Purchase and Location
I bought this property in 2005 and named it Richmond Woods for my father who taught me about nature and respect for the wild. It's located in Alabama near the Alabama/Georgia state line. The small nearby village of Mentone, AL has been a mountain retreat for 150 years for people escaping the summer heat of Birmingham and Atlanta. My companion, Carolyn, has helped me every step of the way.
A Cottage in the Woods
When you were little, did someone read fairy tales to you? Invariably, there was mention of a cottage in the woods. Our plan is to build such a place: handmade, no architect plans, buying local materials or using salvaged materials. The purpose of this blog is to document our progress.
Now that I have approximately 1 acre cleared it was time to resurvey the solar horizon. This I was able to do with greater accuracy than before because now there were no trees in the way. I fed the new data into solar incidence optimization program to calculate the ideal alignment axis. In my case it was about 13° east of South or the heading of 167°.
Next, I needed to dig 20 holes for the solar panel mounting rack posts. Since I had use of a much larger tractor, I decided to rent a three point hitch post hole digger. This did not work as the tractor was unable to press down while drilling. I ended up hiring a man with a Bobcat to drill the holes for me. Using small stakes, I laid out the grid of holes. When he arrived, it took less than an hour to drill all 20.
With levels and string and a load of gravel I began to set the posts. My plan calls for mounting three solar panels per rack - 10 racks - two rows of three and one row of four. I used a small laser level to ensure that all the rows are at the same level to prevent a rack from casting shadow on a rack behind it.
The first step was to identify trees in the immediate vicinity of the solar panel site I had chosen that had to be removed. Using the crude survey instrument that I described in a previous post, I once again perform the solar horizon survey. Finally, I marked the remaining trees that had to be removed to provide an adequate amount of solar irradiance.
With my trusty chainsaw and little Trakker, I began the process of carefully dropping trees where there was space to fall. Once down, I limbed and topped the log and used Trakker to drag it to a staging area. It was not long before I realized that I needed help. I had to remove about 80 trees, some of which were simply too large for Trakker. I called a lumber company who sent out a timber cruiser to survey the site. He recommended a small-time logger who was glad to do the work in exchange for the logs. He and his sons completed the task in about three days. He then loaned me his farm tractor and landscape rake for about a week to clean up the site.
One of the burn piles left behind was in the way of the solar array project. I had to drag all of that material to a clear area and burn it. Using the landscape rake, I raked up the remaining small amounts of debris into long rows perpendicular to the slope of the hill. This I did in hopes of preventing erosion. For the most part this has been very effective.
With the water treatment building complete, and the new supply water supply laid it was now time to provide electricity for the ozone generator. I built a new mounting rack for the six 15 W solar panels that I already had in my possession. I cleared a few trees in an area adjacent to the watershed that had a fairly good view of the sky. This provides me with 90 W of solar energy. This will be upgraded when my demand for water increases.
The ozone generator system is exactly like the one in a previous post, except that I now have a new charge controller for the batteries.
With the new water treatment system up and running, I am ready for guests to arrive in early July. It is now time to begin the process of clearing space for the new solar power system for the cabin and the workshop.
