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Hello to everyone in the Forum. I wanted an opportunity to say that there is nothing like being attached to the ground! I am really appreciative of having grown up in a rural setting, where my wonderful father taught me so many things, for which I am eternally grateful. My parents built a home when I was 20. It was a beautiful block with an incredible view. It had a steep hill behind the house site, perfect for a water tank and pressure fed water to the house. And what did my father do? He scrounged around the local farming community until he found a windmill he could purchase and install on the block. Dad arranged for the water runoff from the house roof to flow down into a tank. From here, he pumped water up to the top tank by windmill. He also fitted an electric pump for the days when there was no wind or the wind was like a gale force. And we had some ferocious winds where the old windmill had to be kept anchored. But all in all to have had that experience and see this in operation was just divine. I wonder where we are headed with the new? It all seems to be so costly and many Technologies seem to vanish even before they are started! I will be staying with my feet firmly on the ground! Where I have been for the last 67 years. Warmly, rustymilltree. Edited 2025-10-31 13:57 by rustymilltree
Revlac Guru Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1198
Posted: 09:29am 31 Oct 2025
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Hi, Welcome to the Forum, I have an old Windmill in the shed that is half restored, still need to do the tower. Also have gravity feed for house water and garden water also, Had a few power outages a long time ago when we had to put up with unreliable grid power,thus prompted the gravity fed water supply. there are still quite a few windmills around on farms even though most are no longer maintained or used.Cheers Aaron Off The Grid
Godoh Guru Joined: 26/09/2020 Location: AustraliaPosts: 584
Posted: 08:22pm 31 Oct 2025
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Hi Rusty, yes sometimes old technology is the best, keeping things simple work well. Especially using gravity for water supplies. We use an electric pump and also a petrol powered pump here to pump from the collection tank up a hill to our main storage tanks for our house water. There are too many trees where we live to have a windmill pump but the solar system works fine to run the electric pump. The petrol pump is a fire fighting pump that we run every now and then just to make sure it goes in case we need it. Fortunately we haven't had to use it except to transfer water on rare occasions. welcome pete
Hi Revlac, Hi Godoh, I see you each have different technologies suited to your environments. I am a Gardener by Trade, so love the soil, plants, trees, outdoors, etc. I always wanted to build a rammed earth home but never quite got there! The nearest to that was living in a 2 storey mudbrick home for a few years, rented of course. I learned a lot from living in a mudbrick home. The bricks were load bearing and much larger than the usual size brick. The Owner built it himself with help from friends. It was the cheapest home I have ever run. Friends would pop in on a 35~38 degree day and initially asked " have you got air conditioning?" And in Winter, I had to open the upstairs bedroom window as the wood heater made upstairs too warm! The thermogenics were fantastic. Wishing you both a good summer without fire. Thanks for the chat. Anne
Godoh Guru Joined: 26/09/2020 Location: AustraliaPosts: 584
Posted: 09:08pm 01 Nov 2025
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Hi Anne, I have built a few houses over the years. Never mud brick one though. I moved on from a hand split timber slab hut as the first house i built to more substantial timber framed houses. In hot areas where i used to live they were not overly insulated as i wanted the house to cool down fast overnight. Now living in Tasmania the house has lots of insulation, first to keep the warmth in ( but not too much we like it cool for sleeping) and also to keep the heat in summer out. I have had off grid power systems now for nearly 50 years now. Although the first 5 years of living in the bush, I didn't have any solar panels, I just ran a long wire from the car battery in to power a light or two. Then when solar panels became more affordable the solar systems grew. I started out with about 300 watts of panels, and stuck with those small systems for many years. Now we have an electric car so we have 10kw of panels. And use some commercial and some home made inverters. ( backups for backups) I hope your area is not subject to fires either. So far we haven't had any although where i used to live in northern NSW the whole community was wiped out a few years back. So I do make sure we are prepared.
Hi Pete, What a wonderful set of skills you have gained over the years! Very valuable. Interesting on not putting insulation in a house in a hot area, I understand your reasoning on that. I find it interesting to reflect on the fact I have never had air conditioning in any home I have lived in. Heaters, wood fires, yes. Now being older with a few 'barnacles' I have heating in Winter. I live in South Gippsland these days. I have wondered about the seasonal changes we are getting now and very cold winters? Hence the heating. My thoughts on this have wandered to, "am I just getting older?" But as a gardener, I have taken a closer look at the prevailing weather patterns out of curiosity. If, and I say if, the polar caps are melting, then I see these very cold troughs cutting straight off Antarctica and spreading across the southern part of Australia!! I use the melting ice cube to explain this. Just my thoughts. I love Tasmania, such a unique piece of country and I have had some memorable trips to Tasmania . My first experience with fire, was the 2009 Mirboo North fire. Devastating! Deliberately lit unfortunately. Watching from up on a hill with a bunch of locals, we saw Elvis in action, with the fire racing towards the town! A lot of plantation pine around there and it was just catching alight. We all feared, as it was heading straight into town. Then the wind changed direction and that altered everything. The town was saved, but the fire went off in another North easterly direction. I have immense respect for our firies! Who drive off into the smoke! I saw a fireball that shot down a valley for several kilometers. I had heard of them but I actually got to see one! Yes, hoping for a fire free summer. Unfortunately we [VIC] do not have enough infrastructure to fight these enormous blazes. My brother who is a fiery explains it. Pete, thanks for the chat. I love learning, Anne
phil99 Guru Joined: 11/02/2018 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2801
Posted: 07:45am 02 Nov 2025
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It is often down to random chance. That same violent wind change on Black Saturday took out 650 homes out of 1100 in this town and 90% of Marysville in just 50 minutes, along with many lives (22 in my street). Most in my street had fire pumps and hoses and 3 had professional sprinkler systems installed. Of those who stayed to defend 2 survived and said the water from the deluge sprinkler system never reached the ground, it was simply blown away and did nothing. They also had a bunker as plan B. You cannot save your home when the fire weather forecast reaches Extreme or Code Red (Catastrophic). Below that you have a chance if you have two fit healthy people and preferably two pumps, if one pump fails or person gets injured.
The Black Saturday Royal Commission found that no amount of extra firefighting infrastructure would have helped for those two fires. After the event the fire danger index (on the old McArthur 0 to 100 scale) was calculated to have been 2700.
Oh, Pete, so sorry to hear you and yours [you say "we"] went through Black Saturday fires! I believe it was just catastrophic, beyond anything we have experienced. You are the firsthand account, I have ever spoken with. It was more than a fire. "Of those who stayed to defend 2 survived and said the water from the deluge sprinkler system never reached the ground, it was simply blown away and did nothing." WOW! It is beyond my comprehension! "Marysville in just 50 minutes". "along with many lives (22 in my street)." Life altering for survivors, such as yourself and family members. "After the event the fire danger index (on the old McArthur 0 to 100 scale) was calculated to have been 2700.: That's bizarre and not normal. Not that you call any fire, or destructive event normal! Inferno is more suitable. I have read and listened to a few firsthand accounts, firies and descriptions of the recent LA fires. Similar catastrophic conditions. No infrastructure there either and the sea is at the door! My mind is abuzz with ideas. The weather patterns have certainly changed. I hope the memories are fading for you and yours, takes time. Sounds like you are enjoying a new life in Tasmania. Warmly, Anne
Hi Aaron, it is a nice feeling to know that you can survive with a good backup system! And its cheaper too, you can save quite a bit on Utilities. I love my veggie garden and I am spoilt for flavour and choice now. I love our Natives too. My gardens are quite a mix. We had a lot of power outages in rural VIC at one stage but these seem to be less nowadays. All the best with building your windmill tower, cheers, Anne.
Revlac Guru Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1198
Posted: 01:27pm 02 Nov 2025
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Hi Anne, yes its great doing our own stuff, the 2 dams now run solar powered pumps, the top dam has a bore pump that is 90vdc, no bore there but its multiple stage impellers and just place it in the water just deep enough to do a days pumping to fill the 5000 gallon tank that we use to water the garden and other uses.
The second dam is a bit over 200m further down the hill and there is a large veggie patch there and another solar powered pump, its an old 32v motor driving an old Southern Cross piston pump, some were branded Ajax etc, its old technology but still works, the piston is 3d printed. I'm saving quite abit with the garden, food is good and fresh the food scraps feed the chooks but quite often the wildlife will help them selves and not leave much for us. Some of the locals have solar powered pumps for stock water, while one at the side of the mountain has a refurbished windmill in operation. Will have fun finishing the windmill one day just so many other jobs to do first. Cheers Aaron Off The Grid
Godoh Guru Joined: 26/09/2020 Location: AustraliaPosts: 584
Posted: 08:42pm 02 Nov 2025
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Hi Anne, you have mixed me and Phil up, Phil was involved with the black saturday fires. The fires that burnt the community I used to live in were in Northern NSW. I was fortunate in that I had already moved to Tasmania by then. But many people who were friends when I lived there lost their houses. I built 2 houses when I lived there, both of them were destroyed. When I did live there I spent 8 years in the volunteer fire brigade, most years we spent 2 to 3 weeks fighting fires in Summer. During that time we never lost a house or building. But the fires in 2019 were much bigger and wiped out all the houses.
Phils experiences with the Black Saturday fires were first hand.
I was travelling through Victoria in the 1983 fires and watched as the fires came down the mountains into Lorne. There was nothing anyone could do as the fire moved so fast. It just rolled over the top of the trees and the houses exploded. From memory around 60 houses were destroyed that day. There was one moment when my friend and I were stopped near the beach watching the fire come down the mountain towards the town. A police officer ran over to us and told us to get out of there as we were in danger. I pointed to a man on his house roof with a hose filling his gutters and said, nowhere near as much as he is. The police officers response was "Oh sh*t" and he ran off to get the man off the roof. We did as requested and left the area. That is not an experience I want to have a repeat of.
Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1585
Posted: 06:57am 03 Nov 2025
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Hi Anne on the subject of fires back in '03 we bought this 85 acre farm about 2K out from Kanmantoo in the Adelaide Hills, there has been 3 bushfires since we have been here and the last one was well over 15 years ago.
The first fire was started by a city slicker who owned a bush block on our road and was angle grinding close to long dead grass, that guy lost his property over the damage caused. The same with the second fire another city slicker was oxy cutting and started a fire that came within 2 properties from our place. That guy lost his property too due to damage.
Now the third fire was started by a rich land holder who was slashing on a fireban day in a rocky paddock and with striking rocks a fire started and got out of hand. Now the fire burned over the hill destroying several boundary fences a few sheds and all the feed in paddocks from several properties and came within a bees whisker to my farm.
On my way home from work that day the road was closed and I told then I was a land holder with girls at home so I was let thru. I saw a pump setup behind a 4wd and asked if they wanted to use my springfed dam as it was full so I directed them to the dam, then I went and got my frontend loader/backhoe and made a road and turn around point for the trucks. We had the pump setup and going back into the dam when it came up over the radio the fire was heading our way. I just said to the 2 guy's that were there we can just jump in the dam and go swimming with the black snakes. They asked about the snakes where I asked did they rustling in the reeds where they replied yes and look on their faces when said yes thats the snakes.
Anyway as I did say a rich guy started the fire and it got off scott free with no charges laid and no compensation to other affected landholders.
Hi Bryan, welcome and thanks for dropping a line here. I looked up where Kanmantoo is. I love the Adelaide Hills. Very rich in pioneering history. I have visited the Heysen property a few times and have taken home a couple of prints and had them framed. Hans Heysen is one of the few artists that can paint glass extremely well in a painting. I took our Mum over to Adelaide in 2019 to catch up with some of her friends. I have always wanted to visit Martindale Hall out at Mintaro, so I was able to travel out to Mintaro and spent a few hours there. Completely absorbed in the master building and woodwork, architecture, etc. As to your references to 'city slickers', we called them 'Collins Street farmers' in rural east Vic. Usually 10 acre allotments where nothing ever happened except an abundance of grass and weeds! The ragwort was the biggest problem, I think they thought them nice yellow daisies!!!! As to snakes, wonderful to have grown up around them, so as to know them. Common sense seems to be not so common these days! 85 acres in that part of the woods must be very beautiful. Keep up the common sense, , warmly, Anne
Revlac Guru Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1198
Posted: 08:24am 03 Nov 2025
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Not really wanting to get off topic, but regarding fires yes there have been some really bad devastating ones, now many years ago around this area and likely elsewhere there was growing complaints about land holders doing a burn off to keep the properties clear and reducing the fuel load, the complaints grew to and it got hostile. We and many others had to go though all sorts of hoops and hurdles to do any burn off to reduce fuel loads, most said stuff this and left it..........not long after with the really bad drought on as well, we had the worst fire season that I have ever seen.....were are all these Morons that made it so difficult to do proper management and fuel reduction burns......
Fuel reduction is the responsibility of the landholder, dose not mater who how or what starts a bloody grass fire...if the fuel load is reduced before the season gets bad most of this is preventable, but because of all this new laws and mentality the problem will get worse. This place was under the imposed fire ban before the grass would even burn if lit, a few weeks later it was so damn dry and dangerous to do anything around the place in case of a spark igniting it, we also had very strong gusty wind one day and had the realisation that if something started there wasn't a damn thing that was going to stop a fire, another time there was 2 fires up the road started by vehicle's pulling off to the side of the road for what ever reason, the local council was told to mow up to the fence line as reduce this happening, they mowed it twice up to the fence, but not this year at the moment its back to being a fire risk.
We have some Lomandra growing along a pathway near the shed, it grows down near the river as well, it great for holding onto the soil to help with erosion, unfortunately its downside is that the older leaves inside of the clump catch fire very easily, they have caught fire from a grinding spark, only a small fire with a lot of smoke, even though I have a tap and hose 3m away with lots of pressure that Lomandra burning is a hell of a thing to try and put out and this when not even in the fire season, Much of Australian bush uses fire for its own benefit in some way.
Fuel reduction is the best prevention, you cant burn it if its burnt all ready, sure its bad and *%$# if some one has lit a fire that burns other properties etc but prevent your own from burning or you have no one to blame but yourself. Edited 2025-11-03 18:29 by Revlac
Footnote added 2025-11-03 18:40 by Revlac The neighbours have had 4 grass fires from lightning strikes, I had one tree catch alight but at least the rain eventually put all that out. Most other tree strikes here around the yard did not catch fire, blew to bits quite often though.Cheers Aaron Off The Grid
Revlac Guru Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1198
Posted: 08:32am 03 Nov 2025
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Words I have used in my previous post are not intended to sound offensive, it just the way I write and talk about things, I have a few snakes on the path around the shed at the moment, some friends have had a few colourful words come out that they didn't expect to say, I tell them those snakes wont hurt you, common water snake and whip snake, don't worry.
Fire-weed looks a little bit like daisies, unfortunalty with the seasonal southerly wind its blown all the seed from NSW to SEQLD and that fireweed has taken over the place Edited 2025-11-03 19:14 by RevlacCheers Aaron Off The Grid
Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1585
Posted: 10:47am 03 Nov 2025
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Well one fire I didn't mention a couple of years ago a bushfire started about 30K north of us and with the wind the fire going south straight into our path and the local FB group was rampant with news and people getting ready for the fire..... then the wind changed so the fire moved north west taking out a couple of towns and many properties.
Now to move back on topic as far as old goes I have an old belt driven lathe was last used when Vee belts were invented and still works a treat today Also I have a Macson surface grinder that my dad bought when he came over to see me in the '90's and it's gone full circle back to me.
Most of my gear is from my early days so working in imperial is still native to me aswell as metric.
Regards Bryan
Revlac Guru Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1198
Posted: 11:11am 03 Nov 2025
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Love that old stuff Bryan it will outlast a couple of generations We have an old Herbert 9B Lathe turret lathe, has a flat belt drive for the power feed, still have a few old Engines around as well. Cheers Aaron Off The Grid
Hi Aaron, it is just the way we reference the difference between rural people and city people, there is a huge difference in knowledge and practical experience. That's just a reality. Anyone can take on learning if they want to. I don't mean to sound superior either, but people are at all different levels of learning and I value mine. In the City of Geelong a few years back now, the Council decided to plant a lovely native grass entrance on the highway entrance from Melbourne. The Council had to remove the grasses, as people were throwing their cigarette butts out the window and the grasses caught alight many times, so they removed the grasses. About the Lomandra, the Lucerne trees took off here in South Gippsland a few years back and they self seeded very easily. Many Farmers weren't to happy about that!
Notice. New forum software under development. It's going to miss a few functions and look a bit ugly for a while, but I'm working on it full time now as the old forum was too unstable. Couple days, all good. If you notice any issues, please contact me.
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there are still quite a few windmills around on farms even though most are no longer maintained or used.
"Marysville in just 50 minutes". "along with many lives (22 in my street)." Life altering for survivors, such as yourself and family members. "After the event the fire danger index (on the old McArthur 0 to 100 scale) was calculated to have been 2700.: That's bizarre and not normal. Not that you call any fire, or destructive event normal! Inferno is more suitable. I have read and listened to a few firsthand accounts, firies and descriptions of the recent LA fires. Similar catastrophic conditions. No infrastructure there either and the sea is at the door! My mind is abuzz with ideas. The weather patterns have certainly changed. I hope the memories are fading for you and yours, takes time. Sounds like you are enjoying a new life in Tasmania. Warmly, Anne 
, warmly, Anne 
