Solar hot water heater,, Savonios windmill

Hi ya'll

Just a funny on my two alternative energy explorations.

About 25 years ago I decided I was going to build a solar hot water heater. I rented a small house, lived by myself, thought it would be a neat project to build.

I can't remember where I got plans, probably Mechanics Illustrated or some other source. Now remember my Dad's a hydraulic engineer. I needed a pump, he lost a pump, I needed a timer, he lost a timer, I needed some plumping parts, an electric valve, I made do with what Dad had.

I was in construction, salvaged some corrogated tin, the glass from a patio door, copper pipe etc. Just could'nt find a good water heater tank. Well heck, my landlord had a perfectly good water heater there in the house, I just used that one. After removing and replumbing my landlords water heater and building the collector, probably late in the year, September as I recall, I had a pretty good solar water heater. It was'nt as slick as some others I had read about, but it was CHEAP. It did'nt cost me a dime!

Now, when I wake up after a night of partying and chasing women, maybe a little beer drinking, and its January, eight feet of snow, somewhere under that snow is my water heaters solar collector, which of course means I forgot to turn the pump off so it is now a chilling unit to my cold water tank. Yea, take a shower now!

Jump into the future 25 years. I got on the internet, I wanted to build one of those waste oil heaters to heat my shop. Got on the Mother Earth News website, they pretty much have the oil burner designed there, but, what caught my eye was that sarvonious rotor. I can pretty much build anything, heck, if I need something real fancy I can just borrow it from my Dad. Read up on several types of windmills. I really like the sarvonious design. Why, won't over rev, lots of torque in low winds, power a car alternator to charge batteries, I'll just make one of those and put some power out there at the pond.

Well me being cheap, found an old 55 gallon drum, neigbor of mine at the shop next to mine is a mechanic, salvaged some old bearings and wheel rotors from him. Had some old steel laying out back from some old project. I started cutting and welding, actually had a pretty good rotor built, had to weld a temporary brace on it to stop it from spinning, with no load the slightest wind got it to whipping around. What's that guy on the Red Green show say,, if the women don't find ya handsome, at least they will find you handy. My sarvonious rotor looked just about like something off that Red Green comedy show on the PBS network,, watch that show sometime, then you will know what my rotor looked like.

Well I was'nt down at the shop the day the old colored guy that collects our scrap iron showed up. I guess the 2 guys that work for me thought I had dragged that contraption around so we could scrap it. They helped load into the truck for the old guy, heck, it was pretty darn heavy!!!!