Tosra & The Auction, day 8

Plans & Power.

I am annoyed with myself that I did not think of showing the secret rooms before they all left, but I discreetly take Alith and Ciara on a tour of the secret rooms and show and describe all the escape routes, and also the balconys function and the balcony release. I will probably use the secret room under the library as a secret library. There will be writings and books I want to protect, which I do not want guests to be able to casually find or read. I'm a little worried about any moisture, but with the fireplace and secret path up, it should be okay. I have to remember to check it out during the winter and coming years. I cannot easily make it a heated space due to the returnline to the steamboiler, but I might add a couple of heaters on the ceiling. Its better than nothing. Otherwise I might store books in my bedrooms attic.

Alith agrees that the other guards should know about everything larger, including what the handles do, while Elvira or Jalida might need to know of at least the first secret room under the mezzanine to be able to clean it, and so on. Possibly they might know of a secret room each.

So we fetch Hillevi and show her, starting with the upper parts. It is amusing that she has not even discovered the discreet escape route out into the wings attic storageroom in their own bedroom, but who usually checks if you can pull out a piece of the wall? Hillevi looks at the handles with renewed respect and hardly dares to go out on the balcony outside my bedroom, but it feels very stable and from above or below you can hardly see anything that attracts attention. The same goes for the inner balcony they have already walked on many times and never suspected anything is special about it. Accompanied by Pedr and a big pole and rope to leverage it back and reset it, we try to release the inne balcony, which works and makes it difficult to reach the corridor. I wouldn't want to try climbing it when someone is waiting for me with weapons. Seems like a good way to loose your hand or fingers, and then fall down.

After Pedr leave I take Hillevi down and show all the secret cellars. I tell her the line about a secret door, down to a secret cellar, which has a secret door to another secret cellar, which has a secret passage in it, that has a secret passage in it. When I say that was the reason I got them to build everything, Alith just smiles, but Hillevi understands me and loves it. Everyone agrees that it can be useful, not least the basement vault where I intend to have valuables. There are already two iron-clad doors with brackets for locks mortared in to the wall. I need to buy or make some padlocks.

When they all realize that the mezzanine windows are slightly lower windows on the outside than the inside, they like it, and confirm that it is very difficult to see from the outside. From close by, the angle from below is wrong, and the sky reflects in the glass, and at a longer distances it is hardly visable as well, and here is so much new and different here than other buildings, that no one will think about it. As long as blackout curtains are set up in front of the light tunnels in the secret room in the evenings, no one will see that there is dim light just from the bottom 25 cm on the windows. Ciara offers to arrange it.

I also show them the peep holes to ensure that the library or stair alcove is empty before they open the respective secret door and go out. They also understand why the curtain in front of the staircase alcove can not tied apart, and have slight weights in the bottom so it always fall closed again and slightly overlaps, even though it gets murky inside with only the small mosaic window facing the great hall. Hillevi has assumed that the space was mostly a discreet place for intimate moments, which honestly is likely to be its primary use, as there is only a short cushioned bench for two people. But they all appreciate my clever ways of getting some light into all spaces without attracting attention from the outside.

They like that there is a small secret escape room under the pavilion, and we carefully remove the cover stone and crawl in there with a lantern each. It is a little exciting and they love that the space exists, and think its so big. 51m² with a fireplace at each end and a 1m² water tank in the northwest side arch. I can stand in the middle of the main arch, with about a hand width in the margin. It is possible to hide here in an emergency for a week or two, even if it will be a rather miserable time. We will store some dry food, blankets and lanterns with a case of extra candles in the boiler room which can then be brought with when we escape into the escape room, and they will also make sure to put something here that we can lie on instead of the stone floor. There will be some hard wooden benches and simple bunk beds with rope net bottom that will be a little softer than wood to lie on. I take the opportunity to measure and write down what is needed, and Hillevi is proud to be given the responsibility to make sure the escape room is equiped and ready.

If we are in such a crisis that the escape room needs to be used, we can accept the compromises, and in the future they will also store some weapons here, and beside oiling in the iron, I suggest storing it in large clay jars that are sealed as additional protection against corrosion. I say nothing about it, but I should do some kind of buried cache in some places with weapons and gold, and I can do it on some small island or hidden place I own, but which are otherwise uninteresting. I also have more properties via Radgeirrson, so should place caches in them and in Skiringsalr. I can always expand caches gradually, but 5-10 ounces of gold, flint and lighter, a few knives, two axes, a saw, spear tips and a pair of swords would not be wrong. Food would have been practical, but the only thing that really last for decades is honey, and it is possible to include some vessels with properly sealed honey.

We discuss the strategies for whether things happen, how they should react, and how evacuations should take place. In the event of a fire, they can, for example, use the escape route via their room if it is safer and pull people out that way, or up and out via the attics stained glass window which is fully openable to be able to reach the work platforms on the roof. They will arrange a rope with knots to climb down. Probably a rope ladder in the future, and also make a rope ladder for my bedroom balcony.

Its a pretty big event when I climb out on the wing roof's work platform and with the farmhand Hrapprs help mount the wind turbine in the brackets outside the guards attic windows. The work platform is just seven meters long and 0.6 meter wide surface of wooden poles that can be walked on, and there is a safety line against the wall. We have simple improvised five-point harnesses made of rope, and we use the strong carabiners with screw locking I had on the backpack. The carabiners are a novelty, but practical, so I will manufacture carabiners in different models, but they won't be in blue anodized aluminum. Simple leather safety harness will also be arranged. It might save someones live, and a bad fall that causes bone fractures is not to be taken lightly here. I had to order the farmhand to use the harness and safety rope to climb out here, because as expected he consider it an unnessecary hassle, and I guess he wanted to prove his masculinity and fearlessness. But I just said that it is not a question of being fearless, as accidents happen and it is just stupidly to not do what you can to protect yourself. You won't go to Valhalla or Folkvang if you have been stupid and careless. So I made it mandatory that everyone will always use a harness and rope when going out on these work platforms or directly on the roofs, and Hrappr will need to use it when he is going to soot the chimneys in the future. Ciara and the guards definitely appreciated my safety thinking.

The wind turbine will only extend about 1m above the top of the roof, and I wonder how the large angled roof will strengthen winds in certain directions. In strong winds, the guards can just open the window, stretch out and loosen the rope and lower the wind turbine so it is more protected, which also block rotation. I do not want it to spin out of controll, but I don't think there are any major issues in quite high wind, especially if it is lowered and blocked.

The location by the windows allows me to pull the power lines down under the window to the other side, into the steam pipe ducts and down to my workshop. If I build a steam generator in the basement, its power line can go up to the same battery system, again via the steam lines, and from there to the workshop or out into the house.

I need to make sure to make better protection for copper wires in the future. But how? The only thing I can think of is paper or some type of woven cover that is impregnated in tar or similar. I should probably make a small machine for such special cable weaving, and see how tar etc reacts with the copper wire or the surroundings and weather. I simply have to make something like five different solutions and hang them outside where they are exposed to sunlight, rain and ice. In a year I will know.

In any case, the installation goes well without problems except for being soaking in sweat, but Ciara makes sure to help me with that problem in the bathroom afterwards, but first she takes the opportunity to cut my hair and beard, and afterwards we become more sweaty. Ciara has been looking forward to it just being us two here for the next few days.

Two craftsmen have opened up the facade so we can get the power lines in and down. The space under my workshop attic stairs is a good place for a large battery bank with all the cells stacked on the floor. Above, I attach a shelf with controls, fuses made from iron wire and coupling plates and blocks made in brass. Two oversized classic brass switches are installed, to connect the power plant to the battery, and the battery to the house wires, and a simple control and charging system is attached. Again a compromise, but it works, and the lead-acid cells don't really care that the wind turbine gives slightly pulsating charge as blade after blade ends up in the optimal position for the wind. Thankfully, the batteries have such a large total capacity that they are a good buffer. It will be interesting to test the improved batteries.

I change power resistors and do discharge tests on the cells so I can see which ones are the best. We write down and save the values, and I now know how to make the rest more efficient. Not that the others are bad, just quite a lot of difference in capacity and how much power they can leave. An improvement is an improvement, and they are still far behind modern car batteries, not to mention a modern lithium battery in energy density. So I take the opportunity to build the remaining cells finished according to the same method, and replace the 3 worst from the first build. So now there are three 12V batteries, each with 6 cells. It is difficult to measure the total capacity, but considering that the only current purpose is to charge the tablet, mobile phones, cameras and MP3 player, it still feels like overkill.

It was again unpleasant to try to solder fine components with a heated copper rod, but it works, and gives me practice for future more demanding soldering. I disassemble the 230V USB charger which can also do 9V fastcharging and change its input so that it can fast charge from the 12V battery, which also means that I get several more powerful diodes, which I connect in parallel with the wind turbine's existing diode so it will not burn. They are certainly not balanced, but the diodes should be able to handle 8-10A now, which is a 90-120W charge. Right now, it is very much overkill. I add simple cooling fins in copper on the diodes in the hope that it might help, because I can not replace a semiconductor component that breaks, even if I will try to make copper oxide rectifiers. Even if I succeed, they will not be as good, and certainly not as small. But something that is 100% Alfheimr done and works well enough, is to prefer over a Midgård one.

I wonder if electrolysis or heat is most effective in making a good oxide layer? Electrolysis should be the easiest thing for me to do, and most slow and controlable. Copper oxide rectifiers would be extremely valuable and an important technological step for Alfheimr, for battery charging and more.

I also add on a couple of filter capacitors from the same regulator to reduce voltage spikes and limit interference from the wind turbine. In the future, I should make a safety switch that disconnects if the voltage across the power resistor becomes too high, as then the current is too high. I really need to figure that out, and build a control and monitoring panel somehow in the future, and I absolutely need to build a moving coil instrument so I don't have to use my little multimeter for everything.