DanCas at Home

Low Tech & Sustainable Ideas


All contributions gratefully excepted! dancas@gic.net.au
Background to DanCas

INTRODUCTION Why are we concerned about our environment?

Pedal powered Pump - Exercise for your water!!
Cheap Wind Pump, Dan style... amended
Turbine driven submerged water pump
Growing food plants from your fishpond water!!! -Aquaponics
Guest article, CO2 enrichment for your Greenhouse using compost
Under-Tray Heating Warming your plant's feet
Seedling incubator for quick germination of seedlings
Guest article, Drive belts from automobile tires

Why are we concerned about our environment?

Once you look past the immediate issues, I believe deep down, the human race has become concerned about the environment for one main reason, without it we would not exist.

What ever we do we disturb or alter the environment. This is unavoidable but not likely to ever destroy the planet. However it may drastically alter our climate (etc.) to the point where our species may no longer survive.
This is a very good reason to be environmentally aware. In many respects, we have no way of knowing the impact we have on our local or global ecosystem, and how they will effect us in the long term.
We have only existed as a species for a very short time, and in an even shorter space of time since the industrial revolution in Europe, we have stripped forests, filled the air with pollutants, driven species extinct (far beyond past natural rates of extinction), just to name a few of our impacts. This is just a handful of reasons why we owe it to our future generations, to be environmentally aware.

The following ideas are all to some degree environmentally aware, be that in a Sustainable perspective, or from the sense that they allow easier production of home products such as vegetables.
I consider most DIY type ideas to be sustainable in some respect as they discourage consumerism and place some control of our lives back into our own hands.

Please come and look at this page and enjoy it! If you have any bright ideas, let me know and I will gladly incorporate them into this page. The object of this page is simply to share.

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Pedal powered Pump - Exercise for your water!!


I found a novel idea in a magazine some time ago. The idea was more of a demonstration piece than anything else, but was quite ingenious, and very environmentally sound.

The idea was too get a standard exercise bike, and link the rotating front wheel via a chain or band to a water pump. In the example a positive action gear pump was used, but an old washing machine pump with a one way (foot) valve fitted could easily be used.

The author of this idea suggested that one might use the contraption to raise a certain amount of water from its source (I.e. a pond or bore) to a header tank each morning, whilst embarking on your daily exercise. This water could then be used to flush a toilet for the remainder of the day.
This would not only encourage conservation minded water usage, but would also save power and money from metered water supplies. Additionally you would keep fit!!

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Cheap Wind Pump, Dan style...

(The following material is subject to copyright, and must not be reproduced for commercial purposes without express permission)

Okay, if your a cheapskate like me, and want to circulate some water without buying an expensive pump, then here's a do-it -your self style sustainable idea - ala Dan.. Take note these instructions are a rough guide, to the main working parts, a lot of this is theory as I've only tested the pump... so use a little initiative..

The first thing you need is wind, without wind this idea's a complete flop!

Now this idea is based upon working wind pumps I've seen around Australia, but similar pumps are no doubt found in many farming communities, so if you need inspiration , that's where to look. My wind pump is very simple but will require a few skills like welding -unless you can figure a different way to do it (tell me tell me). To start with I scavenged an old bike frame, a few pieces of angle iron (such as off an old bed frame), a piece of 5" poly sewerage pipe, and numerous small bits and pieces including a tyre inner-tube.

Okay the most important part is the diaphragm pump, this in my opinion is also the simplest



Basically you cut the 5" tube into two parts roughly 2.5" each side. The central cut where the two parts are going to meet has to be as flat and clean as you can possibly make it, else it wont clamp down on the rubber tight enough to make a airtight seal. Now in the lower part of the pump where the actual water movement is going to take place, two holes (one either side) need to be made so that your hose fittings can be tightly sealed in place -without inhibiting the movement of the diaphragm. Once this is done you should be able to seal the bottom cap onto the 5"pipe with some plumbers pipe glue. Now once the central drive rod is ready it can be attached though a hole cut in the top cap into the center of the rubber inner-tube with the aid of a stainless steel nut bolt and washers. You may wish to also seal the gap between the washers and the rubber with some good quality silicon. This will improve the seal and lessen ware on the rubber. This whole assembly can now be clamped to gather with some silicon or similar rubber sealant between the rubber and the 5"pipe to form a sandwich. All that is required now for the pump to function is some motion in the drive bar, and two one-way valves, one attached either side of the pump allowing water passage only in one direction (the direction in which the water is intended to be pumped). I would suggest for greatest efficiency that the one way (or non return) valves be placed as close to the pump as possible.


Amendment sent in by David Calder Hardy

I have had a look at your drawing of the diaphragm pump. I think it is necessary to make a few points about making this design work.

Firstly, you will realise that when the diaphragm is put under load in either direction the it will distort (resist) against the pressure. The actuating rod pulling, (delivering) up from the center, will cone up the diaphragm in the middle and the outside will remain down because of the stretch characteristics of the rubber.

Likewise, the suction stroke will be affected in the same way.

The only way to overcome this is to have two metal plates sandwiching the rubber; and the rubber needs to be abour three eighths to half an inch thick where the internal diameter of the diaphragm in the pump chamber is about 9 inches.

The metal plates need to be about 3 and half inches in diameter, with the head plate shaped on the inside to configure closely to the top of the evacuation stroke. (The least airspace permitted the more efficient will be the pump)

If you liken the metal plates as being a piston, but instead of sliding up and down in a cylinder, they are sealed by the rubber and the flexibility, that material offers, allowing it to reciprocate.



Priming the pump

If your system is truly air- tight it shouldn't require priming, however I suspect that even with good quality one way valves, some kind of tap valve may have to be installed below the first valve so that a hose may be attached to push water through the pump till above the second valve. The inlet of the system will require covering to achieve this, or possibly another one way valve placed on the inlet as a foot valve to prevent water falling back. It will depend entirely on your craftsmen-ship as to the distance water may be lifted from the source surface but I would suggest no more that 2m.

Okay that's fine but you need the pump tower and sails for the thing to be any good...



This is a rough diagram because after I built my tower I still haven't got round to putting the mechanism together. My idea is to perhaps use a bicycle wheel and attach it directly to the hub of a push bike where the peddles would normally attached. This could then be mounted on the steering hub of a push bike (where the handle bars attach). I have found that the cutting out and welding of the hubs was not difficult, though I suspect attaching the wheel to the peddle hub will be -so perhaps use some inventiveness here. This was all mounted so that a pivot could be made from some scrap metal and bolts, washers etc. Converting the circular movement into an up and down motion. Now the tricky part is to get the up and down movement of the drive rod though the handle bar hub without rubbing against the sides... This involves careful sizing of the pivot to reduce sideways movement, with the aid of a few guide slides below the hub (drive rod passes though a plastic pipe to steady it.. lubrication a good idea I.e. grease), and a link place in the drive rod above the hub which would allow for sideways and rotating movement.. You had best look at my diagram cause this really isn't that difficult in theory.. and would just require some fiddling to perfect.

The sails would be made by fastening regularly spaced pieces of curved metal around the spokes of the wheel similar to a windmill. Good sized gaps must be left for the wind to flow though , else it will form a cushion in front of the sails and avoid them all-together... again trial and error.

Finally a good sized sail will be required behind the moving sails and pivot to counter balance and steer the sails into the wind. It is very necessary that the sails and whole head section can be freely rotated 360 degrees, without any tendency to swing back to one position regardless of wind direction.

Good luck and send me feed back. If parts of my instruction or theory are crap, or you can do better ... send me some improvements...

Have a look at Jim Barr's wind pumps at Machine Conversation

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Turbine driven submerged water pump

 This is an idea that came to me after hearing about a piston pump that could raise water large distances from a flowing stream...

turbpump.jpg 28.9 K


The idea is simply to harness some of the energy from a moving body of water, enabling a small quantity of water to be continuously pumped for some distance out of the stream. As the above diagram depicts, water could flow through a tube (concrete or poly storm/sewage pipe), where at would turn a propeller. The motion from the propeller could be transmitted though a drive shaft to a small propeller pump, such as found hooked to an electric motor in a washing machine. This would then move some water up a narrow pipe for some distance depending on the flow of the water body and design of turbine propeller used. It should be considered, that differing propeller designs harness energy more efficiently at varying speeds. So if chosen correctly amounts of water raised may be controlled to some degree. For instance aeroplane type propellers are suitable for fast flowing waters where they will provide less resistance to the water whilst still utilise some of the energy. Windmill type fans are more suited to slower moving water where they again are able to harness a good proportion of the available energy.

This is only an idea, but I would love to hear from anyone who sucesfully builds and uses this type of pump, or can think of some improvements (ie a placing a one-way valve to prevent water falling back down to the stream if flow decreases).

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Growing food plants from your fishpond water!!!

 You've heard of Aquaculture and Hydroponics, but have you heard of Aquaponics? Aquaponics is basically a name given by some, to a hydroponics system which utilises a form of aquaculture as a source of nutrients for plant growth.

Basically any old fishpond with fish in it, or even a well stocked aquarium can be used as a source for nutrient rich water to hydroponiclly grow some of your favourite herbs, flowers or vegetables!

Benefits of aquaponics

*Well, for a start its natural, no artificial fertilisers here!
*As there is no build up of salts from artificial fertilisers, you don't have to dump the nutrient solution (and risk contaminating ground water), instead the water is cleaned by the plants so the fish love it!
*The fish benefit from the lovely clean water, which prevents stress and nasty algae blooms.
*It means you can control exactly what goes into your food (excluding atmospheric pollution), avoiding pesticides and other unwanted chemicals.
*If you grow flowers and shrubs, you can have a beautiful blooming garden from many months of the year.

Very basically, this is how it works:

Fish are messy because they live in their own bathroom, after a while the toxic nasties from their waste builds up and may kill them. In nature this is rare as natural bacterial form on well oxygenated surfaces (such as rocks in a babbling stream), converting the toxic Ammonia waste over several stages to Nitrate -or for our purposes, Plant Food! In our Aquaponic system the water is pumped from the pond then splashed past many plants growing in a hydroponics medium such as grow wool, the bacteria grow on this stuff like they would on rocks in streams. The plants then suck up the nutrient along with other trace elements and fish food leftovers from the water as a kind of fish emulsion fertiliser. The water then splashes back into the pond, cleaned and aerated for the fish to breath. It sounds a little unbelievable doesn't it! well it works and I have a system to prove it.

Still not convinced? check out H/ A Tech's page, then search the net.. there's a lot of it about!!

The main points to remember if you want to be successful are:

*Well Aerate the water -but don't over do it, a water fall or simple drop in the flow of water will do it!
*Stock a good amount of fish ONCE your ponds established, and
*Feed them well, in SMALL amounts. The more they eat, the more fertiliser they produce for your plants.
*Don't be disheartened if some of your plants don't like it. Just start with young washed seedlings and keep trying, some plants just don't like there feet in water, whilst others just wont be getting the right mix of nutrients.
*I suggest typical hydroponics herbs such as Basil, and other plants such as Strawberries, and even garlic.

If I were to stress any part of this process it would be the aeration, fish need it to breath, and so do the plant roots. Yes plant roots breath oxygen! that's why they like loose soil, so the air can get in!!

IMPORTANT if your going to give this a try, learn how to keep fish first. Fish are easy to keep, but when starting a pond you are always going to loose some, especially if you cram them in! Natural processes such as your goody nitrifying bacteria will kick in, but it takes a while, even if you buy your bacteria from a fish pond shop.

Here's a system I built:



Basically my system is a 1500L rectangle hole in the ground, with a wood and corrugated iron frame covered with a pond liner folded into it.
Once full of fish (1 have 20 Gold fish and two freshwater crayfish, however 40 fish would be better), I added a number of troughs (shop ice-cream containers) then filled them with perlite (a kind of a volcanic neutral pH growing medium -Note expanded clay would have been better as perlite tends to move with higher flows of water). Then using black reticulation pipe I fed water from a small pond pump to each of the troughs. The flow to each trough is around 2L per hour, and the excess water is redirected back into the pond for aeration.

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Guest article, CO2 enrichment for your Greenhouse using compost

From: pyager@rocler.qc.ca (Patti Yager and Art Hodges)
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 1995 13:48:57 -0500
Subject: Re: CO2 on the Cheap??

In the mid 80"s I was and intern at the New Alchemy Institute in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA. A guy named Bruce Fulford had developed an ingenious method of CO2 enrichment using composting manure-sheep and horse mostly. He built a 4 ft by 4ft bin into the north wall of a 25 x 90 ft poly covered house into which he piled the fresh manure which was mixed with a bit of straw. The bin was divided into 8 or 10 sections, accessed from the outside, and each section produced usable amounts of heat and CO2 for 6 to 8 weeks. At the end of that time the sections that had composted past the point of producing enough heat & CO2 were emptied and replaced with fresh manure. The removed compost was piled outside to continue composting and was later sold.

The bin structure inside the house consisted of a vertical wooden wall, 4 ft high, with a top made of layers. The first layer, closest to the manure, was a coarse screen covered with coarse wood chips. On top of that was a layer of finer chips and finally a layer of soil into which peppers were planted. Outside air was forced into the composting chamber and as the gasses from the composting manure rose through the layers of wood chips and soil, the ammonia was scrubbed out, leaving the CO2 to continue into the house. Of course, the heat loving peppers were happy to have warm feet and the ammonia broke down into nitrates which could be taken up by the plants.

The main drawback in this system is the labor to load and unload the compost.

About a year later, Bruce helped me develope a variation on the first model for my own greenhouse. I had access to large amounts of horse manure which was delivered by the truck load at no cost to me. So we built a pile of wood chips the length of the house, into which we buried a 4 inch drainage pipe - the kind with the slots in it - and looped it so that we had 3 lengths of it about 18 inches apart. Then we piled the manure on top of it, 8 or 10 ft wide by about 6 or 8 ft high. The pipe then connected to a fan inside the greenhouse which pulled air through the pile into a growing bed where another slotted pipe was covered with chips and soil. This worked well for us in Massachusetts even though it didn't completely heat the house.

It seems like we got 600 or 800 ppm of CO2 but I'd have to look up my records and get that to you at a later date.

As for the LP gas to CO2 conversion, 1 cubic meter of gas provides about 1000 liters of CO2 when combusted. However, you shouldn't vent your heater into the house because the other gasses produced from burning, sulfur and ethelyne, can damage your plants.

Good luck with your enrichment!

Patti

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Under-Tray Heating

It is common practise for horticulturalists to heat the staging under seadlings to encorage rapid plant growth. Whilst the following idea is not in its self sustainable, if you are growing your own veggies using a Glass house in a cool climate, this may come in handy...

"Under-tray heating can be an efficient way of applying a little warmth to your plants, and a variety of commercial heating pads can be obtained from horticultural suppliers for this purpose. As an alternative approach, I have clamped eight 25 watt metal-clad resistors (pairs of 10 ohm resistors in series) to the underside of some of the aluminium trays on my staging, and pass low voltage (10 - 20V) current from a 200 watt transformer through them to provide a warm section of staging. Use an earth-leakage circuit breaker in your supply line, especially if you are using metal staging." (Hodgkiss, R. Sept 1995)

Please note I have been unable to track down the source of this article, so I would appreciate it if R.Hodgkiss could E-mail me.

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Seedling incubator

This is another quick idea for anyone trying to sprout seedlings quickly in good numbers. Whilst not strictly sustainable (unless the electricity is generated from renewable sources ie wind), I belive its worth looking at if you grow your own veggies. Again, I have no idea where I found this one...


Basicly the incubator is constructed from a polystyrene packing box/cool box, with an aquarium heater inserted in through the lower side of the box. The heater which is set to 27oC is sealed through the side of the box, with silicon. Once dry the box is one quater filled with water to the level where a sheet of glass is placed for the seedling trays to stand. The glass acts as a conductor of heat so it should be resting on the water surface. The incubator should be covered with a dark lid whilst seedlings are germinating, but after germination has occured the cover should be replaced with glass allowing ample light to enter.
The incubator provides optimal germination conditions so that seeds will quickly germinate and develop, avoiding early dormant periods which can easily stunt a plants growth. It is important however, that incubated seedlings be removed from the incubator after several weeks, as the humid conditions may lead to fungal growth if prolonged.

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Guest article, Drive belts from automobile tires

I arrived at this idea on my own, though perhaps it's not a new one... I found that the sidewalls of most automobile tires make good rubber drive belts for use with pulleys or even bike tire rims. Just cut a continuous inch-wide (or whatever width) circle from the side wall. Although it's inner and outer diameters are different, it will assume the shape of a drive belt when stretched between two pulleys etc. They also make good home-made elastic straps or rubber bands for furniture repair, securing things etc.

Stephen Wrona

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