The Hut Hamlet’s kitchen/bathhouse — central distribution area for the neighborhood’s Microgrid.

In June, twenty-two residents of the Hut Hamlet neighborhood became owner/users of the first electric Microgrid at Earthaven! Chris Farmer of SunWorks Electric installed an 8.16 kW solar array and power system to serve 11 huts, and the neighborhood kitchen and bathhouse. The system will produce, on an average day, 31.5 kWh of electricity, which is what the average American house consumes.

After Chris and fellow valley solar electrician Brandon Greenstein had to troubleshoot, fix, or upgrade too many small, old, self-installed systems, they decided that to install one new, state-of-the-art system wired to code for the entire neighborhood.

One of the greatest obstacles to creating a shared off-grid power system is the different levels of electrical needs, as well as levels of consciousness around usage, people have. How does a group deal with this fairly? The Microgrid has a metering system that records different users’ true impact on the system, and charges users accordingly. Earthaven resident Jake Ferina wrote all the computer code for the weighted metering system, as well as for an Automatic Generator Start program better suited to off-grid solar than any offered on the market.

One perennial question in off-grid solar design is how big a battery to install. Too small, and it’s almost useless. Too big, and without an appropriately sized array, the batteries will not adequately re-charge after cloudy spells, But if the array is large enough to keep the batteries well charged, during sunny spells much of the energy from the panels will go to waste. We avoided this conundrum by installing a Diversion system that diverts excess electrical production to a conventional electric hot water heater. This 1) protects the batteries while 2) providing a freeze-proof solar hot water system.

Before the Microgrid, some residents had enough power for a light and a laptop, while others had upgraded to power refrigerators. The new plan, which took many minds over many months to work out, plus weeks of disrupted phone lines and paths, has been running smoothly for a few weeks and the future of power in the Hamlet looks, well, …brighter!

For the list of components in the Hut Hamlet Microgrid, see this entry in the Earthaven blog.

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In June, residents of the Hut Hamlet became owners/users of the first electric microgrid at Earthaven! Chris Farmer designed the grid with help from Brandon Greenstein. Code for mastering, monitoring and metering usage was written by Jake Farina. Earthaven members produce electricity from sun and water, and are not tied into the Duke Power grid, so this is especially significant to folks choosing simplified lifestyles. Now bigger and smaller users alike will be able to meet their needs, each paying according to usage, the rates differing between peak- and low-usage times. The Hamlet microgrid is solely solar-powered at this time.

Before the microgrid, some Hamlet residents had barely enough power for a light and a laptop, while others had been able to upgrade their systems to power refrigerators and freezers. The new plan, which took many months and many minds to work out, and weeks of disrupted paths and phone lines, has been running smoothly for a few weeks and the future of power in the Hamlet looks, well, …brighter!

Microgrid Technical Points, courtesy of Chris Farmer (SunWorks Electric, 828-707-5551).
The MicroGrid presently powers 11 Huts, the neighborhood kitchen, and bathhouse. The system is touted to produce 31.5 kWh (kilowatt hours) of energy on an average day. (Note: In 2013 the average American home required 29.9 kWh of electrical energy per day.) All of the power available is not yet being utilized.

Hut Hamlet Microgrid Components

• An 8.16 kW Solar Photovoltaic Array (32 individual 255 watt Kyocera panels
• A 48 volt 950Ah (Amp Hour) flooded lead acid battery (HUP Solar One) that weighs 3500 lbs.
• Two MidNite Solar 200 charge controllers
• Two Schneider Electric XW6848 Inverters, each capable of 6.8kW of continual conventional AC power output. One inverter is asleep ~90% of the time, awakened only when the Master inverter needs help.
• Excess electricity produced is diverted to a 105 gallon, 240 volt AC, electric hot water heater.
• Each connection is individually metered. Capital and operating expenses of the system will be determined by users’ weighted impact.
• The system is backed up by a super quiet Honda EU7000is generator.

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Village Terraces Cohousing Neighborhood just completed a multi-faceted upgrade to their power, heating, and domestic hot water (DHW) systems and the neighborhood is now enjoying the results. Domestic hot water for the main building had been provided by a wood-burning stove. The system lost one of its three water heating coils three years ago due to an unrepairable leak, which has made providing hot water quite challenging.

Several designs were considered over the last 2 or 3 years with none of them really being all that workable. Then one day Chris Farmer came along and suggested that we use solar-generated electricity to heat water in an ELECTRIC hot water heater. This sounds pretty silly until one remembers that electricity is 100% efficient at producing heat. Farmer had read an article 10 years ago that said when solar PV panels come down in price to $1 per watt then it would make sense to heat water with solar electricity. Well that day has come. And that is the approach that VT decided to take.

2007 view of the same building with the 1st generation of solar panels.

The final design allows VT’s existing wood-fired boiler system to provide ample domestic hot water during the cooler months at which time the new solar PV panels will keep their batteries more fully charged and their heating systems running. During the warmer months the solar electric power will be diverted to the new electric hot water heater.

For the short time this new system has been running, VT has cut its summer wood burning in half–if not more. Their hydro use and their gasoline generator use have also been significantly reduced. And their batteries are healthier than they have ever been. For a more thorough description of the system, including a tour, see Bob Lienhart.

Earthaven member and bookkeeper since 2008, musician and computer expert.  BS in Computer Science.  Treasurer for two homeowners associations and the Colorado Bluegrass Music Society–also CBMS president, 1998-2000.

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Farmer and NikkiAnne in front of the MicroHut (Farmer’s residence at Earthaven) at Gateway Neighborhood. Photo taken Summer 2010.

On Tuesday night, Nov. 16,^,

Earthaven member Chris Farmer (often called “Farmer”) threw a farewell dance party in the Council Hall and said goodbye to Earthaven . . . at least for now.

“I’m leaving for the indefinite future,” he told friends in the packed Council Hall.  “I may be back, and I’d like to come back, but I’m not making any specific plans about it.” He’ll be living in Santa Barbara, California, close to his sweetheart, an environmental activist and former Earthaven work exchanger. Farmer has been an Earthaven member for 13 years.

Chris Farmer (left) with Brian Love.

One of Earthaven’s earliest advocates for agriculture, Farmer is co-owner with Brian Love of Gateway Farm, as well as their business, ArtiSun Construction. He co-founded the Forestry Co-op (1998- 2004): felling trees, mastering timber-framing carpentry, and innovating the use of a geopolymer concrete substance as well as a wall-truss system with wood milled from thinner trees.  He built a timber-framed 12’ x 12’ x 12’ “micro-hut” with chip-slip walls in the Hut Hamlet, and later built a similar hut in Gateway neighborhood in the hybrid natural/conventional style he and Brian innovated.

Farmer has stimulated and entertained Earthaven members, friends, neighbors, and visitors with his “Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” “Clueless Honky,” and “Open-Source Mythology” raps. (See videos.)

Farmer in a large goodbye hug at his farewell party.

Farmer was Earthaven’s Firekeeper (president) in 2007, where he lead us in dealing with state officials re water quality and distribution standards. He has served on Land Use/Site Planning committee and on the ad hoc Council Document committee, and is one of Earthaven’s best facilitators.

We’ll miss you Farmer. We wish you all the best!

Earthaven member Diana Leafe Christian is an internationally known ecovillage activist, author of Creating a Life Together and Finding Community (New Society Publishers), and publisher of Ecovillages newsletter. Click here for her website.

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We’ve known for quite a few years that new members coming into Earthaven needed a lot more coaching about our history, plans, policies and practices than they were able to get through the normal course of a Provisional Membership. We’ve required and offered trainings in Consensus Decision-Making since we were ourselves trained by “the experts,” but putting on a program about the broader scope of permaculture and land use as we interpret it has been a daunting commitment to keep. At last, this year—thanks to Diana Leafe Christian, Lee Warren, and myself, we presented the now required and first ever orientation to the background and current application of permaculture principles and land use operations at Earthaven. It was a terrific hit!

          New and prospective members who attended the day-and-a-half event were awed by the comprehensive and hard-earned expertise that has gone into the documents and decisions about running our community literally from the ground level. Pieces fell together like a jigsaw puzzle as old and newer members took the journey from macro to micro view of Earthaven. Beginning with a sunrise walk on Round Mountain led by Chris Farmer, treating us to a long, clear view of our property from several miles away, the day was filled with introductory presentations on permaculture, the Earthaven Site Plan, “multiple intelligences,” the hard work of transitional living, and the shock and awe of land development (aka destruction before construction). Breakfast and lunch were served by our culinary artists, and the day moved towards its end with an on-the-ground tour of the Village Terraces neighborhood, where the enormous task of applying our values and experience has gone so well. A brief look at our formal land use and ecological documents closed the first day.

          On Sunday, we also began outdoors, with a silent walk to Hidden Valley, led again by Chris, who offered a brief history and catalog of our forest at the end of our walk. I led a short exercise in “making love” with the tree of our choice, and we walked back to the Village Center among what may now be a more distinctly recognized community of tree beings.

          Shawn Swartz was with us on Sunday, and he gave us an awesome semester-in-an-hour review of forestry and so-called sustainable forestry practices. (Shawn is now the Forest Warden at nearby Warren Wilson College, where he lives with Holly, Rose and Eli—hurray… and we miss them!)

          We barely had enough time to complete the program with a discussion of forestry and agriculture at Earthaven and then it was time to eat our prepared lunch before the upcoming Council meeting. We did make time for an evaluation segment, and here’s a sampling of comments:

“Lots of info about the meaning of living at EH. Of immense value!”

 

“Stimulating. Learned lots, including ideas for my garden and orchard.”

 

“Liked multidimensional aspects. Would love a series from our ‘experts.’”

 

“Inspired to do projects. Nice to integrate this after 2-1/2 years!”

 

“Appreciate all the work so far, the breadth of content, all the alternatives.”

 

 “Gratitude for so much addressed on such deep levels.”

 

“Very informative for here or elsewhere.”

 

 “Never have to be bored again! Feel motivated, but with peace of mind.”

 

“Best weekend I’ve had in a log time. I could handle two more weeks like this.”

 

“Felt particularly benefited by having already received my permaculture certification and been at EH a while, giving me a context for all this information.”

 

“Interested to hear about how much has changed.”

 

“Glad it wasn’t all documents and codes, but also spiritual and connecting.”

 

          Of course, our presenters have a list of potential improvements and elaborations. We will certainly plan to reserve a whole weekend for next year’s orientation!

 

          Diana’s presentation on ecovillage economics was held two weeks later. Her review of the global ecovillage world, what’s worked and what’s not in a variety of locations, and a look at what’s already happening at Earthaven contributed both inspiration and confidence for the continuing evolution of a “thriving local economy” here in our own extended community.

          Most segments of these events were recorded and will be available for review in a few weeks.

One final note: when the weekend was over, I left with a certain sadness, as if something very important was still missing from our offerings to new members. And then it hit me—we teach governance and land use, two essential legs of the Earthaven stool, to our incoming members, but we don’t yet have anything to say about the vast amount of experience and practice available to us in the spiritual and healing arts. As I bemoaned this fact, Lee pointed out that nothing prevents us from creating part three of our new-member orientation, and the list we’ve started gathering on this huge topic promises to turn into yet another exciting, member-led event down the road.

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Chris Farmer and Brian Love are the two main builders of Pokeberry Hill, a two story dwelling built using ecological principles.

Farmer started by noting that many innovative building techniques are used at Earthaven, including a house at Bella Via using cob, adobe brick, and plaster, and the  Medicine Wheel house that uses lots of recycled materials – plywood from pallets, metal beams from railroads, and recycled flooring.

Stud framing

“Brian and I are fans of stud framing. We used 2×6 low-quality poplar felled here at Earthaven for the framing. Studs are the basis of the cheapest, easiest walls and are especially efficient for a complex building with plumbing, electrics, closets, and cabinets. This is a complex building, but the studs went up in a week.”

Q. What about using recycled plastic for framing?

Farmer: Recycled plastic beats treated lumber, and it’s certainly rot resistant. But we have lots of timber at Earthaven. Here, we air dry the wood then treat it with Boracare, which is low toxicity, to make the wood resistant to termites, powder post beetle, and other boring insects.

Heat

For insulation, we spray cellulose (paper) into the walls – the thermal index of the ceilings is around R23 –to R25, and the walls, R50. The walls are finished with earthern plaster – clay and lime. We used natural finishes – plant waxes and oils.

We put in concrete countertops. We don’t like Portland because it takes so much energy to make it, but we wanted this second story room to have lots of mass to store heat from the sun.

The building design maximizes passive solar heat. The south facing windows get no direct sun in the summer due to the overhang. But in winter the sun is lower and floods through the windows. The heat from the sun is absorbed by the floor (a floating concrete slab) and the countertop.

On the north, there is wood flooring, and on the south, cement. Underneath the floor, there is the potential for radiant heat. Also, insulated pipes bring hot water to heat the floor. In the winter, on sunny days, it’s warm enough to warrant cracking the windows.

Q What about noise?

The building is not as noise proof as we hoped. We’ve been running band saws which does disturb the folks downstairs. Ah well, the music lovers will have to curb their taste for loud.

Q What are your power sources?

Earthaven is entirely off the grid, relying on a small hydro-electric plant and solar panels for current while maximizing passive solar for heat. Pokeberry shares solar panels with the Village Terraces building. Most appliances run on 24V DC, including the lights, the refrigerator, and ventilation. There is a huge battery back up, storing the power. There are also AC outlets, powered by DC current run through an inverter, but the inverter is susceptible to lightning.

Q. Would you build elsewhere?

We prefer to build in and around Earthaven, but if there is work further away, we can go there. We have a box truck with solar panels (name of truck) and a storage battery. There is also a 200 amp fire truck battery. The truck runs on bio diesel.

Our goal is to improve our cash flow to the point that we can retire to farming and raise turkeys, sheep, and vegetables. This year we are growing a lot of squash and melon, and raising Icelandic sheep and turkeys.

Q. How many rooms are there?

There is the big open room, including a kitchen alcove, that runs practically all the way across the southern exposure, a bedroom, two small offices, and a bathroom. It’s basically a 1,000 sq foot, three bedroom house.

Cost

Building on ecological principles, everything takes longer. And it is all hand done – all the wood panels are joined as is the carpentry. The building itself costs $125 per square foot. About half of cost is labor.

The downstairs tenant comments, “It’s beautiful, and it is so quiet here.” The notetaker responds, “At least when the band saws are off and the building is done.”

Chris Farmer is a full member at Earthaven, a builder, and a farmer at Gateway farm.

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In February of this year, Farmer, Brian, and Mike finished the first phase of a small, two-story house (18′ x 20′) in the Lower Rosy Branch neighborhood for long-time Earthaven member Ivy Lynn. The dwelling has a foundation, floor, walls, roof, windows, and doors, and covered with a coat of earth-plaster, which means it’s closed-in and weather-tight. Ivy and the builders will finish the second and third phases of the building over the next several years.

And in May, Arjuna da Silva will get more help building her two-story natural-built home in Benchmark neighborhood. The roughly 900 “round foot” house-in-progress has a timber-framed structure, rubble-trench foundation, walls of adobe brick, cob, clay straw, and strawbale, and a brick- red metal roof. Most walls on the first floor are built, with openings for windows and doors. Arjuna will host 4-5 interns over the 18-22 week natural building season, helping build as they learn natural building techniques from Steve Brodmerkel, Mollie Curry, and others. For more information: www.thenaturalbuildingschool.org. All buildings at Earthaven are south-facing passive solar buildings, heated by the sun. They’re off the grid, either powered by individually owned photovoltaic systems or Earthaven’s micro-hydro system, and most have metal roofs for roof-water catchment. See Natural Buildings.

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Yellowroot Farm in the Hut Hamlet is up and running again, with seedings for what will become lush and vibrant biodynamic vegetables. (See “Yellowroot CSA Begins Second Year”)

In late April, Cailen Campbell’s goats, April and Luna, had their kids, and now moms and kids are sharing a pen in front of the Tribal Condo in the Hut Hamlet. Cailen, Lee, and Mihaly rotate the grazing of their animals at various sites around Earthaven, including the Village Green, the fallow side of Yellowroot Farm, and the “New Lumberyard” site near Gateway Field.

Recently a crew of loggers and farmers, including Brian Love, Mike Odel, Chris Farmer, Mihaly, Cailen, and work exchangers Galen Ballantine, Drew Hoffman, and Bruce Johnston, further cleared the New Lumberyard site and prepared it for grazing. The logs from the trees that were felled were milled as lumber for the Pokeberry Hill duplex at Village Terraces (see “New Buildings”), and the stumps were left in the ground. The pasture was fertilized with organic fertilizers and planted in perennial grasses and clovers. This one-acre site (called the “New Lumberyard” because it once was going to be a lumberyard), is ideal for grazing rather than crop cultivation because it’s on a slope and too steep for a tractor, has stumps, and is north-facing.

Last spring, Brian Love and Chris Farmer (known as “Farmer”) started their four-acre integrated-agriculture project, Gateway Field, by clearing four acres of forest, adding organic soil amendments, and growing and tilling under two “green manure” cover crops. Their next step is a grass rotational pasturage system with Icelandic sheep, and probably endangered heirloom breed turkeys and chickens. This requires a sturdy fence to protect livestock and provide a fixed point for attaching lightweight moveable fencing for when the animals are sequentially moved around the field in the rotational grazing system. This spring, with the help of Mike, Bruce, Galen, and others, Brian and Farmer built a 2220 ft fence around their field, using woven wire fencing attached to charred locust posts every 15 feet. They’ll soon add two electrified wires around the perimeter to complete the fence, and, perhaps as early as November, will bring in their small herd of sheep.

Last fall, Michaeljon Drouin and Andy Bosley converted an existing pond along Rosy Branch Road, just uphill from the hydro station, into a trout pond. They built up the dam so the pond would hold more water, and ran more water into it from nearby Rosy Branch Creek. “Trout need cool, aerated water to survive,” Andy says, “and raising the water level and increasing the pond size meant we could grow more trout in the pond.” In late March of this year Michaeljon and Andy stocked the pond with 200 3-to-5-inch rainbow trout purchased from a regional trout breeder. “By April some of the largest trout sited were already 7 to 8 inches long!” Andy reports. The plan is to begin harvesting the trout when the biggest ones are about 12 inches long, perhaps by mid-July. The trout will be sold to Earthaven members and neighbors, and Michaeljon and Andy will experiment with making smoked fish for longer-term preservation.

Michaeljon and Andy are currently arranging with the Forestry and Agriculture committee to create a second larger pond downhill from the first, in order to expand their aquaculture operation.

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The bright, creative thinking and dedicated, diligent work of Chris Farmer and Brian Love are the stuff of future Earthaven legends. Folks are always wanting to know what amazing things they’ve been up to. Considering their plan for Gateway Field, we will probably not be disappointed, as it promises to maximize their potential.

In these times, we need people with legendary resolve, tireless energy, multi-dimensional intelligence and a strong work ethic. While growing with remarkable success, Earthaven is still facing huge insufficiencies, not the least of which is a lack of inherited skills.

The homesteader skills of our great grandparents have been lost. Now, the skill a ten-year-old would have taken for granted a century ago, we must gain through trial and error. Of course, many people at Earthaven have resolve, energy, intelligence and a good work ethic (not necessarily in legendary quantity). Nonetheless, we have been slow in tackling the far-reaching problem of dependable alternative energy. Most of us have been entirely occupied with other important work, including the building of our own living spaces, that we often have just had to go on the hope that eventually someone with the right skills and knowledge would take it on.

Thank goodness, Brian and Farmer are doing just that! In their own words, they have already begun the intensive project of creating an integrated system where logging, milling, and building residues provide power for biofuel production… [with their] wastes…used as high-protein feed supplements for pasture-raised livestock [that]…fertilize the field…for vegetable cultivation.”

It will be a while before the whole program is in place and producing. In the eight plus years that Farmer has been at Earthaven, he has been doing what neede to be done while planning and preparing for this project. This time was not wasted.

Though Brian arrived on the scene just four years ago, he truly hit the ground running. His brilliance, exuberance, and physical endurance were just the support Farmer needed to renew his resolve. Helping him to make use of the things he had learned in his years at Eathaven.

In our last two issues, we wrote about our new “Sweat Equity” policy and also about “Sustainable Systems” (which focused primarily on Farmer and Brian’s work truck/power source). These articles described how these men established the foundation that would allow them to carry out their plans within the limiting context of a self-supporting, off-the-grid community such as ours. In the relatively short time since they signed their lease for the Gateway field, they have cleared the acreage, processed and stored the wood, acquired their water tanks, built an impressive barn, plowed under their first two cover crops, planted a third cover crop, and constructed a significantly-sized pond. Therefore, in spite of insufficiencies (or because they are so aware of them), Farmer and Brian are helping us to face a more promising future.

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Over the years Earthaven has tried to prioritize agriculture, and to provide ways for skilled folks to be able to be at Earthaven even if they hadn’t amassed savings. First site option 3 was created. It allowed a few people to be here, but it just delayed their inevitable need to pay for their site. They were also busy trying to get ahead in order to pay those delayed fees, while still doing the huge work of being here. It was very much like running on a conveyor belt going in one direction, while trying to move forward an actual mile in the opposite direction. Most people were making progress, but at a dauntingly slow rate.

Then council made it possible for a farmer to pay for the equivalent of one site with leaps accepted for food farmed on the land. Sadly, almost none of that exchange was acted upon. Their was only one field cleared, and no one really had the time to farm. They were still busy running in place. We needed a way for people to get their livelihood from making agriculture happen here. It had to happen in a specific order, that was the key to the riddle we had yet to solve. So, we made logging trade-able for a site payment. But, the riddle still had folks running in place.

When the Sweat Equity proposals were passed, we were made aware that all the pieces of the puzzle must be present at once and in large enough quantity to accomplish a truly progressive and substantial difference. Also, a large part of the riddle was getting facilitators to ensure that each agricultural project was taken to completion, so that part of it wouldn’t get cleared only to start growing back toward forest in a few years. Praise be, Farmer and Brian took on the Gateway project. They brought all the pieces through council. Their hard work and brilliant minds seem to have gone a long way to solving the riddle of how to make Sweat Equity at Earthaven translate skilled people without savings, into the members and agriculture that we need.

But they did not do it by themselves. In fact, isn’t that the point? It takes all the pieces present at the same time and in large enough quantity. Again we get to acknowledge that our community is developing, and limited by that development very much like a child. We wanted to walk long before we could. Then we took our first steps and fell down quite a few times, acquiring a few bruises and scratches. Now we are finally able to run some.

You may ask, but who are the people actually doing the Sweat Equity, aren’t we talking about new members? Yes we are! One of the people working on the Gateway project to pay his membership, is Joe Dofflemyer, pictured here in the act of Sweat while making it look zen. Also working on the project to pay off their membership fees are Dan Penny and Cailen Campbell. Andy Bosley and Robert Carran are working toward paying off their site fees along with Farmer and Brian. And soon maybe we will be able to buy our food with leaps!

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