My Work: Living on Solar Power - Part 8

December 1998

After a full day discussion in fancy Ottawa law offices about our telephone woes with all the parties, we arrived at a mediated settlement that was agreeable. Finally we could close that chapter.

We reached agreement on all for $150 of the costs by 10:00 am. Then, four lawyers (for the manufacturer, the distributor, and the installer) sat around the table haggling over that $150 until 3:30 pm, charging their clients all the while.

September 2000

The three-cylinder, water-cooled generator was 25 years old and tired. It sat in a cement block enclosure in front of the house and during the cold days of last winter, the only way I could warm it up was by moving the governor rod gently back and forth by hand while coaxing it, then yelling at it, to keep going.

We had already dragged it out of its house and into the pick-up with a come-along then hauled it to Kingston for an overhaul last fall. We replaced the battery with a 20-kilo industrial monster. Now it needed new points. I called the manufacturer and was told they would be $350. “No,” I said, “I don’t need new pistons, rings, and bearings. All I need is points.”

“That’s right,” said the parts supervisor cheerfully, “New Points. $350.” I wasn’t nearly as cheerful as he was. It was a good brand, the best. That meant they could charge whatever they wanted for parts. It also meant a week’s worth of phoning around for less expensive points that would fit. No luck. I did find someone in Toronto who built generators, though. After several conversations, we ordered a custom-built one-cylinder propane/gasoline 5.5 kw generator from him.

In the meantime, we set about building a properly-heated generator house into the side of a steep hill next to our main house. We dug into the hill and smoothed out a nine by nine footprint, then poured a cement floor and a two-foot high cement pad that had hot water pipes from the house running through it. We sided it with pine boards and battens to match the “The Shrine to Pine”. With insulated walls and roof, the new generator sat snugly underground on its heated pad, enjoying its new home that never got below 15° C, no matter how cold it was outside.