ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Living off the grid

I can understand static dissipative clothing (for working with very sensitive electronic components).

And during a dry cold winter I've considered attaching a little wire or chain from my pant's cuff to ground me (every time I touch an iron or brass doorknob I get zapped) - carpets all over the place.

There was one instance where a co-worker's 2-way pager (those alpha numeric doo-hickeys with a little keyboard) got fried from a static discharge!

But for the life of me....a bed canopy made out of shielding material? Hmmm...

I wonder if all those bad dreams I get is because of the stray EMF fields from the pillow speaker I use to listen to late night radio shows!!! Oh wait...that was an ultra-religious station I had tuned into by accident

Paul,
I think that it may be pertainent, to get back to the topic at hand.
Living off of the Grid supply has been a hobby in the NZ/Australia for a number of years over here, now that a few people have taken up Alternative Energies( mainly Solar
heating of water).
Ever heard of Solar Cooking, Paul?, its really good if you have good sunshine around midday.
Want to know any more?, you know where to ask.ECN.

Yes, I've heard of solar cooking, although I've never tried it. First requirement is probably to move out of the U.K.......

Paul,
The beauty of solar cooking, is that you do not require a great deal of sunlight,
you use a parabolic dish to concentrate the suns rays, toward your fry-pan, etc.

Yep, I realize it doesn't need that much sunlight! My tongue was just firmly-in-cheek in view of the U.K.'s notorious weather. As one visiting American put it many years ago, "Britain doesn't have a climate, just a series of weather."

There have been some designs for passive solar houses, and even a few such homes built as experimental projects. Heat pumps have been used in some, although these have yet to become widely known in this country.

A few people have even started to adopt ideas such as laying grass on the roof (Norwegian style) and using triple-glazing.

I think the biggest obstacle to adopting some of these more unconventional (from a British standpoint) designs is the attitude of many local councils, who will not approve plans for anything other than the boring little brick boxes that they want to see built.

There was a report a couple of years ago which stated that the average British household in southern England spent more on winter heating than the average home in central Sweden. Considering the difference in winter temperatures, it shows just how lacking we are, C-H will probablu have something to say about this one!

[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 01-03-2003).]

I don't want to insult anyone, but I've got some very sharp comments about traditional single glazed US/British sash windows (the guillotine type) in mind. Continental European windows have always been double glazed (except for some cheap bathroom windows).

I have followed the 'renewable energy' clic here for a decade, they have been buffaloed and made to look like granola crunching sandal wearing basket weavers by the very same political hamheads that would tout 'renewables' as legislative fodder.

Nice to see a country who's actions speak louder than words here.....


perhaps this could serve as example??

Wow -- A 3300-ft. tower and 32 turbines! It sounds like a project straight out of the works of Robert Heinlein or Arthur C. Clarke, but then science-fiction has a habit of turning into science-fact, given enough time.

I can just imagine the howls of protest if such a project were planned in England. There's an experimental windfarm about 10 miles down the coast from me, consisting of ten small wind turbines. Some people here are most unhappy about it "spoiling the countryside." I wonder if they'd prefer us to just keep building more conventional power stations to add to the pollution? Or are they going to give up their ever expanding range of power-hungry gadgets to keep peak demand down?

Ranger,
The double-hung "sash" window has been something of a dying breed in England for many years. You'll still find them in old Victorian houses (of which there are thousands), but it's unusual to see them in the average house built since the 1930s. Various styles of casement windows are the norm now. They're still much more popular in America, of course.

BJ,
Sorry, but I never had a decent look at the site, that you tendered, until NOW.
How silly can you get, to think that a certain suit and a hat, would protect all of us against, the effects of EMF's.
We are all exposed to these EMF's, they "cut"
our bodies every single day, they as a rule, do not cause us any harm, but they do to Electronic Equipment, hence the EMC laws.
If the case of the "Greenies", was taken seriously, we would ban all Radio,TV and other such communications and the reticulation of Electricity to everyone.
Where would this leave us, I present this
question!.

Trumpy — We can only hope that someday an unbiased statistical study will conclude that worrying about "currents of death" causes greater health problems than the "currents" themselves.