Solar Baby

posted by katlupe on Aug 23

Rainy Days Are Common In NY state!

What do you do when you use solar for your energy source and it rains? Not a one day rain. Here in New York state we get a lot of rain.  More than our fair share, I am afraid. I am not complaining though as many people I know online are complaining about how hot their states are. Or how dry they are. I love to garden and I love green trees, lawns and plants. I love having my hand-dug well refilled constantly by much rain and snow all year round. Yet if you are using solar for your source of electricity it can be hard to generate without the sun. If it sticks it’s head out a bit from time to time, you will get some. But the way our day looks today so far, we will not be seeing any sunshine on our solar panels.

No Sunshine!

So what we do is run our generator. It is a noise you cannot get away from. I have heard many that are much louder. One year for Christmas my husband’s family gave us a Coleman generator for a present. It was much louder than this one. It was made for camping and power outages. Not for an off-the-grid home charging it’s batteries. It did not last very long. Too much work for that little generator. We, after all…………are NOT camping!

The Generator Charges The Batteries

The generator we use is built for an off-the-grid home. It is really a kit that is sold at Backwoods Solar. According to Backwoods Solar, where we purchased our generator, “The rule of your alternative energy system is to buy a really GOOD engine driven generator and then use it as little as possible!”

It is possible to run a low-cost engine driven car alternator to charge batteries when you don’t need an expensive AC generator. Charge amps adjust manually and will hold your settings and not taper off. The AC alternator delivers over 55 amps or will run 40-50 amps at an easy low engine speed. Runs very quietly if adapted to an exhaust hose and automobile muffler. Will run several hours on one tank of gasoline. Most of the time we run it for a short period of time until the sun finally takes over.

Backwoods Solar sells one of these that comes in a kit. This is what we use and it has made a world of difference. We used to charge our batteries with a vehicle driven up to the house, and connected it that way. The exhaust was horrible! And it ran for hours, and used so much gas. This way is so much easier and quicker.

The complete kit at Backwoods Solar consists of a new 6.5 horsepower electric start Briggs “INTEK” overhead valve engine mounting base plate with belt tension adjuster, alternator, rheostat field control box with amp meter. Includes 5′ pulley and 26” belt on the 12 volt model. It can be bought without the engine, if you have one of your own. Sells now for $935.00 plus shipping. It is item number GK-KIT/12 volt.

So it runs on a day like today when all we are getting is rain. It will charge our batteries so we can be on our computers, use lights or whatever we want to do. If I chose to do laundry in my brand new energy star washing machine or to bake bread in a bread machine, this would be the ideal time to do those types of chores. When the generator is running. As we add more and more solar panels over time, we will not have to run it as often. Right now we only have five panels and living in our state means you need a lot more than that. But we can get by for the time being. If you are in a southern or western state, chances are you will not need as many as we do because you get more sun. That makes all the difference with a solar energy system. Now if we add a wind turbine, that could help us in the winter as we get a lot of wind then.

Copyright © 2010  Kathleen G. Lupole

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posted by katlupe on May 5

Since the weather warmed up my husband has been busy working on moving our solar panels to the barn roof. It entailed running the wires through the conduit that was buried underground in the fall. He had to then run the wire from there, through the barn and up the wall downstairs. Then through the ceiling up to the second floor of the barn. From there it had to go through the metal roof to where the panels would be placed on top of the barn roof. Whew! What a job that was! It was not easy as on any project like this, you do a little come to a problem and have to figure it out. Then go back to the store to get more parts or tools, and work on it some more. He said the wire was very hard to work with. It takes strong arms to get it through the conduit. He did it though with bad arms and shoulders. He also had to put in a grounding rod to protect it. All electrical systems have to be grounded.

From there the wiring had to be connected into the Midnight Solar Combiner Box. Smaller gauge wire is used from the combiner box to the solar panels on the barn roof. A combiner box is used to bring together the outputs of multiple series strings of panels and provide over current protection for each series string in the solar array. Inside the box positive and negative bus bars are used to parallel the output of each of these series strings. The box also allows you to transition between the solar panels and the batteries and/or inverter to minimize transmission voltage drop.

The National Electrical Code requires a breaker or fuse in the positive lead of each series of panels for over current protection. Series fusing prevents the possiblility of individual series strings of modules backfeeding another paralledled series string that develops an electric short circuit. Using a combiner box will give you a code-compliant, as well, as an organized wired network. To make it easier to understand, a combiner box hooks several panels into 1 DC output to connect to the charge controller. This is completely opposite of the typical home in which an AC circuit breaker panel takes 1 AC input and distributes it to several AC circuits.

As I told you in an earlier post on this blog, “This (Midnight Solar) combiner box will accommodate the 150 volt direct current charge controllers and 600 volt direct current grid-tie inverters. It is a water proof aluminum enclosure with an insulated dead front, that will take up to six 150 volt direct current breakers or four 600 volt direct current fuse holders. It runs about $109. more or less not including shipping.”

Then from there will be the job of carrying the solar panels up the ladder and putting in place on the racks on the top of the barn roof. It is not easy for someone working alone. But I am sure my husband will do the job as it needs to be done. After all, he did build our barn and put the roofing up himself. He wants it done so he can add more panels in the future and not have it be such a complicated job. I will be adding a post in a few days with the results of placing the panels up there.

Copyright © 2010 Kathleen G. Lupole
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posted by katlupe on Apr 22

Horses’ Paddock

Everybody is all excited about Earth Day 2010 today. That is a good thing. People posting on Face Book telling others to shut off extra electrical gadgets among other things. It is good if people can get others to be concerned about our earth and the extreme waste of the human race. Though I fear, it is our country that is the worst culprit. Other countries seem to be aware of the impact of daily living on the earth. Just learning some new ways of doing things can be beneficial. Remember what you do is not just impacting your life and generation but the generations coming up. Native Americans always took that into consideration and they walked softly upon the earth.

Living off the grid with a small system makes it so you have to learn to do things differently anyway. You can’t  just hook up a dryer and use a microwave without studying your system and how it would handle those excess energy hogs. You learn to give up items to be able to have other things. It may seem to be inconvenient, but today when people were posting things to do for Earth Day………….I realized I already live that way. Those things are routine for me. We are very frugal with water, with our power, with food, with driving anywhere. I use a clothesline for drying my laundry. I do many things manually and I guess many people do not like to do that. I don’t mind. Some of those jobs are my favorites.

Pitcher Pump runs on human power!

We use a pitcher pump for our water, though that will be changing this summer, we have used it for 11 years already. In the winter our pipes are never froze! I can pour a cup of warm water down the pump and it thaws it and I can use it almost instantly. It makes a difference to have that fresh water all winter. We get all the water inside for the day in the morning. Then we usually have to bring the horses more water some time during the day. And again at their supper time. That is when we refill water in the house again. So hauling it by hand makes us very frugal with it. I will stay that way, I hope, once it is in the house and running through our pipes.

Neuton Electric Lawnmower

We use an electric lawn mower and garden cart that is charged on our own solar system. Ever since we bought this Neuton electric lawnmower in 2008, my husband has loved his job of mowing the lawn. He has four batteries and the easy process of changing the batteries while he works has made his job so much easier. He can just snap the battery out and exchange it with one that is already charged. Then he puts that one on the charger. It is charging while he is mowing and the sun is shining. No gas. No fumes. No breaking down. He loves it! My garden cart is just about the same except you have to leave the battery in so it has to be charged sitting in a spot for awhile. But it goes a long time on a charge. I can use it for days without needing a new charge. I use it for working in my garden and for hauling compost. I even used it last year for hauling firewood. It was worth every penny. The reason is that I have very bad legs and can hardly walk on some days. But this little garden cart has given me back my freedom. I can work holding onto the cart. I wish I could take it to the grocery store!

Hauling Wood with my Neuton Garden Cart

We use a wheel hoe for plowing our garden instead of a gas powered rototiller. Our plan is to replace our chainsaw with a crosscut saw. Soon.  Those things take time. We do things in  little steps. I have been doing many things to automate our household and business. I am also switching from store bought foods that cost too much money for what they are such as condiments and salad dressings, breads, etc. Foods that would be better for us without so much processing done by the manufacturer. So if I make them here at home at least the condiments and salad dressings will be in glass and not plastic. I hate plastic for any food item. I am working on that. So what are you changing in your life in honor of Earth Day? It is not as hard as it sounds. For me, it is my way of life.

Copyright © 2010  Kathleen G. Lupole

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posted by katlupe on Apr 5

When anyone realizes that I don’t use a clothes dryer they really freak out! They cannot imagine living without one. Most homes have a washer and a dryer and if someone is at the laundromat it is usually due to one of those appliances breaking down. Like I have said many times on here, you have to sacrifice to have your own alternative energy system for a low amount of money. Money is what holds most people back. They will say to me, “my electric bill is only $40. a month, so it don’t pay for me to switch to my own system.” Or $10. a month. You’d be surprised how cheap some people say their electric bills are! I would not be surprised to hear them say that the electric company is paying them to use their power! LOL I don’t know why people feel compelled to explain to me why they aren’t using an alternative energy systems. That is their choice. I REALLY don’t care. For me using solar is the only way to have power. I have no choice as the grid power lines do not come to my house. And if I wanted to bring them here it would be way over $50,000. and that is no exaggeration.

The thing I am seeing about the future will be that everyone will be using solar and wind power………..but they will be paying the grid utility companies for it. You pay for someone to take care of your needs. That is fine for most of the people……..but I am talking about self-sufficiency and independence here. Not necessarily about the money. I like the freedom of not getting the electric bill. For going on eleven years we have not paid an electric bill. I can remember many times getting behind on our electric bills. I would have to pay a certain amount to keep the power on. Then pay some of the old bill and all of the new bill for the next few months. It was a struggle to say the least. We have gone through some bad times out here and if we had been hooked up, I figured it would have been turned off long ago.

But if you take the amount of money your electric bill cost and put that away for a year or two, then start buying your components………pretty soon you will be smiling! You will be saying, “look, my tv, lights and computer are running on my small system. They are not costing me to run them!” Or you will take out a small loan to buy a small system and in five years you will pay your last payment…….and you are on your own. No payment and no electric bill. I know, I know, I know, most of the people who will come here will say they love those electric grids. They love those wires strung throughout their states’ mountains and fields. They love paying those bills for the privilege of using thier own appliances in their own homes. So do I. But I don’t have to pay for it anymore. I cannot tell you how many times UPS or Federal Express drivers deliver something to my home and they turn their truck off…….yes, they turn their truck off and want to talk about our system. Now these guys and girls are usually in a big hurry to get their delivery done, but they make the time to stop and study it. In fact, one of our UPS drivers, a woman has had her own system installed the in last couple of years to power her soon to be built cordwood house.

Yes, it does make you use your appliances smarter. And if you have a spouse and children, you can even, in fact, teach them how to monitor the system themselves. I’d say it would be good for children to learn this as they are growing up in a time period when they will probably be powering their own homes with solar. Some of them may go on to be solar installers or work in the field in some way. Some of these children may decide to live as green as they can for their own children and grandchildren. To be independent and self-sufficient and not so wasteful. It seems to me that everyone has been proud of being wasteful but I think that time is changing. Our country is not the top one anymore and we have to start looking out for ourselves. An off-the-grid home has no choice as I said before, but other homes do and should take the time to learn about net zero homes and using other sources of power.

Copyright © 2010  Kathleen G. Lupole

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posted by katlupe on Mar 29

Bringing water into a house that has never had it before is a lot more complicated when you are doing all the work yourself with no help from anyone. My husband has been trying to get our water in so that by next year we can turn our faucet on like anyone else. For the time being we will not have hot running water. We will be heating the water on the stove for hot water. Eventually we will be adding a solar collector to our system.

Ditches dug in the fall when ground was soft.

My husband dug the ditches for the conduit that would hold the electrical wires and the ditch for the water pipe in the fall. He got the electric wire that is in the conduit back in the ground last  fall and covered it over before the ground froze.

The battery room

He started working on the well and the pipe that would go to it as soon as our snow had melted. We thought it was going to be a tougher job than it was. Knowing our hand dug well was put in when our house was built, which was in 1850, we had no idea what it would entail. Turns out that he just had to pull some of the rocks out that made the side of the well. It was pretty interesting to see what the inside of it looked like. From this photo you can see what it looks like, the pitcher pump sits on top on a thick flat cement block.

A glimpse inside the well.

Having our own source of water has been nice. I know many homesteaders and/or people who live off-the-grid have to drive somewhere to bring water in. Thank goodness we haven’t had to do that. Our water is very clean and fresh. Our horses are VERY critical of what water they drink and they will only drink it clean. No setting up an old bathtub for these fussy girls! I will like having it inside the house though. Getting tough carrying water for me.

Water pipe going into our hand dug well.

He used pvc pipe for the water. Once he got the pipe in he closed it back in with rock and field stones. Then he covered the whole ditch back in with dirt and compost over the top. As soon as the grass starts growing you will not even know it was dug up.

Rock filled the hole in around the pipe.

This has been a long process for us as my husband had to take the front porch off our house as well. It is all for the best as it needed replacing anyway. Not easy bringing in our wood and everything else through our sliding glass door though. Buying everything little by little as we can afford it. That keeps the work from being overwhelming I suppose. It will be a whole new thing for us to have running water in our house. But I will NEVER waste or take for granted…………….my water supply.

Copyright © 2010  Kathleen G. Lupole

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posted by katlupe on Mar 23

Since we are having a wonderful spring so far in upstate New York we are getting antsy to have our new solar panels added to our system and on the barn roof.  Putting them up there takes some work for my husband so he is doing it little by little. Once he gets the roof racks up there and fastened down, he will have to carry each solar panel up the ladder and put it in place. This is with no help. Unfortunately, I cannot climb the ladder at all. My knees have limited what work I can do anymore. So he has to do it all. He has been a good sport with no complaining. But that means that he has to do all the hard work alone and I get disgusted with myself over this. He does not complain though……and especially about our solar system. Seems like he has been very excited about it growing these last couple of weeks.

This is the electric wire encased in the conduit underground.

The electrical wire has been run through conduit to protect it from the elements underground, coming  from the batteries in the new battery room to the barn. There the wire will be connected from the batteries to the Midnight Solar Combiner Box. There will be smaller wire from the combiner box to the solar panels on the barn roof.  This combiner box will accommodate the 150 volt direct current charge controllers and 600 volt direct current  grid-tie inverters. It is a water proof aluminum enclosure with an insulated dead front, that will take up to six 150 volt direct current breakers or four 600 volt direct current  fuse holders. It runs about $109. more or less not including shipping.

Midnight Solar Combiner Box installed on barn wall

Midnight Solar Combiner Box

CLICKSYS™ is a the rack system we are using to hold our solar panels on the barn roof.  I told about them in my January 9, 2010 post. They are not cheap but they are easier to work with and eliminate 40% of the labor. So we were sold on them. They are manufactured by Unirac. You can see in the photo two of the racks at the end of the barn. The solar panels will snap right into place on them and hopefully will be safe.

One of the roof racks in place on the roof.

Copyright © 2010  Kathleen G. Lupole

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posted by katlupe on Mar 14

As I posted in the fall we are planning on adding two more solar panels to our system and placing all five of them on our barn roof. This is not an easy job due to the weather and the high roof of our barn that my husband has to work on. He managed to get out there during the nice days we had this month to put the roof racks on the roof.  I am not sure in my own head as to how he is getting the panels up there as they are pretty big. So when he is doing it I will try to get some pictures of  him in action.

This is the battery room that my husband has added onto our cellar. Our main part of the cellar is a root cellar and he did not want to add anything that would change the root cellar environment as it was built to preserve produce from the garden. He dug this all by hand even with two bad shoulders and a crushed elbow. It was a slow going process but he did it little by little as he could.

This is the battery room as it progressed. You can see the cinder block walls here. It is a narrow room but will hold our batteries, our water pump and our pressurized water tank. It will also have a platform that will lift up and to the outside with our generator on it. That way the it can run outside yet be inside and safe when not in use.  Hopefully, we will not be using it as much as we do now with the panels moved to the barn roof.

Notice the pipe built into the wall at the top. That is where the electrical wire will run through into the house. The door there leads to the root cellar.

During the fall he dug a ditch to put the electric wire in encased in conduit. The ditch comes from the room in the cellar which we call the battery room. Our 24 locomotive batteries will be in there as soon as it is finished. The conduit will keep it safe from the elements in the ground. The wire was the most expensive part so far.

This is the part of the ditch that goes around our pitcher pump and into the battery room. That is where the cinder blocks are that you see in this photo.

You can see where the panels will go. One problem with our panels though is that buying them one at a time over the years they are not all the same dimensions. That is not good if your putting them on roof racks that you have bought. Not uniform. But I know my husband will find a way to make them fit.

Our five panels will all be going on the barn roof before long.  I am looking forward to that. Our sun shines all year on that roof. We are surrounded by state forest with old growth trees that are big trees but they don’t seem to block our house or barn roof  at all. More power means I will be able to use my washing machine at long last. Looking forward to it.

Copyright © 2010  Kathleen G. Lupole

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posted by katlupe on Jan 9

In November we purchased two more solar panels and the equipment needed to FINALLY move them onto the barn roof. The barn roof gets the most sun all year long. If you study it as we have done over time you will see the areas of your property that get the most sun. We purchased two Kyocera solar panels from the alternative energy store. They did not have anything to mount them on the roof with though. My husband contacted their customer service and asked some questions and because our panels have been purchased over a period of ten years they are not all uniform in size, so nothing they had would work for us. The customer service rep was very rude with my husband on the telephone and wanted us to replace the older panels we had with new ones so they would be the same?????? Now what kind of advice is that? Must be in sales! He lost their company a sale that turned out to be over $600.!!! Which is what we spent at Affordable Solar for the roof racks.

These panels will give us almost double the power we have presently. They are Kyocera KC85T 85W 12V so will give us 170 more watts for a total of 350 watts of power. Plus putting them up on the barn roof will mean our panels will be have longer periods of sunshine even in the dark days of winter here in upstate New York. Unfortunately, our roof racks did not get shipped very fast from Affordable Solar and then all the parts came except for the parts that needed to go on the roof first. So by the time those parts came……our weather turned bitter cold and now we have our usual amount of snow and ice. So that is on hold and our two brand new solar panels are in our barn waiting for the much wished for January thaw.

We Purchased the Clicksys roof mounting system manufactured by Unirac.  Here is a link to it and no, I am not an affiliate of their’s. Just a customer.

http://www.clicksys-beam.com We wanted our panels to be secure on the barn roof as it is a high roof. On Unirac’s web site they said that the connections are secured with just a click and it completely eliminates the bolts and nuts you would normally have to use. Cuts out at least forty percent of the labor that the other types of roof racks need done. My husband was all for that! Saved time as well and he wants to get them up there and quick as possible as he does not relish the thought of doing all that work on the barn roof. On their site they say, “The new innovative design of CLICKSYS™ offers the most cost effective flush mount solution in the residential marketplace. Pricing starts as low as 10 cents per watt. Save time and money with the most revolutionary PV mounting system in the world!” My husband is building a front porch on the barn which will have have a walkway above it to clean off the panels when leaves or snow accumulates on them.

The Google campus in California had  9,000 panels to rack and a variety of roof styles to deal with so they had Unirac perform a custom engineering analysis of the site to make sure that the product they chose would work best for each of the individual roofs.  So a non-penetrating racking system was used for the standing-seam roofs which Unirac was able to provide. I like the idea of it being non-penetrating on my barn.

Copyright © 2010 Kathleen G. Lupole
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posted by katlupe on Aug 18

If you are planning on changing over to an off-the-grid energy system, the first thing I would recommend is to start cutting your electrical power usage. Of course, the main energy hogs are the ones that use heat, such as electric heaters, electric hot water, electric stove and oven and the electric clothes dryer. Air conditioning, as well. These appliances use huge amounts of your electric power, eating up your watts as soon as they are turned on. Switching to propane or natural gas for water heating, home heat, cooking and clothes drying, along with more efficient refrigerators and freezers will offer much savings.  For an air conditioning alternative, there is evaporative cooling systems. Changing to these appliances will instantly cut off more than three quarters of what you usually use while teaching you how to get started.

Screw in light bulbs should be mostly compact fluorescent lights which use about one quarter the power of regular bulbs while giving the same brightness and color. Replace your big desk top computers with laptops. They use much less power. We run 2 laptops over 12 hours a day on very little power. A desk top (actually it is the monitors) uses as much in a few hours, as our’s do in a week. The monitors are what you have to watch though they have come out with more energy efficient desk tops and monitors now. Check them very carefully.

Newer gas cooking ranges have what is called a “glow bar” in the oven. It uses electricity, so even if your power is out you can’t use the oven.  This is an electric red-hot glow-bar pilot in the oven that consumes 400 watts all the time the oven is used! Instead, look for one of two types of pilot light ovens. An oven with regular gas flame pilot light is the simplest. Better is an oven pilot that lights by electric spark when the oven is started and goes off when the oven is finished. Propane or natural gas stoves with gas pilot lights need no power connection at all.

Another option would be no options! Yes, that’s what I did when purchasing my brand new Premier propane range, It has no timer, no oven light, no light on top and no clock. You can purchase a seperate timer for a few dollars just about anywhere. And most people already have a clock in their kitchen anyway. Same with lighting. Remember you do pay for all those little options. And they are electric users.

I won’t go into the refrigeration as I went into much detail on that on my previous posts. Both mentioning the Sunfrost and the Sundanzer.

It goes without saying that another big saving for any household is to hang your laundry outside. I do that. Even in the snowy cold winter of New York state. It is no big deal to me.  You could use a gas dryer and that would give you some savings but of course there is the price of the fuel and it still does use some electricity as well.

The Staber washing machine is also built with the off the grid family in mind. It is a simply designed machine with under 200 watts running power. With only a larger surge at the start of the spin cycle which means that 165 watts per load is way less than any other regular washing machine uses. It’s a double plus as it uses less than half as much water per load as other machines as well. Spins faster than others too. That  gives you a savings in more energy in faster drying on the clothes line or in your dryer. So if you do alot of wash each week this is a very good option.

There are some appliances that consume your power twenty-four hours a day even when you think they are turned off. Televisions, stereos, office equipment, garage door openers and many, many others. These appliances, really need to turned off when you are not using them. By turned off, I mean the plug pulled out, or on a outlet strip that is turned off. Remember little things count when you are trying to cut your usage back or to switch over to your own alternative energy system. Now YOU are in charge!

Copyright © 2009 Kathleen G. Lupole

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posted by katlupe on Aug 9

A charge controller is needed for your system. It is connected to your batteries and the inverter. Our charge controller in mounted on our wall. There are many different brands and types and it can get complicated. So I will do the best I can to explain some basics for you. It would be best to discuss your needs with the dealer of the brand you choose to purchase. First I will examine each type of controller available. You will need to decide what your future plans are and plan accordingly.

The series cycling charge controller is the easiest controller that averts the overcharging of the batteries by turning the solar panel’s current on and off based on the battery voltage. As the battery voltage rises to a preset point indicating that the full charge is nearly attained a mechanical relay or solid-state switch suddenly shuts off the charge. Simple! But if the battery voltage begins to fall…..if it gets low enough it will make the controller go back on. Battery voltage rises again and the cycle continues. On and off…… This results in battery voltage averaging somewhere between the high and low set points and that prevents your batteries from overcharging.

The constant voltage charge controller is most often what is considered 3-stage. What is 3-stage? A more precise control which gives you the  most charging that is possible for that day.

Bulk charge is the first stage. This is when the power is switched straight through from the solar modules until the batteries reach the preset maximum.

Absorption charge is the second stage. This is when the maximum battery voltage is held by reducing the charge current…….. enough to never exceed the target voltage. Reduced current is high speed on and off pulsing……when controlling on time versus the off time of each pulse determines the average charge current.

Float charge is the third stage. And this is when the battery voltage is reduced after the charge is completed. Avoids excessive evaporating of battery water and will extend your battery’s life. If you are using sealed maintenance-free, AGM or gel type batteries – then the three stage with float would be the safest method of charge controlling for you.

A Diversion charge controller does not mean that it is cut off from the charging source at all. What it means is that the battery charges to the maximum set voltage. Then the diversion control senses that voltage  which in turn causes it to absorb the excess current. That in turn will exactly off-set the excess charge. That will keep the battery voltage so it never goes over the preset maximum. This will be a small amount of heat in ceramic air heating resistors or water heating elements. Your control will adjusts its consumption rate to offset the excess charging exactly. Keeps the battery voltage at…. never exceeding the preset maximum voltage. When someone is  using a wind turbine or hydroelectric which does not have it’s own charge controller then they must use a diversion controller. Those particular  types of generators will be damaged by their charge not being absorbed into the batteries at all times. One diversion controller should handle the combination of solar, hydro and wind easily. Provided the total amps charged from all three together is within it’s amp capacity.

Our  charge controller is the Xantrex C-60 60 Amps, 12 volt and I think it sold for about $245. at Backwoods Solar in 2004. We have been very happy with it and have never had any kind of problem at all. Backwoods Solar will work with you, especially if you live off the grid! They have a great little catalog that is packed full of information. It is like a little encyclopedia for anyone that is trying to set up a system and they really go the extra mile if you know what I mean. Even if you live on the grid.

Copyright © 2009 Kathleen G. Lupole

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