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Hello everyone welcome to the first frequently asked questions video. I've
gotten a lot of questions and I appreciate all the comments and
responses that were left on the other video and on FaceBook
and also to the email address.
So, let's get started!
all right
number one
how much to the entire project cost and how long before you get a return on your
investment
that sort of a tricky question
basically the dome cost about forty five thousand dollars to build.
that included the excavation work
all materials for the building
the solar system, parts for the
rocket mass heater, all the to grow beds and what not
the return on investment
is little bit trickier um...
to calculate
the dome is used
uh... for personal production of vegatablse so we don't sell that so you
can offset some of that costs by not having to
purchase
groceries
and it's also used for for
testing some od the electronic equipment that i've been developing
so thats
also a very difficult to calculate
overall
it's about ten to twelve years for pay back
mostly paid off from the vegetable production
and also from the ad revenue from these utube videos
so uh...
you watching is always very helpful
and thank you
okay number two
why are some people growing on rafts instead of media what are the
differences
there are some differences um...
it's very easy to grow leafy
vegetables in
the raft systems like lettuce and spinach they have a much smaller root structure
and they can really handle having their roots
wet most the time
growing in the media system i grow using expanded shale
the
it works really well with larger plants such as tomatoes and cucumbers the roots
and spread out to the media pretty far and anchor themselves right in
and
and i also like to use the media
it's used for helping aerate the water
water levels rises and falls through the system
the air is getting sucked in and out of the media and
um... is absorbing into the water so helps out a lot
okay number three
i'm also curious about your motivations in taking on this project
was a for self-sufficiency, as a test that free electronics
uh... yeah it's a little bit of each self-sufficiency is always a great thing
we don't have to rely on the large corporate farmers for your fruits
vegetables and
and it really does help to offset some of your costs
um... getting fresh fruits vegetables, the tomatoes and the lettuce
really a huge difference between buying the commercial things that
have impact on the truck and shipped across the U.S. a lot about tomatoes
are usually picked green and then shipped and they ripen in the truck so that
you really start losing what flavor and they're a much tougher breed
I grow
heirloom tomato these are amish paste they're very very tender
easy to cut up
very very tasty tomatoes
i also do use it for electronic I also help to share some
information out other people onto some
so the training and uh... this year start doing some more formalized tours
and uh...
education with the greenhouse
okay number four do you filter your raft system somehow
or does your media bead system act as a filter
the media beds are acting as a filter uh... i have it set up so that
i have a media bed set up higher than the raft system
and at that then drains into the raft
uh... starting to find that i'm getting enough aerationin the water right on
how to put their stones in with the rafts at all
so that's helping save a lot of money with electricity by not having the pump
air to the system
so that's very beneficial inside of all the media beds
i do have read wiggle worms that are used for helping to degrade the uh...
fish waste that gets into the beds
so it's basically a very complete
ecosystem were you know the fish styles going into the beds
the worms break it down
the nutrients are in that bed then flushes into the rafts and then back
into the fish tank
number five
who are your favorite you tubers
well i have a few
um...
primarily i enjoy the paul wheaton twelve channel he runs the permits dot com
website
it's a nice forum for our people that want to work on permaculture and they
cover a lot of different things on
uh... permaculture rocket mass heaters and sustainability
so that he has a pretty good website has some
pretty entertaining video city puts out and also enjoy the smarter every day
channel which is destinws2
and i'll put links to these uh... down below in the comments are in the video
uh... he has a really good channel where he
goes and analysis all kinds of different things problable my favorite so far
has been the helicopters on how they operate it was very educational and
entertaining at the same time
and then lastly
more of an entertainment site is the slow-mo guys
however there's a lot to learn what that by watching uh...
some of their videos in their slow-mo
where you can see some of the physics behind different things between fire
filling water balloons and whatnot so my uh... also enjoy watching that
so that's our first five questions
i appreciate the questions coming in and if you have more questions
feel free to leave them in the comment for this video
or you can send me an email at FAQ.bigelowbrook.com
and if you do find these videos to be educational uh... we always would
appreciate it
a donation
there's a link also provided in the video
and that is used for helping to fund the greenhouse and some of these experiments
that i work on
okay well thanks for watching