How well do Solar Panels work?

MsLady | Feb. 8, 2011 | MsLady

[MsLady]

My hubby and me are thinking about going solar. Basically because we feel society is breaking down and things are getting very unstable. Obama seems to be h*ll bent on making our lives more costly to the point of ruining everything. And because we like the idea of being as independent as possible.

At any rate, we live way up north. Snow levels usually run 200" or more. Long winters from oct. through march/april. We probably have seen the sun 2 or 3 times since the beginning of the year. Lots of cloudy days from about dec. till feb/march. I wanted to know if anyone had experience with them, especially if you live in the north.

We will be building our own.

[kara37]

They seem to work well with small things. I have solar front gate that was to far away from my house to run electric to it. I also have some solar fans and lights in the barn. They all work well.

However, I also live in Florida.

[MsLady]

We have a great root cellar in the old creepy part of the basement...lol I told my hubby if we store veggies in there I will be sending him down to get them. We are slowly getting a bigger and bigger garden every year. We’ve always had a small backyard garden and didn’t want to jump into something so big it overwhelmed us. I’m glad we didn’t. Now we know what we will eat and not eat. What will grow well here and what won’t so we aren’t wasting a lot of time and money.

[MrB]

http://www.woodgasifiers.com/

Works with anything organic, actually - grass clippings, paper, straw, etc.

You could run a generator off of it.

[MsLady]

We have a few solar lights. They seem to work ok, but, never tried using them in the winter. We have so many cloudy days I don’t know how well they would recharge. I think I’ll experiment and turn one on until it runs out of steam, then see how long it takes to recharge.

[TheCause]

I wonder if that GIANT clock that is hanging from his neck is solar powered? (Public Enemy reference)

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Right on target.
Windows and doors and lots of insulation are the biggest bang for the buck.

[dangerdoc]

If you, your husband or a friend has basic metal fabrication skills, a gasifier is not too hard to make.

I liked the idea of being able to turn chips into electricity. I made one a few years ago but never got around to attaching it to my generator. I have a hard enough time getting it to run on gasoline.

Good luck with the new house, sounds like you have an exciting project ahead of you.

Don’t let the other freeper get under your skin. There are a few that confuse independence with the green weinies and vent their frustration on people that don’t deserve it.

[My hearts in London - Everett]

Check this out, Cansolair, Inc. a company set up by a Newfoundlander ~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRZvAAqzXIw&feature=player_embedded

[My hearts in London - Everett]

The guy says this can be used with various heating sources.

[PA Engineer]

Batteries are another issue, even if perfecetly maintained, they generally aren’t good for more than 5-6 years but I have heard of people getting 10 years out of them.

If the batteries were used only for back up and are true deep cycle, and if none of the cells are dead, then there is a good possibility that they can be desulfated.

I had an original bank of 8-L16s. Due to a poor jumper between the 24V banks I had a boil over warping during one of the charge cycles with stacked inverters. I tossed four of them because of bad cells. The others had low cycles, but were heavily sulfated. I purchased a BatteryMinder for the older batteries and my eight replacements. I am happy to report that over a four month period the 12 year old batteries have desulfated and are holding their originally rated charge.

These pulse battery charger desulfators just work. At the link are numerous models for different applications. I use them on my generator, back up power and radio shack (4-Marine Delcos) batteries. They do not boil the battery so there is very little water loss (another pain in the backside problem with batteries) and you can just about forget about them until you need to go to back up. Check it out.

[NVDave]

I’ve read about them, but I’ve never seen them to date.

[MsLady]

How does your gasifier work? And are you afraid of it...lol We are seriously going to look into that. We have about 40 acres of wood land below our little farm. No problem getting wood. We are going to be getting all purpose chickens this year too. We had chickens before but, they were just layers. Don't even try to eat one of those, they are so tough, like trying to chew rubber.

I kinda figured that's what the guy thought. I'm by no means a green wienie, just like you say, want to become as independent as possible. In the coming days and years it's just going to get worse. You can just see the handwriting on the wall. I figure if my ancestors could live off the land with little or no help. And without buying to much, then we can do it too.

[MsLady]

Thank you for the link. How often have you used one and how safe are they?

[MrB]

I have not even built one myself.
My brother is a mechanical engineer that designs/commissions power plants, and he’s played around with one at home, running a small engine with it.

The main thing, safety-wise, that you have to remember is that the main product is carbon MONoxide (the dangerous one, as opposed to carbon DIoxide).
This thing should be outside, or at least WELL ventilated.

There are pictures from WWII where farmers were running their tractors with them when no other fuel was available.

[MsLady]

It does sound like it’s worth looking into. I found some fema plans and others. My hubby could probably build one, he’s pretty handy.

[MrB]

Get the plans printed out now,
for on the morrow, the internet may be gone... :)

[dayglored]

> You sound like the weather where you live is very similar to ours. How long do your batteries last? The ones we would get from my brother in law are probably 5 years old or so, used from the state. We can get them pretty cheaply though, a couple hundred dollars.

I've got twelve 6V Rolls deep-cycle RE batteries, configured in three strings of four each (24V system). I'm not sure of the exact Rolls model but they are the poly cases with 7-year warranty, and they're getting to the end of that time. I imagine they'll last quite a few more years, as they're not showing any significant degradation of performance, but I can't say exactly.

[MsLady]

Good idea!!!!!

[Little Ray]

Great - if you’re in New Mexico or someplace else with 300+ days of sunshine per year.

The people you need to talk to are the Earthship home designers. http://earthship.com/

They specialize is building “off the grid” homes. You should have a look their site and see if they have any info on building self-sufficient homes in your environment.

[MsLady]

Thanks for the info but, we already have a home here. We are just trying to be as self sufficient as possible. We have thick insulation in the house and the best windows for this area. Two wood stoves but, it’d be nice to have some electricity so if the power goes out for whatever reason we have a least enough electricity for some basics, fridge, freezer, a couple of lights.