant too. We were measuring the power open circuit straight off the rectifiers. And while 35% efficiency might be relevant to wind power, it was not appropriate for hydro. 60% is more the norm.

To prove beyond doubt that it was nothing to do with the rest of the system, we disconnected it all from the rectifiers, measured the power at the rectifiers in exactly the same manner as their demonstration videos (and of course got the same readings we’d been getting all along), took photos of it all, and sent that off with a request that they respond within a week. No response.

I emailed again, saying we wanted to return the units under warranty for a full refund because they were not performing as advertised. This time their explanation for the units’ underperformance was that we must have ‘damaged’ them, despite the units being installed by a qualified engineer in exact accordance with their instructions and with them having seen photographs of the installation and being able to identify no error.

During the course of the exchange, I asked them at least 3 times to confirm the basis of the relationship between rpm and power output in their permanent magnet alternators, because to do this would focus the discussion on the precise nature of the problem and clarify whether there was a fault in the units or whether they were making false claims for their performance. They ducked the question every time. When I sent an email asking just this question, they answered a different question.

We are still trying to get our money back, but it looks very much as if we’ve been had.

Since this has happened, we’ve heard reports of other people using these units in wind applications and finding the same underperformance, including units that have been re-badged for another company. And there’s posts on forums (here and here) suggesting that the company’s advertised power curves are intentionally deceptive.

So we’re back to looking for the right generator again. Intensely frustrating, particularly since Wayne hasn’t had to use a generator all winter with his wheel. Even though it’s now producing only 100W with the river being so low, his batteries are still full every morning. Unfortunately the PMG on his installation is no longer in production. Wayne is beginning to think about building one himself …

(The bottle of Portuguese cava was very good though. That I can recommend.)

And was almost insanely pleased with myself.

What, you are possibly wondering, is there to be so pleased about in the switching on of a washing machine? It’s something the majority of the western world likely does on autopilot without so much as a thought. And considering that said washing machine is not some shiny new A++++ eco-acme of engineering and design, but an ancient, inefficient, leaky and generally bad-tempered monster diverted from a house in the village en route to the lixo, how come I’m grinning rather than cursing?

Well first off, we don’t have a house, let alone plumbing, so the installation of a washing machine presented one or two logistical problems …

On Thursday at market I bought a 200-litre plastic container with a tap in the bottom. The screw thread on the tap just happened to be the same diameter as the screw thread on a standard washing machine cold-water feed, so all I needed was a double-ended connector from the hardware store to connect hose to plastic container, and I had a cold water tank. The hose on the washing machine was just long enough to reach up through a gap in the log store roof to the tank placed directly above it. One of the 50m garden hoses plus plastic funnel from our high-tech irrigation system was enough to reach the barroco and, after a fair bit of bramble-wrestling, there was just enough elevation to get the water to run along and into the tank, so water supply was sorted. A spare bit of cable trunking, which just happened to fit snuggly over the end of the waste pipe, directed the wash water down onto the vegetable garden, so the waste was taken care of. Bingo!

All that remained was to run an extension cable up from the battery house for the power supply, load the machine and switch on.

It works! The gravity feed takes a while to fill the machine – it’s a long way from being mains pressure – but it does the job. And 200 litres isn’t enough for the monster’s full wash cycle so I have to refill the tank for the final rinse, but it beats handwashing, I can tell you! Especially in winter …

Though once I’d stopped being so ridiculously pleased with myself, it was an interesting exercise to reflect on the process and what it had brought to my attention.

Over 200 litres of water for a full wash cycle! Over 200 litres of drinking-quality water turned into detergent-polluted (even if eco-friendly biodegradable detergent-polluted) waste that can only be returned to a healthy state by processing through a grey-water treatment system (= plants+soil). And 200 litres is around 5 times the average amount of water that two of us use for all purposes – drinking, cooking, washing up, washing, cleaning – on a daily basis. (When you have to fetch your water by the bucket, you know how much you use …)

According to Waterwise, washing machines account for 14% of water usage in the average household in the UK. The rest of western Europe is likely in the same ballpark. I did some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations. If we doubled our personal daily water usage and only did one load of laundry a week, the washing machine would still account for more than 25% of our water usage. Clearly this washing machine is one of the most inefficient in existence, but still, what does that say about water usage in the average western European household?

I switched our 2.7kW generator on for the spin cycle and it was toiling (though, to be fair, it was charging the batteries at the same time). Even so, that’s still a lot of power a good mangle could substitute for.

For all the undoubted convenience of a washing machine, I’ll be thinking twice before I switch it on again.

Today the sprockets arrived for the water wheel’s gearing. They have been waiting for the last couple of weeks to have US threads machined into them to fit on the spindle of the new permanent magnet alternator from Presto Wind in the USA. So it was just a matter of fitting the M-24 plus framework to the existing framework housing the water wheel’s gear wheel, chain and chain tensioner, adjusting the chain to the correct length, connecting up the M-24 to the junction box and switching on the generator and its charge controller. It only took about half an hour.

The Presto Wind M-24 plus framework ready to be bolted into position

Adjusting the chain to fit

Bolting the framework together

Then all we had to do was direct the water back down the chute onto the wheel. I’ve become so accustomed to seeing the freewheeling wheel flying round at anything between 65-85rpm over the last couple of weeks that memories of its sluggish performance with the Miniwind permanent magnet generator we originally installed had been temporarily obliterated and the penny didn’t drop for at least a full minute.

The wheel was still flying round.

We didn’t count the rpm before diverting the water, but having done so so frequently over the last month, I’ve got pretty good at estimating the rpm from just looking at the water volume coming down the barroco. About 3 litres per second. So about 70rpm. After connecting it up with a 4:1 gear ratio, it was doing 56rpm equating to 14rpm of resistance against a loss of 35-40rpm for the Miniwind PMG. 56rpm for the wheel means 224rpm for the alternator which would, according to Presto Wind’s power curves, translate into around 80W for the M-24: with the 2 stators in the M-24 wired in parallel, that would be 20V at 4A, not far off the 24V it needs to be to start putting power into the batteries. We still have to wire in an ammeter and play around with different gear ratios.

Generating hydro power

Meaningless gibberish? It was to me to start with but I think I understand it a bit better now. With independent (ie. off-grid) renewable energy systems, any input over the system voltage – 24V in our case – charges the batteries, and it’s not really of benefit to have too high a voltage. Over a certain level, the batteries don’t absorb the majority of it so a lot of the power is wasted. This is what happens when you use a portable generator to charge solar batteries. It keeps them going but doesn’t really do much for the state of charge. Simply put, when you want to store electricity, you don’t want speed (= voltage) because speed can’t be stored. You want volume (= amperage). So out of the total wattage (volts x amps) you want to maximise the current (ie. the amps) rather than the voltage. 4A is a nice steady healthy input to have 24/7 – about the same amperage that a portable generator running at 240V and blasting in 1.0-1.4kW is producing – and is what we’re aiming to achieve once we get the system running optimally with the right gearing. At the moment it’s running just under the threshold to contribute.

After running-in the M-24′s bearings and rotors, it will take about 2 weeks of constant charging to get our 770Ah batteries up from their very low state of charge to anywhere approaching full, so the LPG generator hasn’t completed its tour of duty quite yet, but the long wait is finally over.

Big thanks to Wayne Sutton of Pico Hydro Portugal for his genius design and impeccable engineering, and to the guys at Presto Wind for what appears to be an excellent product.

Now we celebrate! Premature? Possibly, but it’s a good excuse for some champagne anyway …

Update, December 16th:

We’ve now upped the gearing on the wheel to a 5:1 ratio, and in the process discovered that part of the resistance was down to an overly tight gear chain. Slackening this off increased the wheel’s speed at 5:1 from 35 to 48rpm under about 2.5 litres per second flow (at 4:1 it had been doing 52rpm). This equates to 240rpm for the M-24 and around 100W open circuit once the M-24 is fully run-in at water levels more usual in June than December. At the moment it’s producing 11V from one stator and 16V from the other (open circuit) after 6 days’ operation. Ammeter still to be connected.

Interestingly, extrapolating the rpm increase resulting from loosening the chain from a 5:1 to a 4:1 ratio would give almost 70rpm. This is pretty much what would be expected from a free-wheeling wheel at these water volumes, suggesting that the M-24 has next to no resistance. With only another week or so to go before it’s run-in, we’re like a bunch of kids waiting for a big treat and can’t wait to see how it’s going to perform.

Mindful of Peak Oil, not to mention expense, climate-weirding pollution and general noisy smelly unpleasantness, I set out with the intention of trying to stay fossil fuel-free on the quinta. But having already succumbed to a couple of petrol-driven power tools like a brushcutter and chainsaw … and of course there’s the car … I’ve had to be pragmatic about it yet again.

With the sun dropping inexorably behind the ridge to the south as the days get shorter and the nights get longer, our solar panels are no longer generating enough power to keep the batteries charged. And with the water wheel still waiting on the arrival of its new ‘engine’ and hence unable to contribute, it was a case of either shortening the useful life of our batteries by letting them languish at minimum voltage levels for rather too long than was healthy, or bite the bullet and get a generator. It’s less than ideal for charging solar batteries, which do much better on a trickle charge, but after a fortnight of being back to candlelight and the daily trek to the village to get the laptops charged on a mains supply (how did we do that all last winter?!), I am really, really pleased to have it.

There’s no doubt it’s A Good Thing to Have for the later stages of construction when battery levels aren’t quite up to protracted power tool use as well. Rather than opt for 2nd hand diesel, which was my first thought, I sidestepped the minefield of Chinese Honda knock-offs on eBay and went for an LPG conversion from Edge Technology on a petrol generator which, while still using fossil fuels, at least uses them far more economically, quietly, with cleaner emissions and less wear on the engine than a generator running on petrol or diesel.

Wiring an input cable directly into the inverter allows us to top up battery levels just by plugging in the generator, flicking a couple of switches on the inverter and pulling the starter cord. And doing this myself also gave me a chance to get more familiar with the nuts and bolts of the inverter: another thing that I’ve had to approach small step by small step. The learning curve on this one has been near vertical …

I’m reluctantly coming to accept that in these early stages of our life here, especially with all the construction we have to do, the time-saving and efficiency fossil fuel-driven tools permit is just a no-brainer. In time we can wean ourselves off them, or convert all our motor-driven tools to alternative fuels, but for now I’m contenting myself with the knowledge that at least our consumption levels of fossil fuels are much less than they were when we lived in the UK.