www.TheDoItYourselfWorld.com

I'm wondering what your time frame is for starting on the wind tower. Understand I'm not criticizing you, you're working your butt off and have plenty to do.

I've lived in Florida most of my life so excuse my ignorance, but isn't it going to get awfully hard to dig there pretty soon? You're already having problems with the short days and cold weather affecting your batteries, I'd hate to see you stuck having to run a gas generator every day to charge batteries.

If I understand correctly you're unable to buy concrete to set the tower, so I have a suggestion. Use guy wires attached to log deadmen. A log buried 5 feet deep with a guy tied around it and attached to the tower at 45 degrees can support 2,800 lbs. A five foot deep trench to hold a log is going to be a lot of work to dig by hand, much less 4 of them, but it's not going to get any cheaper than that for anchoring. Nobody wants guy wires in their meadow but it beats dead batteries.

I really think you should hold off until next summer to do your big tower. Put something up temporary so you can charge your batteries and concentrate on the tiny cottage and accumulating wood for heat.

PDF with info on deadmen: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... 8437,d.eXY

My biggest problem with putting up a permanent structure is that I cannot dig out here by hand. The soil is too rocky. I have to rent some power equipment to do anything out here. So that will wait until spring.

I am planning to set up a temporary structure soon though with the materials I have on hand. I hope to get it done in the next couple weeks.

Thank you for your suggestions.

techman wrote:My biggest problem with putting up a permanent structure is that I cannot dig out here by hand. The soil is too rocky. I have to rent some power equipment to do anything out here. So that will wait until spring.

I am planning to set up a temporary structure soon though with the materials I have on hand. I hope to get it done in the next couple weeks.

Thank you for your suggestions.

This is why you have a dead battery bank now on the edge of winter coming. You can't keep putting off the most important things(keeping bank charged) till later.

phoneguy1212 wrote:

techman wrote:My biggest problem with putting up a permanent structure is that I cannot dig out here by hand. The soil is too rocky. I have to rent some power equipment to do anything out here. So that will wait until spring.

I am planning to set up a temporary structure soon though with the materials I have on hand. I hope to get it done in the next couple weeks.

Thank you for your suggestions.

This is why you have a dead battery bank now on the edge of winter coming. You can't keep putting off the most important things(keeping bank charged) till later.

Electricity is important for comfort, not a necessity. Shelter, heat, food all come before electricity. Of course, income derived from the internet would mean that electricity is not at the bottom of the list.