Phil Swindler

Joshua Myrvaagnes wrote:Some caution should be used in this--not sure what materials will hold calcium chloride, but it seems it eats through metal.

Also, if it is boiled, it melts and then forms a solid block on cooling, so it will be useless.  

I think air drying is better.  It could in fact buffer and act as a humidifier in winter??  If not, is there some other substance that would work better (and not mold)?

He's got a point.  We used it in the bottom of desiccators to absorb moisture from the air.  We dried it before every experiment.  And, kept it in glass jars, and, the desiccators are glass.  I would either use glass jars or maybe try plastic buckets.  The calcium chloride you buy as ice melt comes in plastic bags, so plastic is probably fine.  
Drying it before it gets mushy is way easier.  For high school we used small enough amounts that a glass tray in a toaster oven did the trick.  I've never used a house type oven, just toaster ovens or incubators.

Joshua Myrvaagnes wrote:Well I always trust someone on the internet, especially with the name Swindler (just kidding and sorry, I'm sure you get that all the time, but for the rest of us it's the first).    

Not as often as my Dad did.  He was Reverend Swindler.

Joshua Myrvaagnes wrote:Wow, score one for Reddit:

"Calcium chloride, which you can buy as a ice melt product in many places, was used in bulk as desiccant/dehumidifier before A/C and electrical dehumidifiers were common. Application of it for this purpose was often as simple as having a 55 gallon drum filled with the salt placed in the area that needed dehumidifed (warehouses, silage silos, cold rooms, etc.).

Completely dry calcium chloride will absorb about 3 times its weight in moisture at 90% relative humidity - in which it can literally become a wet slurry, being so effective in absorbing water from the air. In comparison, common silica gel only absorbs about a 1/3 of its weight in moisture before being too saturated. Heating the salt at 212'F+ will drive off the trapped moisture and make the salt reuseable again.

Given a room with 1000 cubic feet air volume at 80'F and 80% relative humidity, there's about 1.4 lbs of water moisture present. So about half a pound of dried calcium chloride will absorb most of that moisture.

Do note, calcium chloride generates heat as it absorbs water. Whether this effect will be great enough to affect attempts to cool a space, I'm not sure."

--https://www.reddit.com/r/preppers/comments/1340iot/anyone_have_experience_using_rock_salt_as_a/

they recommend calcium chloride, about 1.5 lbs will be enough for a room 10x10x10 at 80% humidity.

But a drafty barn?? is the draft more helpful or more harmful? is it condensation that harms photographs or just humidity??

I spent 24 years teaching high school chemistry.  I haven't checked the numbers, but, the idea is sound.

It's been years, but, I recall reading that the South American terra pretta is believed to have included biochar and very well composted manure (possibly human).  

I did some experimenting with growing herbs in my own attempt at terra pretta in planter boxes.  The well composted manure I used came from a horse corral.  
The "Fresh" stuff under-performed the control.  The control was soil from the garden.
The year old batch produced plants that were noticeably larger and more robust.  I don't remember the numbers, but, I'm thinking I was able to harvest about 1/3 more herbs from the year old terra pretta than the garden soil.  My unsophisticated palate couldn't taste the difference.

May Lotito wrote:Freshly prepared biochar can sequester nutrients making them not available for plants. I tried charging charcoal in compost tea for hours prior to making potting mix. The plants with biochar added actually were smaller than control without biochar. That makes me wonder how to effectively charge the charcoal so it is not inhibitory.

I've read that this inoculation period needs to be a few months long.

This isn't terribly eco friendly, but, it uses lots of styrofoam and keeps it out of the landfill.
I dissolve styrofoam or packing peanuts in acetone or alcohol free gasoline.  Then stuff it into a nitrile rubber glove and let it sit for about a month to dry.  When I peel the glove off, I have a hard plastic hand.
The one I'm working on right now will be wrapped around a small flower pot while it dries.  So it'll be a hand holding a flower pot.
I'm using plain white styrofoam for the fingers and palm.  I'm using green packing peanuts for the thumb.
So if the hand holding the flower pot has a green thumb, will the plants grow better?

chaya duggan wrote:
I salvaged enough rigid blue and pink styrofoam from the landfill to insulate 2-8x12 sheds and my son's bedroom.
Small pieces for toys, cracks, home made coolers... and of course--GLUE.

It takes a LOAD of scraps to make the styro/acetate glue, but that is good stuff!

You're not kidding on the LOAD of scraps.  As an experiment I filled a small prescription bottle about 1/2 full of acetone and started putting in packing peanuts so see how many would dissolve in that roughly 2 ounces of acetone.  It was still slowly eating the packing peanuts at 140.
Styrofoam is well over 95% air.

Remember when a tornado hit Greensburg, Kansas?
After they rebuilt the high school, I had an in-depth conversation with one of the teachers.  They had used curved mirrors on the north corner of the roof to bring light into the rooms on the north side of the building.  They said it worked well and cut down on electricity usage.

Jim Fry wrote:Many years ago, there was a fellow who lived at the intersection of two roads. The crossing was lit by a streetlight. The guy, who happened to have little money, positioned a mirror in one window to catch the light of the streetlamp. Then he put mirrors in every room of his house to bounce the light from room to room. To turn off the light in a particular room, he just turned that room's mirror. And when he went to bed at night, he turned off all the lights by just moving the number one mirror. It worked great, and it certainly was inexpensive.

On our farm, we raised rabbits. Some cages we kept in the barn. We did the same as that old man down to the corner. We put mirrors the full length of the cages and lit them with reflected sunlight. The rabbits were happier with plenty of light. We saved on not having to use light bulbs. And we didn't have to turn the lights off at night. It was a self-regulating system.

~~One note though. Someone suggested using mirrors in gardens. By careful. If you have a light rain or heavy dew, the reflected sunlight could burn plant leaves where the "extra" sun hits the water spots.

Remember when a tornado hit Greensburg, Kansas?
After they rebuilt the high school, I had an in-depth conversation with one of the teachers.  They had used curved mirrors on the north corner of the roof to bring light into the rooms on the north side of the building.  They said it worked well and cut down on electricity usage.

Lif Strand wrote:

Thekla McDaniels wrote:... old satellite dishes, which are parabolic reflectors (if lined with reflectors) or collectors.

That prompts me to think about using small pieces of mirror glued to the reflector side of a satellite dish, like a reflective mosaic. I want to play with that idea, see what I can do with it!

I've seen that done a few different ways.  Using dark pans, people were able to easily cook with them.
Using a 6ft satellite dish, he was able to do some crude blacksmithing.

I've seen light tubes installed with pleasant results.