Solar VW

@AirCooled Volkswagen
@Sustainable Living

Finally saved enough to buy a solar-panel for my VW Camper Bus. The idea is that I can camp for a few days at a time without having to start the VW. I have a second battery installed, which is disconnected from the main starting battery when the engine is off. This prevents me from running my starter battery down and being stranded.
Second battery runs stereo, cabin-lights, and a few extra plugs for laptops, charging devices, fans, etc.

The solar panel will keep the second battery topped-up when parked for a few days. Also, in the event of prolonged power-outages at home, I can use this system as emergency power.

Total Cost: (around) $200 for panel, battery, diodes, fuse-blocks and charge-controller.

Panel is very inconspicuous in the luggage-space on top






Second Battery has plenty of fuses in case of a short. Also a diode to prevent an over-charge being sent to the engine voltage-regulator. A solenoid connects this battery to the main system when engine is running.

Towards Sustainability https://parts-unknown.org/wp/?p=717

@Anarchist Collectivists
@Vegetarian Ecofeminists
@Sustainable Living

Post move... Need to get a few chooks for the chook shed and start cutting some firewood for winter. Water should be OK for a while (can always top it off from the bore if it gets low, but the prior owner said he only once ever needed to do this).

Cows may have to wait a few months. Need to see how the horses do over the winter months (when the grass goes dormant) before we load up the land too much.

@Sustainable Living

@Sustainable Living I had completely forgotten that this was set up just before the great server explosion of September 2012.

Happy New Year!

| HD | Fireworks 2012 - State of the art by 1PYRO8 on YouTube

@Deutschsprachige Nutzer @Sustainable Living @Uberspace User Group

Know any good Sustainable-Living websites?

@Sustainable Living

I am addicted to reading news and blogs in the morning while drinking coffee. I have an RSS Reader to make news-reading simple.

There is a "Sustainable Living" section where I put feeds from my favorite websites. Some of them are random postings, but between them all there is usually one or two good articles every day:

Year of Mud: great site about building with cob and straw-bales

Root Simple: a couple who have an urban homestead in Los Angeles, California.

Tree Hugger: a bit on the commercial side of things, but they update daily and usually have interesting bits of news, and sometimes some cool ideas for furntiture

Gnowfglins: some good ideas and recipes. Lots of gardening tips


Any more to add to my list?

As some of you know, my landlord got repossessed and I'm now starting my @Sustainable Living journey a year early. So...

I live in a barn now. Barns are cool.

Unfortunately, they're cool in both senses of the word, which means I'll die this winter since minus 30 is considered mild.

I need some advice about how to insulate or heat it.

It's just a normal - if large - wooden barn with an insulated roof. I've got mains water, and electricity via a generator (Solar is coming next year - I just don't have the money right now). I've got plywood lining all around the inside walls, and some lino on the floor, but that's about it (it was supposed to be a guest room for summer months, not place to live at short notice). I'm not too bothered about those, but I'd like to be able to at least put the plywood back later for the sake of decorating.

Eventually, I probably need that bubble foil stuff that everyone else has...but I just can't afford that right now. I need something cheaper. I'm wondering if bubble wrap without the foily bit would work...but I'm not sure I want a minus 30 degree experiment on that.

Ideally, I want something quick as well - making this place habitable is the only thing keeping me too busy for Friendica now.

Any suggestions?

Cargo cyclists on low-tech magazine

They finally wrote a new entry in the low-tech magazine :)
@Sustainable Living

♲ kris de decker
Cargo cyclists replace truck drivers on European city streets

Those with strong cycling legs have ever more jobs up for grabs in Europe these days. A growing number of businesses are using cargo cycles, a move towards sustainable and free-flowing city traffic that is now strongly backed by public authorities.
Research indicates that at least one quarter of all cargo traffic in European cities could be handled by cycles. And, by using special distribution hubs, larger vehicles and electric assist, this proportion could be even larger.

A cargo cycle is at least as fast as a delivery van in the city - and much cheaper to use, giving a strong economic incentive to make the switch. Cargo cycles also bring important economic advantages to tradesmen, artisans and service providers.

Go by bus…

Epic Bus Ad from Denmark (English Subtitles - HTML5) Midttrafik - "The Bus" by flixxydotcom on YouTube

Sustainability Stories

Recently the company that I am working for was honored with an award by the government of a - well, let's call it "emerging nation". Reason for the award was our involvement in an infrastructure project in one of the big cities of the country. The solution that we have deployed there was helping to reduce the CO2 emission in the city and hence was part of the sustainable development of the city, according to the government.

Since the solution was implemented in an oversea country, our engineers and managers were all travelling by airplane - don't ask me, how often - over a period of roughly 3 years. And still they are, because we now have a subsidiary there, too.

I am wondering how many years our solution has to stay in place before the CO2 emission caused by the solution implementation comes near to compensating...

KimChi in Three Days

@Sustainable Living
for those of you interested in natural preservation, here is my KimChi recipe:

1 head of green cabbage
1 bunch of radishes
1 tablespoon or so of sea-salt
1 carrot
1 onion
1 tablespoon of chopped fresh ginger
1 clove o garlic
1 teaspoon of crushed red pepper-flakes

Cut up, use a wooden rod-end, baseball bat or some other blunt object to smash it up a bit to release the natural juices from cabbage

Put in a gallon-sized pickle-jar and sort of smoosh it all down.

Use some margarine-container lid or something with a (clean) rock on top to hold things down.

Add a little water if needed (depends on how much moisture in your cabbage). I usually wait a day and add half cup of water if needed.

Let sit for 3 days. Check often to make sure the cabbage stays under and compressed down. I also have a rubber tube coming out of the top of the jar going into a small jar of water. This allows air to escape but not get in.


After 3 days (or 4 or 5 if you like) put it all in smaller jars and put in the fridge or a cool place. This kimchi will last over a month (maybe longer, but I have never been able to keep it around that long before I eat it all). It gets better the longer it sits.

The average Korean eats 1/4 lb of Kimchi every day with meals. It is a weird condiment, but once you start eating it your body will crave the natural lactobacilli. There are also numerous health benefits, but I just like it so much that I make a batch every week or so.

Cob walls on Playhouse

I have been working on my kid's playhouse since early summer. It has been sort of an expermimental project to see if I could make a living-roof, but during the building process I decided to try my hand at cob as well. Rather than doing the full cob walls, I wanted to just plaster the walls with cob, inspiration coming from this blog.

After I had the roof stable, and a good base of rock and dirt around the base of the house, I put a layer of tar-paper over the wood that would be mudded, and then added a layer of fencing raised just a cm or two:





Since the earth where we live is largely orange clay, it was easy to find a spot to dig up the dirt I needed, mix it with sand and hay and plaster the walls up:




Needless to say, this small playhouse has a lot of thermal-mass to it; meaning I have dug up around 20 to 30 wheel-barrows full of dirt and rocks to go on the roof, around the base, and now on the walls.
Where we live, the summer tempertures are extremely hot and dry. Shade and thermal-mass make a lot of difference to how cool a building stays.

This playhouse has stayed a very nice temp all summer. The windows are positioned to catch breezes. The plants on the roof also help absorb heat (although all of the plants died when we were away for a week and were not watered.

The next project will be better shelters for our animals. Very similar buildings but slightly larger, and better access doors for cleaning out.

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