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Along with my micro hydro system, I have 34 solar panels that produce roughly 11kw. I looked into all kinds of alternative energy when I decided I wanted to get off the grid as much as possible. I quickly realized the money I would spend on wind would be much better spent purchasing more solar...

Unfortunately I live quite a distance from you

Thants for all the advice. I guess I should have mentioned that in fencing off 35 acres and the majority will be high tensile wire. The wood fence is just in front of the house so it looks nice.

So , I’m building a fence for horses. Im getting the local sawmill to mill the boards for me. (Hemlock) My question is what should I treat the boards with? don’t want to use actual paint of course. I assume just a stain of some sort?

I researched it throughly beforehand. It is a non navigable waterway that dries in the summer so no aquatic life and we actually own the water rights for years back to boot.

Here is my weir I built and the coanda box to catch the water. Also two of my 5 solar arrays and the battery bank. For some reason Indont have a good pic of my inverter/ solar charger etc.. and a pic of the house which isn’t exactly frontier roughing it but it is out I. The country and secluded

Sometimes solar isn’t the best option for some peoples situation but for my household it makes perfect sense. We live on top of a mountain and don’t use air conditioning at all. We don’t need it. We also get a ton of snow and we are the last on the power line. We lose power quite often. So, I...

I didn’t know a lot about it when I started either. I mean I could change a receptacle and basic things like that but this project was certInly a “learn as I go“ type of thing.

So I haven’t posted my progress in a while so I thought I’d update you guys. I FINALLY got the leaks fixed which was difficult and to be honest a bit expensive . But I finally got the hydro online last week. I still have some issues with turbulent water entering the penstock at the Coanda box...

Rockbadchild, I have ran many different tires on my Super Tenere over the years and by far the best tire I have found is the Heidenau Scout. I can literally get 12 k out of a rear tire. All three of us in the pic above are running them. I put on a new one before we headed west and after 6300...

30 acres was just a rough estimate. I and surrounding half of my farm Which is 76 acres

Thanks for the advice. I am still learning the ins and outs of fencing. So, with that said, what exactly is 2x4 Wire horse fence?

The Tenere is absolutely bullet proof. my buddy on the right in the pic has ridden his out west 5 times with no issues at all, just a flat tire. Mine has 45k on it with zero issues. The wind protection is decent but not excellent. You can get larger wind screens and they seem to work great from...

I just got back from riding with two friends ( all of us on Yamaha Super Tenere’s ) from West Virginia to Banff National Park in Canada. Then over the Rockies to Revelstoke Alberta then back to West Virginia. 6,300 miles in 10 days ! Shoutout to my buddy on the right. He’s 75 years old and was...

I did have one of those underground fences (around the whole 30 acres, ugh!) it stopped him for quite a while.then he figured out if he gets a run straight out the road through the open gate it only shocks him once. I’m hoping the fence slows him down enough to shock him all but good.

Hello, I am putting in about 5,300 ft of high tensile fencing around roughly 30 acres and need some advice on what size electric fence charger. ths fence is will serve a dual purpose . We are getting a few horses in the spring so obviously it is for the horses but itscalso to keep our two farm...

Hello, Well, wifey wants horses again now that the kids are in college. So, I have to put in around 5200 feet of fencing. I plan on doing this myself and buying a 3 pt post driver. I have a Kubota MX5100 but I don’t have ant remotes on it. I need to find either a self contained unit or a PTO...

A few pics of the turbines, penstock and weir.

I’m not sure of the pipe specs offhand. It’s 8” schedule 40 pvc. So burying it should eliminate the issue ? I am going to start burying it tomorrow. It is laying in a trench, which wasn’t easy to dig in that rocky soil.

i have another thread explaining my whole system. Just search MicroHydro Project

I posted some pics in a different thread a while back. Just search micro hydro

There is a trench. I looked into expansion joints. Unfortunately they are WAY out of my budget. I really wanted to put water to it before burying it to check for leaks But I guess I will know if it’s leaking either way. I should have mentioned that I did install Fernco fitting in both places...

Around 24 psi.

Am I wrong in thinking once the water is ran through the pipe continually that the expansion/ contraction would settle down when the pipe temp stabilizes from the water temp?

I started this project in the fall and it ran into 5he winter.so the temp varied wildly . I did find a chart online that shows the amount of expansion/ contraction to expect and this seems like a common problem.

So I have doing a micro hydro project to power and heat my home. I laid 900 ft of 8” PVC pipe in extremely rocky soil just beside my creek. i haven’t buried it as of yet because I am installing the turbine side of the build and want to pressure test the pipe. My problem is the pipe is expanding...

Well , I decided to upgrade the inverter so I put this project on hold until I can go pick it up. I went from the Growatt ( which is still in the crate) to the Schneider XW Pro. It’s quite a bit pricier but it is of much better quality . I also have to take my turbines back and get then re wou d...

Wow ! That’s exactly what I was hoping to hear. I’m a novice at the electrical side of this and definitely learning as I go. The Schneider is gonna a cost about 4k more than the Growatt but I only want do this once. As far as the video you posted, that is the exact video I watched that got me...

Well, i Did pressure test the penstock today and found a leak in my 45 fitting. It was actually cracked on the outter edge. I may have dropped it before the install or something. I also had another issue with the pe stock contracting and pulling out of the bell fitting. I will have to use a...

I think you’re talking about pipe friction in the penstock (supply pipe). Obviously the less friction the better. I only have two 45 fitting in the whole 950’ run. There are charts to galore that show what your pressure should be according to your systems head, flow rate and length of penstock...

How far is quite a ways ? My turbines produces A/C power ( AC wild) and can be a great distances from the point of use

I don’t have a diagram. The coanda screen is simply to keep any and all debris out of the penstock and the turbines. Coanda screen is well worth the money to protect your turbines. The turbines were designed for 500+gpm, so at maximum flow all eight valves( jets ) will be open. As the flow...

Yes my Growatt inverter has a 7kw input for the hydro and a 7kw input for the solar. ( although it is classified as a 12k )

I am actually Not a new member. I have thousands of posts on here as “Scesnick” but I retired from work and that was the computer I posted from and signed up with. Now I can’t retrieve my old account

It’s actually very scalable. I’ve seen some systems as small as just a few hundred watts using just a 2” poly line. There are many examples on youtube

I live in the mountains on the Wv/Md border and our summers are very cool. We don’t even have AC at all. Just ceiling fans. So we designed this system to get the max out of the winter time flow. I should make enough power to not only power but to also heat My house in the winter. We just...

So I researched Micro hydro for probably 10 years and finally decided to pull the trigger on it since the political climate isn’t very promising and I retired and needed A project. I did post a about this a few months ago on another thread but Inthought I’d start my own and show my progress...

Ok , thank guys. So it’s a no. That’s why you guys make the big money….lol

Ok, i am definitely not up to speed on hydraulic oils. I usually just go to my dealer, tell him what I need and what tractor I have and he gets me a bucket. I have a chance to buy a about 15 gallons of this R&O oil. I have googled this to death and cant seem to find a straight answer. Or any...

Well, if it’s designed correctly there is very little maintenance. I toured two micro hydro sites in WV. beforeI started my build. They have both been running for over 10 years with very little maintenance at all. BUT, they have to be designed correctly. If you cheap out on the vital...

Tried to post a video of it running but couldn’t figure out how

Here is a pic of my weir and Coanda box. This is my typical flow from now till June. I don’t have the valve open yet in this video however but everything looks great up at this end

That’s exactly why I added 20 solar panels in my system

wait, wouldn’t the 22kw generator cost a pretty penny ? Then the fuel costs in todays prices would add up quickly. While the new lithium phosphates are very pricey there is virtually zero maintenance involved. They are leaps and bounds better than lead acid batteries and even AGM batteries.

You may want to look into it again. you can make power with very little head if you have decent flow. That low head turbines have come a long way recently

you might be surprised the amount of power your creek can generate. Have you done any measurements? If so what are they? As far as storing the power, in my system I have six LifePo4 lithium phosphate batteries. You’re right that they are very expensive, they were the single biggest expense in my...

Roric, keep in mind this is my max output Which will easily come in the winter when my stream is raging. We plan on running our whole house and heat pump which I actually just got today. ( mrcool 4/5 ton universal system ) my inverter is a dual phase 12k. 7k on each leg max. My solar panels...

I have researched micro hydro for at least 10 years now. This fall we decided with the current political climate that it was time to pull the trigger. My stream produces 500 gpm+ at it’s peak and down to a slight trickle in the summer. I designed it to take advantage for the Dec-may peak. It...