Every winter brings about some damage to the waterline for the hydroelectric turbine, a/k/a the penstock. Usually this is because a tree branch has fallen on some of the 1100′ of 2-inch Schedule 40 PVC, which is cheap but gets really brittle when cold. I knew from the very beginning that replacing some of the PVC every Spring would be an issue but just accepted it as the cost of doing business. Last year was great, I had to replace and patch only two little sections. 2015 was the worst as I had to replace 600-feet of pipe.
Except for the last thirty feet all of the penstock is above ground. I did originally get an estimate to burying the entire penstock well below the frost line, but the >$75k+ price tag was a bit much. My hydroelectric system is more of a hobby than anything else, at least until the EMP or CME or some other grid-down calamity, so that wasn’t in the cards.
A shredded section of the penstock just before the ice storm.
This damage was peculiar because it was a compound spiral fracture which is only supposed to happen as a result of water freezing in the pipe and bursting it. Since I drained the system in November this damage was a head-scratcher. I am not looking forward to surveying the entire length of pipe once the snow and ice are gone.
I am now rethinking the penstock altogether. Rather than sticking with PVC I am going to check into industrial irrigation polypropylene line which is continuous and much more forgiving to the forces that bust the PVC. Since a pressurized/enclosed water line can run down to about -15 degrees maybe I could even keep it running year-round.
Stay tuned.
In the aftermath of the snow/sleet/freezing rain/ice/snow adventure of last Sunday you could definitely say we were disheartened at the sight of the collapsed greenhouse. The broken internal structure was clearly evident, in one place the end of the snapped off arched beam had poked through the plastic skin. Mrs. Barn rightly insisted on clearing off the ton of ice to assess the damage and get a plan for the reconstruction.
One thing we did not want to do was wail away at the shell and damage the skin even more than it was already. Finding the right tool was a conundrum. She tried with one of her gardening tools but it was a poor fit for the problem, plus she was too short to get up high enough to get much done. I’m taller and with my spiked boots I could get up on the snow/ice dam along the edge of the building. And fortunately I had just the right tool.
Many years ago my woodworking pal TomS gave me my favorite walking stick, about shoulder length with a bulbous knot near the top. Since the knot was gentle in shape I could stand and whack the ice until it broke up without risking more damage to the plastic skin. After about an hour of careful work the last of the ice slabs slipped off and the arched structure popped back to its original shape. Hallelujah! You can see that slab leaning up against the greenhouse, it was about six square feet of four-inch-thick ice/snow composite. It is several hundred pounds. So even though we have not seen each other in more than a decade, TomS saved the day!
I found just a couple of punctures to the plastic skin and repaired them straightaway. I still have to build four new laminated arches, but the necessary repair is much less than anticipated. I’ll get to work on the repairs as soon as we get a bit more warming.
I just checked and the outside temp is 16 and inside the greenhouse it’s nearly 60.
PS. Here’s a glimpse of what we were dealing with. We estimate it would have taken a month to clear the six inch thick ice slab on driveway with a pickaxe and shovel. It was brutal work for us septuagenarians. Thank goodness for hearty mountain men willing to work all night long in frigid temps with their monster machines. It was well after 10pm when we finally got to the top of the list. They finished with us and moved on to the next name on the list.
PPS A fellow at church told me he had seen some of the Amish kids skating in a field. Who needs a pond or rink? We certainly could not navigate our place without snow cleats.
When I built the greenhouse last year I was determined to overbuild it. As the evidence indicates, I was wrong in my assumptions and execution of what I thought overbuilding was, The center laminated arch just snapped this week under the weight of the snow, sleet and frozen rain. A pretty substantial rebuild must occur before next winter, building bigger (and more) laminated arches. In addition to replacing the destroyed center arch I will build two more inside the greenhouse and one in the outer workspace on the far end of the structure. I’ll make them each 1-1/2″ x 3″ rather than 1-1/4″ x 2″. That calculates to a four-fold increased strength. I don’t know yet whether the plastic skin can be salvaged. Part of me was pleased to see the laminations remained intact, just the weight and the wind literally snapped the center arch.
Also, if I was so inclined and equipped, I could absolutely ice skate down the driveway. (I left my ice hockey days behind me many, many decades ago)
One thing I was very pleased about was the performance of my spiked-sole lumberjack boots. They made traipsing around the icy landscape a breeze. I was absolutely right to buy these a couple years ago. I was only expecting to use them when harvesting firewood on sloped ground, but they sure did the trick here.
UPDATE
The plowing crew finally came at 10.15 last night to dig us out. They brought three big machines. The first was a V-wedge icebreaker to bust everything up, the second was an 8-foot plow blade, the third was a 6-foot blade to make everything purdy. Was great to look out this morning and actually see the driveway, we can now get out after four days of being icebound. Free at last, free at last!
Right around zero at dawn this morning.
Although I have been spending any shop time over the past few months cleaning, tidying, and reorganizing the barn, I had long ago penciled-in this week as Firewood Week 2026/7. We are deep into Winter 2025/6 with an extended forecast of unseasonably cold weather, with overnight lows for the next fortnight running at or below zero. That was motivation to get a good jump on next winter and beyond (we’re fine for this winter).
My target was the cluster of windfall trees (mostly maple and birch IIRC) that came down in a storm some time ago, up the hill behind the cabin. The main trunks on these are all 18-24″, a few a bit more. The beauty of such a trove is that it is already down but standing above the ground, making it easy to get to while seasoning “on the hoof.” I’ll have to clear a couple of scrub saplings to get my 4WD S10 up there but if the ground is clear it will be a piece o’ cake.
Then came the disheartening forecast last week for a Storm of the Century!!! with somewhere between 12 and 24 inches of snow. Such an event would disrupt my firewood harvesting and processing plans. Not an existential problem, but I did have my mind set on it. Then came the Snowpocaplyse. Big whup. Not even enough to get out the snowblower.
The forecast is still for very cold (for us) weather so I’ll see if I can work in well-below-zero wind chills. My old Minnesota home town has wind chills of minus-60 so this isn’t all that bad in the cosmic scheme of things.
Stay tuned.
UPDATE
The monster snowfall never materialized, but the gradual deposits from the storm front wound up to be about three inches of snow, followed by three inches of sleet, all encased in a saturating half inch of freezing rain. Even my 13hp snowblower choked on that combo. We spent yesterday hacking out two of the vehicles and will spend today and tomorrow working on our long driveway. It’s like clearing demolition rubble as I first have to break everything up then shovel it out of the way.
In a recent eight-day stretch here at Shangri-la we had more than a foot of snow, much earlier than normal for us in the Virginia (!) highlands. My pal MikeM lives in upstate New Tork and we note that our weather is basically similar, just one day earlier or later depending on which way the fronts are moving. Tomorrow night I think the overnight low will be approaching zero. That usually does not happen here until late January or early February.
Just for reference — the snow buildup on my shooting bench of 6″x8″ timbers.
It made me all the more thankful I have a mondo snow blower that can clear the driveway with three passes. On the other hand, even though it is power-drive it still requires rasslin’ a 350-pound machine on slippery ground. It took about an hour to clear the driveway from the front gate up to the barn. It took two days for my shoulders and hips to quit barking at me.
Last night as I was heading down the hill for supper I noticed this fascinating formation on the edge of the log barn roof. I’ve never seen anything quite like this.
Definitely time to get back to processing next winter’s firewood.
Here’s a glimpse of a recent fortnight in Shangri-la.
As is often the case my brother and his wife come for a visit, now extended from one week to two weeks since they are now both retired. I guess that is a commentary of sorts, with my siblings and I all retired including the baby. We are fortunate in that all five of us get along famously and maintain a steady text thread keeping us up to date with each other. The thread activity really ramped up when our Mom was in her final decline a few years ago and it never stopped.
Anyhow, you might remember the post a few months ago about trolling for firewood on the homestead, with a special emphasis on existing windfall waiting to be harvested. Of particular interest this week was the cluster of storm damaged locust trees up at the top of the hill, with several large trees down and tossed about. FYI locust is a highly prized firewood, very BTU dense with a hot burning temp and less ash than other woods. When we got down to it, we realized that in addition to the already-dead trees there were at least a half dozen still-standing (but probably not for long) locusts that could/should come down.
So down they came. It took some forethought as the trunks were intertwined and needed to come apart in a particular order. My brother is really good at that work. By the time we finished the week there were four heaping trucksful of sawn and split firewood to stack up at the barn.
At this point I am well into the firewood inventory for Winter 2026/2027, but I still have a lot of windfall to harvest. By my guess it will be about ten truck loads, so all is good. I will work on those truckloads in between other stuff over the winter. It’s gonna be crazy with grandson #4 due probably next week.
Things have been popping in the orbit of Shangri-la, what with summer gardening (soon to be complimented with winter gardening), visiting the grandsons (and their parents), preparing for the upcoming woodfinishing workshop and historic trades fair, and a multitude of other stuff disrupting my writing and blogging routines.
The greenhouse is currently the home for a series of Self Irrigating Planters Mrs. Barn asked me to create for her. We built five different versions and in keeping with her background as a plant scientist she was conducting a standardized experiment to determine which version is the one to go with in the future. We plan to use SIPs almost exclusively inside the greenhouse so her efforts are well worth it.
These images are from a month ago, so the plants are all bigger now and burgeoning with tomatoes or eggplants.
In addition to the greenhouse experiments she’s been harvesting the seeming bushels of green beans we love so much. Nothing quite like fresh green beans, and her dilled beans are the best.
The asparagus season is long in the rearview mirror but was savored intensely in its time. The asparagus plants are now full-blown bushes about ten feet tall. Mrs. Barn sez this is one of the keys to keeping an asparagus bed thriving. She must be right, ours is many years old.
As for all the other activities, stay tuned.
Things are getting closer to wrap-up with the greenhouse project, as I built the steps on the bank from the yard up to the terrace. I will probably build a second set of steps at the other end, but we are really getting close to the point where we can say we have a first-class functioning greenhouse. This was an “in process” image, the steps are now all done and a great addition to the endeavor. We no longer have to trek diagonally across a steep bank that is frequently slick with dew.
A couple weeks ago I followed Mrs. Barn’s protocol and covered the entire floor with cardboard once she had settled on a configuration for the space. This step really cuts down on weed encroachment once it is covered with a layer of mulch.
I also placed four black painted drums in the space, one in each corner. Once I install the spigot kits near the bottom of each drum they will serve two functions. First is to provide water to the plants since there is no hard plumbed water line, so these will have to be refilled by hose on occasion. Second, though, is to serve as heat sinks in the winter when the black paint and water inside the drum is heated in the winter time to keep the overnight temps moderated. At least that’s the plan. I also may wind up putting more thermal mass in the space, such as sand-filled concrete blocks painted black to absorb solar warming.
With that all done I hauled up a truckload of mulch to cover the carboard on the floor. It transforms the space visually and functionally as sometimes walking over layers of cardboard is a slippery proposition.
I will shortly add some benches to the covered-but-not-enclosed end of the structure where many plants will be kept as a intermediary space.
Our noodling between now and winter will be to get a handle on temperature controls for both heat and cold. Even though the enclosed space has a shade cloth over it the temperatures on a sunny day can get pretty extreme inside, much more than our one little 12-inch fan can handle. I’ve got another fan on order, and hope that two will do the trick. I am not pleased and cannot recommend the one we bought, but it is here and installed and works, some of the time.
The next update from the greenhouse will focus on Mrs. Barn’s experimentation with self-irrigating planters.
Stay tuned.
Prior to fabricating and installing the new Coanda-style cover for my hydroelectric capturing box, every couple weeks I would notice a drop-off in the water flow to the turbine. Sometimes it stopped altogether. So, I had to turn off the water at the bottom, flip up the turbine housing and remove the nozzles. Invariably the orifice was crammed solid with a crawdad body, sometimes compressed to the point where I needed to drive it back out with a metal rod. It happened so much I kept a tool right there for the task.
With the former configuration the intake was covered with 1/4″ inch hardware cloth, even then the little crustaceans figured out how to get into the capturing box and were sucked into the pipeline. A minute or two and 1200-feet later they wound up crushed at the bottom when their carcasses were too large to fit through the turbine nozzles. Hence the need for regular clean-out.
Since I installed the new cover there have been zero crawdads in the nozzles. .
A big step forward.
Although I’m not back in the shop full time or anything close, I did sneak in a couple of sessions to make and install the new cypress lid for the hydropower capturing basin. Last winter I saw that something had torn the living starch out of the previous hardware-cloth-over-frame lid, rendering that element useless in filtering out the debris. It was probably a bear, but I really have no idea why a bear would feel the need to tear up the box lid in the middle of a vigorously running stream. The box itself was uninjured, perhaps because it holds about 500 pounds of rocks.
My first step for the new lid was nailing down the side strips to the workbench, then began nailing on the slats spaced two washers apart. This will result in a roughly >1/16″ opening, large enough for the wicking of water through the lid but keeping out the debris and crawdads. I nailed it all together from both sides with copper slatters nails, driven into pre-drilled holes. Once the unit gets saturated the wood will swell and clinch the nails solidly in place.
This particular structure is known as a Coanda Screen, although they are usually manufactured from stainless steel rods and screens.
A hike up the hill to clean out the debris from the capturing basin and setting the new lid in place and the system was functional once I made the penstock re-connection that I disconnect when winterizing it. I added another 500 pounds of rocks on top to discourage any four-legged vandals. We’ll see if it works.
Over the summer I will spend a few days working on the penstock incline, building rock berms to flatten out the swales so that maybe, just maybe I can keep it running all winter long. Enclosed water lines can supposedly keep running down to -17F if there is minimal turbulence.
But for now, after a week of vigorous rain (~3″ total) it’s pounding out the power.
Back to finishing up the myriad details for the greenhouse.
Recent Comments