hey guys
 

I found this site from lurking over on ecomodder, and I am almost done closing on my first home so I'll be ready to start ecorenovating. Glad I found this site, a lot of you here remind me of myself. Anyway I'm in SE virginia and some projects I want to do are diy geothermal ac, enough pv solar to run the fridge(hurricanes knock the power out for days/weeks every once in a long time and I would like to not run a generator plus save money all year), super insulate my new home, it needs lots of work so Ill be in the walls to do it. Water is very expensive in my city for some reason so a rainwater collection system for flushing toilets and washing clothes will be first on the list. That's all I have come up with so far but I'm sure there will be much more.

Welcome to the DIY Zone..
 

Hi Joe and Welcome (and happy New Year)!

I've heard their are places where a 'rainwater collection system' would be against the law.
It might be good to pre-check the local ordinances.

Since I live about 75 yards from a pond and have a swamp bordering on my backyard,
I've been thinking about digging a small well to use for watering the lawn. :)

Years ago, I used to drive by a company that always had sprinklers going
in the middle of dry summers.
Then one day they put up a big sign saying it was "Well Water"..

thanks and happy new year to you too. I will check the local city ordinances first but as many storm water drainage problems we have it would be stupid not to allow it. A well is another option, we are at sea level so a shallow one would do fine I think.

Welcome to the site Joe. You have a hefty project list there. :) We'd love to see how they come along and turn out.

Thanks daox, I have always been a man of many projects I'm just glad I have a house now to work on. I take lots of pictures so I will be sure to post the progress on the cool ones. First up, new water heater, I couldnt get my pilot light to light so I pulled the burner assembly out and found that it was a big pile of rust from the hose connections at the top leaking down. I have to get the roof replaced above the water heater too so I am going to buy an electric one with timer and have the exhaust vent sealed off. If the tank checks out ok I am going to make my first solar batch heater out of it. I would like to get one of those utility meters hooked up to it since I dont think they make a killawatt big enough to read a water heater, anyone know where to get one?

You can get a power use meter for 230vac from the UK
 

http://www.efergy.com/download.php?f...ta%20Sheet.pdf
(this is what I'm using to measure the power usage of my heat pump).


Or, you can just cut off everything but the hotwater heater and use the house meter.

http://ecorenovator.org/forum/conser...-yourself.html

very nice, how much did that set you back? I found various prices on the internet and most were in euros. Seems like that will be the way to go, although sometimes I would like to its not very practical to cut off the power to the rest of the house:)

Here's a link.. http://ecorenovator.org/forum/projec....html#post5046

I think it was about $77 USD shipped. I used the house meter to check it's calibration at 240 VAC-RMS. It works pretty well. It's history results compare well with my bill.