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.

Alan Ereira’s documentary film about the Kogi people of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia and the message to the world from their Mamas, or spiritual leaders, was produced in 1992. Twenty years ago.

When the Kogi talk about the heart of the world dying, what’s frightened them is the death of this area, the Páramo, because when this dies everything below it that depends on it will have to die. That’s what they mean when they said that they know that unless we do something, the world is coming to an end.

“It is the mountains which make the waters, the rivers and the clouds. If their trees are felled they will not produce any more water.”

The Sierra is a model of the world. Global warming does not stop here. We are changing the air and the sky and the balance of life.

“They have taken the clouds from the Páramo. They have sold the clouds. We know what is happening and we’re all in agreement. The world does not have to end. If we act well the world can go on.”

Has anything improved since this film? Unfortunately, no. The opposite.

Further message from the Kogi in 2009
Similar message from the Yanomamai peoples in 2009

Today I transplanted two young fig trees to positions either side of the ponds. They should thrive there and grow really fast with year-round moisture in the soil, eventually shading the ponds through the heat of the summer and giving us a plentiful supply of fruit. There were no fig trees on the quinta when we came here, so this was something to be remedied at an early stage in the planting schedule.

The quinta has slate-built concrete-lined tanks on each main terrace, designed to collect water from the stream and its springs, which is then released through sluices into irrigation channels along the back of each terrace to flood-irrigate crops grown on the terrace. Slate-lined channels underground beneath the terraces take the water from terrace to terrace. At the moment, the tanks are full of years of accumulated sludge, the irrigation channels are overgrown and the transport channels don’t function in quite the way they were designed to.

But even were we to restore this system to its original working order, it’s a predominantly anthropocentric system: designed for a specific agricultural purpose and not particularly user-friendly for wildlife. The tank sides, for instance, are far too precipitous for frogs to get in and out, and the very containment of the water limits its use to a particular form of irrigation of a particular form of cultivation. It doesn’t work for raised beds, though it would irrigate fruit trees well.

One idea has been to create a series of ponds for the water to flow through from terrace to terrace rather than using the underground channels. Constructing unlined ponds using Sepp Holzer’s techniques will also allow the development of wetlands in which to grow plants that thrive in this environment and encourage more amphibious wildlife which will hopefully enjoy feasting on our plentiful supply of slugs and snails.

First I wanted to experiment on a small scale with the construction technique.

Underneath the bottom terrace is a pouço – a slate-lined underground dome with a collection tank below it, designed to collect water filtering through the ground above it. In order to keep the ground wet enough to supply my neighbours’ drinking water requirements, this area had become a stagnating marsh, breeding mosquitoes and bad smells, not to mention prodigious amounts of vegetation which considerably slowed the rate of water filtration. Turning this area into a shallow pond fed with plentiful clean water seemed a good project both to deal with my neighbours’ water supply issues and to begin my pond-building experiments.

I began digging with Simeon‘s help back in August. Together we created the first of two ponds, with the outfall of the first to feed the second.

Upper pond dug and filling with water. Some of the fine sludge from the bottom terrace tank was put into this pond and, along with the clay-rich soil, was mixed and trod in imitation of pigs creating a wallow so that a natural seal is formed as progressively finer particles settle out and line the pond.

The digging of the second, lower pond. This pond is directly over the neighbours’ pouço and is necessarily very shallow.

The ponds after a month. Water levels maintain themselves very well with only an occasional adjustment required to compensate for sudden changes in flows upstream. The water is kept moving to prevent stagnation and the pond feeding the pouço is full of sweet clear water. I would like to make the top pond larger and deeper though, and plan to do this sometime before Spring. Frogs have already been spotted swimming.

Duckweed (Lemna spp) starting to grow.

The pond digger

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.

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.

One of the greatest delights of living on the quinta so far has been our water. Not only does it taste delicious, and refreshes in subtle ways that tap water just doesn’t (forget the Heineken!), but after a couple of weeks of using it to wash with, the difference it makes to skin and hair are also very noticeable.

I have very fine fly-away hair which, without the benefit of conditioner, rapidly turns into an impossibly tangled storks-nest type thing with random sticky-up bits when washed with chemically treated Scottish drinking water, no matter that this water is so much softer than the more calcium-rich variants further south in the UK. And despite using only water to wash my face, in Scotland the skin requires large quantities of moisturiser to keep it from tightening, drying and flaking. While staying on the quinta this time, I ended up using neither hair conditioner nor moisturiser. It started more by accident than design, but after a week settled into an experiment to see what would happen if I continued, using only the same natural shampoo on my hair and flannel-and-water treatment on my face as I use in Scotland.

Result? Extraordinarily smooth and soft hair and skin that need no conditioners nor creams, despite the drier dustier environment and the odd splatterings of engine oil, petrol, white spirit and the like. Jings! If we restored the public water supply to its natural living healthy state, 90% of the cosmetics industry could potentially go out of business. Well I guess that’s not going to happen then …

After I first shook hands on the purchase of the quinta, I wanted to carve something for the place, and specifically for the niche behind the waterfall on the middle terrace. The idea was that it should carry the energy and intent that water should always run on this land (as it evidently always has).

Suitably, this one was a family effort. I started with a tall rectangular block of Portland limestone, but all I could “see” in it initially was the bowl shape at the top. Was thinking acorn cup or somesuch with all the oaks on the quinta. Then Ema came by the studio and “saw” a head beneath it and it was instantly obvious that’s what it should be. Astrologically, with my natal Sun in Aquarius, the water carrier idea also seemed completely appropriate to mark the beginnings of my stewardship of this land.

The stylised African-ish head that evolved from that vision came out to Portugal with the yurt and other stuff in April, but has been sitting bubble-wrapped waiting on a suitable occasion to place the carving in the niche behind the waterfall. Oonagh had the idea that, since the head had been Ema’s inspiration, then we should place it in the waterfall the day Ema and Chris set off in their van for Europe. That was this morning. So, with serendipitous rain to accompany and confirm the idea of perpetual and plentiful water, we had a little ceremony and put the carving in its place.

Now, as the unseasonal rain continues to fall putting a halt to progress on the yurt platform today, I’m just hoping that our bit of earth magic doesn’t turn out to be altogether too powerful …

Postscript: It continued to pour down all day. We gave up any hope of work and went to see Andy & Sophie. The downpour followed us there too.

Young oaks silhouetted by the rising sun. (There are almost as many oaks as fruit trees here.)

Cloud-filled morning pine forest

The pool on the top terrace

The waterfall on the middle terrace

I’ll also be taking back a much fitter body and a huge sense of pleasure gained from working the land with traditional hand tools rather than modern petrol-driven or electrical implements. The €6,50 wooden-handled sickle with serrated blade that I bought in Arganil market has been only marginally less efficient than a €250+ brushcutter/strimmer would have been at tackling the bracken and brambles, considerably more environmentally friendly, much cheaper to run, and better for my physique into the bargain. It’s enough to make me seriously wonder whether in fact we need a strimmer after all.