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Building a modern home in the woods

johnnyrodgers.is

341–350 of 508 posts

Re: Building a modern home in the woods

#341
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you in EU? Recall North America uses 120VAC, so a 400A service is equivalent to 200A in the EU

But 200A in EU is roughly 44-50 kW, a common contract for a flat (here in Italy) is 3 kW, if you have a heat pump and/or conditioner it goes to 4.5 or 9 kW. I have seen (largish) villas with 20 or 25 kW, but everything more than that - like 100 A or so - is definitely beyond common use.

>3 kW

So kettle + oven and you blow your fuses?

Re: Building a modern home in the woods

#342
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure! I saw startyourownisp.com on HN years ago, and once I moved here I remembered that starting an ISP was actually a thing. I started a wireless ISP (WISP). The rough process is: - Find the customers* - Find somewhere to broadcast from* - Find a wholesale fibre provider* - Register with your country's regulator & read a bunch of laws - While you are doing the above, learn about networking. Get this right before yo…

BTW, I really like the coverage checker at your website. Clever! So simple...

Ooh, I also spun this project out of making the coverage checker:

https://github.com/adamcharnock/python-srtm

Re: Building a modern home in the woods

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yes, yes there are. Millions of hectares burn down every year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_British_Columbia_wildfire... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_British_Columbia_wildfire... Last year an entire town disappeared: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-sept-7-2...

Dang, what makes the west coast so prone to burning? I've lived on the east coast all my life and have never encountered a wild fire. The biggest fires we get are ~1000 acres[1], and easily contained. [1] https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/2021/05/17/larg...

The west coast has large tracts of unoccupied, I maintained forest land, and a more Mediterranean climate (wet then much drier).

The two combine into large, periodic forest Fires.

The east coast has much fewer unbroken tracts of forest, and where it does have them they are more heavily managed and stewarded for a number of reasons.

The east coast was developed and property subdivided/allocated long before the tendency towards large national parks, monuments, etc.

It isn’t that these national parks or forests cause all these problems (though many of them DO feature prominently in these huge fires), they are also a sign of the very different nature of land allocation during the settling of the area.

You can see this pretty clearly if you pull up maps of federal land (national forests, national parks, blm land, etc). Several western states have more land owned by the federal government than anyone else.

They are all out west.

Re: Building a modern home in the woods

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but wood-heated right, and emptied before it goes solid.

No, a lot of saunas in Finland are electric heated. But they're still only 3*16A at most (and usually a lot less, but that depends on the size of the sauna). I think mine is ~7kW and still heats the sauna to high temperatures, just takes a bit more time. I still don't get though, if living in rural area, why not heat the pool with wood. It just has that sensation that electric heater doesn't provide.

There is a common saying when living in areas when using wood for heat -

‘Wood warms you up three times. Once when you cut it, once when you split it, and once when you burn it’.

The amount of manual labor and time required to keep a pool warm from wood is monumental. It will definitely keep a fit man in the prime of his life busy and tired.

It isn’t something to sign up for lightly, especially for someone who may not have that kind of physical strength (or want it spent on heating their pool).

Re: Building a modern home in the woods

#345
post #168

Beautiful house and there was a day I would have been extremely jealous but... I live in Oregon and in 2020 chose to (was not officially in an evac zone but the smoke was awful) evacuate when the horrible Beachie Creek and Lionshead [0] fires ripped through the Santiam Canyon. Houses that my wife and I had looked at possibly purchasing were torched, as well as some of the most pristine ancient forest I've seen [1]. M…

Why not build with concrete and stucco?

Re: Building a modern home in the woods

#346
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Small hot tubs are electric. S̶p̶e̶c̶i̶f̶i̶c̶a̶l̶l̶y̶,̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶o̶s̶e̶ ̶w̶h̶o̶ ̶w̶e̶r̶e̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶a̶w̶a̶r̶e̶,̶ ̶s̶m̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶h̶o̶t̶ ̶t̶u̶b̶s̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶t̶y̶p̶i̶c̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶h̶e̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶r̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ ̶f̶r̶i̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶t̶e̶ ̶h̶e̶a̶t̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶i̶r̶c̶u̶l̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶p̶u̶m̶p̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶d̶e̶d̶i̶c̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶w̶a̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶h̶e̶a̶t̶e̶r̶s̶.̶ ̶Y̶o̶u̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶a̶d̶d̶ ̶a̶ ̶s…

I don't think this is true. Could you source this? I've had several small outdoor electric hot tubs, and all of them have had dedicated heaters. The couple times I've had problems with the heater, the symptoms involved the pump running constantly and the tub never reaching temp. I'm sure there is some friction heating, but I don't think it's anywhere near enough to reach standard temperature.

Apparently you're correct, and I was misinformed. You could implement it this way—like how Tesla's newer designs can run the electric motor in a less-efficient mode to provide heat for the battery pack—but the designs I investigated did have separate heaters as part of the circulation system. (For some reason the specs for these were not listed in the product summary, but rather only in the manual.)

Re: Building a modern home in the woods

#347

I've done this in Portugal, but on a smaller scale and pretty much with only my own labor. I purchased 6 hectares (15 acres) for mid-5-figures. I've built an A-frame studio house for around €10k (excl tools), and installed a 5kw solar system for about another €10k. The house has air conditioning and underfloor heating (water-based, heated using wood from the land). I've also brought a 50-year-old tractor and started…

What was your total cost, do you imagine, if you include your own labour?

I'm originally from the Coimbra region (Mira and Penacova), and this is my dream!

I'd love to retire back to Portugal and do something similar, but unfortunately, I'd have to hire someone to build the house :-)

Re: Building a modern home in the woods

#348

"The bigger issue was that the energy demands for the house, which included hot water heating for the pool and hot tub, outstripped the electrical supply we could get on a rural residential build: 400A" Am I the only one who almost spit out his coffee when reading this paragraph? I mean, building a remote home in the middle of a forest is a cool idea, sure. But then end up feeding the whole thing with 400A worth of e…

I had 400A installed at my house (all electric, solar, batteries, the works). It's still overkill. What's shocking to me isn't that they went with a 400a panel, that I can (and obviously did) justify. It's that it WASN'T ENOUGH and they had to add propane as well. I can't imagine what kind of pool heater they have that needs more than that.

Cool house though.

Re: Building a modern home in the woods

#349
post #326

"The bigger issue was that the energy demands for the house, which included hot water heating for the pool and hot tub, outstripped the electrical supply we could get on a rural residential build: 400A" Am I the only one who almost spit out his coffee when reading this paragraph? I mean, building a remote home in the middle of a forest is a cool idea, sure. But then end up feeding the whole thing with 400A worth of e…

I also did. Another ridiculous thing was that the article initially claimed no fossil fuels, but the one thing they couldn't live without was wood-burning fireplaces. I mean don't they both generate large amounts of carbon dioxide?

Wood is not a fossil fuel unless you’re burning petrified wood or coal (and somehow calling that wood).

Fossil fuels are from carbon sources taken out of the normal carbon cycle (aka buried generally)

Re: Building a modern home in the woods

#350

"The bigger issue was that the energy demands for the house, which included hot water heating for the pool and hot tub, outstripped the electrical supply we could get on a rural residential build: 400A" Am I the only one who almost spit out his coffee when reading this paragraph? I mean, building a remote home in the middle of a forest is a cool idea, sure. But then end up feeding the whole thing with 400A worth of e…

The amount of cognitive dissonance required to say "we want to limit impact" on one hand, and to run a 400Amp electrical connection to heat your hot tub and pool in Canada, is staggering.

If it’s cheap hydro power driven (like much of Canada), it isn’t absurd.

A lot of hydro power is ‘use it or lose it’, since the dams also provide flood control and MUST keep extra capacity free to absorb sudden water surges. They can’t just store everything they get.

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