Electricity and Water

The weather has certainly warmed up with 30°C+ (88°F-ish) days lately. We discovered last year that Spring isn't like it was in Victoria, with a slow build up of beautiful mid 20°C (77°F-ish) days. Nope, here we jump right into hot. Honestly, the winter hats, hot water bottles etc are still out and were only used a week or so ago.

But on that note, it means free hot water! Ok, luke-warm water is good enough for now, but oh how wonderful it feels!!

We used an old shower screen over the bath - an idea we got from our friends Jeanie and Bill. It was overcast today, but even so, after working in the roof and sweating all day, it was like heaven! The water drains to the mandarin tree, and soon the lemon tree as well, plus the pavers obviously need a bit of work still. :)

We're trudging along with the solar system. Step-by-step, little-by-little..

We've installed the conduit from the panels over to the batteries, fed the solar cable through (that is way more difficult than it sounds), bought just about every little bit of conduit joiner and accessory known to Masters (the hardware store), and we are still missing bits! Tomorrow we'll add the switch between the solar panels and "Blue" (the affectionate name for the charge controller), put Blue into place and wire her up. After that, we've got a pretty big job of taking down each one of the panels and re-wiring them.

It's only after all that, and then some, can we start the batteries charging for the first time. The initial charge is suppose to be for a week without load. As you might imagine, we're a little hesitant to say goodbye to the luxury of electricity for a week, but we'll just have to manage. It will be very much worth the wait though! It's not like we'll be sitting around with nothing to do, however. There's wires to run for the house, cutting concrete to run conduit to the kitchen and lounge, a light circuit to run for the bedroom perhaps, and of course, BATHS to relax in!! :)