Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

lol, JP ..it`s not much of an alternative washing line
what you really need is one of these..

19ft diameter with 83m (272ft) of copper wire to hang the washing on

Ooooooo. Clothes line.

I live in one of those goofy neighborhoods with way too many rules. I am not permitted to have a clothes line. (sigh.)

umm, where do you dry your washing?

OMG how weird is that

no offence jp just not heard of that outside of blocks of units

I put the damp clothes in the dryer and push the button. It looks like a washer, but uses hot air instead of water. How strange is that?

I don't know what a block unit is. My neighborhood has a Civic Association with way too much time on their hands, and the propensity for making rules that we all agreed to follow before we buy the house. Rules like no statuary in the lawn, no working on your car in the driveway, and a precise palette of what colors you can paint your front door. I didn't quite realize the extent (and annoyance factor) of the rules when we bought. It will be good to move out someday, but first I have to get the Ecovillage going.

Any rule about putting the dryer out on the front lawn Janet

is there a restriction on flying kites?
we used to dry soaking wet towels at the beach by sending them up the kiteline. A decent kite would lift a good load of washing

I think a windmill for aeration is best configured by generating power, storing the electricity in batterys, and running a 12volt dc air pump or several even. Here where I live the wind averages 10mph slightly more than "the windy city" Chicago which averages about 9. On those days with little wind you can still run the battery power. Hooking photovoltaic to the batteries when you can afford to do so will add redundancy.

The old windmills found on ranches use a simple up and down motion to pump water. Simply use that up and down motion to agitate the water regardless of depth of the water level. Should not be that difficult.

That would be the best way to go for reliability, but i shudder to think of the overall cost of everything.
In my case, when there`s some wind it`ll spin and do useful work, which ultimately is better than the various bits just sitting in the shed gathering dust. I put 2 makeshift poly sails on it and would you credit it, not a breath of wind around

Cost to build so far about £5.. cheaper than a decent washing line.

I'm coming in a bit late here... does this windmill rotate just using the strings, and no sails?

Hi Tamo,
It has 4 sails, each sail is a square folded along the diagonal so each one forms a half sail above and below the rotor when it`s filled with wind.

You can use just 4 top sails (no bottom half) which starts easier and also spins faster.

The sails are linked in pairs on opposite sides of the rotor by cables so when one sail fills with wind the opposite sail (with it`s back to the wind) is pulled shut by the fixed length cables.

It should make the windmill more efficient as the flattened sails produce less drag.

I've always thought there should be a system like that for all sorts of push-pull mechanisms. Cool.

Also coming in late on the thread...

What about using an electric air pump for airation but installing a compressed air storage system inline with it. The storage could be a pressure cylinder (scrap ones aren't uncommon and safe to used at these low pressures) or even a rubber tyre inner tube. It would take a little fiddling to get the pressure / volume / airation rates set up using a valve downstream of the "pressure tank" but should be easy enough to get a system to tide you over a power outage. It wouldn't be weather dependant or require fish chopping differential gears and the like, potentially able to keep it out of site to be more asthetically pleasing too.

Welcome to the forum BenD.....

Not quite following what you're suggesting.... can you link to a drawing, or draw a diagram for us?

Like this?