Inexpensive solar panels.

[Thunderchild]

yes well in my case 40 W of solar panel will be quite enough to keep things runnig saving me from the mains, during the summer i can use most of the power for the shed and the outhouse

 

[audioguru]

Outhouse?? In the year 2010?? Ha!

I though you live in a civilized country now.

 

[Hero999]

Now that I think about it, the owl would only work with pigeons, and the like.

As I said before, they'll soon learn it's a fake and will ignore it. Pigions aren't as bright as crows but they're certainly not stupid.
Pigeon intelligence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I would definitely run any landscape lights off buried low-voltage power converted from mains. Way easier to maintain.

It's not practical to dig up the garden and the patio to lay a cable, then I'd have to worry about digging it up.

Two 12V 14Ah batteries in series are way overkill for a pair of 8W tubes which will get used every now and then. I'll probably never have to replace the pannels, batteries or tubes, the whole thing should last for many years.

 

[Birdman Adam]

I thought visier was going to be making a landscape from scratch, in which case I would lay a cable, otherwise, I'd just keep it above ground...

 

[Vizier87]

I thought visier was going to be making a landscape from scratch, in which case I would lay a cable, otherwise, I'd just keep it above ground...

Mmm.. I'm not sure what you mean?

 

[Thunderchild]

Outhouse?? In the year 2010?? Ha!

I though you live in a civilized country now.

well this is a 1940/50's ex council house, there is a small room just outside the kitchen door and the roof come accross to the house so it forms a little porch area for the back door, I would expect it was meant for storing wood or coal in days gone by, will make a good storage room or I may even dedicate it to PCB etching but there is also a shed that I've not looked at yet

 

[audioguru]

I am an old geezer. I remember burning coal to heat my parents' first home.
Now my furnace burns natural gas that comes out of the ground like magic.

 

[Thunderchild]

yes well mine will also be heat by gas with a boiler that is just over a year old, the storage room has a concrete floor and really it's only any good for storing tools, just or doing something messy you don't want to plash everywhere

 

[audioguru]

My new furnace has 96% efficiency. It is condensing with a plastic exhaust pipe that puffs slightly warm and moist "air" out. It has a powerful variable speed DC motor for the fan. My government paid for half of the furnace and also for my new efficient air-conditioner.

 

[Thunderchild]

you need air conditioning in Canada ?

 

[audioguru]

In my part of Canada there are hot humid winds in summer that blow from the Gulf of Mexico and from deserts in the southern USA. So we need air conditioning.

 

[Thunderchild]

ah right I always thought of Canada as being cool but temperate in the summer

 

[audioguru]

Canada reaches up to the North pole where it is very cold but nobody lives there. Most Canadians live close to the US border so our climates are the same. The Great Lakes are huge and allow mild winter temperatures for me.
In summer the sun is very high in the sky so it adds to the heating of the winds from the Gulf of Mexico and from the deserts of the southern USA.

 

[Birdman Adam]

Are you a weatherman?

 

[audioguru]

I check the weather on TV twice a day. I watch the satellite videos of weather moving and guess when rain will begin and when it will end. Sometimes I am more accurate than the real weatherman.

 

[bryan1]

Eh Thunderchild deckout your out house and rent it to hero after all if he doesn't get a job soon that out house will be first class accommodation and he can have our esteemed global weatherguru do all the weather reports.......

 

[Thunderchild]

I don't think 1 sqm will do but as he only lives 20 miles away and we know each other anyhow he's welcome over anytime

 

[audioguru]

I have never seen an outhouse. How is the weather inside an outhouse when it is snowing outside?
How do you wash your hands in an outhouse? Do you brush your teeth in an outhouse?

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

I have never seen an outhouse. How is the weather inside an outhouse when it is snowing outside?

My grandmother used to have a two seater, you could go with a friend!

Back when I was little I can remember the council lorry coming to empty the outhouses, they used to come around dinnertime on a Wednesday where I lived.

How do you wash your hands in an outhouse? Do you brush your teeth in an outhouse?

You don't!

 

[Thunderchild]

I have never seen an outhouse. How is the weather inside an outhouse when it is snowing outside?
How do you wash your hands in an outhouse? Do you brush your teeth in an outhouse?

pretty dang cold I should think, perhaps outhouse is the wrong word for it and your certainly cannot go to the loo in it or wash your hands/teeth, however if your caught on the hop there is a loo cubicle btween the "outhouse" and the back door and shares the extended roof