I know it's not exciting, but I decided to add a photo of the tank for info. The pressure valve is the little grey box with the two wires extending up. Such a little thing to cause to much trouble. G.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
water pump
I know it's not exciting, but I decided to add a photo of the tank for info. The pressure valve is the little grey box with the two wires extending up. Such a little thing to cause to much trouble. G.
Friday, March 16, 2012
The charm of Belize
My last post sounded somewhat negative and I feel badly about that. It's true that the roads in Belize are horrible, but that's just one piece of this place we now call home. There are so many lovely bits to focus on that make it wonderful. This morning I went to the market in San Ignacio with my dear friend, Diane. Now when you're a tourist, it's fun to go to the market on Saturday to see all the mosh of people and things. It's probably not the most colorful market in Central America, but there's lots to see and great produce to buy. Besides the food stalls that are there every single day of the year, small farmers bring their produce in, along with some Mennonites. You'll find clothing, plastic, videos, food booths, fresh fish and sometimes farmers selling live animals. If I want to just shop for produce, it's nicer to go on Tuesday or Friday when the regular vendors get their produce deliveries and things are freshest. Diane and I like to do our shopping and then stop at Lucy's little place for a cold drink and $2 panada's. Yum and just a lite snack to get us back home.
The true beauty of Belize has to be her people. I'm not talking about the ones in the government offices, or the banks where the slowness and inefficiency can drive you wild. I'm talking about the gentle souls you see walking along the street or riding their bicycle. Yes, they can make you crazy when you're driving your car, but when you actually look at any of these folks, making eye contact and smile, you'll be rewarded with a big smile in return. If we ever leave here we'll miss the fact that almost everyone along our road will wave and smile. We don't really "know" them, but we give folks a ride to the village in the back of the truck when we can. We still don't speak Spanish and many folks don't speak much English, but as long as we're friendly and make an effort, up here in Cayo, we find almost everyone will help.
Yes, even tho' almost everyone has a cell phone and some can use a computer, the houses are simpler and so are most of the people. It's not uncommon to see a man riding to town on his horse and of course there are the Mennonite wagons. In most ways, Belize is about 50 years behind the West, but that's not all bad. Yes, we miss some of the shopping and conveniences of the US, but in many ways, we've been transported back to our childhood when many things were simpler.
The true beauty of Belize has to be her people. I'm not talking about the ones in the government offices, or the banks where the slowness and inefficiency can drive you wild. I'm talking about the gentle souls you see walking along the street or riding their bicycle. Yes, they can make you crazy when you're driving your car, but when you actually look at any of these folks, making eye contact and smile, you'll be rewarded with a big smile in return. If we ever leave here we'll miss the fact that almost everyone along our road will wave and smile. We don't really "know" them, but we give folks a ride to the village in the back of the truck when we can. We still don't speak Spanish and many folks don't speak much English, but as long as we're friendly and make an effort, up here in Cayo, we find almost everyone will help.
Yes, even tho' almost everyone has a cell phone and some can use a computer, the houses are simpler and so are most of the people. It's not uncommon to see a man riding to town on his horse and of course there are the Mennonite wagons. In most ways, Belize is about 50 years behind the West, but that's not all bad. Yes, we miss some of the shopping and conveniences of the US, but in many ways, we've been transported back to our childhood when many things were simpler.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
airport trip - Belize roads!
A good friend of ours has really been struggling with debilitating health problems for a couple of years. His wife was finally able to arrange for his care, his appointments in the US and got him ticketed to Florida. They had planned to take a taxi in, but I decided to drive them instead. It costs about half as much, now that we have butane in the truck and I could be there for Diane. She's so worried that she's making herself sick. Anyway, we drove into Ladyville to the airport and saw David safely onto the plane. She'd arranged for wheelchair assistance and they were extremely helpful. He's now safely in the hospital, getting lots of attention and tests. We're all praying he can finally get some relief.
I haven't checked the mileage, but it's about 90 miles from Bullet Tree to the airport. It's a two hour drive. In the US, that would be not more than a trip to town, but here it's a serious thing. If you haven't driven in Belize before, you are in for a real surprise. First, the roads are TERRIBLE. We all complain that the government wastes so much money, it seems mostly on graft, but nothing on the roads. There's always talk, talk, talk, but they don't do anything. It's embarrassing to pick up visitors and have their first impression be Ladyville. It's definitely a third world country. We always go north out of the airport and take the Burrell Boom cutoff, rather than going thru Belize City, which takes us past the scenic view of the Hattyville Prison, Ick! The cutoff road is not pretty, but the road is one of the best. At the end is a round-about (what a stupid idea) and then we head west on the Western Highway. At first, the road seems fairly decent. Two lanes, but driveable. Thank goodness because the scenery here is depressing. It's savanna and nothing productive will grow there. I understand folks have tried to raise lots of different things here, but failed. I keep stressing to visitors that this isn't the Belize that we know and love. Just "shut your eyes and wait until we get to Cayo District. (I have to add the "district" because locals refer to the San Ignacio/Santa Elena towns as "Cayo.") Once you go past the zoo at milepost 26 (or so) the scenery slowly starts to change. You start slowly climbing and you see bits of jungle.
On this part of the trip until you pass Belmopan, there are only two villages, Hattyville and St. Matthews. These would go unnoticed, except that every village has at least one speed bump and/or passenger crossing bump. These may, or may not be marked. If you don't slow down to about 15mph, these can be real shock busters.
Belmopan is a couple of miles off the road and not worth taking the side trip. You cross the bridge over Roaring Creek and then the fun begins. You would think that since this is the only road east and west and the main road to Guatemala, as well as the way that most inland tourists travel, that this would be the best highway. FORGET IT! You travel through at least eight villages, with accompanying sleeping policemen (speed bumps) and the road deteriorates. Rather than repair, they dump dirt in the holes, which down here is marl, which the rain rapidly washes away. Sometimes they'll throw a little blacktop patch in the holes, which then becomse a bump. There aren't lines painted, which makes sense because the edges of the road are broken and they don't put gravel on the sides, so you can flip your car if you drift to the side as the drop can be several inches. I imagine that Prince Harry was impressed by our lovely roads during his recent visit. I wish the politicians would quit bribing folks for their vote and spend the money on roads, but I don't see them changing in the near future.
The additional hazards make the trip very scarey. We left from Cayo very early so that we would miss the schoolchildren on the road. They're so sweet, trudging to school in their uniforms with their backpacks, but they're all over the road. Folks here treat the road like a pathway. The bicyclists are even worse. No reflectors, they wear dark clothes and wander all over. If you should hit someone, not only would you be devastated, but as a gringo, driving, it's your fault. You pay forever.
The second huge hazard is the Belize drivers. As David said, it's a blessing that Belize drivers have x-ray vision, because they always pass at a hill or around a corner. It must be true because, even on these hideous roads, they drive 70 - 80mph. I just drive my drive, putting along at 60mph as they fly past.
We usually stop at Cheers restaurant to take a break after all this. Then to Amigo's next door where they raise fantastic hydroponic lettuce. I usually have to buy some for at least 6 other folks. Then we toddle home. After this trip, Diane and I were whipped. It had been raining for a couple of days, so, of course, I had to worry about the trip up our lovely road. As it turned out, it was a little dicey, but I made it just fine. What a blessing to be back on our little hill, with Art and Bailey and to just relax.
I love Belize, but her roads are not her proudest accomplishment. We love Belize, warts and all, but sometimes the roads can seem like a pretty bit wart. Especially when Guatemala and Mexico have decent highways.
I haven't checked the mileage, but it's about 90 miles from Bullet Tree to the airport. It's a two hour drive. In the US, that would be not more than a trip to town, but here it's a serious thing. If you haven't driven in Belize before, you are in for a real surprise. First, the roads are TERRIBLE. We all complain that the government wastes so much money, it seems mostly on graft, but nothing on the roads. There's always talk, talk, talk, but they don't do anything. It's embarrassing to pick up visitors and have their first impression be Ladyville. It's definitely a third world country. We always go north out of the airport and take the Burrell Boom cutoff, rather than going thru Belize City, which takes us past the scenic view of the Hattyville Prison, Ick! The cutoff road is not pretty, but the road is one of the best. At the end is a round-about (what a stupid idea) and then we head west on the Western Highway. At first, the road seems fairly decent. Two lanes, but driveable. Thank goodness because the scenery here is depressing. It's savanna and nothing productive will grow there. I understand folks have tried to raise lots of different things here, but failed. I keep stressing to visitors that this isn't the Belize that we know and love. Just "shut your eyes and wait until we get to Cayo District. (I have to add the "district" because locals refer to the San Ignacio/Santa Elena towns as "Cayo.") Once you go past the zoo at milepost 26 (or so) the scenery slowly starts to change. You start slowly climbing and you see bits of jungle.
On this part of the trip until you pass Belmopan, there are only two villages, Hattyville and St. Matthews. These would go unnoticed, except that every village has at least one speed bump and/or passenger crossing bump. These may, or may not be marked. If you don't slow down to about 15mph, these can be real shock busters.
Belmopan is a couple of miles off the road and not worth taking the side trip. You cross the bridge over Roaring Creek and then the fun begins. You would think that since this is the only road east and west and the main road to Guatemala, as well as the way that most inland tourists travel, that this would be the best highway. FORGET IT! You travel through at least eight villages, with accompanying sleeping policemen (speed bumps) and the road deteriorates. Rather than repair, they dump dirt in the holes, which down here is marl, which the rain rapidly washes away. Sometimes they'll throw a little blacktop patch in the holes, which then becomse a bump. There aren't lines painted, which makes sense because the edges of the road are broken and they don't put gravel on the sides, so you can flip your car if you drift to the side as the drop can be several inches. I imagine that Prince Harry was impressed by our lovely roads during his recent visit. I wish the politicians would quit bribing folks for their vote and spend the money on roads, but I don't see them changing in the near future.
The additional hazards make the trip very scarey. We left from Cayo very early so that we would miss the schoolchildren on the road. They're so sweet, trudging to school in their uniforms with their backpacks, but they're all over the road. Folks here treat the road like a pathway. The bicyclists are even worse. No reflectors, they wear dark clothes and wander all over. If you should hit someone, not only would you be devastated, but as a gringo, driving, it's your fault. You pay forever.
The second huge hazard is the Belize drivers. As David said, it's a blessing that Belize drivers have x-ray vision, because they always pass at a hill or around a corner. It must be true because, even on these hideous roads, they drive 70 - 80mph. I just drive my drive, putting along at 60mph as they fly past.
We usually stop at Cheers restaurant to take a break after all this. Then to Amigo's next door where they raise fantastic hydroponic lettuce. I usually have to buy some for at least 6 other folks. Then we toddle home. After this trip, Diane and I were whipped. It had been raining for a couple of days, so, of course, I had to worry about the trip up our lovely road. As it turned out, it was a little dicey, but I made it just fine. What a blessing to be back on our little hill, with Art and Bailey and to just relax.
I love Belize, but her roads are not her proudest accomplishment. We love Belize, warts and all, but sometimes the roads can seem like a pretty bit wart. Especially when Guatemala and Mexico have decent highways.
Monday, March 5, 2012
weather
One minute we're complaining about it being too hot. It reached 100 F. on our veranda, in the shade, two days ago. We were thinking that the dry season had come early. Now it's raining like crazy and cold. It's down to the high 50's right now, but the problem down here is that we don't have a way to get heat. It's usually not necessary. All we can do is bundle up. Not easy when your wardrobe is mostly tank tops and lightweight clothes. It's definitely "weird" weather right now. Thankfully tho', not as devastating as in the midwest in the US.
We are so lucky! We had a barbecue on Sunday (yesterday) afternoon, with 11 friends and ourselves. There were some clouds, which kept it from being too hot. We had an absolutely wonderful time. We are so blessed with great friends, both old and new. Our back veranda is only 8' wide, but it handled everyone just fine and our new tiki torches along with the bug coils kept us bug free. Good food and great conversations made for a nice time. Our little house isn't fancy, but it's so comfortable and makes entertaining small groups a pleasure. It was as tho' we were being watched because everyone left just before dark and about 10 minutes after the last car pulled out of the drive, it started to rain. What a blessing. It's actually been raining ever since.
There's still a little work to do to fine tune our solar system, but it's working! We have a lot to be grateful for.
We are so lucky! We had a barbecue on Sunday (yesterday) afternoon, with 11 friends and ourselves. There were some clouds, which kept it from being too hot. We had an absolutely wonderful time. We are so blessed with great friends, both old and new. Our back veranda is only 8' wide, but it handled everyone just fine and our new tiki torches along with the bug coils kept us bug free. Good food and great conversations made for a nice time. Our little house isn't fancy, but it's so comfortable and makes entertaining small groups a pleasure. It was as tho' we were being watched because everyone left just before dark and about 10 minutes after the last car pulled out of the drive, it started to rain. What a blessing. It's actually been raining ever since.
There's still a little work to do to fine tune our solar system, but it's working! We have a lot to be grateful for.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Pro Solar Engineering
It's hard to believe that our electrical problems might be over. Marco, of Pro Solar, and one of his technicians spent the morning here, installing our new batteries and going thru our system. One problem they found right away was that one of our DC breakers was broken, thus cutting down the actual amount of power coming down from the panels. Duh! Not sure why no one else discovered this. Some of our wiring was confusing and they changed that and then spent a lot of time monitoring the system and adjusting the settings on the inverter and the charge controller to the limits dictated by our temperatures here in Belize. Within a couple of hours, these changes had already doubled our input over all of yesterday. There were several components that hadn't been installed that will help us monitor our usage. He'll send technicians back in a week or so to check the wiring of our panels, wire in a battery monitor and redo our racks to allow us to raise and lower the panels to better track the changing sun during the year.
It is such a blessing to feel that we have finally gotten the help we desperately needed. We are still thrilled with solar and our decision to live off-grid. Even with our problems, we've had power when the folks using the electrical system haven't. My main advice to anyone coming to Central America is to get help from a qualified solar engineer. We've faced huge, unexpected expenditures because of well-meaning, but poorly trained installers. We even found that the incorrect settings on the inverter could have damaged our new generator. We're both sitting here breathing a cautious sigh of relief. Thank you Marco.
It is such a blessing to feel that we have finally gotten the help we desperately needed. We are still thrilled with solar and our decision to live off-grid. Even with our problems, we've had power when the folks using the electrical system haven't. My main advice to anyone coming to Central America is to get help from a qualified solar engineer. We've faced huge, unexpected expenditures because of well-meaning, but poorly trained installers. We even found that the incorrect settings on the inverter could have damaged our new generator. We're both sitting here breathing a cautious sigh of relief. Thank you Marco.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Solar answers-finally
Yup, we're still fighting the losing battle with our solar system. We've had technicians here to try to figure out what is happening, but no real answers. Nothing they've tried has made a difference. They've tried to reprogram the inverter to no avail. Per recommendations from our solar provider in the US and the battery manufacturer, the default settings were appropriate. Our batteries are nearly toast. By watching our available volts and running the generator every evening, at least once, we've been able to keep enough power to allow us to continue at night and run our refrigerator and freezer (they're both Sundanzer DC). We've finally given up the fight and are buying new batteries.
Thanks to the internet, I found another company in Belmopan who sells batteries, designs and installs systems. We decided to visit their office and see what they have to offer. We talked to Marco of Pro Solar Engineering and finally got some answers that make sense. Marco has an engineering degree and additional advanced degrees. He said that they hear stories similar to ours and offered some answers. First off, our pump wasn't the total cause of our system failure. If I'd been more knowledgeable I'd have recognized the fact that the inverter shut the AC down when the pump pushed it to dangerous limits. Thus it was impossible for this to take the batteries totally down. Of course it didn't help, but wasn't the culprit. His view of the advice offered by the other companies is that most companies in the US aren't considering our temperatures. Here in Belize the average temp is 85 and most of the dry season it's much higher. The charge controller, which was totally ignored by others has allowed the voltage to go too high to the inverter. He recommends that it be programmed to keep it at 28v and below. We regularly see the panels send 30+ volts to the charge controller . Marco says that over the two year life of our batteries, we've been frying them. Well heck!
Also, something that I've noticed all along, but didn't have the knowledge to question it is that we were told when we initially bo't our system that it should generate 4.5 useable kilowatt hrs on a sunny day. The highest we've seen has been 3kwhs and that was last year.
We're buying new batteries and having Pro Solar come up and reconfigure our system. I'll update this when we get things set up.
Thanks to the internet, I found another company in Belmopan who sells batteries, designs and installs systems. We decided to visit their office and see what they have to offer. We talked to Marco of Pro Solar Engineering and finally got some answers that make sense. Marco has an engineering degree and additional advanced degrees. He said that they hear stories similar to ours and offered some answers. First off, our pump wasn't the total cause of our system failure. If I'd been more knowledgeable I'd have recognized the fact that the inverter shut the AC down when the pump pushed it to dangerous limits. Thus it was impossible for this to take the batteries totally down. Of course it didn't help, but wasn't the culprit. His view of the advice offered by the other companies is that most companies in the US aren't considering our temperatures. Here in Belize the average temp is 85 and most of the dry season it's much higher. The charge controller, which was totally ignored by others has allowed the voltage to go too high to the inverter. He recommends that it be programmed to keep it at 28v and below. We regularly see the panels send 30+ volts to the charge controller . Marco says that over the two year life of our batteries, we've been frying them. Well heck!
Also, something that I've noticed all along, but didn't have the knowledge to question it is that we were told when we initially bo't our system that it should generate 4.5 useable kilowatt hrs on a sunny day. The highest we've seen has been 3kwhs and that was last year.
We're buying new batteries and having Pro Solar come up and reconfigure our system. I'll update this when we get things set up.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Family visit
Matt and Lenae were great. Matt is the same age as our son, Tim. I have to tell you that their energy level is much greater than ours, but what a lot of fun we all had. I had never been to Caracol, and that was one of the top things on Lenae's list, so Roger and I accompanied the kids on a tour. I was so glad that we took a tour rather than drive our truck. The road is long and rough, but the trip in the Maya Walk van was great. Lots of terrific information. The changes in the environment on the way up are startling and unexpected. I hadn't seen the pine forests of the Mtn Pine Ridge area. Of course they look rough because of recent fires, but having come from Oregon, I was disappointed in them. We passed thru and reached the jungle of the mountains. It was all incredible. I'm always so overwhelmed by all I see and then have trouble describing it. I'd make a terrible tour guide. We passed a huge abandoned camp with lots of buildings. Our guide told us that the government won't allow them to be occupied, moved or torn down. What a waste!
Of course, Caracol was fantastic. It's not a trip I'd want to make every day, but it's a trip I'm so very glad I made. I can't begin to keep up with the younger, stronger legs of my younger cousins, but had fun just looking and absorbing the beauty of the place. There are so many similarities with the Mayan sites and yet each is also different. What an incredible history.
On the way back we stopped at the Rio Frio cave which was so surprising and interesting. Then, down the road a bit were the Rio Frio pools. Wow, at the end of a long trip, this is a must see and enjoy spot. The pools are beautiful and the water so refreshing. This body doesn't get out in a bathing suit in front of others, but I would still recommend jumping in to the water for most folks. I felt I could just camp there (not allowed) for weeks and enjoy the cool and calm.
A couple of days later Matt & Lenae too a tour to the ATM Caves. They were thrilled with the experience and enthusiastically tackled every part of the trip. I have to state right here that Matt is a river guide on the Salmon River in Riggins, ID and Lenae works for the Idaho Fish & Game Dept., so this was all right up their alleys.
We let the kids use our old Trooper to explore around Cayo and then it was time for all to head home. The sad thing is that it took them over 1 1/2 days to get back to Idaho and a long day for Roger to reach New York. There lies the down side of living in Belize.
We were so happy to be able to share our little corner of the world with family and look forward to more visits.
I have to add that I lost a lot of my favorite photos. I still don't know how to manage all the settings on my camera. Darn! Just have wonderful memories.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Secondhand Lions
We are having a wonderful visit with my cousin and his family. The weather has cooperated and been lovely. Some clouds, occasional rain and cool nights. Can't beat that! Belize has about 12 hours of daylight year round, so it's dark by 6:30 every evening. We've watched a couple of videos. We have quite a collection of those we bro't down from Oregon and the ones from the market in San Ignacio. We always manage to watch The Secondhand Lions, as it's one of our favorites. None of our family or friends had seen it. If you haven't, you are missing a treat. I can't figure why it didn't make a bigger splash when it was released, but it has to go down as a classic. With Robert Duvall, Michael Caine, Haley Joel Osment and Kyra Sedgwick, how can you go wrong. Please beg, borrow or steal a copy and watch it. You won't regret it.
We just have a couple more days with family and then it will be back to our normal schedule, which really isn't one. We'll putter around the grounds, raking leaves for compost and will try to finish putting the ta-tai on the handrails. I'll post a photo when I get done. Nothing too strenuous, just keeping busy.
I've had a couple of emails from new friends, asking questions about living here. I'll try to answer very soon. I love hearing from you and will do my best to give honest, answers. I'm sending a hug to all of you. That may sound corny, but you can never have too many hugs. Gale
We just have a couple more days with family and then it will be back to our normal schedule, which really isn't one. We'll putter around the grounds, raking leaves for compost and will try to finish putting the ta-tai on the handrails. I'll post a photo when I get done. Nothing too strenuous, just keeping busy.
I've had a couple of emails from new friends, asking questions about living here. I'll try to answer very soon. I love hearing from you and will do my best to give honest, answers. I'm sending a hug to all of you. That may sound corny, but you can never have too many hugs. Gale
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Family visiting
We're now enjoying a visit from my cousin, Roger, his son, Matt and Lenae. I'm feeling like a real goose as they came in yesterday and I had my days mixed up and had planned to pick them up today from the airport. What a shock when I got a call from Roger asking me if I was almost there. They ended up taking a shuttle, as it would have taken me 2 hours to get there. They're fine with it, but I'll be beating myself up over that for months. They're so lovely to have as guests. We hadn't seen Matt since he was a tiny boy, so this is a wonderful reunion. We love being able to share the bush and the wonders of Belize with family.
We had two technicians here last Sunday to check on reprogramming our solar batteries. The news wasn't good. They think our accident probably destroyed their recharging ability. Next Sunday Elvis will bring up a battery charger capeable of charging the 24 volt system in order to bypass the restrictions of the inverter. This will be our last hope. We're getting enough energy during the day to handle our useage, but the batteries aren't able to store enough to get us thru the evening and night. We'll then have to just use them until they're totally destroyed and hope then we'll be able to afford new ones. How sad to only get two years use. For now we're just focusing on enjoying our very welcome visit of family. It's hard to complain when we're having scattered clouds and temps in the low 80's when the rest of the world is cold. My glass is still half full.
We had two technicians here last Sunday to check on reprogramming our solar batteries. The news wasn't good. They think our accident probably destroyed their recharging ability. Next Sunday Elvis will bring up a battery charger capeable of charging the 24 volt system in order to bypass the restrictions of the inverter. This will be our last hope. We're getting enough energy during the day to handle our useage, but the batteries aren't able to store enough to get us thru the evening and night. We'll then have to just use them until they're totally destroyed and hope then we'll be able to afford new ones. How sad to only get two years use. For now we're just focusing on enjoying our very welcome visit of family. It's hard to complain when we're having scattered clouds and temps in the low 80's when the rest of the world is cold. My glass is still half full.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Visitors
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Concorde AGM battery problems
I've been trying to post for a couple of weeks, without success. Finally had to move to Firefox to remove error message. Still not sure what caused the problem with AOL. Well, here I am again.
We had a really tough three weeks from Christmas on. Problem one was the generator. Our Briggs & Stratton had bad rings and we search all over the country without success. We ended up by ordering from the dealer in Belize City. We didn't realize they were special ordering. I was told it would come in with their regular parts delivery. We finally got the rings three weeks later to the tune of $240BZ. In the meantime we were afraid of depleting our batteries even more, so spent the last of our reserves buying a Honda EU generator. This was another real lesson. The recommendation from several people was to buy a Honda. We went to Universal in Spanish Lookout and saw lots of Honda engines, but on Asian bodies. These were much cheaper than those at the Honda dealer. We asked lots of questions and found that the reason these are so much cheaper is that they're reconditioned motors and parts for the entire machine are hard to get. Enough already! ! We bo't the little Honda 300 from the dealer. It bro't me to tears to spend such dear dollars on another generator, but that's the hazard of living off-grid. The beauties of this model are, first, it's an electric start. My muscles cried, hallelujah! It also functions on demand. Most generators run all out, all the time. This little guy starts out at idle and then only increases power as needed. Thus, it's extremely quiet and very fuel efficient. This is keeping us functioning, but we are still having battery problems.
We have AGM sealed batteries. You're not supposed to equalize these, but they won't take a deep charge. The inverter keeps shutting the generator off. Elvis and I researched the web and found that there is a way to recover. He just hasn't been up to try it yet. Hoping to tackle that problem this week.
Was sad to get an email from Elvis saying that he'd get here as soon as possible, but he had a burglary at his shop and they stole a lot of his merchandise. Thievery is a huge problem here in Belize.
Our water pump had to be disabled as it wouldn't shut off. That's what initially impacted the charge on our batteries. Disabling it meant carrying water into the house. That's when you regret having a house on stilts (not really). We were lucky that we have a Rotoplas adjacent to the guest house so we could get water from it. By using our camp shower, we managed fairly well.
We pulled the pump and found that the supply hose had ruptured. Wow, why don't we have a few more problems? Now comes the real embarrassing part. They changed the installation of the pump to galvanized pipe, but water still wasn't getting to the pressure tank. The switch seemed to be ok. The problem turned out to be the new ceramic filter I installed. It was impeding the water flow. That's what caused the rupture in the first place. That was a really tough $500 lesson. We're back to the paper filters.
With company coming from the US this weekend, we're relieved to be functioning again. Things still aren't perfect, but heck, they never seem to be anyway. We'll just keep fumbling along. Two old gringos learning new lessons every day.
We had a really tough three weeks from Christmas on. Problem one was the generator. Our Briggs & Stratton had bad rings and we search all over the country without success. We ended up by ordering from the dealer in Belize City. We didn't realize they were special ordering. I was told it would come in with their regular parts delivery. We finally got the rings three weeks later to the tune of $240BZ. In the meantime we were afraid of depleting our batteries even more, so spent the last of our reserves buying a Honda EU generator. This was another real lesson. The recommendation from several people was to buy a Honda. We went to Universal in Spanish Lookout and saw lots of Honda engines, but on Asian bodies. These were much cheaper than those at the Honda dealer. We asked lots of questions and found that the reason these are so much cheaper is that they're reconditioned motors and parts for the entire machine are hard to get. Enough already! ! We bo't the little Honda 300 from the dealer. It bro't me to tears to spend such dear dollars on another generator, but that's the hazard of living off-grid. The beauties of this model are, first, it's an electric start. My muscles cried, hallelujah! It also functions on demand. Most generators run all out, all the time. This little guy starts out at idle and then only increases power as needed. Thus, it's extremely quiet and very fuel efficient. This is keeping us functioning, but we are still having battery problems.
We have AGM sealed batteries. You're not supposed to equalize these, but they won't take a deep charge. The inverter keeps shutting the generator off. Elvis and I researched the web and found that there is a way to recover. He just hasn't been up to try it yet. Hoping to tackle that problem this week.
Was sad to get an email from Elvis saying that he'd get here as soon as possible, but he had a burglary at his shop and they stole a lot of his merchandise. Thievery is a huge problem here in Belize.
Our water pump had to be disabled as it wouldn't shut off. That's what initially impacted the charge on our batteries. Disabling it meant carrying water into the house. That's when you regret having a house on stilts (not really). We were lucky that we have a Rotoplas adjacent to the guest house so we could get water from it. By using our camp shower, we managed fairly well.
We pulled the pump and found that the supply hose had ruptured. Wow, why don't we have a few more problems? Now comes the real embarrassing part. They changed the installation of the pump to galvanized pipe, but water still wasn't getting to the pressure tank. The switch seemed to be ok. The problem turned out to be the new ceramic filter I installed. It was impeding the water flow. That's what caused the rupture in the first place. That was a really tough $500 lesson. We're back to the paper filters.
With company coming from the US this weekend, we're relieved to be functioning again. Things still aren't perfect, but heck, they never seem to be anyway. We'll just keep fumbling along. Two old gringos learning new lessons every day.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Electricity problems continue
It's been a tough holiday time here at Dreamer Farm. We still haven't solved our electricity problems. Wouldn't have had so much trouble if our generator hadn't gone out at the same time. Hoping the parts will be in this week. Of course, this all had to happen during the holidays. Since Christmas was on Sunday, the following Monday was a holiday and then Tuesday was Boxing Day (thanks to the British), so nothing was open. We had help from an electrician who assured us that our batteries were ok, but there was an unknown drain on our system. Now, another problem surfaced with the backup generator we borrowed. It kept dieing. Not again! ! ! Elvis (yes our electrician's name is Elvis) diagnosed that the drain seems to be that the water pump in our cistern isn't shutting off. It appears that the switch directing this has gone bad, but since we couldn't charge the system because the generator didn't work, we were stopped. He took the generator back to try to fix it, but we've now gone thru the New Year's holiday without water. We were able to turn on the breakers for the house, so we have lights but are having to carry water from the Rotoplas. We have bottled water to drink and resurected our camp bag shower, so we're surviving.
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