My Backup System

My Backup System

I have invested some time and money in a peace of mind data backup system recently.

Losing all your stuff is a bit of a rite of passage for anyone that uses computers. Which is everyone.

The Nature of the Universe is that things are breaking down. Unless you are consciously putting energy into your backups, sure as the Sun, one day you will lose your digital work.

With that knowledge and the bitter experience of hard drive failure, here is my current system.

• 1 computer


• 10 years of photos from travels around the world, 100’s of projects


• 1,000’s important files


• 10,000’s of hours invested,


• 100,000’s of words written &


• 1,000,000’s of megabytes of stuff i’d miss.

I think the system has me covered.

The multiple copies secure drops, spills, run of the mill hardware failure and (less run of the mill) simultaneous hardware failure, The offsite storage is in case of my house being robbed and everything stolen or a catastrophic fire that even destroys the safe (rated for half an hour at a 1000 degrees).
As the probability of risk decreases, so does the frequency of the backup.

A lot of the data does not change from day to day so the time capsule is best used because of it’s in the background smart backup of only changed documents. It also has the ability to go “back in time” to recover individual files from accidental deletion.

The Time Capsule is managed by the built in OSX Time Machine and runs automatically on the hour when plugged in. It runs on the days the sun in shining.

I complement this with a program called Carbon Copy Cloner, and I have it scheduled to backup automatically. It pops up a message and I just need to get the drive out of the safe and plug it in. It incrementally updates and creates a bootable drive.
If my hard drive fails I just plug in the cloned drive and carry on as if nothing has happened. Not even 5 minutes of disruption, I can then get a replacement in my own time.

Consistency

Backup Day is Friday. It’s also the day I get all the photos off my camera, rate them, put them on my ipad and write a little story about the week. Monthly backup day is the last Friday.
For backup’s to stay fresh the system needs very little friction. I put the time in researching the best practice & software.

I’m happy with the flow and now it is just part of my groove.
I’m confident that i’ve done the best I can to prepare for the inevitable. Perhaps there is some freak case where it all goes pear shaped like massive solar flare or a nuclear explosions electromagnetic pulse and all is lost, but there isn’t a great deal I can do about that. My data loss would be comparatively minor and I could probably reframe it as a lesson from God about non-attachment.

Links

Shawn Blanc has a well written article on off-site backups too

Toilet Planning

Composting Toilet

We guess that the final straw for the last people who lived here was when the long drop toilet filled up. That meant that when we arrived there was no toilet.

This quickly became a priority in our lives, and I have learned that we live in the best possible climate to compost our own humanure. This is further reinforced because we collect our own water, making us conscious of this valuable resource and how we can save, and reuse it.

The average home mixes 30,000L of water with solid excrement a year. This creates sewerage! A disgusting difficult to use waste product that must be treated with chemicals and then dumped further down the line into the systems that provide habitat for marine creatures and eventually water again for us.

Dry composting of humanure is a safe, natural and healthy way to break down the organic solids, kill the bacteria and parasites that may be there and then return the nutrient rich humous back to the soil where it can be used by plants to grow. In an area like ours with very old soil that was farmed, this is a vital top soil layer that will make it possible for us to complete our loop and move closer to full sustainability.

Our main considerations in choosing a site for the composting toilet were: Convenient access; not to close, not to far. Pleasant walk, rain, hail and shine Easy access for removal of compost An open air aspect that can be private A view Flattish to minimise excavation work

The site we eventually chose was close enough to the house, without being too close. And more importantly, already pretty flat. The fallones type batch composting toilet chamber was our final design choice and is no small undertaking.

We chose the double chamber design for its durability and minimal maintenance. The batch design means the pile is left to compost where it falls for at least a year. No moving of half finished goods. Recommendations from other owners/builders encouraged us in our decision.

For more information on the planning aspect of this composting toilet project see Toilet Planning in Work.

Here is part of the site, this had to be leveled with dirt from the deck and cut into the hill a bit:

We had the materials delivered by on a truck from Lismore.

A neighbour in our community had just lost his concreting job and it seemed like an ideal fit so we payed him to begin digging the foundations. We fit steel reinforcing under the chamber walls.

Our next blessing came along shortly after that. A friend came to live with us in the hut and he had concreting experience. The next phase the chamber floor slab and the walls went up so quickly I didn’t have time to get process photos!

Our very productive friend had to leave again at short notice and the composting toilet project stopped dead in it’s tracks.

The chamber walls were up and next we wanted to do the floating concrete slab. I found the whole concept a little baffling and the double chamber toilet didn’t move forward for over six months. It wasn’t until we met Bec at the Permaforest Trust that things resumed.

Bec grew up concreting and had all the enthusiasm we needed to things started again. She came out for an inspection and we decided with the PFT to have a working day finishing the slab. The many hands made short work of the job that had seemed incomprehensible for so many months. It was all done in a day.

With the floating slab out of the way it seemed like smooth sailing from there. I worked on the designs for upstairs portion, that process can be seen at the Toilet Planning Page in Work.

The next step was to create the pedestals. There is a divine proportion here that puts your rectum below your knees allowing a complete clearing of the bowel without requiring you to support your entire weight in a squat. Further reading is available in Ray Flanagan’s Plans. They are made by using chicken wire wrapped around a plastic bucket. At this time we got enthusiastic about getting on the loo and built a temporary privacy shelter. It was never used though, and shortly after collapsed in a big storm. I also built a door for the chamber made of flooring, this quickly warped and opened gaps. A big no-no for this kind of system.

After the roof collapsed we decided to get real about a permanent shelter on our permanent toilet so we had some branches that were overhead pruned off. Kirrah & I set to work making wall frames. We had a very large snake come and hold things up again.

Once most of the frames were together, we had some local carpenters come and put them together. Professionals can make a job seem very quick.

With the permanent frame together. I put the roof and wall cladding on.

I replaced the earlier attempt at making a door with a sheet of ply wood.

And we started using the toilet.

Once everything was functional, we got to work on the finishing. Fly screens & mesh.

After some use we discovered that rats had eaten their way into the chamber through the ply door!

I haven’t heard of this happening before. But now i would recommend for durability to use a thin sheet of galvanised steel. I had this one cut to the exact dimensions I needed for $50.

Impenetrable!

The view of the loo as it stands today.

Here are some more fantastic local resources about composting toilets: An Introduction

Model Comparison The wheely bin model Building another Double Chamber in Nimbin. Part 2 Part 3 http://milkwood.net/2011/04/18/compost-toilet-specifics-the-bins/

Worm Farming.

Our worm farm is simple enough. It works to transform kitchen organics and paper that don’t go to the Guinea Pigs into a ready to go mix of humus and seeds from the foods that we like.

Pumpkins flourish.

I think the most important thing is that it is convenient to use. We have a small organics bucket in the kitchen, it has a foot pedal, is labeled clearly, it seals tightly and has a lift-out bucket. This is then emptied into a converted wheely bin on the south (shady) side of our house. This system means that the whole kitchen - compost - herb garden connection involves walking about 10 meters, all undercover.

The worm farm wheely bin conversion has a flap cut at the bottom front. This flap has a few hinges attached so that castings (and worms) can be scooped out. It must be able to drain freely. The bin is lifted slightly off the ground on bricks. A bucket can catch the wormjuice.


It would probably benefit from a bit more oxygen, but it smells sweet and we make sure we keep things fluffy in there. Usually a couple of pages of wet newspaper (from the guinea pigs) get layed between food scraps that get emptied every other day. The bucket is then washed and poured over the top.



I check on the worms everyday because they are my pets and I like them to be happy. I’ve had to make a few alterations to the mix along the way. Just putting food in their isn’t enough and unlike compost, they aren’t too fond of grass either. Wet newspaper is heaven to our composting worms.

The worms themselves (and their sidekicks the bacteria) were sourced from the Permaforest Trust’s worming operation. It is important to get the right species of worm for the job, most will not tolerate being farmed. Ours love it.

Solar Power System

Appropriate Role of Solar Cells Solar Cells may be an appropriate way to make use of the already embodied fossil fuel energy in human skill and industrial manufacturing capacity to contribute to electric power production during the transition to declining energy availability. This is especially so: where small demand systems are remote from the grid. in sunny dry climates where low rainfall limits wood and other biomass production in sunny urban environments where solar cells can double as a roofing material. The greatest value from solar cells may be their role in forcing us to reassess how precious electricity is and the inevitable conclusion the we should use it only for high-quality functions such as small electric motors, lighting and communications. The increasing numbers of people living with autonomous solar power systems are the pioneers in a new culture of modest electricity use while continuing to participate in modern affluent society. The value of their actions may be far greater than any net energy gains or losses of solar cells.

(Excerpt from David Holmgren Page 98 of Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability)

Day 1.

When we first arrived at the house the only power supply was 100w of solar panels on the roof attached to 2 ageing heavy duty lead acid truck batteries. These were wired into two 40w halogen kitchen down-lights and a depressingly dim 4w cold cathode in the living room and as it was all 12v - a few cigarette lighter holes around the place.

Appropriateness We live on the peaceful side of the community buffered from the road by acres of forest, the other side of our property is undeveloped pasture. This remoteness puts us far away from the existing grid infrastructure - it might have been possible to get mains electricity connected - but it wouldn’t have been any cheaper.

When actually getting the system, my perspective was that solar technology was still a little green - as in not yet ready. It is an area of incredibly rapid development. I was right.

In the 12 months since we have had our system installed - the cost of the equipment has halved, mostly due to a now more generous government incentive and in part due to scale of operations and efficiency in manufacturing. However - what we have done in that year with that additional feed hasn’t left me feeling ripped off.

Designing for Us

David Holmgren uses the phase “design cul-de-sac. It would take us more energy to figure out, understand and integrate new components into an old system than it would to just do a new work right over the top. (we had a similar situation with the existing hot and cold water systems).

We planned to leave the old system in place to continue to power just the fixed lights. With this new plan in mind - we were eligible for the federal government rebate. One of the conditions of the rebate was that you must use an installer who is recognised by the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE ). Another is that you install a completely new system.

The terms of the rebate have changed significantly since our system was installed - see http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/renewable/pv/index.html

Their list of local installers yielded me about six likely candidates. A few of the larger groups such as Rainbow Power Company were consulted but quickly written off - I had a short list of smaller companies and continued to discuss my requirements and research with them until i’d exhausted all but one. Simon from SunSparks electrics. He is a mindful man who is raising money to build a school based on buddhist principles. He also sells Indian clothes at the local markets (we still discuss the ongoing system maintenance in passing at these local meeting places). I also trusted him, which I’ve come to find is a rare quality in the solar marketplace.

Working with him we drew up a sheet that would be submitted to greenhouse office outlining our expected power usage. This audit details; Every device you plan to use How much power it consumes How long you plan to use it Which devices you plan to use simultaneously what gets used seasonally And so on. This gives a very detailed awareness to needs and potential points of conservation.

A few patterns developed, one in particular to be aware of, anything that converts the high grade energy of electricity to the low grade of heat is a waste. A big one. Classic sucks of power like electric stoves (2,000w), hot water units(4,000w), air conditioning (a heat pump)(2000w), irons(1,000w), toasters(800w), electric kettles(600w) all consume so much power it would be ridiculous to run them on current solar technology. Thankfully they all have extremely low-imput alternatives.

So with our electrical desires laid bare we could move forward and submit our application for government assistance - it arrived two days later - the fastest approval in the history of the department. We took that as a good sign that we were on the right track.

We finally selected from the bottomless shopping cart of consumer electricals available for the affluent Australian: A small refrigerator (200w) A specially selected Fisher and Paykel Washing Machine (250w) Construction Power tools (100w ~ 1000w) Kitchen power tools (500w) Laptop Computers (~100w) LCD screen (150w) Water transfer pump (750w) A small stereo (50w) Lights, lamps and small batteries (100w)

At this stage we were running a gas fridge - it was one of our goals to kick that habit. It burnt through considerable amount of gas and chose to run out during periods of heavy rain so that the gas man would arrive, unload and then rip up our hand built driveway of sand and gravel with skids and swearing on his way out. Twice.

The fridge is our single biggest consistent load. It is trumped in peak power by the water pump but that is run infrequently and selectively so that we can pump when there is full sun and batteries are at capacity. The first step was to scale down, a full size 220L fridge for two people who intend to grow their own food is too much. The fridge effect is closely related to the travel bag effect - no matter how large or small it will be filled. We kindly asked for the return of my old bar fridge - a much more suitable size. We don’t miss the volume either - a fridge is a place where high turnover is to be valued. The freezer section is big enough for leftover soup and a try of ice cubes.

However to run this little cold box for five days without sun and without damaging the longevity of the batteries still requires a considerable investment.

The Batteries were installed first; they must be kept charged at all times so they come full from the factory. This means we could use them to power the tools used to install the panels and other equipment.

Don’t be fooled by their bright, cheery and green appearance that is 500kg of lead and acid. They have an expected lifetime of 10 years. I think moving them back up the hill for recycling will probably take 10 years off my expected lifetime, So I am treating them with the respect they deserve.

They have never been below 75% of capacity - they float (fully charged) most days of the year. Buying enough capacity in the first place means that we are not really deep cycling them, our pattern of light usage and consistent maintenance will mean we can enjoy them to their full potential.

This is the inverter and the regulator. The regulator is the brain of the system. It connects and monitors the inputs and outputs from all the different elements in the system. It provides feedback to us about our usage and status of the system.

The Inverter converts the 24v Direct Current of the batteries and solar panels to the 240v Alternating Current that is the standard for home electrical systems in Australia.

As well as containing large amounts of toxic lead and hydrochloric acid the batteries also vent explosive hydrogen gas. One of the conditions of getting government support for Remote Area Power Systems is properly managing this hazard. We have done this by building a vented box around the batteries that sit in a tray. We also have instructions for safe handling and hazards.

The shiny side of the works can now be installed.

A special delivery from Japan.

It’s mostly silicon.

I much prefer the panel aesthetic to the umbilical cord that keeps most Aussie houses livable.

Beautiful….and then there is the Maintenance

Taking responsibility for the supply of your own electricity is empowering. But most of the work to support it is not glamorous. As well as a big financial commitment upfront there is regular ongoing maintenance.

Daily. It is important to put the regulator somewhere you can see and access easily. Checking how much power came in, how much was used and how much is stored is the fun side of the routine, I do it daily. Initially feeding back to others so that a lifetime of fat flow power usage habits can slowly change to a pattern that represents the natural flow can be challenging, but it is also very rewarding. We now both “know” days when we can use the big draw cards of power tools and water pumps. We have also learned at what time of day we can use those things so that the batteries get enough power to recharge again so they aren’t sitting low overnight. Weekly The regulator is a really amazing device. Once a month I take enter the data it stores into my laptop and log all the data so I can graph it like the one below.

But it can’t tell me everything. I also test each battery (there are four) and make sure they are all returning a similar voltage. If one battery is malfunctioning it will pull the whole system down while it tries to keep it balanced.

Monthly Once a month I am to check the specific gravity of the acid inside the batteries with an instrument called a hydrometer. This device gives the most accurate reading of individual cell health (their are 12 distinct cells in our system). It is used in correlation with an individual voltage measurement. For our system in our part of the world a hydrometer reading of 1.250 and a voltage reading of 2.22 represents a full, happy and healthy cell. This is the messy part (and the maintenance most often skipped).

These little guides tell me if I need to add any distilled water.

Half Yearly I check the panels for grime and clean them with a glass cleaner, tighten all their nuts and bolts and check all the electrical connections for wear and corrosion. I also do a thorough check for things like rodents in the battery box and mud-wasp’s making houses.

Why Bother? Ensuring that all this is done properly will return me 10-fold dividends in personal energy at the tail end the batteries life time. Which by keeping them floating in the top 15% of capacity is very far away still.

It also adds value to the investment - if I ever chose to sell - a comprehensive record of all the maintenance and long term patterns of usage allow a buyer to know what they are getting, and me to set a better price. It is also good for me - it keeps me responsible and continuously observing a big element in my increasingly complex system.

Grey Water System

It took as a little while to find out where the grey water from the house went when we first arrived. Eventually we traced it to a pipe that was buried 10cm underground near the roots of our pomegranate tree. At the time this was just water from the sink. Like this is stayed for over a year. We planted pumpkins around it, a passionfruit popped up but it was pretty low-tech.

Feb 2007

One of our first new owner-builder without a clue moments was getting a bath installed. This meant fitting a tub in somewhere getting water as close as possible (at this stage still cold Webster’s creek water) and then having somewhere for it to go. While we were setting up a bathroom - we also setup a twin tub for washing clothes. We stuck with the homes original concept of pipe out onto the ground below to runoff for simplicities sake. From legality alone this was never going to do for the long term.

Feb 07

When I first introduced Jerem from the Permaforest Trust around my share a seed was planted to sort out the grey water situation.

We discussed the design brief over email.

Our soils are like beach sand. The initial idea was to line the terraced beds with clay so that the water would run through some water loving plants that would catch the bits. This would eventually lead into a banana circle. This was later amended to a simpler three tier design after the scope of the project day was also expended to float the slab on the composting toilet. April 2007

So the big day arrived, it was also unfortunately pouring with rain. Jack managed the project with help from others. He dug out three beds and used a recently felled dead Mexican tree fern to hold them level.

Jack lays pipe - April 2007

We cut the original pipe just under the house and installed a small grease trap. This is required by council law - there are good reasons to have it and good reasons not to. For our situation the main reason is that large chunks of food that might go down the kitchen sink could block the tiny holes that are drilled into the pvc distribution pipe. The main downside of trap is that it effectively forms an anaerobic environment - that’s the stinky way to break down organic matter. Unless s or p traps are used under all the sink holes - swamp gas rises from the pit and is piped right into the home!

I’ve been exposed to all manner of organic breakdown since I moved onto Avalon - and I’m fairly used to the worst of it. However it doesn’t really reflect well on my shining example of ecological living when guests visit and are greeted by a foul sewerage stench.

The bath and shower water bypass the trap entirely as it is intended for kitchen chunks.

Once the holes were drilled ag pipe is then threaded over the top. This is to give the holes some chance of not being filled by greedy roots trying to get to the source and clogging up the works. The holes are drilled on the top of the pvc pipe so the pipe fills with water and then leaks out of all the holes at once.

Once the beds were all setup, A boundary of Vetiver and Lomandra grass was planted. These are intended to stop the invasive grasses from entering the main beds.

As the soil has been heavily disturbed we mulched as quickly as possible - this will prevent the weed seeds in the soil bank from germinating.

A job well done!

Shortly after we visited the trust and harvested some Taro and Arrowroot root stock. We planted that in and have effectively left it to work.

August 2007

September 2007  October 2007

Our recent inspection of the grease trap revealed;

October 2007

November 2007