Something like success

[SilverBox]

Back slightly more on-topic though, it's not that I think the present-day building methods and codes are any less durable, it's that I'm finding that things are being built quick & cheap these days, and the quality of a lot of the materials and sometimes workmanship is going down. I've seen 10-year-rated shingles for sale - I thought 25-year used to be the standard. In the last seven years I've seen the quality of the gyproc drywall sheets degrade - they used to be nice and solid, the last ones I bought a few months ago were full of small bubbles and noticeably more fragile.

I don't notice a degredation in quality at all, in fact so far as I can tell building materials seem better then they used to, new products like glu-lams, TJI's, Denshield, D-tra, OSB, etc.. IMHO are superior to the products that we used to use. I remember sending loads back to the Lumber Yard 20-30 years ago full of cull wood and crap, you have to send the crap wood back and make them bring you something other then a load of airplane props, but its always been that way.. The old adage "you get what you pay for" still holds true, if you want better quality materials you have to spend a little more..

As far as drywall, I've seen that bubbling over the years, try buying from a different store, I think you just got ahold of a marginal batch, or if it really bothers you that much, upgrade to 5/8"s or Purp/green board, and if your really worried upgrade to one of the new products like Denseshield (its a rocklike tile underlayment about 2x the cost of drywall, but impervious to water, looks/cuts just like drywall) or the like.

As far as shingles go, around here only the cheap houses (maybe 15% of the houses in the area) end up with the 20-25 year 3 tab comp shingles. Pretty much every house in the suburbs (around here) has 30 or 40 year arch comp shingles, or 50 year tile. You get into the poor areas and you'll see some 10 year rolled roofing on sheds and such. Heck, my House has 10 year rolled roofing on it (temporarily, after I put my addition on, I'll reroof the whole house with 30 yearh arch comp), but lately the price of it has gone up so much, its just a few bucks more to get 25 year 3 tabs or 30 year arch comp. If you want to talk about companies sticking it to us look at the asphault shingle companies and their lock step upward price moves that are just now starting to come down.. A roll of 10 year rolled roofing was $25 bucks 2 years ago before oil went up, they want $45 now.. (crazy)

 

[MJR]

Back to Hydro - what kind of flow and drop do you have. Is it year round?

I am thinking of one myself.

 

[kayaklogger]

lets start with parameters, 2" poly pipe is as big as you can go before you gotta go rigid, which is hard to lay and expensive. So I use 2" poly. 600ft is about as far as you can go and still flow a decent amount of water, so I go 600ft, which is about one edge of my property to the other on the creek. 40 gallons per minute is as much as you can flow for that distance without big turbulence losses in pressure. I have 80ft of fall, flowing 40gpm, that gives me about 30psi, which is pretty meager, and puts out 200W which after return wire and inverter losses, is about 150w. x 24 hrs = 3600 w per day. Thats enough for lights and computers and small appliances, but not for water heating, space heating or cooking.

Every hydro system should look different depending on the situation, this is what made sense for me. Feel free to drop me a line. This stuff isn't totally obvious. Your situation might call for a very different setup.

I spent 13k on my system and includes 3 150watt solar panels too.

 

[jandc]

Here's a good documenterie about Monsanto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_OJcPKEYDE