Well, to answer your first question, I would expect nothing less from a badass super smart off grid person than to share their worst failures, and most stupid mistakes! There's no shame in admitting to them, and it may be highly valuable info for other aspiring badass super smart off grid people.
As for mice, believe me, it could get worse... or let's say smaller! Have you heard of the damage bedbugs (as well as probably many other kinds of insects) can cause to electronics? So even if you manage to make a place entirely mouse-proof, other critters might still be able to get in. So what solution can I suggest? Hermetically sealing off a place can be super hard to impossible, which means you won't get around monitoring carefully and regularly. (Even then you could miss things, which is likely what may have happened.)
As for the shipping container, those things can be amazing (I'm a big fan of them), but they also heat up quite fast. Have you thought about berming them up? Of course, that involves moving a bit of dirt around, but it makes a world of a difference, especially if you dig in the southern side. Another option would be letting plants cover the thing, but that may not be entirely viable in your climate (scorching days and freezing nights I guess), and in any case it takes time for them to grow.
Anyway, thanx for sharing!
Thank you for the very nice comment!
There were a lot of moths in the inverter, and the guy that works for the solar company told me that one of his customer's boards got fried because a spider crawled over it and made a connection and POOF! $500 board fried!!! I didn't know about the bedbugs, those things are so nasty.
We did elastomeric the roof which helped, but I think we need to elastomeric the southern exposure side, as lots of heat comes thru that. An earthbag berm is actually a really good idea.
No plants for us, although we don't get past the low 90s (AZ mountains) the water is the issue. Good thought.
Hope all is well for you!
Well, I'm glad you liked it! 😜
Yes, bugs are such an issue. I've been reading a lot of Paul Stamets lately, making me envision some mean fungal defense. For our theater building in Mazunte it's actually the termites that pose the greatest problem, and some fungi are super effective in combating them. So I'm sure some other ones could be just as effective in protecting your electronics. However, I'm also a bit afraid of causing too much disruption to their society, which I don't want to do. Maybe regular maintenance (meaning cleaning the equipment inside and out) is the best technique after all... 😞
Definitely going to be opening up the inverter and cleaning it out once a month. The shipping container should technically be bug free if we keep it all closed up. That is fascinating about the fungus method, I am going to check that out! It may make for a good post if you want to write about it 😉
Well, I can only write what I've read: There are certain fungi (sold online as a natural insecticide) who not only kills individual specimen of a certain species (say termites), but it infects, kills, and decomposes their whole hive. Not much of a post, if you ask me, unless I combine it with some personal experience in practice. But like I said, as "natural" as this whole approach seems, for me it's just switching from chemical to biological warfare, making me worry that its collateral damage will come back to bite us in the ass.