energy emporium

Solar Photovoltaic Projects

kimquirk — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 02:20:46 +0000

Pole Mount PV

We’ve had a pretty good summer for solar photovoltaic (PV) installations in the Upper Valley of NH/VT. A typical PV system consists of a number of solar panels and an Inverter to change the DC (direct current) from the panels to AC (alternating current) which is used in our homes.

Often the [...]

Life’s Interruptions

kimquirk — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 17:26:02 +0000

You can plan what you are going to do next weekend, next month and even years into the future…but life sometimes takes a turn that wasn’t in the plan… as it did for my family last week when my husband, Kent, had a mild stroke.

It was a ’small’ stroke from the doctors perspective, and [...]

Let the Harvest Begin

kimquirk — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 01:27:42 +0000

Garden Harvest

Cucumbers, Lettuce, Basil, Spinach, Broccoli, Thyme, Parsley and the very first tomatoes have arrived! Ok… so there are way too many cucumbers and the spinach and broccoli “bolted” which, I think, means they had shoots that flowered before they really had much in the way of spinach leaves or broccoli heads (very small). [...]

Ride through the Rain

kimquirk — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 02:47:04 +0000

Biking in the Rain

We’ve had some extremely warm weather here on the east coast last week. Fortunately (I think) the 100 mile bike ride for cancer last Saturday (the Prouty) was entirely in the rain… which meant it wasn’t hot. It was wet, a bit more dangerous than dry conditions, uncomfortable in many ways, [...]

Attic Water Heating

kimquirk — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 17:01:22 +0000

Hose

A client came into my store a few weeks back to discuss his idea for an inexpensive “batch” water heater that doesn’t require any high tech parts or pumps. The idea behind a batch heater in general is to pre-heat water from the well or from the town source with the sun or a [...]

Stormy Data

kimquirk — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 01:06:56 +0000

Arlington, MA, 6/6/10

Back in January I set up the weather station I got for Christmas near my house (see Weather or Not). It was relatively easy to get it up and running and to run the software that gives you a graphical view of the data as well as an historic perspective. It took [...]

Garden Update

kimquirk — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 02:47:06 +0000

Community Garden

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog on the seedlings that I started for garden this year (Seeding the Summer). Well, the little plants are now in their summer home in my small corner of the Shaker Community Garden plot. The picture on the left gives you some idea of the size [...]

On-Demand Electricity

kimquirk — Mon, 31 May 2010 04:04:58 +0000

Solar Electric Array

I’ve been working with a customer for a few weeks on an idea that he had for his guest house. His guest house is used only about 1 week every month. But, even when the house isn’t being used it is still consuming electricity — a few outdoor lights, enough heat to [...]

Enjoying Nature

kimquirk — Mon, 17 May 2010 02:49:12 +0000

View from Mt Cube

Kent and I went took full advantage of a sunny Sunday afternoon to hike up Mount Cube in Orford, NH. The picture on the left is the view from the top.

Why do people like to climb mountains? I think most people can really appreciate the connection with nature that you [...]

Seeding the summer

kimquirk — Sat, 08 May 2010 00:37:38 +0000

Seed packets

At the end of last summer, I was not sure I wanted to start a garden again this year. Last year started off only ok. Most of the plants that I started from seed died early, but there was some good early success with corn, tomatoes, rhubarb and squash — see “My First [...]