My first solar cooker

I have been meaning to make a solar cooker for several years, and have been looking at designs and YouTube presentations of different styles.  Encouraged by an ad recently designating Father's Day weekend as solar cooking day, I started putting some things together.
My idea was to use an old charcoal grill and a Dutch oven somehow.

I made some sketches, and took some measurements, and this weekend, a week late for solar cooking day, I cooked my first items.
I decided to use the box within a box with insulation.  Having some cardboard around the house, I fashioned a 14" square, 12" high, around a 10" diameter Dutch oven.  I used a 14" square picture frame with glass for the lid.

Insulation tucked in around the outside of the box is some fiberglass insulation I had in the basement.
I found a picture frame, 14"x14" with glass, that went on top of the box.

My first attempt was to bake two apples, cored, for one hour.  That was not enough time.  We were out that afternoon, and my second attempt with a sliced cored apple was mildly successful.
Oven Temperature remained 150 deg.F throughout.
My next phase of cooking will to be improve the efficiency of this oven.  I read that I should be able to get 250 to 300 degrees in the oven.
Some improvements to make:
     -use a top with a more sealed connection to the box.  There are gaps in the present configuration.
     -Try to track the sun more.  The best heating was when the sun was high in the sky.

Lessons Learned:  Solar oven cooking has a different time frame, on the order of hours.
I have a lot to learn, and hopefully will be able to improve the product and/or build alternative designs every weekend from now until the end of the summer, on the weekends.

Ash Trees in Syracuse New York

The first Emerald Ash Borers were found in Syracuse in 2013.  Ash Trees around town have been been dying since.  This summer they are dying in our neighborhood, Lyncourt.  So far, I have not seen any cut down here, but as the summer goes on, we will see trees replaced with new young trees.

I read that in the 50s and 60's, as Elm trees died from Dutch Elm Disease, they were replaced extensively by Ash. 

A New Bicycle Season, a new Helmet

My wife and I both purchased a Nutcase Artist Series helmet.  The helmet designs are by artists, based out of their headquarters in Portland, Oregon.

Our helmets are in the Artist series, a design called "Fathom This", and has a nautical theme.
I like the nob at the rear of the helmet that can adjust the fit while it is strapped on your head.  The magnetic clasp for the chin strap takes some getting used to, but works well.  We love showing off art on our helmets.

October 2015 Bicycling report.

October 30, 2015
BIKING TO WORK
The first week of this month I went over 1000 miles for the year commuting to work, based on an 8 mile round trip.  It the snow doesn't fly for another two months I should reach 1300 miles for the year.
We visited Portland Oregon this month to visit our daughter.  The back roads in our area of the city all had speed bumps with a narrow lane through for bicycles.  We learned to take the major through streets in our Prius to avoid them.  Our housing was a cottage in the Alberta Arts district that we had located through AirBNB.  The amenities we really liked were the clothes washer and dryer, and the full kitchen.
We walked alot around the area, but no bicycling.  While there, on tv they showed a horrific bike/pedestrian accident.  The light had changed, the lady started walking across, and a bicycle coming down a hill in the bike lane  hit her at full speed.  The lady went to the hospital with broken bones.  There is an ongoing investigation.  WATCH OUT when walking across bike lanes for high speed bikes that aren't looking.

Our Solar in the Winter

I am taking a course designing solar water heaters.  Based on the azimuth of your house related to south, and the angle of the collectors, and shading, and tables giving us our average amount of solar thru the year, we can calculate the square footage of collectors required to heat our water during the months of the year.  But I have not yet seen 0 solar collected in the winter months, which is what happens when your collectors are covered with snow.

Snow at our house this year from January thru February.  My design would put collectors on the right upper side of the house, to keep the snow off the collectors.

Does the math for solar photovoltaics work?

I was in a discussion about solar electricity this Christmas, and it was pointed out to me that using a solar energy of 1300 watts per square meter, and reduce that to 20% of that amount because of the efficiency of the solar cells in converting sunlight.  And the sun doesn't always shine.  The amount of solar energy is too small to be usable.

I wasn't able to answer at that time.  The math is ok, but I think the conclusion is wrong.

Here in Syracuse, NY, I averaged 17 kwh usage per day in my electric bill for this past May.  I use May because the demand for either heat or air conditioning from our electric geoexchange heat pump would be minimal.  Our loads would be lights, refrigerator, electric drier, vacuum, ironing, microwave, toaster oven, etc.  Our stove and water heater are gas fired.

I looked up the solar insolation for  Syracuse.  In January, the lowest number of the year, we average 2.8 kwh per day per meter squared, with a collector tilted at the latitude angle, 43 deg. For Syracuse.  Multiply that by 15%, the efficiency of commercially available collectors, and we have about 420 watts per day per square meter.

Following this line of reasoning, I would need 17.2 kWh/0.42 kWh per square meter = 41square meters, or 440 sq.ft.  This would be a 20x22ft. Area.  This would provide 100% of the electric demand in January, not including the building heat load.

Some critiques:
- the sun does not shine at night, so some means of storage or net metering on a grid is required.
- the months of June, July and. August have twice as much insolation per square meter, or 5.2, 5.4, 5.6, 5.3 kWh per square meter per day.
-at our house we are always trying to improve our energy performance.  We have changed our light bulbs to either fluorescent or LED bulbs.  The dishwasher and clothes washer are energy star rated.  The clothes dryer is an opportunity for improvement.  It is more than 10 years old.

I hope to get into the economics of the panel and photovoltaic electric system in a future blog.

Cold weather biking

what do I wear in cold weather for bicycling to work?  Usually I don't bicycle below 30 degrees.  This morning it was 24 deg.F.

My hat has a light now, an LED light that is rechargeable.  I have a scarf over my face, an add on to help me go down the hills.  For my core I have a sweater, then a blue fleece and an outer bike windbreaker.  Glove have liners tat are my regular. Bicycling gloves.  A knit hat under my helmut.  And long johns under the pants.  Nothing special on my feet but shoes and socks.  I had already parked my bike and have my saddlebags in my hand.