Even if it's gonna rot or warp or whatever in a couple of years, it's basically your working prototype. I have a feeling that you'll want to improve and modify bits of your system anyways, based on how it works and what you learn down the road - way before anything breaks. I love how you put a lot of thought into your stuff (for example your workshop model) without getting paralized by the need to be 100% certain that it's gonna be the most perfect thing ever. So far, everything I've seen you build serves a real purpose, like the house you live in, while also being a prototype and learning object for something even bigger down the road. Truly a joy to watch your process. Am so very hyped to see your hydro power station go online!!
Im really glad that is coming across. i really like messing around with things and making improvements so getting it right first time isnt an issue. but i do know that it will work. it just might take a bit of time to get better performance. there are always people that know better than me and feel the need to tell everyone how much more they know while doing nothing but sat at there computer. its easy to look at something someone has done and see the flaws but could those people design something from scratch? i doubt it. thanks for the comment. it was nice to hear.
In our fish systems we use swirl separators. They work similarly to a dyson vacuum cleaner. It should not reduce your flow rate and be very easy to clean. There are several ways to build them, you should find it easy to build your own.
As others have already suggested, a settling pool above the slope and a centrifugal filter below should remove or at least greatly reduce the silt. A finer mesh will only reduce water throughput and likely get clogged sooner. Bloody stoked with your progress, mate. It's looking awesome!
Hi Kris. I enjoy your videos very much, thanks for putting in the time and trouble to make them. You have an excellent sense of balance between the theoretical and the practical. I love the way you can modify the plan on the fly when the situation calls for it. We are all waiting for the turbine to spin and the meter to show current flowing. All the best, Dave
I was going to suggest a catch tank as well with a 3 stage filter or just let the fines and largest silt settle to the bottom and you could possible have it be a 2 part tank where the fines and largest silt falls in the bottom tank and then after 750 hours (1 time a month) the bottom tank is flushed for 5 minutes then 1 time a year you can do a thorough cleaning and inspection. I would also suggest installing a wooden diverter for the top of the box so all that excess water isn't pounding directly on your piping. Fantastic videos and keep up the great work
Glad to have you back, I have full confidence you will work out the problems, just like you have on all your projects. Can't wait to see what you come up with..Happy New Year.
Happy new year and hope you get well soon. Nice progress so far, really love it. That sludge seems to require an almost paper-like filter. Here in germany, some pumping stations have a very fine membrane, somewhat like a coarse kerchief. sadly I don't know the name, or anything, but I'm sure that this would help. It needs cleaning on a weekly basis, but any piping system would, with that amount of sludge gathering over time...
I've seen some comments, so i would guess you know by now to build a settlement pond/tank to let the fine particulates settle out of the water before they hit the intake screen. Regardless, this is a lot of fun to watch. Good luck!
Don't add too much filter material to the intake box. You want large debris to pass over it, but let through enough water for your system. Water takes the path of least resistance, so more filter material will result in less water entering the system. Also, the bottom of the box acts as a filter. The change in angles causes a sudden deceleration of the water which causes the sediments to "crash" out like a natural ripple in a stream. So some maintenance is needed to be clean the box. It is a great design, just add a clean out like you thought. I work in the hydrology field so... There are my qualifications. Everyone's setup is different, so what works best for one person will not work for another. Unfortunately it is trial and error. Keep up the good work.
When we did something similar to this we built a settling/storage tank way before the it came to the wheel, yes the tank had to be cleaned once a year but otherwise it worked OK
Great micro hydro idea but I would mount your generator high above the peloton wheel gun a cerpitine belt like a Chevy truck even a regular pulley which would keep most of the belt away as opposed to being on the same shaft . I really like your idea of piping water from the pond when you have high demand like welding heating water etc . Scott from USA and Canada
Hello, I am brazilian,though my country is in crisis ara known(beyond the football an samba) by have a wide variety of ways to generate energy, I am very happy to see that people from other countries care and use correctly nature , was a video fantastic,congratulations i'm waiting of the next.Sorry for some possible error because i am not fluent in English.
Hey Kris, welcome back buddy, I wanna say in a lot of your videos I notice you have the flu or cold and obviously living in a country with no sun lol you might consider taking some inexpensive D3 vitamins every day, I used to get the dreaded man flu many times throughout the year until a friend suggested vitamin D3, and I live in sunny Queensland Australia and now the only get a stuffy nose every year or so and that’s mostly because I forget to take them (have a disability don’t get much sun) give it a try and hope it helps, my son, daughter 4 n 5 and I love watching your videos and dream of having a homestead here in Queensland one day and being able to try out some of the awesome ideas you have ourselves, keep up the great work Kris and as always, looking forward to the next chapter. Ps. We also love watching the coastal foraging videos with Craig Evens and he seems like a valuable friend to have given the state of the world at times. Kind Regards Justin, Isabella & Zachary
In brewing, the best way to manage fine debris (from Hops, etc) is to whirlpool it. I’m thinking it have a really good use for you muddy sand issue. Basically you start with a cylindrical container, feed the water in at an angle from the side at the top. Flow the water out of the container about 1/4 up from the bottom at an angle away from the whirlpool rotation. This concentrates the debris in the center of the container allowing clearer outflow without having to use a filter.
I was thinking the same thing. Take a plastic 205L plastic barren and make an inlet at the top so that it's flush with the tangent of the inner surface of the drum and then take an outlet up and out from the centre of the barrel and feed that to the water wheel. If you get the ;levels right, i.e. below the onles of the trap there should be no air in the barrel at all. If you put a valve on the bottom of the barrel where all of the fines will end up you should be able to simply flush them out once in a while.
Morten Mortensen that's pretty much what I was intending to suggest. Use an internal construction to create a rotating flow which would throw the heavier solids out where they can be continually flowed off.
How does the silt get moved out of the container? It's constantly being brought in by the spring. I'm thinking a large pond to let the initial self settle to the bottom why the water flows over a weir into the intake
Hi Kris, there were many good ideas to filter out the silt, but no one touched on the simplest solution...use a series of drain traps along the piping. Just like a sink drain. Those traps are meant to keep sewage gasses from backing onto your house, but they also trap fine silt. The water will still flow, but the silt is too heavy, and will settle in the trap. Obviously, it will require periodic cleaning, but better than destroying your whole water supply system.
Hi Kris, good to hear your back to it mate, bet you cant wait to get that pipe. Some good ideas on here about your silt problem, am sure your find the right one that suits your situation. looking forward to your next video. have sent you a message through youtube, hope you got it? p.s. dont worry about the negative comments, you have alot of followers and you have to expect a few that could do with a learning how to communicate the right way with fellow humans. Its not what people say, its how they say it :)
Hope you’ve had a good new year. Feel better. Something came to mind at the end of your video. Why wouldn’t surface tension work, like with a gutter leaf system like Gutter Helmet. You could probably bend any sheet metal to shed leaves while directing water into your box.
i think the will be quite a nice solution. but i want to minimise extra work if possible so i am going to see how it works as it is first. if it is causing a problem i will have to sort it out. but the priority at the moment is to get the power turned on so i dont have to run the generator.
Have done this sort of thing on a burn in Scotland . Your dead right you need to slow the flow. we built a rough dam and had the pipe off the bottom of the pool near the dam. And good luck to you. Your doing a grand job.
Have one or two debris cleaners further up the stream (you don't have to do it all with the box) All you would need is a small cutaway in the slow side of the stream, and a bundle of sticks at an angle to divert any floating debris, which should then collect there. As for the silt, leverage some flow dynamics, put shaped wood pieces in the bottom of the box, to trap the silt in one area, and another side channel to flow excess water through that area out of an expulsion hole in the side.
"An end to it quite quickly",.. Surely the water flow itself will wash tiny particles away as it runs.? It can only build up, up to the level of the bottom of the output pipe. The handful of sludge would fuck things up if that was all that was going down the pipe, but, obviously it's not. Plus, it wouldn't damage your turbine blades (in normal amounts) any more than the bubbles caused by the spinning action of the blades. Cavitation, I think it's called. I've worked on 3 of these turbine systems as an electrician, and, never have I seen a screen that small. Even the screen at the top is a lot smaller than anything I've seen. All 3 simply had grids to stop trees going in. Now, I realize that yours is a bit smaller than the ones I've worked on, but, even the smallest one I've worked on only had a 1"×1" mesh at the top. So, I think you're worrying a bit much about this particular aspect. Great video tho. I really do love what you're doing. I'd love to have the energy (and land with a beck🙄) to do projects like you do. Keep it up. You're an inspiration to younger folks. 'love it'.!!!.
Kris: You might try a series of mini dams/spillways, in the creek, up stream to collect the fine sand. Just a couple of inches high and easy to clean out with a garden trowel. Temporarily they could be 1" x 2" piece of wood staked In-to the bank. the old guy Bert
To back pressure the box to see if it will self clean just put something against the pipe outlet to restrict flow. Your hand should work unless the water is really frigid. Oh and thanks for sharing your journey.
that is exactly what i was trying to avoid......the water was cold! im happy just to wait and see once the pipe is connected....i dont like numb hands.
Without using filters, which will slow the water flow, you need to build a much larger box. This will allow the silt to settle before going down the pipe. You can have a hatch at bottom to allow for flushing the box out weekly,monthly or what ever the buildup of silt dictates. The box would have to be at least twenty times larger than what you have. The placement and routing of the water is determined by the slop of land. Regardless of how you go, it would appear that silt buildup is going to be an ongoing problem. If you had the space you could use a very large barrel and let centrifugal force drop the silt out, but periodically you will have to clean it out.
I know I'm behind on videos, so I dont know if you've come up with a solution to the fine sand problem yet but here's my suggestion. You could make a small dam where you have the intake box, and make it so the intake gets it water from the overflow of the dam. That way any fine particles stay in the dammed area, and don't flow into the intake box at all. You can then also add a spillway, so that if you need to do maintenance to the hydro system, you can open the spillway, and not have to work around the water.
The fixing you used was termed a Coach Screw when I used some insanely sized ones, and equually psychopathic 'rawl plugs', to secure a couple of gunsafes a few months ago. Had a thought about the overflow on your box, possibly a daft one. Is there any way you could add in a sluice type set up to direct the overflow to a secondary pipe that joins the first at a junction so that excess water joins the main pipe and adds to the flow thus boosting your power/storage potential.
have seen another video bout hyrdo and he had a problem with dirty screens too. i think he used a steeper angle on the intake, where the water splashes the dirt down.. i guess youll see when connect it to the turbine
Chris I come from an industrial back ground have you considered a simple once a week way to flush your box similar to the way we use to flush sediment from the bottom of storage tanks ?
For any stomach issue(s) get some oil of oregano. It taste nasty, but 20 drops 4x for one day should do it. Check out OAG site, OldAlabamaGardner. He has lots of info on homestead gardening etc. Happy New Year Mr Kris, keep-up the good work.
You could always try a vortex so you can skim the water off, also I saw an engineered grate that does just what you what where someone from the USA had a similar issue in the USA / Canda.
Welcome back kris.... there’s a fella.... maximus ironthumper......u may want to check him out... he lives off grid and talks in detail of his projects... you will now know if your heating solution is adequate and his looks basic but ample
Yep Mr ironthumper has been off grid in the uk for a long time and like yourself he has come up with a lot of his own ideas from scratch ..... plus he loves helping other people out where he can :D
Awesome, hopefully by age 51 I can be off the grid in Canada, I've dreamed of it ever since I saw Dick Prinikee film , a true test, to know one's self takes a lifetime.
To avoid that sand maybe you could make a small concrete pond right before in the stream so it will sediment there and not in the box. Dunno how often it'd need to be cleaned though
If I were you I'd build a couple extra for when you need them later on. And put an opening under the pipe, along the bottom so the sludge flows out by itself. What's left inside can easily be removed by a brush.
I do not know if you are still having issues with the silt. If you are, check out the later videos (17, 18, 19) by MrHydrohead and see his solutions it might help. Good luck. Love your vids btw. Been subscribed since you started the round house. It turned out great.
Hiya mate I'm living on a boat ( no engine ATM) on a tidal Thames have solar and a wind turbine has the same motor unit as Ur water turbine it's crap to say the least any idea if I could mount that to a engine via a charge controller?
Hi there sir its really cool what your doing with hydro power Ive been watching your channel sometimes we get a lot of rain run off that comes down the hill no sun for solar so ive been thinking about putting in hydro myself is there a link you could share were you bought the pluming stuff the fittings
Kris, I haven't finished watching all your videos at this point. But to resolve your micro sand building up, wouldn't be wise to install a pee trap along the way before it hit your turbine? This will help collect your unwanted debris... Just a thought!
6:37 Lag bolts. I would just drill some 1/2" holes in the bottom of the intake box. shouldn't reduce the pressure that much and the pleasure there should push the fine sand out the holes.
I would have built a small dam to create a small pond just downstream from the location that would retain enough water to feed the piping and creates a settling pond to eliminate a lot of the silt in the moving water. You may even need to build one up stream to allow more silt to settle out and if the laws allow you could use some of this water to help fill your lake.
Welp, now I'm anxious to find out how you solved the problem with the fine sand. I know that a series of tanks above the intake have been used to settle out particulate in unprocessed water, so that only the clean overflow is passed on down. I suppose something lie a sluice with riffles might do it too...maybe, maybe not as effectively as the tanks, which could be as simple as a series of barrels. Anyway...
Hannah could help with the fabrication process. Actually ALLOW someone to help you and take a holiday mate. Cheers from Silverton Oregon in the United States of America.
haha, these little jobs i do it the shed alone because i have to think about them alot. i need to just look at something for a while and mess with it in order to work out what to do. jobs like that are perfect for one person. Hannah will be recruited once i start laying pipe :D
Yup, I understand that. Stuff just comes to you when it's ready. Not many understand when you just stare at something for a bit till it gives you the answer.
Hard to explain with out picture but if you had a multi level intake so screen was a couple inches under the water level and you had second solid level over the intake all the floating leaves would not contact the screen. Maybe a thought for a second model.
this very fine sand will be expelled into the tube and will be propelled on the Pelton wheel. As the months go by the wheel will be cut off by the sand. It's a natural phenomenon. all Pelton wheels eventually deteriorate. You need a spare one !
Aa your doing it oll wrong mate says me sat in me kitchen.!! LOL.....Your living the dream bud don't let jealousy get ya down chin up Mate hope to meet in summer dude .Cheers Kris ✌👍
Another option for clarifying hat fine debris out could be the method they use for sifting gold out of stream water. Run all the water across a wide, long, shallow channel with ridges across the entire surface. The ridges catch the debris over the length and the water (being lightest) flows over the top.
Oh for sure.. I don’t thing there’s any silt filtering option that’s not going to come with regular maintenance and clearance. I was just thinking maybe it’s easier to clean a flat surface more than a bin.
The ridges are called riffles, he could fabricate a grating for that, when sifting for gold they also use a special Carpet called miners moss to catch the gold, personally I think he just needs a bit of a settling channel for the silt
i think walking up and brushing off the screen could be a every morning job to be honest. especially if i get a dog....get up take hime out for a walk and clean the filter. wouldn't be to much of an issue, so it only really needs to last 24/48 hours i guess.
I think the answer to your screen clogging issues may be fixed if you look into gold mining techniques and Water Management through riffles creating a agitation/ turbulent wash out. Maybe experiment with it by placing some wooden dowel rods across the screen so many centimeters apart or something of the sort.
It’s just mega expensive. I only need a tiny bit of it. If I could just get a little off cut then I would do that! But it’s hard to come by as I’m sure you know.
I actually haven't looked into it other than knowing it exists. My waterwheel is debris tolerant so anything that fits through the flume won't do anything. I realize that isn't the case with a high head system. One of the blogs I occasionally follow has just a pipe in his stream dumping into a settling tank from where all of this feed pipes leave. There is no filter as far as I can tell. lifeattheendoftheroad.wordpress.com/category/hydro/
I think Steve Mills's idea with the drop tank is the best way forward as it is a more natural function. It took me several years of fannying around before I was totally happy with my water system> great video and great ideas you have with the roundhouse build etc.Well done. Also, your comments about seasoned wood is spot on. Wood is only treated to make it perform a particular function, whereas, woods with natural rot resistance, such as, Cedar, European Oak, Idigbo, Ipe, Iroko, Black walnut or moderately resistant, such as , Douglas Fir, Larch, Sapele, Meranti will outperform chemically treated woods, which may also cause mild contamination of potable water !!! Thinking about your silt issue I went for this method to greatly reduce the silt problems I had. www.siltbuster.co.uk/sb_prod/siltbuster-silt-fence/
Maybe check the fine sand for gold, you never know ;) Also, the pipe fitting is attached very securely to the wooden panel but the wooden panel is attached to the box with only 4 screws. Could that be a weak spot?
DavidPurviance I'll do my best to help out soon, but I'm not sure I'd have been much use for all this. You can't even make the man cups of tea! Once he's working he just gets his head down and doesn't stop for frivolities like that 🤣
hehehe People forget that wood was used in and around water for thousands of years before chemical treatments came about. Some wood and how it is seasoned (not kiln dried) handles water immersion very well.
Thank you :) someone talking some sence about wood durability. people seem to think that all wood is equal. they all have completely different characteristics. thanks for the comment
Yup. I don't know about your larch, but in Nfld we had a swimming pool ((a brook damed off with seasoned birch logs, timbers and boards) . It was build in the mid 60's. except for the odd repair over the years, it lasted till 2008 when a bad ice storm and severe flooding destroyed it. They rebuilt it with spruce and fir, but it won't hold up like the old birch. Basically you got to know your wood and where/how to use it. Also knowing when (time of year) is important. When we built log cabins , we built them with vertical logs rather than horizontal.
I build my corrals with steel pipe welded together but I prefer wood in all other things. It’s natural, beautiful and doesn’t impact the environment if harvested correctly. I’d rather be a woodworker than a steelworker. ;-)
Here's my tuppence worth. Firstly, if you are able to lay the feed pipework so that it is consistently going downhill, then you need not worry about air-locking; only if you have a length of "uphill" gradient will air become a problem. If the latter, then a simple air bleed valve will suffice (perhaps something like this depending on the pipe wall thickness www.ebay.co.uk/p/Teams-Brass-Automatic-Auto-Bottle-Air-Vent-15mm-Compression-AIRVENT-Valve/1487627557?iid=281335228489). And as for the silt build-up, firstly don't worry about it. If you can achieve a pipe full velocity (Q=AV) of about 0.6m/s then this will scour the pipe more than adequately even if only intermittantly... sorry as I'm not sure what diameter pipe or flow rate you will be using). Also, I would not worry about a tiny bit of silt hitting the peleton blades, these are likely made of brass, the same as a river ships propeller, and wear will be negligible. Finally, if you do harvest the silt use it on your garden, full of goodness!
Kris Harbour This is true, but cedar is soft and susceptible to physical damage. Larch is a perfect balance between physical durability and environmental durability. Just stumbled across these videos, keep up the good work dude!
You know my mate Craig? Well he is also an expert on geology and he tells me there won’t be gold here because of the geology. There could well be some small seams of coal under me. But not gold. I trust his knowledge. But it did look like prime gold panning material. I really want to go on a little gold panning trip. North wales is the place to go though 👍
Would this help your silt problem? I've been watching the Land to House vids because I'm thinking about installing a ram pump in my off grid place. th-cam.com/video/U1F_zkJLPgY/w-d-xo.html
Even if it's gonna rot or warp or whatever in a couple of years, it's basically your working prototype. I have a feeling that you'll want to improve and modify bits of your system anyways, based on how it works and what you learn down the road - way before anything breaks.
I love how you put a lot of thought into your stuff (for example your workshop model) without getting paralized by the need to be 100% certain that it's gonna be the most perfect thing ever. So far, everything I've seen you build serves a real purpose, like the house you live in, while also being a prototype and learning object for something even bigger down the road. Truly a joy to watch your process. Am so very hyped to see your hydro power station go online!!
Im really glad that is coming across. i really like messing around with things and making improvements so getting it right first time isnt an issue. but i do know that it will work. it just might take a bit of time to get better performance. there are always people that know better than me and feel the need to tell everyone how much more they know while doing nothing but sat at there computer. its easy to look at something someone has done and see the flaws but could those people design something from scratch? i doubt it. thanks for the comment. it was nice to hear.
In our fish systems we use swirl separators. They work similarly to a dyson vacuum cleaner. It should not reduce your flow rate and be very easy to clean. There are several ways to build them, you should find it easy to build your own.
As others have already suggested, a settling pool above the slope and a centrifugal filter below should remove or at least greatly reduce the silt. A finer mesh will only reduce water throughput and likely get clogged sooner.
Bloody stoked with your progress, mate. It's looking awesome!
Hi Kris. I enjoy your videos very much, thanks for putting in the time and trouble to make them. You have an excellent sense of balance between the theoretical and the practical. I love the way you can modify the plan on the fly when the situation calls for it. We are all waiting for the turbine to spin and the meter to show current flowing. All the best, Dave
Thanks dave. the moment when i start making power is going to be a fine day! i really cant wait.
I was going to suggest a catch tank as well with a 3 stage filter or just let the fines and largest silt settle to the bottom and you could possible have it be a 2 part tank where the fines and largest silt falls in the bottom tank and then after 750 hours (1 time a month) the bottom tank is flushed for 5 minutes then 1 time a year you can do a thorough cleaning and inspection. I would also suggest installing a wooden diverter for the top of the box so all that excess water isn't pounding directly on your piping. Fantastic videos and keep up the great work
Glad to have you back, I have full confidence you will work out the problems, just like you have on all your projects. Can't wait to see what you come up with..Happy New Year.
Happy new year and hope you get well soon. Nice progress so far, really love it.
That sludge seems to require an almost paper-like filter. Here in germany, some pumping stations have a very fine membrane, somewhat like a coarse kerchief. sadly I don't know the name, or anything, but I'm sure that this would help. It needs cleaning on a weekly basis, but any piping system would, with that amount of sludge gathering over time...
I've seen some comments, so i would guess you know by now to build a settlement pond/tank to let the fine particulates settle out of the water before they hit the intake screen.
Regardless, this is a lot of fun to watch. Good luck!
Don't add too much filter material to the intake box. You want large debris to pass over it, but let through enough water for your system. Water takes the path of least resistance, so more filter material will result in less water entering the system. Also, the bottom of the box acts as a filter. The change in angles causes a sudden deceleration of the water which causes the sediments to "crash" out like a natural ripple in a stream. So some maintenance is needed to be clean the box. It is a great design, just add a clean out like you thought. I work in the hydrology field so... There are my qualifications. Everyone's setup is different, so what works best for one person will not work for another. Unfortunately it is trial and error. Keep up the good work.
YES, been waiting for part 8, also love the power house you built, i love the primitive look of it using mud
When we did something similar to this we built a settling/storage tank way before the it came to the wheel, yes the tank had to be cleaned once a year but otherwise it worked OK
Great micro hydro idea but I would mount your generator high above the peloton wheel gun a cerpitine belt like a Chevy truck even a regular pulley which would keep most of the belt away as opposed to being on the same shaft .
I really like your idea of piping water from the pond when you have high demand like welding heating water etc .
Scott from USA and Canada
Hello, I am brazilian,though my country is in crisis ara known(beyond the football an samba) by have a wide variety of ways to generate energy, I am very happy to see that people from other countries care and use correctly nature , was a video fantastic,congratulations i'm waiting of the next.Sorry for some possible error because i am not fluent in English.
Sounds like you need a swirl filter for the silt. "Lag bolts". Love the project. Good hard work. Jim
the muck you had in your hand is not sand, its call silt. and that screw is a lag screw. love the videos thanks kris!
Hey Kris, welcome back buddy, I wanna say in a lot of your videos I notice you have the flu or cold and obviously living in a country with no sun lol you might consider taking some inexpensive D3 vitamins every day, I used to get the dreaded man flu many times throughout the year until a friend suggested vitamin D3, and I live in sunny Queensland Australia and now the only get a stuffy nose every year or so and that’s mostly because I forget to take them (have a disability don’t get much sun) give it a try and hope it helps, my son, daughter 4 n 5 and I love watching your videos and dream of having a homestead here in Queensland one day and being able to try out some of the awesome ideas you have ourselves, keep up the great work Kris and as always, looking forward to the next chapter.
Ps. We also love watching the coastal foraging videos with Craig Evens and he seems like a valuable friend to have given the state of the world at times.
Kind Regards
Justin, Isabella & Zachary
Welcome back :) Sorry you were ill, take care
As I was watching this on my phone with my AirPods in my ears, here in Seabrook, Washington, I spoke to my wife, “I love this guy. He’s just amazing”.
and, how many hours did you spend explaining that? :-) Ric? Ric? you still there? Ric? Um, dispatch, please send a unit.....
Haha Dan L pretty sure she regarded my comment as normal and kind
[whew] I'll tell the divers to pack it up then! ;-) BTW, that's pretty cool, that "kind" is "normal." Cheers!
Thanks Ric im sure you are amazing to :D
In brewing, the best way to manage fine debris (from Hops, etc) is to whirlpool it. I’m thinking it have a really good use for you muddy sand issue. Basically you start with a cylindrical container, feed the water in at an angle from the side at the top. Flow the water out of the container about 1/4 up from the bottom at an angle away from the whirlpool rotation. This concentrates the debris in the center of the container allowing clearer outflow without having to use a filter.
like this idea; would love to see it in action!
I was thinking the same thing. Take a plastic 205L plastic barren and make an inlet at the top so that it's flush with the tangent of the inner surface of the drum and then take an outlet up and out from the centre of the barrel and feed that to the water wheel. If you get the ;levels right, i.e. below the onles of the trap there should be no air in the barrel at all.
If you put a valve on the bottom of the barrel where all of the fines will end up you should be able to simply flush them out once in a while.
Morten Mortensen that's pretty much what I was intending to suggest. Use an internal construction to create a rotating flow which would throw the heavier solids out where they can be continually flowed off.
how does something like that affect head pressure?
How does the silt get moved out of the container? It's constantly being brought in by the spring.
I'm thinking a large pond to let the initial self settle to the bottom why the water flows over a weir into the intake
Looks great Kris, excited to see the next vid.
Hi Kris, there were many good ideas to filter out the silt, but no one touched on the simplest solution...use a series of drain traps along the piping. Just like a sink drain. Those traps are meant to keep sewage gasses from backing onto your house, but they also trap fine silt. The water will still flow, but the silt is too heavy, and will settle in the trap. Obviously, it will require periodic cleaning, but better than destroying your whole water supply system.
Hi Kris, good to hear your back to it mate, bet you cant wait to get that pipe. Some good ideas on here about your silt problem, am sure your find the right one that suits your situation. looking forward to your next video. have sent you a message through youtube, hope you got it?
p.s. dont worry about the negative comments, you have alot of followers and you have to expect a few that could do with a learning how to communicate the right way with fellow humans. Its not what people say, its how they say it :)
Hope you’ve had a good new year. Feel better. Something came to mind at the end of your video. Why wouldn’t surface tension work, like with a gutter leaf system like Gutter Helmet. You could probably bend any sheet metal to shed leaves while directing water into your box.
how about digging a box pit above the intake to act as a settling pool, so the water flowing out of the pit has already dropped its silt?
Thats what i was thinking too
That might be better than a silt trap down stream.
i think the will be quite a nice solution. but i want to minimise extra work if possible so i am going to see how it works as it is first. if it is causing a problem i will have to sort it out. but the priority at the moment is to get the power turned on so i dont have to run the generator.
Have done this sort of thing on a burn in Scotland . Your dead right you need to slow the flow. we built a rough dam and had the pipe off the bottom of the pool near the dam. And good luck to you. Your doing a grand job.
Just another thought. i think you said your over shale. so the water will be dusty
Have one or two debris cleaners further up the stream (you don't have to do it all with the box) All you would need is a small cutaway in the slow side of the stream, and a bundle of sticks at an angle to divert any floating debris, which should then collect there.
As for the silt, leverage some flow dynamics, put shaped wood pieces in the bottom of the box, to trap the silt in one area, and another side channel to flow excess water through that area out of an expulsion hole in the side.
Looking good cant wait to see your next video. Happy new year and all the best for 2018
"An end to it quite quickly",.. Surely the water flow itself will wash tiny particles away as it runs.? It can only build up, up to the level of the bottom of the output pipe. The handful of sludge would fuck things up if that was all that was going down the pipe, but, obviously it's not. Plus, it wouldn't damage your turbine blades (in normal amounts) any more than the bubbles caused by the spinning action of the blades. Cavitation, I think it's called.
I've worked on 3 of these turbine systems as an electrician, and, never have I seen a screen that small. Even the screen at the top is a lot smaller than anything I've seen. All 3 simply had grids to stop trees going in. Now, I realize that yours is a bit smaller than the ones I've worked on, but, even the smallest one I've worked on only had a 1"×1" mesh at the top. So, I think you're worrying a bit much about this particular aspect.
Great video tho. I really do love what you're doing. I'd love to have the energy (and land with a beck🙄) to do projects like you do. Keep it up. You're an inspiration to younger folks. 'love it'.!!!.
Kris: You might try a series of mini dams/spillways, in the creek, up stream to collect the fine sand. Just a couple of inches high and easy to clean out with a garden trowel. Temporarily they could be 1" x 2" piece of wood staked In-to the bank. the old guy Bert
To back pressure the box to see if it will self clean just put something against the pipe outlet to restrict flow. Your hand should work unless the water is really frigid. Oh and thanks for sharing your journey.
that is exactly what i was trying to avoid......the water was cold! im happy just to wait and see once the pipe is connected....i dont like numb hands.
FYI, this video hasn't showed up in my subscription inbox. Other than that, great to see the progress.
Without using filters, which will slow the water flow, you need to build a much larger box. This will allow the silt to settle before going down the pipe. You can have a hatch at bottom to allow for flushing the box out weekly,monthly or what ever the buildup of silt dictates. The box would have to be at least twenty times larger than what you have. The placement and routing of the water is determined by the slop of land. Regardless of how you go, it would appear that silt buildup is going to be an ongoing problem. If you had the space you could use a very large barrel and let centrifugal force drop the silt out, but periodically you will have to clean it out.
I know I'm behind on videos, so I dont know if you've come up with a solution to the fine sand problem yet but here's my suggestion. You could make a small dam where you have the intake box, and make it so the intake gets it water from the overflow of the dam. That way any fine particles stay in the dammed area, and don't flow into the intake box at all. You can then also add a spillway, so that if you need to do maintenance to the hydro system, you can open the spillway, and not have to work around the water.
looking good mate,HNY 2018, i think they are coach screws btw, bolts have nuts.
No, they are lag screws. Carriage bolts have a smooth convex head. Lag bolts would be hex. head with nut.
The fixing you used was termed a Coach Screw when I used some insanely sized ones, and equually psychopathic 'rawl plugs', to secure a couple of gunsafes a few months ago. Had a thought about the overflow on your box, possibly a daft one. Is there any way you could add in a sluice type set up to direct the overflow to a secondary pipe that joins the first at a junction so that excess water joins the main pipe and adds to the flow thus boosting your power/storage potential.
So using a big reservior for the fine sand to settle before it goes to the pump/wat3er wheel ro what yuou called it again would be a good choice
have seen another video bout hyrdo and he had a problem with dirty screens too. i think he used a steeper angle on the intake, where the water splashes the dirt down.. i guess youll see when connect it to the turbine
Chris I come from an industrial back ground have you considered a simple once a week way to flush your box similar to the way we use to flush sediment from the bottom of storage tanks ?
For any stomach issue(s) get some oil of oregano. It taste nasty, but 20 drops 4x for one day should do it. Check out OAG site, OldAlabamaGardner. He has lots of info on homestead gardening etc. Happy New Year Mr Kris, keep-up the good work.
Can't wait!
You could always try a vortex so you can skim the water off, also I saw an engineered grate that does just what you what where someone from the USA had a similar issue in the USA / Canda.
Welcome back kris.... there’s a fella.... maximus ironthumper......u may want to check him out... he lives off grid and talks in detail of his projects... you will now know if your heating solution is adequate and his looks basic but ample
i will check him out....thanks for the info
Was just going to mention him, he's got some good ideas. Well done Kris, love the natural materials too.
Yep Mr ironthumper has been off grid in the uk for a long time and like yourself he has come up with a lot of his own ideas from scratch ..... plus he loves helping other people out where he can :D
Awesome, hopefully by age 51 I can be off the grid in Canada, I've dreamed of it ever since I saw Dick Prinikee film , a true test, to know one's self takes a lifetime.
Great Kris!!! once you have power, I think the dam will help. ¿would you divert the current to be able to construct the dam?
Have a great 2018!!
To avoid that sand maybe you could make a small concrete pond right before in the stream so it will sediment there and not in the box. Dunno how often it'd need to be cleaned though
TH-cam... why am I watching this. And why am I enjoying it
If I were you I'd build a couple extra for when you need them later on. And put an opening under the pipe, along the bottom so the sludge flows out by itself. What's left inside can easily be removed by a brush.
I do not know if you are still having issues with the silt. If you are, check out the later videos (17, 18, 19) by MrHydrohead and see his solutions it might help. Good luck. Love your vids btw. Been subscribed since you started the round house. It turned out great.
Hiya mate I'm living on a boat ( no engine ATM) on a tidal Thames have solar and a wind turbine has the same motor unit as Ur water turbine it's crap to say the least any idea if I could mount that to a engine via a charge controller?
Hi there sir its really cool what your doing with hydro power Ive been watching your channel sometimes we get a lot of rain run off that comes down the hill no sun for solar so ive been thinking about putting in hydro myself is there a link you could share were you bought the pluming stuff the fittings
Kris, I haven't finished watching all your videos at this point. But to resolve your micro sand building up, wouldn't be wise to install a pee trap along the way before it hit your turbine? This will help collect your unwanted debris... Just a thought!
Those bolts are called Lag Bolts...at least here in NA.
You may have ment north america, but anyone not in north America will think NA meants not available.
Will Lightfoot naw, that's N/A
6:37 Lag bolts. I would just drill some 1/2" holes in the bottom of the intake box. shouldn't reduce the pressure that much and the pleasure there should push the fine sand out the holes.
Think I would be putting that sludge through the gold pan Kris 🙂 Maybe a longer leaf screen would be better.... just a thought.
im near a coal mine.....its not an area you would find gold.
I would have built a small dam to create a small pond just downstream from the location that would retain enough water to feed the piping and creates a settling pond to eliminate a lot of the silt in the moving water.
You may even need to build one up stream to allow more silt to settle out and if the laws allow you could use some of this water to help fill your lake.
You will need to set up a settling pond so the fine grit sinks down before reaching your inlet.
drill a few small holes in the bottom of the box to allow any sand to move on through and not build up..
Welp, now I'm anxious to find out how you solved the problem with the fine sand. I know that a series of tanks above the intake have been used to settle out particulate in unprocessed water, so that only the clean overflow is passed on down. I suppose something lie a sluice with riffles might do it too...maybe, maybe not as effectively as the tanks, which could be as simple as a series of barrels. Anyway...
Good to go Kris! You little "hobbit" realm is really turning up!
could you put a block of wood across the bottom of the screen to devert the water back to the screen
You could make it last longer with pine pitch; it's how they used to treat wood boats.
Build a cyclone filter, it will make quick work of that silt.
Did you find gold in them their hills matey, arggg?
This will be good when you’ve ironed out the small querks.
Great work good video
Hannah could help with the fabrication process. Actually ALLOW someone to help you and take a holiday mate. Cheers from Silverton Oregon in the United States of America.
haha, these little jobs i do it the shed alone because i have to think about them alot. i need to just look at something for a while and mess with it in order to work out what to do. jobs like that are perfect for one person. Hannah will be recruited once i start laying pipe :D
Yup, I understand that. Stuff just comes to you when it's ready. Not many understand when you just stare at something for a bit till it gives you the answer.
Hard to explain with out picture but if you had a multi level intake so screen was a couple inches under the water level and you had second solid level over the intake all the floating leaves would not contact the screen. Maybe a thought for a second model.
I curious to see how your going to deal with the silt!
Don't see how he can, he's never going to get pure water
Kris will probably figure it out, however, solor is so much easier!
Solar maybe easier ... solar plus water is ultimately the best bet ... through-night battery charging of a 40+ kwh 18650 powerwall is a nice thing :D
Why dont you use Brass Screws For External? (Well you dont appear Too Anyway) or are you using Stainless Steel Screws
Where to get the hoodie you have on? "Alpine Edition No 84 Deluxe Outdoor Co. Scandinavia" yielded me no results I really like it!
this very fine sand will be expelled into the tube and will be propelled on the Pelton wheel. As the months go by the wheel will be cut off by the sand. It's a natural phenomenon. all Pelton wheels eventually deteriorate.
You need a spare one !
i did say that in the video..........
Aa your doing it oll wrong mate says me sat in me kitchen.!! LOL.....Your living the dream bud don't let jealousy get ya down chin up Mate hope to meet in summer dude .Cheers Kris ✌👍
Thanks Tom....looking forward to it.
Another option for clarifying hat fine debris out could be the method they use for sifting gold out of stream water. Run all the water across a wide, long, shallow channel with ridges across the entire surface. The ridges catch the debris over the length and the water (being lightest) flows over the top.
until they are full... then you would have to clean it once a week i guess
Oh for sure.. I don’t thing there’s any silt filtering option that’s not going to come with regular maintenance and clearance. I was just thinking maybe it’s easier to clean a flat surface more than a bin.
The ridges are called riffles, he could fabricate a grating for that, when sifting for gold they also use a special Carpet called miners moss to catch the gold, personally I think he just needs a bit of a settling channel for the silt
i think walking up and brushing off the screen could be a every morning job to be honest. especially if i get a dog....get up take hime out for a walk and clean the filter. wouldn't be to much of an issue, so it only really needs to last 24/48 hours i guess.
Kris I love it! When you said things don't last long when you use cheap materials....lmao
Use good shit,and it will last.....
Brilliant
I think the answer to your screen clogging issues may be fixed if you look into gold mining techniques and Water Management through riffles creating a agitation/ turbulent wash out. Maybe experiment with it by placing some wooden dowel rods across the screen so many centimeters apart or something of the sort.
hydroscreen/coanda screen would be a better option.
It’s just mega expensive. I only need a tiny bit of it. If I could just get a little off cut then I would do that! But it’s hard to come by as I’m sure you know.
I actually haven't looked into it other than knowing it exists. My waterwheel is debris tolerant so anything that fits through the flume won't do anything. I realize that isn't the case with a high head system. One of the blogs I occasionally follow has just a pipe in his stream dumping into a settling tank from where all of this feed pipes leave. There is no filter as far as I can tell. lifeattheendoftheroad.wordpress.com/category/hydro/
I think Steve Mills's idea with the drop tank is the best way forward as it is a more natural function. It took me several years of fannying around before I was totally happy with my water system> great video and great ideas you have with the roundhouse build etc.Well done. Also, your comments about seasoned wood is spot on. Wood is only treated to make it perform a particular function, whereas, woods with natural rot resistance, such as, Cedar, European Oak, Idigbo, Ipe, Iroko, Black walnut or moderately resistant, such as , Douglas Fir, Larch, Sapele, Meranti will outperform chemically treated woods, which may also cause mild contamination of potable water !!!
Thinking about your silt issue I went for this method to greatly reduce the silt problems I had. www.siltbuster.co.uk/sb_prod/siltbuster-silt-fence/
thanks for the comment, i will check out that link. i think the silt trap idea is the best as well. im just trying to work out how i would do it.
I think the site in the UK say that you not supposed to use their system in a continuous flow of water
Maybe use a spring box to filter out the fine sand
Maybe check the fine sand for gold, you never know ;)
Also, the pipe fitting is attached very securely to the wooden panel but the wooden panel is attached to the box with only 4 screws. Could that be a weak spot?
the big bolts go through both bits of wood.
NICE ONE
That's not sand. Most likely clay mixed with some silt.
sand :
electroistatic filter ?
Good progress. Bring back Hannah :)
DavidPurviance I'll do my best to help out soon, but I'm not sure I'd have been much use for all this. You can't even make the man cups of tea! Once he's working he just gets his head down and doesn't stop for frivolities like that 🤣
haha :D i guess im just a beast! grrr, Thanks Hannah.
Kris Harbour You're not a beast, you're a monster 👹 A non-tea-break-taking monster 🤣
That’s what it takes, Hannah. To live like this takes tenacity and drive.
Kris Monster Harbor!
hehehe People forget that wood was used in and around water for thousands of years before chemical treatments came about. Some wood and how it is seasoned (not kiln dried) handles water immersion very well.
Thank you :) someone talking some sence about wood durability. people seem to think that all wood is equal. they all have completely different characteristics. thanks for the comment
Yup. I don't know about your larch, but in Nfld we had a swimming pool ((a brook damed off with seasoned birch logs, timbers and boards) . It was build in the mid 60's. except for the odd repair over the years, it lasted till 2008 when a bad ice storm and severe flooding destroyed it. They rebuilt it with spruce and fir, but it won't hold up like the old birch. Basically you got to know your wood and where/how to use it. Also knowing when (time of year) is important. When we built log cabins , we built them with vertical logs rather than horizontal.
I build my corrals with steel pipe welded together but I prefer wood in all other things. It’s natural, beautiful and doesn’t impact the environment if harvested correctly. I’d rather be a woodworker than a steelworker. ;-)
Here's my tuppence worth. Firstly, if you are able to lay the feed pipework so that it is consistently going downhill, then you need not worry about air-locking; only if you have a length of "uphill" gradient will air become a problem. If the latter, then a simple air bleed valve will suffice (perhaps something like this depending on the pipe wall thickness www.ebay.co.uk/p/Teams-Brass-Automatic-Auto-Bottle-Air-Vent-15mm-Compression-AIRVENT-Valve/1487627557?iid=281335228489). And as for the silt build-up, firstly don't worry about it. If you can achieve a pipe full velocity (Q=AV) of about 0.6m/s then this will scour the pipe more than adequately even if only intermittantly... sorry as I'm not sure what diameter pipe or flow rate you will be using). Also, I would not worry about a tiny bit of silt hitting the peleton blades, these are likely made of brass, the same as a river ships propeller, and wear will be negligible. Finally, if you do harvest the silt use it on your garden, full of goodness!
A small crack at the bottom of the box to let the same know
Get one of those screens that use the stickiness of water to filter it.
They are really expensive mate. and i cant find a small bit. you have to buy and whole sheet.
True.
You could use a lockable flap at the bottom so you can open it up and the water will directly wash it out
that is what i am planning to do, i went out to find something to use but i couldn't find anything, i will keep my eyes open for the right part.
A cedar deck will last much longer then a pressure treated one. Ask any carpenter
Thats right. this isnt as durable as cedar but its as durable as treated wood for sure.
Kris Harbour This is true, but cedar is soft and susceptible to physical damage. Larch is a perfect balance between physical durability and environmental durability. Just stumbled across these videos, keep up the good work dude!
Maybe when your completely happy with your design you could build it out of alum or stainless. Just a thought. Great job bud
that is the plan. once its all worked out and working perfectly.....then wait for it to rot......then make one in stainless :)
Lol he actually added a finish to it
Coach screws ;-)
Thats them! thanks
We call them Lag screws in the USA.
And it will rot but long after we are all gone XD
Coach screws
Gold pan that sand!!!!!!
You basically have a sluse box m8
You know my mate Craig? Well he is also an expert on geology and he tells me there won’t be gold here because of the geology. There could well be some small seams of coal under me. But not gold. I trust his knowledge. But it did look like prime gold panning material. I really want to go on a little gold panning trip. North wales is the place to go though 👍
"Lag screw" = th-cam.com/video/I4i3B-lRCy8/w-d-xo.html from this video
1st comment!!
Exposed wood ends will be rotting away in a matter of months..to bad some sort of aluminum assembly could not be manufactured...?
if you watched the video you would have heard me talking about wood durability...........
ya..I watched..good luck
Bet those fittings are cheap. :)
they are not cheap but they are worth the money...really nice quality.
Why didn't you just build your box out of pvc
wood is cheap and natural pvc is expensive and ugly. alos i want to make sure it work well first before it gets made out of lifelong materials.
Would this help your silt problem?
I've been watching the Land to House vids because I'm thinking about installing a ram pump in my off grid place.
th-cam.com/video/U1F_zkJLPgY/w-d-xo.html