Lodge like a cottage

Last week I was up at the lodge alone, except for the dog, babysitting the turbines.  Nothing bad happened in terms of the power failing, but I’m glad I went up just in case.

It doesn’t happen that often, but this time I got to use the lodge as my private cottage!  I put in a ski track around the lake and on trail 16, shovelled the deck and the roof, moved firewood, and other small chores.  My girlfriend came up for the weekend and we got to experience the -30C cold snap that rolled in!

On Saturday we went for a short ski around the lake.  Since it was so cold the track was rock solid.  At the far side of the lake, in the middle of the day, a pack of wolves started howling as we were skiing past!  We didn’t see them but they were near by in the trees along the shore.  There is a sunny south facing hillside near the lake shore that they like to hang out on.  That way they can easily see any deer (or lone skiers!) crossing the lake!

So, we had a nice, but much shortened ski on the lake! You would not want your dog to “join the wolf pack”! Decided it was time for the hot tub instead!  When it’s that cold outside it’s pretty neat to be in 40C water.  You are nice and warm but your hair is frozen!

The wolves didn’t come by to steal our towels, but they did poop on our ski trail!

The turbines were running smoothly through the cold, but the discharge has iced up pretty impressively!  I don’t think that should affect anything, though the turbine design team assures us we could get a bit more electricity if the pipes’ ends are in the river. Something to try next summer!

Electrical Mystery

Even though the Lodge was closed for the first couple weeks of January Edgars and Santa went up and stayed there.  We didn’t trust the new turbine we added to our micro-hydro system, along with the new heater for the hot tub.  Something, and we’re not sure what, has caused the system to shut down twice over New Year’s.  It was a bit inconvenient, but no more than that since we were there to restart the system.  But, had we not been there, it would have been a disaster!  The water in the main pipe would eventually freeze and burst the pipe to the turbines.  The brand new hot tub would freeze and explode, the hot water tank inside the lodge would freeze… So, Edgars and Santa went up to “babysit”.  And a good thing too, since the power went out again on Wednesday.

Edgars restarted everything, the hot tub was up to 39C, and the electrician came in to see if he could find the problem.  No luck – the mystery continues.  I suspect it has something to do with the new 2 kW heater on the hot tub, but so far it checks out fine electrically.  But still, the system is so unique, and finely tuned and balanced that there may be some sort of imbalance the new heater is causing.  Something to investigate.  I am heading up there today, by myself, for the week to do my turn of babysitting.

On the plus side of things, Edgars and Santa saw 3 moose on our main trail in, and they were serenaded on several nights by a pack of wolves.  Tucker (my dog who they were also babysitting) started growling in the direction of the lake one night, so they grabbed him and put him inside.  The next morning they found fresh wolf tracks coming up our trail on the hill and going on to the hot tub!  Very cool, but good thing Tucker didn’t go check it out!

Freeze Up Worries

I went up to the Lodge yesterday to make sure everything is running smoothly.  I’m a bit worried since the turbines shut down twice last week, and we’re not sure why.  If that happens while we’re gone then we have big trouble!  The water in the main pipe would freeze, and that would be a HUGE undertaking to replace part or all of the main pipe.  And our new electric hot tub would freeze solid.  Not to mention the hot water tank in the Lodge.  We can handle a few hours with no power, but no longer than that.  We’ve drained all the plumbing in the building, but that won’t help the hot tub or the turbine water pipe.

Everything was running smoothly, but we only have 1 turbine running as we don’t yet trust the new one.  We think it is related to the problem causing everything to shut down.  Hot tub was down to only 17C since we shut down the new 2 kW heater (that might also be the problem).

So, while I am away in the Netherlands this week Edgars and Santa (and Tucker) are heading up for a week with no tourists!  Should be nice for them, and is a load off of my mind knowing that there is someone there in case the power does go out again.  Phil, our electrician, is supposed to come on Tuesday to check things out.  Problem is that we don’t know what is the problem….  So he’ll be looking everything over, and hopefully solving this riddle!

New Year’s Adventures

Well, another New Year’s Eve celebration has come and gone.  And, as usual, we had our ups and downs.  Most importantly, our 19 guests all had a great time, and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.  Despite the unusually warm weather we had for 2 days (+7C!) and rain on one day.  That was a good excuse to play board games with the other guests!

We came up to get everything ready 4 days before the tourists would arrive.  It all started smoothly – the Lodge was relatively warm inside, the electricity was working, and no plumbing leaks, except for our water filter but we could still manage.  On Tuesday we went off trail grooming while our electrician showed up and installed the control panel for our second turbine.  That all went smoothly and we now have an extra 2.5 kW of electricity!

Trail grooming was going well until we got to the brand new lunch tent.  It had collapsed under the snow load!!  So we dug it out, straightened the poles and cut two new poles for additional supports.  I think/hope it should survive the rest of the winter now!

There were five or 6 trees down on the trails, but that is to be expected the first time we go out.  There was a wolf kill right in the middle of the trail to get to the lookout!  Blood and fur all over the trail, not to mention the two deer legs and spinal cord still there!  A couple days later skiers reported that everything is now gone, but you can still see the blood and fur.  In fact they had to ski right through it!

We got the roof shovelled off (it had started to leak, despite the fact that we had recently replaced it!), shovelled a nice skating rink, and got the hot tub up to 41C with the new heater.  Then the heater started acting up, so we’ve been fiddling with it all week.

New Year’s Eve we had a nice bonfire by the edge of the lake.  We had fireworks, and people in the hot tub admiring it all!

New Year’s day, we’re sitting down for breakfast and the power failed.  Oh no!  We went to restart the turbines, but with no success.  Luckily we have a gas generator for backup and this restored power, if rather noisily.  Called the electrician and got both turbines working again later that day.  Not sure why they conked out.  The next day the same thing happened!  But this time we were able to restart the turbines ourselves.  I decided to drive into town where I could get a cell signal and phoned the manufacturer in BC.  We “think” the problem is that we now have too much power and the circuit breaker can’t handle it.  If that’s the case it should be an easy fix.  But don’t ask me why they put in a breaker that was too small for both turbines.  It’s not like it was a surprise that they were both there….

On the plus side of things the ATV with tacks worked admirably when it was too slushy for the Alpines to steer properly.  It also got cold again and froze the lake perfectly smooth.  Never mind our skating rink – the whole lake is a rink now!  So I strapped on the skates and went for a skate with Tucker (the dog).  We both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!  And the staff enjoyed using the hot tub and sauna several times over the week as well.  Now everyone except Santa (our chef) has done a Polar Bear dip, and we’re working on her!

The Tank!

We just went up, for a day to quickly install the new heater we got for the hot tub.  The one we had is sufficient for the summer (a 1 kW heater) but with the -20C nights we’ve had this week the hot tub is down to 28C, instead of the desired 40C.  So we have an additional 2 kW heater to install.  Should be quick and easy right?  Well, took us 2 1/2 hours to plumb it in, with all the cutting of pipes, trying to glue new connectors in place in -8C weather.  Had to get a portable heater to heat the pipes and glue so it would dry properly.

We got it all connected and turned the system back on and it didn’t leak!  Woohoo!  Now we just need to wait for our electrician to come and wire the heater in so it can actually turn on.  That’s a job for next week.

We also picked up “The Tank”.  I love the Tank! It’s the coolest thing ever.  It’s my Bombardier ATV with tracks instead of wheels. It can go through anything and pull anything. We now have 25cm of snow on the ground and it was no problem at all. Our Alpine snowmobiles are still our “workhorses” for trail grooming and bringing supplies and guests’ luggage, but if we have really deep soft snow, or very wet snow the Alpines are impossible to steer and they get stuck on the hill.  The Tank should solve those problems. And it looks even cooler with the chainsaw holder now strapped to the back.  It will make our initial trail grooming run, on Dec. 28, much easier since the deep virgin snow, and numerous trees I expect to find across our trail are harder to deal with with the snowmobile.  No more digging ourselves out of holes!  I hope.

Lunch Tent

Last week we went up to the Eco-Lodge to put up the new Prospector tent we purchased.  It is out on the cross country ski trails in Algonquin Park, and will be used as a lunch tent for the skiers. Since it is about 8 km away from the Lodge we had to drive.  We had

ATV in winter

hoped to take the minivan up the main logging road, but it snowed a few days earlier so no go with the van.  Luckily we could still use the ATV’s in the snow (not enough for the snowmobiles yet), so we loaded them up, bundled up against the -8C temperatures and headed out.  Didn’t get too far before we ran across the first of many downed trees. A few days earlier it had rained a LOT and then turned into wet snow.  The snow clung to the trees and bent them over, with quite a few falling down.  Across our trail!  Luckily the ATV is now equipped with a chainsaw, so we were able to clear the path.  But instead of only taking about 20 minutes to get to where we needed to be it took us 2 hours of cutting and clearing.

The tent is fairly big, and it has a little wood stove in it to keep it nice and warm.  There used to be another tent there years ago, but it burned done.  This one is fire-retardant! The little woodstove inside should keep the tent nice and toasty this winter as cross county skiers come in to warm up and eat their lunch.

After we were done and heading home we decided to check out the status of a bridge we have crossing a small stream on one of our cross country ski trails. Well, remember all that rain I mentioned??  The “small” stream had turned into a raging torrent and washed our bridge downstream, floated away most of the boards, and jammed it up with trees and sticks that had washed into the bridge from farther upstream.  What a mess!

It took us several hours with the chainsaw to clear most of the deadwood and re-plank the bridge.  Thankfully we were both wearing rubber boots, so we could stand in the ice water for a lot of the work.  Still, impossible to stay totally dry, so we were driving back home with frozen solid gloves and wet toes!  We’ll have to revisit this bridge in the summer (after spring melt off).  It is suitable for skiers right now, but there is no way the snowmobile will be able to use it this winter.  The angle is all wrong and the bridge is too heavy for 2 guys to move (even though we are strong and hearty!).  I guess we’ll need to use the ATV with tracks to groom this particular trail.  That way we can drive across the ice, and if it breaks the ATV can still drive out of the water.

“Eco Hot Tub” – a first in Ontario

Back in October we finally were able to get electricity down to our sauna building at the edge of our lake.  This means we could actually hook up our new electrically heated cedar hot tub!  We built the hot tub in place over the course of a weekend, filled it up with an electric pump, and started heating it.  Since we have limited electricity (our turbines on the waterfall currently produce 8 kW) we had to have a custom heater/pump made for us.  It is only a 1 kW heater (your toaster uses 1.5 kW) so it would take a while to heat the 7 person hot tub!  We got tired of waiting and filled a big bucket with hot water from the Lodge, put the bucket on an ATV, drove it down to the hot tub, and dumped it in.  After doing that about 15 back breaking times I hope that I never have to lift up a giant bucket of water again!

We also built a new cedar waterfront deck around the hot tub.  I’m sure this will be a popular spot with the tourists!

What I think is really cool is that this hot tub is completely “green”.  It is made from wood not plastic, and it is heated with electricity that is 100% created from our waterfall.  So no greenhouse gas emissions, no gasoline generators, no carbon footprint.

 

Earthquake at the Eco-Lodge!

Trouble in paradise!  The earthquake the shook southern Ontario a few days ago did more damage to us than we expected!  We’ve been without power for 3 days.  That wouldn’t have mattered in the past but now we have an electric fridge and an electric freezer, so we need the power to keep our food from going bad.  Luckily we had designed our micro-hydro system with the idea of using a gas generator as back up.  Not that we ever expected to need it.  But then we never expected an earthquake!

The earthquake shook the turbine enough that a ground wire came loose and shorted out.  So the entire system shut down. After calling in our electrician from SOS Contracting (appropriately named in this case!) we determined that it was just a fuse.  Which was lucky since the alternative was a voltage regulator that would take three weeks to replace from BC.  As it was it still took three days to figure out that it was a fuse that was damaged and replace it.  In the meantime we had to run the gas generator for an hour every three hours to keep the fridge and freezer (and water pressure for showers and toilets) working.  A real nuisance, but we managed to deal with it!

We also discovered that two log posts that were supporting the pipe were vibrated to the point that they were about to fall over.  That would have been a huge problem since the pipe, filled with water, now weighs over 10,000 kg!  We got some hemlock 6×6 posts and built two new cribs around the supports and then managed to jack the pipe back into position.  Disaster averted!

Micro-Hydro Electricity at the Algonquin Eco-Lodge

We’ve just gone from the Flintstones to the Jetsons!

After 4 long years of waiting for permits, designs, and manufacture we have finally got our micro-hydro system working at the Eco-Lodge! We have 2 turbines running with water diverted from our waterfall.  The water is syphoned from our lake, runs through our pipe beside the waterfall, through the turbines, and then back into the river.  We only have 1 turbine running now and it produces 8 kW of alternative energy.  We are waiting for the control panel for the second turbine (probably next year) and it will produce an additional 4 kW of green electricity!  To put that in perspective a normal house in the city uses 1 kW of electricity on average.

A BIG “thank you” to all the volunteers who helped us with moving the pipes into place and for helping to build the support cribs.  The pipes alone weigh 2,200 kg.  We couldn’t have done it without you!

We have photos and a video up on our website at: www.algonquinecolodge.com/photo-hydro.html

Before we got this system working we relied on propane for our hot water tank, fridge, and the dim lamps inside the lodge. This meant we used about 1,500 kg of propane each year.  Three times a year we had to move, by hand, 500 kg of propane (plus the extra 200 kg of weight of the tanks themselves).  The truck would drop them off 2.3 km away in our parking lot, and we would have to transfer them into a trailer and haul them back up to the lodge then then unload them by hand.  Needless to say this is backbreaking work!

Now, with the electricity we create from our waterfall we have replaced as many appliances as possible with electric versions.  We have calculated, using the UN/NASA software RETSCREEN, that we will reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 7.5 tons EVERY year!

The electricity obviously makes our life easier but it has also allowed us to upgrade the inside of the Eco-Lodge.  We’ve replaced the dim propane lamps with electric lights (including deer antler chandeliers in the lounge!), lights in the rooms, and we could replace our battery powered water pump with a more powerful electric water pump.  The new pump means we can rip out the old bathrooms, put in proper “dual flush” low flow toilets, and new shower rooms.

And all this without having to hear the sound of a gas generator or look at hydro lines cutting a swath through the forest!

Franco’s Goodbye

Canada never lets you down.  Two years ago I had some of the best days of my life over here.  This year, I can say the same thing. Great landscapes, great people, wonderful wildlife.  So far I’ve seen deer, beaver, moose, snapping turtles, squirrels, chipmunks, humming birds, and wolves.  I’ve met friendly people.  Hey, I wanna get a Canadian passport!  Tomorrow I’ll leave the Lodge.  I’m gonna spend a few days in Quebec before flying back to Europe.  I’ll come back, guys.  You’re not going to get rid of me yet!

- Franco -