baby steps

We have enjoyed a nice short winter here in the North Carolina Mountains. Its been a while since I posted but am going to to my best to Keep everyone updated on whats going on here! lets just say A LOT, if you know us, there is always way too much going on, but if there wasn't well then I wouldnt have anything to write about ;)

Our 2012 Focus, besides planting, and preparing for the 2012 Bee Season, if our Goal of removing ourselves from the power Grid Completely.
Right now Robb is working on a Passive Solar hot water Batch collector.
Its basically a giant insulated box, with a stripped down water heater inside, The sun heats the water, and the water is then pumped into our existing water heater. SO basically the Sun Is preheating our water. This should cut our present kwh usage of 400-500 a month (which is pretty damn good, average household uses about 1000 kwh a month) down considerably.
This winter we will also hook up our Woodcookstove to our hot water, and the now existing Electric hot water heater will be turned completely off and used only as a Holding Tank, meaning all of our water will be heated by either the SUN or WOOD!
Here are some photos of the Passive SOlar hot water batch collector (including one of my husband worshipping the sun,haha),, its not quite finished , still needs the glass door attached, and still needs to be piped into the house, but gives you an idea..
next up,, SOLAR PANELS *** Baby steps...I have to keep reminding Myself ;)