A photon saved is a photon earned.

We're in the segment of the year when our house energy balance is always very, very tight.

I was just getting ready to do an "energy/building/planning" post when I got ambushed by Crunchy, who wants to claim that unplugging your fridge will cost more energy than it saves...

Such a silly head.  :-)

The discussions there are well worth reading- and actually, I don't think La Crunch and I disagree, in the end- it's more a matter of I was talking generalities, as in "for most families in the First World..." and she was talking "in MY household..."  Yes, by golly, if your Kitchen Boss is also Obsessive/Compulsive, you can use a refrigerator in a useful, non-wasteful fashion.  Many homes are not so lucky, however, and quite few refrigerators have operators on the other end of the "careful" scale.

Sure, Crunch, you do very well with your fridge- though I still want to see your ACTUAL energy consumption numbers- measured by a Kill-a-Watt or something, like Sharon uses.  I can just SEE you, standing in front of the open door of your EnergyStar fridge- and planning stuff- 8 times a day, for minutes at a time...   :-p   And how many times a day do the kids and hubby open the door?  Hm?  What the maker promises, and what you actually use, are not the same thing atall atall.

And, incidentally, the Inspector General of the EPA has just (Dec. 17) issued a report: industry scam on the Energy Star program.  Guess what?  It ain't all they say it is.  One clue- it's a program run by- the appliance industry (largely started so they could avoid real government regulation by showing "voluntary industry compliance" - but don't say that out loud).

In any case, fridges are not the only piece of the energy equation, by a long shot.  While I hope to do a "fridgeless" update in the near future, at the moment I want to concentrate on some aspects of being off the grid.

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Winter changes what is going on with your solar panels- unless you live on the equator.

The usual situation at higher latitudes is; you get weaker sunlight, because it has to filter through more atmosphere at lower angles; you get fewer hours per day; many winter months tend to be more cloudy (though not all locations are the same).  At the same time, however, the panels themselves put out 1% more power for ever 3°C colder- which can mean a LOT on a -20° sunny day, like 20% more current than rated for (boiled my batteries, first year).

Over all; you have less power available in the winter; though it's not as bad as most expect.  

And you have to include the effect on your system batteries; we've got only 4 lead-acid golf cart batteries, quite a small bank.  One of the management requirements for lead-acid batteries is they need to be "topped up" regularly; once a week at least, you need to push them to full charge.  It's really hard to do that using panels alone in the winter.  So- if you're like most off-gridders, you do have a backup generator.  We have TWO!  Just so you know.  Ok, 5; but 3 of them are broken.  The broken ones are older, the working ones are state-of-the-art, and carefully maintained.

Your goal, as an obsessive/compulsive home electric system manager, is to have to buy as little gasoline (house) or diesel (greenhouse) as possible.  So you really do want to get every last photon captured that you possibly can.  Every photon makes a difference.

At this point, in the Little House, we're missing a lot of winter photons; partly due to design compromises discussed previously here,  and partly due to the passage of time, with some unanticipated consequences.

If you'll look closely at the photo above (and I hope to heck that you can click on it and get a bigger view- sometimes Blogger does that, and sometimes not, and I haven't figured out why, and they're not telling) you'll see that the panels are shaded by tree branches (the trees are 200' away, but the sun is low) and, the panels are covered with frost, greatly reducing the input.

The frost comes from- the chimney.  The "smoke" you see there isn't smoke at all; it's steam.  When we have temperatures below 0°F day after day, the woodstove is actually burning very hot and clean most of the time.  But water is the other product of combustion, along with CO2; and under the right conditions, it will form frost on anything in what is normally the smoke path.  This was one of those days; and it was so cold the frost didn't melt off until almost noon, costing us a big chunk of the daily photon budget.

Frost on the panels from the chimney is a compromise I knew about at the start- the position of the panels on the roof was determined by many things, including access for maintenance.  It ain't perfect.  I was also worried we might get smoke deposits on the glass panels; but in reality it's never been a problem; a good rainstorm every once in a while works fine.  I actually went up there and cleaned the panels with Windex every month for the first year- at which point I decided it wasn't worth while.  Biggest bang I got was in the spring, during oak pollination.  Some days, the oak pollen blocks more sun than the frost ever does.

Frost like this is a minor problem; usually happens only 6-10 days a year; and most times melts off quickly.  The reason I was tracking things so closely was: 

An unexpected, and unbudgeted electric load for the system to carry.  This is a "nebulizer", which the doctor prescribed for Smidgen in the middle of our fight with upper respiratory bugaboos.  Doc examined her and said she was on the edge of bronchitis and or pneumonia; the medication inhaled from this thingy opens up the air passages, and helps stave all that off.  It seems to be working.

It has a powerful little air compressor that drives the mist-making device; Smidgen has to sit in this delight for a half hour, four times a day.  And it's noisy.  You can't eat, drink, draw, read, or play with it on; so we've bent one of our rules and allow her to watch DVD's on one of the computers while she sits (that's her "mesmerized by Disney" look).  More energy consumption not in the budget.

Of course (BIG MAJOR ADVICE ALERT!!!)  when you were doing your original budget for the power out/power in/power storage calculations- you DID include a substantial chunk of the budget for "unanticipated needs" - didn't you?  :-)  Of course you did.  Good for you.

I did, in fact.  But that was 25 years ago, and the world has changed; that margin has long been used up; so the extra load now has pushed us over our normal winter brink.  Instead of running the backup generator once a week in winter, we're now having to run it about every other day.  If we don't- the first thing that happens is the DSL modem drops out.  Horrors!

The other loss of power, stemming from the shadows of tree branches; is fairly new.  Those trees only grew that tall in the last 3 years, and I hadn't really expected them to, ever.  Silly me.

I was basing my tree height expectations on what my farmer neighbors told me, and the observable heights of trees in farm-forests around here.  Surprise- if you manage the forest for the trees- not the cows- the trees get quite a lot taller, in 30 years.

Now, in December/January, because of tree growth, the solar array is actually charging the batteries for only about 3 hours a day; drastically less than the usual 5-6 hours.  Thankfully, it will only be a few more weeks before the sun rises high enough in the sky so it is above the trees much earlier.  Meanwhile; more gasoline.  We're sighing in relief over the current drop in gas prices; but for the future, this is all a problem; the basic equations for electricity for this house are now out of balance; and unbalanceable without some serious changes in the array.  No easy answers in sight.

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On a different but highly related note; the Little House has been approached by Nick Rosen; author of  How to Live Off-Grid , for us to be one of the families he'll cover in his new book on going off-grid in the USA (first book is UK).  You can find out more about him, and find lots of off-grid discussion at his website: off-grid.net.  

Part of his new book, though, is that he's trying to pair up the families he covers; he wants one "old-timer", and one "newbie" for each region; so he can match up expectations and realities.  Sounds good to me.

The upshot being; we're looking for newby not too far away from The Little House; someone who has just recently gone off-grid.  Is it you?  :-)

For those who don't know; The Little House is in SE Minnesota; if you're within 100 miles or so, I think that's likely close enough for a match; certainly our insolation and climates will be pretty similar.

If you're interested - email Nick at news@off-grid.net; or you can send me a note here by making a comment.  

And hurry up about it- he's about to arrive in Florida and start driving; or may have started already.

Can rational behavior be contagious?

Hi guys; really sorry to be gone so long; coping with illness (mostly Spice), extreme winter (we hit -35°F; -19°C last night), and business time requirements.

And my constant problem of wanting to write a blog post- and realizing I won't be able to say what I want to short of 2,000 words or so...

Just found a nice short one.  

As we rejoice here in the USA in the apparent return of non-delusional government; and even signs of rational behavior- (no, I don't believe Obama has everything figured out yet- but it's an improvement, yes?) - I was overjoyed to see this sign of rational decision making today, from the UK, via the AP newsfeed.

Essentially- some retired generals in the UK have formally suggested that they should just plain scrap their nuclear weapons programs; as unnecessary.

Now there is a bit of news to do a real, serious, happy-dance over.

No kidding!  Wow.  Signs of intelligent life, after all.

Gotta go get some firewood.  You go do YOUR happy-dance!

Fantasy/Reality-

Ok, I must be feeling better, because here comes one of those "I just can't STAND it" posts.

The first day of stock market trading for the new year is over- and guess what?  Everything is all better!  According to ALL the mainstream media.  Here's CNN Business' take: 

Wall Street starts new year with a bang!

Stocks rally, with the Dow closing above 9,000 for the first time since November.

(Can you say "BULL!"?  Below is their version; then below that; mine.)

By Alexandra Twin, CNNMoney.com senior writer
Last Updated: January 2, 2009: 6:03 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks rallied Friday, with investors starting off a new year on the right foot, after an abysmal 2008, and the Dow closing above 9,000 for the first time since November.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) rose 258 points, or 2.9%. It was the second-best start of the year on a point basis, according to Dow Jones. On a percentage basis, it was the sixth best start of the year.

The Standard & Poor's 500 (SPX) index gained 3.2% and the Nasdaq composite (COMP) rose 3.5%.

"It's the classic Santa Claus rally and people don't want to miss the boat, although the volume is pretty light," said Joseph Saluzzi, co-head of equity trading at Themis Trading.

According to the Stock Trader's Almanac, a combination of the last five trading days of the previous year and the first two of the next have yielded an average return of 1.5% for the S&P 500 since 1950. The S&P is up 7.3% as of Friday's close.

"It's a nice start to the year, but we're not going to get too excited about it until we see a sustained advance on higher volume," said Matt King, chief investment officer at Bell Investment Advisors.

Saluzzi, King and other analysts are cautiously optimistic that Wall Street will recover some in 2009. However, the extent of any market recovery will depend on a variety of factors, including what kind of economic stimulus package the new Congress approves - and the depth of the recession.

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Wall Street starts new year with a gib gnab!

By Alexandra Twin, CNNMoney.com senior writer- As corrected by Greenpa
Last Updated: January 2, 2009: 6:03 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks rallied Friday, with investors starting off a new year on the right foot, after an abysmal 2008, and the Dow closing above 9,000 for the first time since November.  Pretty wonderful progress, considering that just one year ago, the Dow started the year at over 12,500.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) rose 258 points, or 2.9%. It was the second-best start of the year on a point basis, according to Dow Jones. On a percentage basis, it was the sixth best start of the year.  Compared to the average daily trading changes over the past year, a move of 258 points is totally meaningless; the market has repeatedly been up 250 and down 250, or far more, with no trends established.

The Standard & Poor's 500 (SPX) index gained 3.2% and the Nasdaq composite (COMP) rose 3.5%.  Those percentages look big, compared to movements in recent years, because the total value of the market is so much lower than just one year ago- a movement of a few dollars looks much bigger now, allowing much more exciting journalism.

"It's the classic Santa Claus rally and people don't want to miss the boat, although the volume is pretty light," said Joseph Saluzzi, co-head of equity trading at Themis Trading.  "These 'bear trap' rallies are SO much fun to watch." someone in the room muttered, under his breath.  "I'm selling short again, bigtime."

According to the Stock Trader's Almanac, a combination of the last five trading days of the previous year and the first two of the next have yielded an average return of 1.5% for the S&P 500 since 1950. The S&P is up 7.3% as of Friday's close.  According to the Old Farmers Almanac, a combination of the first three snowfalls of December, and the first two Santa Claus rallies of the New Year, have yielded an average return of 2.5 potatoes, and a partridge in a pear tree, since 1854.  Except when it didn't.

"It's a nice start to the year, but we're not going to get too excited about it until we see a sustained advance on higher volume," said Matt King, chief investment officer at Bell Investment Advisors.  Mutt Queen, chief recovery officer at Dingaling Divestment Advisors, had exactly the same comment.

Saluzzi, King and other analysts are cautiously optimistic that Wall Street will recover some in 2009. Thousands of other analysts are not in the least optimistic, of course, and are moving to the highlands of Borneo as fast as air transport can be arranged.  The cargo cults there receive them graciously.

However, the extent of any market recovery will depend on a variety of factors, including what kind of economic stimulus package the new Congress approves - and the depth of the depression.  

"Look, since 100% of ALL indicators from that pesky "real" economy are way past "uh-oh" and into "holyshitrunforyourlife" - it's fun to still have some fantasy nice days in the "financial sector" - before it totally disappears." said Bunny Berninny, a stripper working off-Wall Street.  "You gotta get your jollies where you can these days."

Deep Wisdom

That's what y'all hang around here, for, right?  And here we are, New Year's Day- the premier day of the year for passing good, useful wisdom around.

As it happens, I have some for ya, right here.  :-)

Years ago- I was visiting my younger brother in Boulder, Colorado.  It's a university town- one of the renowned party schools of the world.  Tons of well-to-do elite scions floating around town, with money to spend.

So of course, there's a downtown with plenty of flashy shops to soak up all the excess cash.  And lots of attractions.  My brother was taking me there to get some lunch in one of the many up-scale boutique nosherys; and specifically to experience the abundant buskers.

It wasn't a word I was familiar with up to then- they're street performers; expecting you to put a bit in the hat after you enjoy their act.  My brother told me that an extraordinary collection of wildly diverse and insanely talented buskers had also been attracted to the huge supply of loosely attached dollars- so it sounded like good fun to me.

We drove to an off-main parking lot (close in was always impossible) and walked two blocks into this core area of yuppie enterprise.  One block away- I stopped- and started to laugh.

And I couldn't stop.  I kept laughing- in various uncontrollable fashions- all the way up to the object of my amusement.

It was a New Age bookstore- advertising, in big block letters obvious a block away as its principle product-

EXOTIC WISDOM!

Ok, I'm still laughing.

Oh. my. god.

And, of course, the windows were full of spiffy tools- Buddha and Ganesh statues, books on Zen stained-glass making, Druid-Sufi t-shirts, you name it.

Hey, man!  Don't gimme none o' that HOME-GROWED wisdom!  I want me the real, EXOTIC stuff!!

LOL!!!!!  I am, truly, still laughing.

See- in my book- genuine wisdom is; um WISDOM.  And utterly priceless; wherever you can find it.  Its always rare, and hard to find.

And I do truly think anybody who goes looking for EXOTIC wisdom- has utterly failed to understand what wisdom is.

Please understand, I'm not opposed to picking up a bit of wisdom from Buddha, Master Kong, Pliny the Elder or Younger, Mel Brooks, or any of them guys.  It's just that in my experience, what they have to offer is truly no more acute than the insights to be gained from my neighbor; his grandmother, or my almost 4 year old daughter.  And the proportions of wisdom to nonsense are really the same from one source to another, too.

That's all I'm going to offer today- take any scrap of wisdom you can get ahold of, and hang on to it.  

It's about all we can do, in the days to come.

oh, yeah.  The buskers were great.  One of them had an eidetic memory - for Zip codes.  He had anyone in the audience tell him a Zip code- and he would tell you exactly where it was. Like, in a big city, the block.

And he could.  All except- mine, for some baffling reason.  He knew minute towns of 50 people all over the US- but not mine.  hm.

A change in plans.

Our Christmas plans have been totally upset.  We were going to be traveling to Middle Child's home; they were going to be hosting our little family gathering for the first time.

What happened was a good dose of strep throat; both Spice and Smidgen got the formal diagnosis yesterday.  In the middle of last night, Smidgen had a fever of 103.2°F.  The tylenol eventually brought it down; but all parents know what it's like, holding a burning child in your arms.

Between the stress of travel, the work associated with shutting down the Little House so it could freeze without permanent damage; getting a local friend to feed the guineas and chickens, and the extremely high probability that the strep will jump to anybody nearby, it was mutually decided that we'd really better not make the trip.

So.  One day before Christmas, we've got to re-figure everything.

To a large extent, it's easier on us than on Middle Child.  We've got to do some fast shuffling, but they were planning on a full house- and now will have just two.  "We" includes oldest son Beelar, who is here with us in the Little House.

Christmas for us is a pretty big deal- more about family than anything else; and the change of the year.

 Smidgen was disappointed not to be seeing her other brother; she'd been talking about it for weeks.  But we're managing.

We've got beautiful Christmas snow here; both on the ground and falling, right now.  And strep, coughs, and fevers notwithstanding; we're cozy in the Little House, and Smidgen has refocused.  She's cheerfully humming and singing Christmas songs, between coughs.

It helps to be able to change directions with a minimum of drama.  Taking it all in stride is an important skill; and likely to be even more important in the coming years.

Hope your Solstice Celebration, in whatever form, is a good one.

We have each other.  That includes you.

Time to go make cookies.

Walking an Icy Path

This is a guest post by Spice, not the addition to the Shed parable (that's still coming).  This morning, in 3 minutes, she told me several nice stories about her shopping trip the day before.  Seemed relevant- so I said "you should write that up, I'll put it on the blog."  6 hours later...

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Parking lots in the winter are minefields. Most of the time they’re relatively safe, with just the soot blackened slush that soaks the bottom of your jeans to worry about. It’s not a problem to hang your pants above the wood stove, listening to the drip and sizzle as the ice thaws and drops onto the the stove top. You prop your feet on the open oven door, cup of cocoa warming your hands, until the red spots on the bottoms of your calves warm up from the “frozen so cold that it burns” to a nice toasty pink.

You also have to worry a bit about the people driving too fast. You watch them with a weather eye, mentally shaking your head at their stupidity. Do they think they’re in the Indy 500 as they whip around the last car in line, or cut through a diagonal space to troll up the lane the wrong way? You send them a mental “go kill yourself away from me” and continue with your life.

However there are those rare winter days when walking from your parking space to the wooshing doors of a store is literally playing dice with fate.  

Yesterday was just such a day. We had two days in the 30’s and 40’s F and then it dropped to -10 F (ten below). Everything melted, then froze in a sheet of ice.

December here is usually mild as winter goes. Average temperature usually hangs around 20 F.  People who have never been here in the winter have images of a frozen wasteland where your eyeballs freeze in their sockets and every breath feels like knives in your throat.  That’s January (historical average temp of 4°below)... And February... sometimes March.

December snow is fluffy flakes that stick to your eyelashes and make you want to laugh out loud. Some nights Jack Frost is a busy boy, painting the trees with hoarfrost, so when the sun shines in an icy blue sky, for just a few moments you live in an enchanted forest and wouldn’t be surprised to see mythical creatures moving like shadows among the trees. Eat your heart out Currier and Ives.

With the “financial crisis” right now Greenpa and I have cut trips to the City to bare bones. It’s about fifty miles away, which means a day-long trip. We used to get there once a month to stock up on items we couldn’t get as easilly or cheaply locally. Now there has to be a major incentive to go that far. More so after the Sam’s Incident. A 99 cent day at Savers is such an incentive, especially when you have a 3 year-old (oops a 3 and 3/4 year old thank you very much!).

As I was getting out of the car, ready to tackle the shopping madness, I watched the march of shoppers. A march that was more like the waddle, slide of penguins than the usual purposeful stride. They gingerly held on to luggage racks and car fenders as they eased from the sheeted ice to the narrow lines of safety dug by snow tires.

I opened the car door and sat sideways on the seat so I could slip my YakTrax onto my boots. I buttoned up my coat, pulled a snow cap over my ears and slipped on my cow hide gloves with their faux lamb’s wool lining. I was off, trudging safely across the uneven ice.

I noticed a woman. With her red hat pulled low over her nordic blonde hair and a matching red scarf and man’s coat, she was a spot of color in the grey. Her belly bulged under the coat in those last weeks of pregnancy that make women, even ones who never had children, wince in sympathy and men feel the cold sweat of nerves on their spines. In one hand, she clutched the pink, sparkly mitten of a blonde girl not much older than Smidgen. The other gripped the fender of a station wagon.

“Do you need help?” I asked. “I’m not going to fall, and I can get you to the door.”
I proudly showed her my YakTrax.

“Thank you. I slipped in the Sam’s lot the other day and was scared to death of hurting the baby.” She answered, breathlessly.

“No problem. I’ve been there too.” I wrapped an arm around her waist and took her daughter’s hand in mine and we walked safely into Savers.  I slipped off the Trax inside the store, warning her that they will slip on linoleum.

She asked me if I could wait for her and help her back to her to her car after we were done shopping. I said sure, that it wouldn’t be a problem.

As I was leading her out across the lot I told her about Yak Trax and that she could pick up a simpler pair for street use for $20 at the outdoor store.   We’ve used them for several years and they’re tons better than anything else on the market.

“That’ll be my next stop,” she answered happily.

I stowed my bags and went into the dollar store next door to Savers, where the cashiers and some customers had noticed us through the plate-glass windows.

“A friend of yours?” The cashier asked.

She was a lovely woman with the blue-black skin of deep Africa and the speech patterns of Chicago. Her hair was woven into tight corn-rows with tiny bells at the ends, tinkling merrily.

“Nope. A complete stranger.” I smiled. “I didn’t want her to slip.”

She looked at me strangely as I slipped the Trax off my shoes again.

I picked up the few things Smidgeon needed for a school Christmas (We’re too rural to worry about PC) project and a toy for her gift exchange. And walked over to the cashier.

 Bells In Her Hair smiled at me as she started to ring up my purchase.

“I’m freezing,” she said cheerfully. It's a typical northern conversation starter.

I looked at her thin poly-cotton slacks and pullover. “Layers work miracles.”

“Whaddya mean?”

I was a little surprised at the question. It may be naive, but I was pretty sure layers had been pounded into the heads of every child born north of the Mason-Dixon line since the land bridge.  

“Do you have longies on?” I asked.

“No.”

“You can get a good pair at the farm store.”

“I don’t have a car.”

“Oh. I’m pretty sure the bus goes out there. If not get a friend to take you, it’s important to stay warm.”

By this time most of the people in my line and the line next to us were listening to our conversation.

“Why do you have to stay warm?” Asked a woman with styled grey hair and a gorgeous London Fog coat that looked about as warm as a, let’s face it, a rain coat.

I was surprised once again. “Didn’t you ever hear about layering before you leave so you can retain heat? You put on thermals, two pairs of socks, thick jeans, a pull over and a sweater. It’s easier to stay warm than it is to get warm.”

Almost everyone listening shook their heads no. I was flabbergasted. Didn’t they know how to take care of themselves in cold weather? These are adults here.

“Well you lose 10% of your body heat from each of your head, hands and feet. So I’m wearing a cap, got some gloves and have two pairs of socks on. Plus I don’t take my coat off inside even if it’s seventy, because I know I’m going back out. I also run my house cooler than normal. Preserve heat with clothes and winter’s a breeze.”

“I’ve never heard that,” she admitted.

I was almost checked out, so I pulled my Trax out of my pocket and slipped them on my shoes.

“What are them things?” the cashier asked.

“YakTrax. They're like chains for your feet. So you don’t slip.”

“Really. I’ve never seen such a thing. I was walkin’ home the other day and was so cold and slipped so much that I called a cab.”

“Well there’s no cabs on a farm, so I’ve gotta know how to stay warm and in one piece,” I said with a laugh. “You can get these at the outdoor store.”

I pulled my gloves out of my pocket, and the London Fog lady goggled.
“Those are huge,” she breathed.

“And warm,” I answered cheerfully. “You can find them at the farm store. It’s worth the price not to have icicles instead of fingers. Farmers seem to know how chuck style for warmth.”

After getting geared back up, I took my bag and trudged back out to the car. As I was backing out, I saw London Fog get into her nice Mercedes with heated seats. She had no gloves on her hands.

She, and the other people I spoke to really started my brain whirling. Why didn’t they know how to stay warm? Has the knowledge really been lost? Every year people complain about the cold. They belly ache, but seem to feel smug and superior when talking to someone from another place and can drop “it got to -10 last night” into the conversation.

I know that many city dwellers go from a heated house to a heated garage, where their car is already warmed up. They spend a few minutes between buildings and cars facing the bite of winter and then are in blessed warmth again. But what happens when they need warmth and have no idea how to get it?

Have we really lost skills that are so vital for five months out of every year? In the current economic climate these skills are going to be more and more important as people choose to heat their house and feed their family instead of buying a car with heated seats or heating their garage.

Trust me Smidgen the aspiring nudist hears... Put on your mittens, hat, coat, snow pants, boots, sweater, etc on... You need to stay warm... Where are your slippers?... In stereo every day from Greenpa and myself.  And once a day- why.

Later I saw the Mercedes in the farm store parking lot. It made me smile.

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Greenpa: ok, full disclosure, we do NOT own stock in YakTrax.  But I/we really do recommend them for frozen snow and ice- they're life savers, and vastly superior to the 4 or 5 other "shoe-chain" type things I've tried over the centuries.

One other point I wanted to make here- in fact, Spice passed on a lot of good information- to a bunch of people who needed and appreciated it- in a painless fashion; just by living it.

The Parable of The Shed: Why 30 years is not forever.

One useful aspect to all of us forcibly attending Camp TEOTWAWKI now, is that many people truly are starting to be more mindful of their choices.   Think before you invest.  Look before you leap off your burning bridges.  That sort of thing.

Guidance in making long term decisions though, is hard to come by, and harder to judge.  Does this expert advisor actually have a clue, or ...  have I wound up with Alfred E. Neuman,  yet again?

Not long after Spouse and I built the Little House, and actually started living here, it became quite clear that we needed more space.  15' x 20'; including a wood stove, piano, and kitchen sink, and dining room table, just does not leave a lot of room for projects, like building a set of shelves.  No place left to walk, while that is under way.

Virtually all farm type operations include outbuildings; a barn, a shed- a workshop.  So it wasn't too difficult to decide that we did, indeed, need a multipurpose shed, not too far from the house.  We figured it should serve as a: work shop, bad-weather wood shed, seasonal storage space (eg. storm windows and skis in summer), materials storage (eg. boards, plywood), tool storage, empty mason jar storage.  You know.  A shed.

So quickly, you get to "where, exactly"; "how big", and "how".  "Where" was pretty limited; by the need to be close; "how big", it turns out, was partly determined by "how".

Standard construction around here would be a "pole barn" - treated wood poles, gravel or concrete floor, pre-fab roof trusses, and sheet metal sides and roof.  You just go the lumber yard, and order the stuff.  And there are loads of experienced construction teams who can zip it up for you in a couple days.

It was very easy to decide not to go that route- we had no money whatsoever.  Which meant- materials out of our 40 acres of oak/maple woods, and/or scrounged materials, and a "barn-raising" party for labor.

Then, you have to work out the details.

Something you pretty quickly find out, when you're living this kind of do-it-yourself life; the details are NOT "important".  The details are EVERYTHING.

Oddly, we teach our children the opposite, these days.  "Sure, teacher, I got the answer to the question wrong, but you can tell I understood it!" - will often get you a pity-pass in schools, even in universities.  But not in real life.  My father pounded this one in when he was an engineering prof, and I was in High School; and I got to listen to him gripe about his students.

  "But Professor, yes, I got the math wrong, but it's just a decimal point!  You can tell I totally understood the problem!"  "I don't give a good goddam if you 'understood' the problem!  Your goddam building FELL DOWN; and 370 people died!!  The only thing that matters is the right answer.  The F stands. "  And he would shake his head in amazement at their incomprehension.

So, I was well trained to do my homework regarding construction, and I'd adsorbed quite a bit of information via osmosis- and from helping my father re-build most of the houses we'd lived in (many).  Looking around at the old homesteads here, I found quite a few old chicken coops and corn cribs that were made with just white oak posts for their basic support; planted in the ground; and easily 50 years old.  Obviously, white oak can last a long time in our soils; the stated lifespan for chemically treated poles in direct soil contact is usually 30-40 years.

Doing more homework- the expected lifespan for white oak fenceposts around here is less; 20-30 years.  The difference is attributed mostly to the roof- poles under a roof should spend more of their life dry.

Most of my available poles are not exactly "white oak" - Quercus alba; but burr oak; Q. macrocarpa.  The textbooks say, though, that in this case, they're pretty much the same in regard to rot resistance.

So, using my own oak poles, we should be able to put up a shed that will last 30 years; no sweat.  We had a good supply of 12"-8" diameter red pine poles for rafters and plates; pine boards and 2/4's for other structure- and we helped a friend tear down a local railroad station for windows and siding.  We did buy metal for the roof.

When you're 30 years old- 30 years into the future looks indistinguishable from "forever", or "until we die."  And, guess what?  It isn't.  Here I am- 30 odd years later-

And sure as heck; the time has run out on some of my burr oak poles.

This is the SW corner pole.  And, as you can see- it's entirely rotted off- the bottom of the pole is now a good 6" above the ground.  Hm.

We just discovered it, absurdly enough.  The shed had gone through a phase where it got increasingly cluttered and useless, to the point where I only referred to it as "The Dread Shed"; and it got to the point where Middle Child and his wife decided to totally overhaul it, bless them.  Unburying the corner- where we already knew a woodchuck had chewed through the outer wall (and wrought havoc inside for months); we discovered the rotted off pole.  Oh, so that's why the windows have been breaking.

The shed is not falling down.  One of the advantages of using big logs for plates and rafters- they're enormously strong, and well secured on the other poles- most of which are not rotted off.  This corner is the wettest one.  But- the building is sagging, putting stress on everything.  

So now what?  Fix it?  Tear the shed down and rebuild?  I don't want to.

Dammit, I'm 60 years old now, busy, and I want the bloody shed to be in usable shape; I don't want to be building, or fixing.

Why didn't I build it to last in the first place?

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That turns out to be a complex, and highly significant question.  Lissen up; and maybe you can avoid my mistakes.

A)  I was young (30) and stupid.  I thought 30 years was forever.  It really really isn't.

B)  Everybody I asked thought 30 years was forever, too.  Or plenty long enough.

C)  The entire construction industry is built around the idea that structures should not last more than 50 years; even homes.  Then you should build a new one.  You want to benefit from the constant improvements in modern materials and design, don't you?  Well then.  They really like that- so if you read their text books, or go to them for advice- that's what they'll tell you.

and

D) Building structures with longer life-spans is quite a lot more expensive.  Like double.

E) Financial advice is always- that investments in durable structures are not sensible.  The reasoning there: if you put that money in the stock market instead, it would give you better returns (no laughing, now); and, they're quite sure you will move to a better, more expensive location later in life, as you become more successful; so you won't get the benefit of the more durable structure anyway; and whoever you sell your old place to will not pay you any premiums for the better buildings; people just don't.

F)  That's the way we build stuff in the States- always have.  Ever since Europeans arrived here- they've been sure they were going to move in the next 10-20 years, to someplace better. Why build for the long term?

See any holes in any of the logic here?

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I'm cogitating, pondering, and kneading all this stuff right now for a couple of specific reasons; I've got to figure out what to do about this shed; and- about future construction here.  We're in the process of building space for animals (guineas! ) - and you can check out a recent rhapsody on barns by Sharon, here.

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More in the next post.   Think about it!  And think about all the stone farmhouses in Europe... and how old they are...