Masonry work for the new fence

 When the fence was replaced, we changed the design somewhat.  Zone 8, around the base of the General, had a retaining wall built and filled in.  That meant that the fence went from 6 feet tall down to about 4 feet where the retaining wall was, since the fence was put at the old ground level, not the filled in higher level.  The neighbor on the other side of the fence had asked if it could be 6 feet, at least, for all of it.  

That meant that the fence runs along the top of the retaining wall, at 6 feet, and then suddenly drops two feet when we hit the retaining wall between zone 8 and zone 7. to avoid the sudden drop, we switch to an 8 foot fence and then slowly decrease the height, so that it gets back to 6 feet when we reach the corner of the back yard.

However, the fence people kept the fence going level well after the drop-off from zone 8 to zone 7.  Since the ground level continued to drop, that meant that their 8 foot fence pickets did not reach the ground, and it left a gap under part of the fence.   Particularly when the stone work under the fence dropped again at the low end of the Blue Rock Pool.

As a temporary measure, we put two fence pickets horizontally at this point to cover the gap.  But this was meant as just a temporary fix.

In addition there was another uncomfortable gap in the low end of the Bamboo Grove, where the stone work apparently is not level.

And I had noticed when I was clearing the Bamboo Grove for the fence work, that the bamboo was trying to send roots over the stone work, to escape it's confinement to the Bamboo Grove.

So my solution was to raise the stone work to (a) meet the new bottom of the fence, and (b) prevent the bamboo from putting roots over the stone work.

Since the base stone work is there, this just requires applying another course of stones along the outer two sides of the Bamboo Grove.  It took two trips to Whittlsey to get the stones (320 pounds the first time and 260 pounds the second). We cleaned off the old stone work, and laid out the new stones.

Then we mixed up some mortar and mortared the new stones in place.

The new work is two additional courses of stone next to the Blue Rock Pool, 

 

reducing to one additional course from there to the corner.

In the corner itself, we used a small 6x6 block which happened to fit the remaining space.

At this point, we needed more mortar and more stones, so after a couple days, we were able to again clean off the existing stones, and lay out new ones.

and then mortar them in place.

As expected, we had to cut the last one to fit the space available.

A Restored Lattice on the New Fence

 The old fence had a wooden lattice for Linda's vines to grow on.

But when the fence was replaced, that was removed, so we needed a new one.

The first step is to attach a couple of 2x4 sections to the fence, to hold the lattice work out from the fence a bit.

Then we can attach the new lattice work to these supports.  We used 5 inch lag screws to attach the 2x4s and then 1.5 inch lag screws to attach the lattice to the 2x4s.  

The lattice itself -- 4 feet by 8 feet -- plus the new lag screws was $55.91 from Home Depot.

Cleaning the solar panels

The new solar system comes with a monitoring system that tells us how much power is being generated over time.  Now that we have had the system for 16 months, we have comparative generation for 4 months.

Notice that last year we generated more energy each month during the summer. 

Now we know that the weather varies, and it is possible this is simply because we had more sunshine last summer than this year, but that seems unlikely. 

We also know that solar panels decrease in efficiency over time, but a more than 10% drop in just a year seems extreme.

So we thought maybe the panels have gotten dirty and need cleaning.  Looking at the panels from down on the porch, that does seem a possibility.

We can't see the surface of the panels very well, but from this angle it certainly looks like they are covered with a yellowish dust -- maybe pollen from the oak and elm trees.

So we decided to wash them off.  We used an external faucet and hose, and Windex Outdoor Concentrated Cleaner, which we have previously used to wash the outside of our windows (and screens).  Searching on the web, it seems the main concern in cleaning solar panels is not to use an Ammonia based cleaner, and Windex Outdoor is Ammonia-Free.

We first sprayed the panels with just water, to wet them down and soften any dirt.  Then we sprayed them with the Windex Outdoor solution.  Checking with a clean rag, there was still a lot of grey dust on the panels, so we used a sheepskin applicator on the end of a long pole to gently wash the panels off.  Then we rinsed everything off with enough water that there was no more suds or dirt, just water rolling off the panels. This took about 200 gallons of water for the 14 panels.  And then just to be paranoid about the possible hard water deposits of tap water, we poured a gallon of distilled water on the top of the panels, letting it flow down and rinse everything off.

The result is panels that look much cleaner.

 We will have to wait until the end of October to see if we generate as much energy this year as we did in October last year.