Hey chris it’s probably perfect. I know here they require the generator neutral to disconnect maybe because it’s a secondary route to ground… looks awesome by the way didn’t want to nit pick. The new house should have an awesome system budget permitting. I’ll post when we go ahead with it. So far the leading contender is an inverter company called solark…
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Pro tip! Some of those inverters that take generator power and charge the battery bank with, or pass through…so if you are just installing everything and find that the inverter will pass the power but won’t accept it to activate the charger… switch the hot and neutral around.
It was because of this I stopped allowing the generators to have a floating ground.
Magnums are an example of this. Schneider Electric too.
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I did a walkaround on our current evolved rainwater system. It works very well for our purposes.
Then it started raining! So I got a little more video.
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Enjoyed the vids Chris, caught them on youtube before I saw them here 
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I had intended to merge them, but apparently Youtube doesn’t allow that anymore… Oh well.
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As pricy as the wisy is, it sure looks like a skookum setup. Is the filter mesh removable as an element or is it a life time fixture?
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The mesh is a removable stainless insert, in case it needs cleaned or replaced. You can also get a solid insert for it, to bypass the filter entirely.
The WISY is actually intended to be buried and driven over, it’s extremely thick sturdy plastic. The major benefits are the water oxygenation and the self-cleaning screen. It’s the key to a hands-off system.
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Hey chris, I finally got around to watching this; great setup!.
The only thing I think I would have added would be a way to move the shurflo intake from on tank to another and a way to isolate tanks. My thought was that you could run one dry from time to time and bleach and clean it. Or a second pump with a filter to transfer to one good one for the house maybe chlorinated from time to time when the weather is hot… just thoughts.
The house looks nice and cozy.
Cheers, David
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I can. The suction tube can be moved easily, and each tank has its own shutoff valve. I have in the past shut off individual tanks for cleaning.
I have the parts to make a filter pump. More to come on that one.
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There you go! Looking forward to seeing it.
Cheers, David
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Chris, with all that water, I’m curious if the nice floors you installed are ruined? All that work you did in the house?
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The water never got that high. Our “basement” is actually the ground floor, which means our living space is up about 9 feet from ground level. Water got to 2 feet. I had everything up on tables etc in the basement. Nothing was ruined, amazingly. I learned a lot about things that can float (and tip over)!
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Being a walkout basement you should be able to dry it out and avoid mildew and mold problems. But a simple washing of the cement with bleach would probably help to insure you don’t get any mold.
I am glad to hear that is the case I was thinking you had a cellar full of water to deal with.
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Wow! We found out something interesting…in our stoney ground, the six foot ground rod has lost its conductivity. I would never have known, except that my son went down to the basement to switch circuits around from the inverter to the generator, and complained of getting a shock when he touched the plugins and the light switch. I can’t afford to go anywhere around here barefoot so I always have some sort of insulated boots on. Charlie went downstairs Barefoot and got tickled. We measured the voltage potential from the light switch to ground at 26 volts ac. We cast about for some time trying to figure it out, and then I noticed that the ground rod outside seemed to be able to move when I tried to twist it by hand. So I pulled it up as far as I could and then started beating around it with a sledgehammer and then pounded it back in. I put a mud flap on the basement floor by the breaker box, and the cabling for the inverter/generator. I think that’s a good idea anywhere you’re going to be fiddling with electricity and it might be damp.
If anybody else has any ideas I’d love to hear about it!
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Most services around here now require at least two ground rods 6 feet apart plus any reinforcing rods in new construction footings must also be bonded.
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We have a water spigot coming out of our well house and for many years it would buzz you every time you turned it on. once we put the shop in next to it and grounded it all it stopped.
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I missed ole Bruce’s post until now. Back 24 years ago the Federal Mine Safety folks turned my life into hell. One thing they had was a ground field test that had to be done every year. A megger (meg ohm meter) was used for this. They mentioned that some mines had to use 20ft long ground rods or buried cars to obtain sufficient contact with the soil to get the resistance low enough for their standards. My brother in-law worked for a company that supplied materials for radio towers. He talked of how they would drill a well for the grounding the tower and use chloride to increase conductivity to the ground in the well.
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Another update on the homestead, sorry these are so spaced out… here are some things we’ve been working on.
New roof on the house last September. Got this done right as I was getting sick with COVID, and as my 3rd daughter was born… that was quite a week.
This spring we got chickens, which meant I needed to build a chicken coop. I found an old hay wagon frame, and built up from there using old rough lumber and scraps (including old house roofing)
We immediately had racoons trying to eat the birds, so I put up some electric netting around them (and shot the coons). Here are the chickens working on a future garden plot:
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We are starting to get serious now about the new house. I want to get started on it before the family grows much more… this little house is starting to feel crowded. We have a good floor plan and a rough cost estimate. I want to do most of the work ourselves, and I want to do it as a timber frame. Biting off a lot I know… we have time on our side at least. There’s no rush to get into the house, just needs to be started.
I think we’re settled on a floorplan, it will be about 3500 sq ft, two stories. Yes that’s a big house. However there’s no basement, all storage etc will be in the living space. When you are building a big simple box like this, square footage is pretty cheap “in bulk”. Besides, like I said we’re planning a big family.
To get the big timbers I need, it’s time to think about a sawmill. Logs are really cheap and custom sawing is not. Perfect opportunity to DIY. The old falling down shed will become the sawmill, and we’ll order logs by the truckload and mill them down to size ourselves. First step was to rebuild the shed roof, with homemade trusses:
Another project lately is a spring I’m trying to develop. It’s a wet-weather spring, 2-3 gpm, but it’s been very dry lately. I buried a large plastic barrel downstream as a spring box, and I’m working on an effective dam to collect the water. I think it needs more clay. We also need some rain so I can test it out.
I’ll pump the water up into a holding tank and then use a 12v RV pump to move the water where it’s needed. This will require a tiny solar battery setup, which I have yet to develop.
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