There are no upcoming events within the next 180 days
Login
Don't have an account yet? You can create one. As a registered user you have some advantages like theme manager, comments configuration and post comments with your name.
Update on Jake & Amanda
Jake and Amanda
About
Us - Some Biographical Information About
CLM - Information about Canaan Land Ministries Our Videos - CLM video clips and others Links - Links to some of our favorite sites
Subscribe - To receive emails of new posts to our web page
What we are up to:
Resting and Renewing during our furlough - June 10-July 13
When we get back to CLM we will look forward to:
Jake - going biking with the boys during their winter break, and organizing special activities
Amanda - spending individual time with some of our younger kids on handwriting and other daily skills
We decided to try something new and do some video blogs. Sometimes its just easier for us to grab the camera and make a quick video than to sit down and write a blog post. This is actually from right after we got back, so its kinda old news. We will try to be a little better with updating....
Sorry about the long delay in blog posts. We have had some trouble with our ability to access our site. Hopefully that is resolved and we will be able to update more frequently.
We mentioned in our prayer letter, but would also like to post that we are excited about our up-coming furlough. We have the opportunity to be in the states this year from June 10-July 13. We will be spending the first 3 weeks in Mansfield including Amanda's sister Chelsea's baptism and her sister Alison's wedding. We will then spend 3 weeks in Tremont. We hope to see many of you during our time at home. Thank you all for your love and prayers over the past year.
Here is our May Update. Click on the picture below to read our Prayer Letter!
Thanks to extra support we have received recently we bought five bikes to ride with the kids. Here at CLM bikes usually don’t last that long. They are ridden almost constantly and when they break the kids try to fix the bikes themselves… So the bikes we bought are only to be used when going on rides with an adult; hopefully this way they will last longer. I will also be fixing them with the help of those who ride them – teaching them about bike repair and maintenance.
I have a couple of trips in mind that I want to take them on. I really enjoy biking since it is something most anyone can do and it is something that puts most on a level playing field.
The first trip I want to go on with the kids is to Guarapuava and back. Its about 20 miles one way. We will take the back rode to Guarapuava which is a dirt/stone road, but has much less traffic. Between CLM and Guarapuava there is a valley, so we will have to ride up and out of it on the way there and again on the way back. The hills are over 1 mile long and have some very steep parts. (Click here to read more about the last time I biked to Guarapuava with the CLM boys and walked half way back… )
I have told the kids that in order to be able to go to Guarapuava they must pass a couple of tests. The first is a 11 mile ride, the second is biking up (or at least getting the bike up) a 1 mile hill that is close to CLM (the hill is a total vertical climb of 600 feet - to put that in to perspective Tremont is 650 feet above sea level). Whoever is able to that will be allowed to go. So far 5 have completed the challenges.
The second trip is something that I have wanted to do for a while - go from CLM Entre Rios to CLM Turvo. I am still looking into how best to do it. One of the best routes would be by going first to Salto Sao Francisco (a 600ft water fall), spending the night and then the next day going to Turvo…
The Salahis had their minute with the President when they crashed a party, even some tourists who just went for a White House tour ended up eating breakfast with him. So if I had the President's ear for just one minute, this is the plea I would give.
It has been a busy 2010 already. In the last 3 weeks, I experienced my 1st Brazilian New Year, 1st Brazilian Wedding, 1st Brazilian Baptism, and 1st new CLM child.
As some of you may have heard, CLM hosted Loeci (former CLM child) and her husband, Marcelo's wedding two weeks ago. There were lots of preparations to prepare the house, grounds, and children. I had started working on laying out wedding clothes for each of the kids about a month ago. And it was a good thing, because I was still working on it up until the day of. With some very excited to but on "more than their Sunday best" and a few who needed a little convincing to put on more than shorts and flip-flops, each of our kids looked spectacular. Jake and a few of the older boys directed cars - in a lot of rain. But thankfully it died down for the most part by the time the wedding started. Despite the rain, the wedding was beautiful.
Last Sunday we had baptism, hosted here at CLM. The service was done inside - again because of a lot of rain. (Apparently, it rains just about every day - and sometimes 6-8 times a day). But, thankfully, the sun came out and we were able to go down to the pool to watch 10 people be baptized - including one of our older CLM girls, Josiele. We praise God that she has decided to give her heart to Christ and follow him. We pray for many of the others to follow suit.
We were excited to receive Mateus, 4, into the CLM family. He is the youngest brother of Alisson, Aline, and Alex who all came to CLM last year. Mateus had been in the government orphanage and he was able to be transferred to be with his siblings. He is a bit insecure and happy little boy. Jake had to use his i-pod and a little guitar playing to get Mateus to go to bed the first few nights but he is doing better each day.
To help keep the kids' rooms cleaner, we have divided up the responsibility. I am in charge of Lucas, Arivaldo and Luquinho's room.
It has been a bit of a challenge, as Luquinho can be somewhat of a Dennis the Menace. Most of the recent problems have been related to his desire to decorate his room for Christmas. First, he tried to decorate it with an entire roll of tape, which he was able to clean up easily. From tape he moved to candles. He set the curtains on fire and the room was a mess from the fire extinguisher powder. He spent 5-6 hours cleaning that one up.
At that point, I decided to help decorate and bought them a small Christmas tree and we made some ornaments. That went well until he decided to paint them, but thankfully he only made a small mess with the paint.
Since then, things have calmed down. The boys were even able to go for 2 weeks straight of keeping their room clean. So they have won the reward of painting the walls in their room. They are excited about it and by process of elimination they have picked blue and orange as the colors they would like. Red was too violent, yellow and brown were too disgusting, etc. So, blue and orange were all that were left. The process of painting may be another adventure; however, hopefully, it will give them more appreciation for their room and cleanliness.
The Teaters: Christmas Party provided by the Judge
Yesterday we had a special outing to Hotel/Park sponsored by the Judge for Christmas. CLM, CLM Turvo, and the government orphanage were invited for a day of swimming, paddle boat rides, carriage rides, lunch, a snack, and Christmas gifts.
We were able to get a rented bus from the city to make one trip rather than several kombi trips. To make the day less chaotic, the CLM team split up the kids so that each adult could be responsible for just 2-3 kids. When we first arrived it was very overcast and chilly. So we started with some paddle boat rides and carriage rides. Within an hour, the sun came out and there were more kids than water in the pool. The smaller pool lost half of its water while we were there. After lunch they opened an inside heated pool for the babies. I took Maria Luiza and had a wonderful time in quiet, warm water. She has no fear of the water and just giggled and splashed the whole time.
We discovered a few more siblings of a couple of the CLM kids. One of the little girls met her little brother that she hadn't seen in a few years. Apparently the rest of her siblings have been removed because her dad took the little brother to a bar with him and gave him some to drink. This may help move her release for adoption. Pray that the process may be moving forward. Our CLM baby also met her two older sisters. They seem to have more fetal alcohol characteristics. Maria seems to be the cutest and most animated of the siblings.
As with Brazilian style, Santa Claus was about 2 hours late! The kids didn't complain about the extra play time and then received their gift from the judge. I would guess that 1/2 the bus was sleeping on the way home. We are thankful for the special time that the Judge provided for the CLM kids.
Why Solar Hot Water?
Heating water requires a lot of energy. For example here in Brazil we use
instant water heaters that are built into the shower head. To raise water by
45F degrees (from 60F to 105F) about 5,000 to 7,500 watts are required. That
is equivalent to heating your shower water with four or five microwaves
on at the same time! In America typical water heaters have 4,500 watt heating
elements (think 45 100 watt light bulbs on at the same time). Needless to say
with electricity costing 0.22 cents USD per kilowatt hour here in Brazil, there
is a financial incentive to find an alternative way to heat water.
Before I get into how I built the heater here is some basic information about
it:
It heats 80 gallons (310 liters) of water to 135F (55C) on sunny days.
It cost me $300 USD
I used PVC instead of copper to reduce costs
To increase efficiency I sheathed the pipes in the collector with glass
tubes made from old florecent bulbs. Click here to read why I
did this
It is a passive solar heater, so there are no moving parts - it relies on a
thermosyphon to circulate the water.
The solar collector is approximately 27ft2 (2.5 m2)
Sponsored Links
Building the Heater
The solar water heater consists of two basic parts, the hot water tank and the
solar collector. The tank is 310 liters (80 gallons), it sits in the attic and
is insulated with spray foam insulation.
The solar collector is made up of 1/2 inch and 3/4 inch PVC pipe and florescent
light bulbs. The collector is encased in an insulated box with glass on one
side.
The solar collector is approximately 2.5 m2 (27 ft2), the pipes that are
exposed to the sun have a total volume of about 18.5 liters (5 gallons), which
is equivalent to 6% of the volume of the hot water tank. (Meaning that if the
water circulates 16-17 times all the water in the tank will have been heated
once, in theory).
To make the plumbing part of the heater I bought 64 T fittings and with them
made 2 pipes, 32 T's each with the T's butt up against each other. Then
between the two I put a pipe that was just a bit longer than a florescent bulb.
To prepare the bulbs I tore off the metal parts on each end, then poked a large
hole in both ends so that a 1/2 inch pipe could fit through. (Click Here to read more about this step) Then I pushed a
piece of a sponge through a couple of times to clean out the powder. When I
was done I had a long glass tube. While I was taking apart the bulbs I used a
mask and was sure to wash my hands and cloths afterwards, since they contain
mercury.
Close up of the bulbs and pipes, The entire array, The solar collector in
the insulated box. Click for larger images.
The bulbs were painted black on the back side, and the pipes were completely
painted black. Then I closed off the ends of the bulbs with tin foil and a bit
of spray foam, since they are just used as a basic insulator its not that
important that they be air tight. The solar collector was lined with black
plastic, underneath were some Styrofoam sheets to help insulate the heater.
The Heater installed (before glass I tried transparent plastic sheeting but
it wilted in the heat), Installing the Water tank Click for larger images.
The panel was installed at a 35 degree angle and about 1 foot below the bottom
of the water tank. It is below the tank so that it does not act as a water
cooler at night. Basically, the cold water is already at the bottom, so it
should not circulate with the water in the hot water tank. Click here for more on how to connect it to the water tank.
On sunny days when the outside temperature is in the mid 80's the water heats
up to about 135 or more. Even on cloudy days the water heats up to the 90's.
The simple, but tedious way is to puncture them with a screw driver. Here's
how I did it:
First I tore off the metal caps, then I put a screw driver in the end and
wrapped a rag around. The rag is dual purpose. One, it helped protect me from
the mercury inside (I also wore a mask and did it in a ventilated area), the
rag also helped slow down the air as it flowed into the bulb. The bulbs seem
to have a near vacuum inside them, so when they are punctured the air enters
pretty quickly, and can propel some of the debris from the puncturing into the
other end and break it. The rag helps slow the air down. After the bulb was
broken on both ends I tapped out just enough glass so that a ½ inch pipe could
fit in I found G.E. bulbs to be the easiest to work with. Afterwards be sure
to wash your hands.
In the end the bulbs are just for insulation so they don’t have to be perfect.
They just keep the hot air around the pipe, and the ends are sealed off with
foil, which covers up a lot of the imperfections. Of the bulbs in my collector
about ½ of them have breaks or small imperfections. But it doesn’t seem to
matter, it still increases efficiency.
Method #2:
Here is a link to the other way to break open the ends. It isn’t nearly as
simple. I haven’t tried it, but it was published in a magazine so I am sure it
works. I found it with an article about a florescent bulb solar air heater.
It uses common items to build a glass cutter. From what the site says, it
should make nice looking cuts. Link to cutter instructions
Over flow - just a pipe that carries water out of the tank if the float
were to malfunction and it were to over fill.
Water Intake Valve. Just a pipe and float that fills up the tank with more
water as we use it, similar to what is used in a toilet tank.
Hot water pipe. This feeds the house with hot water. It is above the two
pipes that feed the solar heater so that there is always water in the solar
heater. This protects it from over heating if our water pump shuts off and no
water comes into the tank to replace the water we have used.
Return from Solar Heater. This pipe connects to the top of the solar
heater, and to the top of the tank, just below the pipes above. As the water
is heated it becomes less dense and rises. As it rises cold water takes its
place. So the hot water flows slowly through the return to the top of the
tank.
Supply to the Solar Heater. This pipe connects to the bottom of the solar
heater, it also connects to the bottom of the tank. It supplies the solar
heater with the cooler water that settles to the bottom of the water tank.
On mostly cloudy days the heater reaches about 90 degrees, on very cloudy and
windy days it wont
get above 80 and may only reach 70. So I came up with a backup. (Note: while
I have this
tested and installed, I actually have it unplugged to save electricity). I
bought a 'Bucket
Heater' that automatically turns on at 80 degrees and turns off at 110.
I suspended it inside the water tank so that it only heats the upper portion of
the water. I
assume that if it were resting on the bottom that the hot water would rise. By
the time the hot
thermostat measured 110, the water at the top of the tank would be well over
that.
After doing a lot of research on the internet, and a couple experiments I came
to a few conclusions.
While glass does block/reflect some of the light, it also creates an
insulating buffer. The benefits of the insulating buffer out ways the lost
light. This is essentially the same insulating concept used in double glazed
windows.
Since the temperature loss increases when the difference between the
outside temperature and the temperate inside the water heater increases, it is
better to heat a lot of water to 110-115 degrees, than to heat a little water
to 150 degrees. For example, if the hot water tank is at 150 and the outside
temperature is 80, there is a 70 degree difference and more heat will be lost
through the insulation than if the temperature difference was 30 degrees, and
the hot water was at 110.
Passive solar heating requires (as the name implies) no moving parts. As
water warms up it becomes less dense and moves upward, pulling cold water into
the collector. This requires no pump, making it very simple and energy
efficient, as well as there being less to go wrong.
A solar heater would heat the water using two forms of heat transfer,
radiation and convection. Radiation would reach at best 180 degrees of the
pipe, convection would reach 360 degrees of the pipe, doubling the surface
area. In other words, as well as trying to expose the pipes to as much sun as
possible, I needed to also trap hot air produced by the radiation around the
pipe to help heat it even more.
With this in mind I set out to design a solar collector. I priced copper but
found it to be very expensive. PVC was much cheaper, but it does not withstand
more that 135 degrees. This I found out not to be entirely true.
After some tests I found that the PVC pipe itself will withstand higher
temperatures without losing rigidity, however I assume that the fittings would
begin to fail at lower, but still hot, temperatures. I should also note that
the water pressure in the collector is very low, just as much pressure as is
created by about 2-4 feet of fall, others who had failures in their PVC
fittings had put their heater inline before their water heater, as a primer.
Unlike houses in the USA where the water enters the house already pressurized,
houses in rural Brazil have water tanks in their attics to create pressure. So
I figured that the max temp for my PVC would be higher than the standard since
I have sub standard pressure and will subject the pipes to much less stress.
So decided to go with PVC and to insulate the fittings from the temperature
inside the collector and protect them from sunlight. That way only the pipe
itself would be exposed to the sun light and the highest temperatures.
Since I wanted to try to keep the heat close to the pipes I decided to use old
florescent bulbs to act as a second glazing. The wind will cool the glass
panels that cover the solar collector, which in turn cools the air inside the
collector. The florescent bulbs act as another barrier. The trap in the
hotter air around the pipes and keep it from circulating with the cooler air
outside of the bulbs. In tests the pipes with bulbs heated up faster and to a
higher temperature than those without.
·Children's Day 2009 - Pictures and video from celebrating... ·Remodeling - While we were doing language training,... ·Short-termers - See what you could do as a short-termer...
