… which is a Bank Holiday here in France, and so I remembered to switch off the alarm and have another lie-in. It’s been a while since I’ve had a proper Bank Holiday day off.<\/p>\n
It dropped below freezing point last night outside too, the first time at this end of the year, and I’m not surprised because it was a glorious day today – not a cloud in the sky. There was 134 amp-hours of surplus solar energy too and so the home-made electric 12-volt immersion heater that I use as a dump load was in action again.<\/p>\n
I had a nice leisurely morning tidying up a load of files on the computer and then carried out what is probably the most disagreeable task that happens round here, and that is to empty the composting toilet. Down at the composting bin, the first time for probably 6 months or something, I was well-impressed. What had been a horrible soggy mass of I don’t quite know what (well I do, but this is a family website) I was greeted by a nice dark brown earthy, crumbly soil mixture. So that is clearly working.<\/p>\n
I’m also having charging issues in the barn, and have been for quite some time. The Charge Controller seems to have given up the ghost and no charge has been passing through it for quite some time, and consequently the batteries there are somewhat empty. But it was a shame to miss out on all of this lovely solar energy that we were having and so I made up a cable with a crocodile clip at each end and for a couple of hours I by-passed the charge controller by using this cable, and that put a little life into the batteries and we actually had some light in the barn this evening.<\/p>\n
I’ll have to remember to do that more often, in order to give the batteries a chance to build themselves back up again. But that’s the second Charge Controller that’s failed in there. Something isn’t quite right, I reckon. I’ll need to check and see what it is.<\/p>\n
