The Mountain Garden

29/10/2025

15 kWh for $1699 including tax and shipping seems insane. I wonder how bad this battery could be? Hmmm...

Lifepo4 Solar Battery - 51.2V 300Ah (15kWh)Lithium Iron Phosphate Battery Specification Model No. : LFP-51.2V300AhVoltage: 51.2VCapacity: 300AhEnergy: 15.36kwhOperation Voltage: 44-58.4VMax. Charging Voltage: 58.4VMax. Charging and Discharging Current: 200ALife Time(25°C): 15 yearsLife Cycles(25°C...

26/09/2025

This is the trenching project we've been putting off for years. We need to relocate the main power cable for the house because the original cable wasn't buried deep enough, traverses an awkward path, and the armored casing on the aluminum conductor has been pierced in a few locations, which caused corrosion and failure in the past. The bummer? The "best" path is steep and goes through some areas we don't want to just totally destroy. That means a walk-behind trencher and a shovel to get 24 inches deep, rather than the big trencher on the Bobcat. Sigh.

11/09/2025

Pulling cable is always a pain in the butt, but a nice view helps take the sting out. Remember: always use pull tape because you never know when you'll need to fish something else through there, or pull it all back and re-pull it...

10/09/2025

I like the gothic arch, but I'm not convinced about the green/red color scheme. It gives me Christmas / chalkboard vibes.. Hmm.

09/09/2025

When wiring phase 1 of the addition, I decided to do things a bit differently. We'll see if this turns out to be a wise move in the long run. Here's what's going on: conduit. Yep, instead of running Romex everywhere, we opted for conduit, larger boxes and single gang mudrings. Behind what looks like a single gang opening is a 42 cubic inch box. This allowed us to run conduit from a junction box in the basement to the outlet box, then from here to the wall light box, etc. Everything can be sealed for air leaks and new wires can be pulled later if needed for flexibility. Was it worth the effort? Probably not. 🤣

29/08/2025

Trenching on a slope is a pain in the butt, but thankfully a cheap-and-cheerful used trencher helps. The bummer is that they don't really dig deep enough for some applications like electrical conduit that needs to be 18-24 inches deep, depending on code in your area. What do you do? You trench using the trencher, then follow up with your favorite trenching shovel...

25/07/2025

I learned my lesson when we built the first part of the house: conduit is more labor, but worth it in the end. 🤣

24/07/2025

Remember to label your plumbing. That's a lesson we learnt after creating a fabulous new manifold after our pressure pumps and then leaving for a few weeks. We didn't label which valve went where. Oops!

16/07/2025

It's been 5 years since we dropped a Grundfos SQFlex well pump down the well and I'm still pretty impressed. The magic of the SQFlex is that you can feed it DC power from 30-300V *OR* AC power from 90-240V and it'll sort it out down at the bottom of your well. Why would you want that? So you can power your pump directly from solar panels, or a wind turbine and still be able to just hook up mains power or an AC generator when the sun isn't shining.

10/07/2025

I'm really digging wool insulation. With the addition project slowly chugging ahead it was time to insulate one of the rooms and we opted for a 100% sheeps wool batt form Havelock as it was less expensive than the recycled cotton insulation we'd been looking at and I hate working with fiberglass. So far so good, the batts are a pain in the rump to cut (don't even try using a razor knife to cut it, you need some BIG scissors to do it right), but aside form that they are substantial enough to snugly fit in the wall spaces without drooping and they don't smell like sheep. The cost is higher than fiberglass, as you'd expect, but I think I'm on with that for now.

10/07/2025

Look what my fabulous husband designed for me, a PVC solvent caddy that holds cleaner, primer, and cement along with some tools. It features a 9 inch steak so you can drive it into the ground near where you’re trying to repair an irrigation line. Hopefully this will solve the problem of a primer bottle rolling away and losing half its contents. 🤣

07/04/2025

California poppies always make us smile. Despite being California's state flower, they are also native to Oregon, Washington, Nevada, New Mexico, and Northern Mexico. It's drought-tolerant, self-seeding, and it's even edible! What does it taste like? Nothing magical, it's slightly sweet and grassy. 😅