Sadly, one of the things I have learnt about Sterlings is that they, like a lot of alternatives just aren't worth it.

Oh, they may be, but the problem is that they will only work in the daytime, and for all your night time use, you'd need batteries which are the bane of electricity generation.

Look for a pm, ok?

I Have seen some firms that are developing a sterling generator mounted to the focal point of a parabolic reflector dish that tracks the sun.

As you say that would only work in the day,

BUT my thourght is if the hot water from a swh was the heaty sourse, it may be possible to work at night

Because the tank on the swh is well insulated and acts as a thermal store

IE it stores energy in the form of heat

in a way similar to a battery that stores energy ( electrical )

I know sterlings are not that powerfull but if the energy sourse is free any power produced is worth having ??

I think it is way over complex to store hot water and then use that to run a sterling.

Remember at every step you lose energy. So, if you store 100 litres of boiling water to generate electricity in the nighttime, I'm thinking that the payback would be worse than batteries.

A friend of a friend has an off grid battery storage system and it costs him way more than mains would.

I delivered a swh to a guy who was off grid he had a good set up , one whole side of his mai roof pv pannels and a huge bank of batterys, but that was still not good enough, he had to have a back up diesel generator with an auto start to top the system up.

my spanish neibour has a wind tubine and says it is very good

I wonder if a pv and turbie combination would be best for total off grid

I personally would love to be off grid if the costs were low enough

I am sure with time the costs of the solar equipment will come down

China know there is a good future in solar ( did you know there is over 3000 solar water heater factorys in china !! )

Also if something did go pear shaped with the world as we know it it would be good to be self sufficient

The real solution is a network of renewables all over the world so that we get supply the whole day long from the sun.

So where are you based?

Sorry guy's.....back to the paint.

Our forty year old house also had a problem with a damp wall, we did all the prep work and painted with breathable paint on several occasions....all to no avail.
As it happens the solution was to the seal the inside wall before painting and to tile the outside wall in the traditional Spanish fashion....
The Spanish must know what they are doing, because after two wet winters there is no sign of the damp at all.

Hi bil the only problem with a network is that you relly on other people,

If there were a problem it is better to be indipendant, free, without controll of a third party

GOOD EXAMPLE

I have an old town house that I bought 3 years ago with the idea of renovating,
but because the way the property market has gone I decided to wait befor starting work on it, It has been empty all the time and has used no electric or water , but I allways pay the standing charges to keep the connections, in May the electric company ( endesa ) took 674€ from my account, for the last bill of 0 consumption !!!

over one month latter I still havent got the money back, even though the guy admits it is an error !!

Anyway I dont like to talk about that, gives me the hump

I am in Agost inland of Alicante

Megmet- paint Again-- yes I have had the same problem as you, on one job I even bought very ecpensive anti damp paint which could be applied to a damp surface, but it still came off, it seems from what i have seen , that the damage goes on behind the paint,

Hey bil maybe it could be that the water behind the paint turns into vapour as it is heated then as it expands pushes the air tight paint away from the wall causing the common blistering , after time a hole appears then the wicking process gets faster and causes the damage

What do think ???

Which is what I've been saying. All this talk of breatheable paint is rubbish, and simply won't cure the problem.

First off, if something happened that was so disastrous that all the networks went down, you'd have other things to worry about.

Second, we spread the risk. If the power goes out, we have candles for light, we cook on gas and we heat with wood.

Paint and blistering. I don't think it's blistering from vapour pressure. If the wall got so hot as to boil the water in it, I dread to think what woud be happening.

No, I think it's down to poor application, poor preparation, or poor quality paint. If you use a good quality paint, if you remove all the loose, and seal the raw areas properly - oh yes, and don't paint when the wall is wet, and give it a good coat, I don't think you would have a problem.

I dont think you have to boil water for it to evaporate

Anyway it is good we have had feed back from Megmet

I think tiling over the damp helps, I have done it myself on many occasions

Because in this area of spain tiling is done with a thick bed cola

IE you put a big dolop of cola on the the centre of the tile and press it onto the wall, this method is always used by the spanish in this area, it is great for getting a level surface over a poor surface

this creates air pockets behind the tiles, maybe it is these hollow spaces that allow the water vapour room to expand with out damage,

One time when I done some tiling over damp uk style ( solid combed bed )
2mm cross spacers
After a while salt deposits came out of the grout, I think because there were no hollow spaces behind the tiles the water tryed to escape from the grout joints


IF the world had problems with electric and gas etc we would still survive. we did 300 years ago !!
IT WOULD TAKE TIME TO ADAPT

clean water would be important, I am looking into a solar vacuum tube solar delalinisation machine, to boil off pure water from sea or poor quality water.

Water will sublime from ice at minus temps, but just because they refer to vapour pressure, this isn't the sort of pressure created by boiling.

Tiling works because it's a form of tanking. The water tho will evoporate thru the grout leaving salt in the grout, so the grout eventually starts to spall in dry weather. I really don't see how air spaces would affect that. Water proof grout should fix that.

A big collapse would have a knock on effect to depress the population. That would cut supply lines for things like solar water evaporators.

Have you any idea how short a time it takes a collapsed population to lose knowledge?

A generation under severe conditions.

hi BIL

you could get water from the sea or a well

Again I can only report what I have seen reqarding tiling and painting, during my 8 years of general building work here

One think I must say is that the sand in this area is poor quality and I think the high salt and clay content dont help.

Common sand is really sticky, its hard to get out of the mixer

viva sand is better but still not great,

In the uk when I have seen damp walls, the damage to the cement work seem much less

No, what I mean is that you may have a desalinator, but if anything goes wrong, it's such hi tech stuff, that the liklihood is tiny that there will be people around in a fragmented, post apocalypse world with the knowledge to fix it.

Knowledge fades like crazy.

No, what I mean is that you may have a desalinator, but if anything goes wrong, it's such hi tech stuff, that the liklihood is tiny that there will be people around in a fragmented, post apocalypse world with the knowledge to fix it.

Knowledge fades like crazy.

No, what I mean is that you may have a desalinator, but if anything goes wrong, it's such hi tech stuff, that the liklihood is tiny that there will be people around in a fragmented, post apocalypse world with the knowledge to fix it.

Knowledge fades like crazy.

Surely washed sand here is good?