…when I didn’t do a lot. Sleeping through the alarms and waking up at 10:15 didn’t help for a start!
But then it was bright outside (well, whatever light was passing through the clouds) and nothing registering on the charge meters so first job was to shin up on the roof and clean off the solar panels. I can’t wait to get some trace heating wire up there so I can melt the snow rather than brushing it off.
And while I was up there Claude passed by. He wanted a good chat and he was here for ages so it was gone 12:00 before I could even begin to think about breakfast. But never mind – I started off again by doing some more weeding down the garden where my new vegetable plot will be. I couldn’t keep it up for long though because it was freezing outside – one of those damp biting colds that go right through you no matter what you are wearing.
After lunch I started on tidying out where I’m going to put this cupboard but Claude came back again to borrow the phone and for another chat, so I ended up doing not very much.
This evening I went round to Liz and Terry’s to take Liz to this meeting in St Priest. It was organised by the SMADC and the CREFAD, and there was someone from the BIRC (pronounced “BERK”) there, but no-one from the SPANC or the SMUT. It was to talk about tourist ideas and to discuss them with several practicioners and a few experts but like most of these meetings, everyone is there to promote his or her own venue. And of course, I’m no different than most of them. Networking is a vital part of community interaction.
But I’ll tell you something – if you were to program into a computer a list of all of the physical characteristics of my ideal woman and the girl (Katrine) who organised the meeting were to drop out of the slot at the bottom, I would not be disappointed in the least. It’s been quite a long time since I’ve been struck in such a way. I probably won’t be able to sleep tonight now! I’m now wondering when CREFAD’s next meeting is!
On the way home there was a blinding blizzard of a snowstorm and I inched my way back at 25mph (40kph) – that is, until I crossed the Font Nanaud, the pass through the mountains about 5km south of Pionsat. Once I was over there the snow dramatically stopped and there wasn’t a drop to be seen. It was astonishing.
I like the idea of a set of wipers that could be used. I;m sure trace wire would use too much power. Something like windscreen wipers would work. These could be electric or hand powered via a crank.
To be effective the windscreen wiper system would have to run all through the snowfall ..a lot of energy. A heating wire system could keep the temperature stable and thus prevent the snow from building up….apart from that Eric already has the crank system…..;)
Yes, if it’s cranks that you want then I’m your man.
But an ad-hoc experiment today revealed that the snow on the panels is cutting down the solar energy by about 3-4 amp-hours. So let’s say 3 amp-hours to be on the safe side.
So that’s 3 amps for an hour, or 12 amps for 15 minutes, or 36 amps for 5 minutes. And 36 amps is about 400 watts. So 400 watts through a trace wire for 5 minutes wouldn’t half melt a lot of snow and pay for itself in an hour. You don’t need it on all the time – just a few minutes in the early morning as the sun comes over the hills across the valley, and maybe once or twice during the day if there’s a particularly heavy snowfall.
I think you’ll find I am much better at the crank stakes :p