Dirtsurgeon said:
Sounds like an awesome endeavor Steve.
Would love to see pictures of the place.
My wife has started a web site with a photo journal of sorts, and that is about all the site is [family, not commercial] and on which I have a blog of sorts about our changeover from lead acid batteries to nickel iron. Don't know whether forum policies allow me to give the URL. If so, I shall. It is just a starter version of what the web site will be, my wife's hobby thing.
We've been in the house since May of '85; I set it up to be wood-heated with no back-up. Though I built an attached greenhouse which does provide some heat on sunny days and allows me to let the stoves go out sometimes in the winter days. We have 12 acres, plus partial ownership of another adjoining six, with lots of trees, so we have our own firewood supply. Just to keep things woodburning-oriented here in the forum.
We have four wood stoves. One is an old Shenandoah which still does more of the heating than the others. Bought new in '75. One is a RAIS stove with an oven which heated our kitchen and in which I did all the baking for some years. It has now been moved to the greenhouse where it provides heat on the couple dozen nights a winter that we need to protect that room. One is a small water-heating wood stove which does exactly that: heats our water for showers and dishwashing. The fourth is our Heartland [Aga] full-blown kitchen range [two ovens, etc.] which I bought after reading about them here on this forum. Bought from a sponsor, ChimneySweepOnline.com
For years we collected rainwater into a cistern, until I found out it is not legal in this state and we put in a well. Heck.
All electricity is from solar panels. All heating, other than the greenhouse, is wood. [Greenhouse is passive solar plus the aforementioned wood stove.] We use a small amount of propane in a countertop stove of four burners...I cut the top portion off a propane range, installed that into our counter. Also I have an outdoor gas grill plumbed into the propane system.We use roughly forty gallons propane a year. Of course, winters, we always have a tea kettle and couple pans of dish-washing water on one stove or another. The Shenandoah, RAIS, and Heartland all have flat tops perfect for sauce pans.
We also have a Rumford fireplace I built from spec's in a book about how to do that. We use it for fun. Throws out big heat, can blast us out of the room if we are not careful, though of course, as everyone who participates in this forum is aware, it uses more wood than the stoves.