posted by katlupe on Dec 4
Setting up your solar system is not as easy as putting your solar panels in the sun and plugging them in. Too bad as many more people would want to do it then. You have to study your house and property to see where exactly you need to put the panels. When we first moved here we only had one panel. So we could go outside and move it around to follow the sun. That’s okay when you are starting out. Not if you have more than one or two though. It can get tiring after doing it every day in all kinds of weather. You wouldn’t want the panels to get blown over due to the wind or a storm. We were lucky when we got hit by an in line tornado in 2000. We had about six trees down on our house, but no damage. Most important was that there was no damage to our lone solar panel which was on the side of the house the trees hit. Didn’ get touched though.
A tool that can help you decide where your panels should go is called the Solar Pathfinder
It will give you the sun potential for the whole year! Good to use for setting up a garden as well. It also has software that you can purchase to help you in accessing your solar energy needs called the Solar Pathfinder Assistant Software
You really need the sun as much as you can get it. Our sun here in upstate New York is not as dependable as other places in the country. We are hardly getting any right now (December). We plan on putting our solar panels on top of our barn roof hopefully next year. If we were just setting this up though and had this handy tool, we would have just seen from the start that the place to put them was up there. My husband has observed every hour, every day, every month, every year that the place to put them would be the barn roof. It gets sun consistently.
Here’s the information you need to check it out. It is essential to use the if you are building a new home and plan to set up a complete alternative energy system. Tell me what you think about it.
Copyright © 2008 Kathleen G. Lupole
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posted by katlupe on Dec 2
The only problem with solar energy in New York state is that we don’t get as much sunshine as the other states. You have to add up the wattage of every appliance you need or want to use and then double that for our state. That tells you how many watts worth of solar panels you need to buy. That can and does add up the bucks right there! There are many people who have built their own. In our case we just buy them little by little. But for the people who just have to have it all right away, and there are many people like that. It’s nothing to be embarrassed by, but some people can sacrifice for the big payoff at the end and some just can’t. Here is where the idea of building the panels yourself come in. Solar, Wind, Batteries, Bio-Diesel And Home-Making Components!
If you are handy I think that would be a good idea. I am thinking of having my husband give it a go. As then we could get the two panels more we need to buy the SunDanzer solar refrigeration and freezer. As we all know the most expensive part of off the grid living is building your system so if you are going to be able to build at least some of your components then it becomes much more doable for the common person like us.
We all see the rich and famous adding solar to their mansions. Yeah, they can do it with no problems. Just pay someone big bucks to come in and switch them over. Then the regular every day people like us say, ” Hey you have to be rich to have solar. I can’t afford what Darryl Hannah can.” But you can if you work it right. Start small and build it. That is what I have done. You should have seen the tiny little charge controller we started with! And an automotive inverter from Walmart. Not even forty bucks at the time. But we had tv! That was all we had. And we were happy with that……..then.
Copyright © 2008 Kathleen G. Lupole
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