Solar Baby

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 360 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 Oct 3

I belong to a couple off-the-grid forums. Recently a person posted about wanting to know exactly how to locate off-the-grid property. I have written about this in my book, My Homesteading Journey, but thought maybe I need to add a little more detail as well as update the information. The thing we did was to look for “don’t wanter” types of properties as we call them. Meaning the seller doesn’t want the property anymore and wants to sell it very badly. Plus there is something about the property that makes in not able to get financing through a bank or mortgage company. That in turn, makes the seller have to hold the mortgage for you.

The next thing to look for is the type of contract you want with the seller. There are several ways to go about that. Rent to own is one of the most popular. That usually means that a portion of your rent goes toward your down payment. I am not real familiar with that type of deal so you would have to research it a little on your own. It may depend on your area of what it entails. Our homestead was a hunting camp, off the grid, no plumbing, no bathroom, house needing work and insulation, no telephone wires, on a dirt road and very secluded. No bank would touch it. So in order to sell it the sellers either had to wait for an all cash deal or finance it themselves. I wrote up a proposal and they changed a couple of things and we worked it out and got it.

Hunting camps are ideal for the modern homesteader or for someone just wanting to be off the grid. Living off the grid is not for everyone. If you and your family agrees on it that is fine. But if one person in your family balks at the idea then it may not be a good choice for you family. Or if you have plenty of money or are able to take out a loan to purchase your equipment that is one thing. I am talking about frugal living here so I can’t comment on that aspect.

You can easily move into a home that is not hooked up to the power grid and make it doable until you can add your first components. A generator could help with some of the things you need. Starting off you will need a way to cook, a way to get water, a way to heat your home if it is cold or for when it turns cold, lighting, a way to keep your food cold and a way to bathe and wash laundry. I think I have them all covered there.

When we moved here in 1999 we had already bought several things in advance and one of them was our Jewel Wood Cookstove. We bought her at a antique shop and had installed her in the house we were living in. So I learned how to use her before our move. Another item we bought was a wood heating stove that we were able to use in that house also. I had never been around wood stoves and had to learn everything. From starting fires, to keeping the fire going, how to bank it back for the night, what to do when it got too hot (besides scream!), cleaning the chimney, how to gather kindling for starting the fires, how to get firewood, how to split it (three jobs I happily gave to my hubby!) and I even learned how to cook on my heating stove as well. Still do that to this day!

Now for lighting, we were hoping we would have an off the grid house but wasn’t sure we could find one. So we started buying kerosene lamps in thrift stores and using them in the front room of our house at the time. We both loved them! Learned how to fill them, clean the chimney and trim the wick. So when we moved here and the first few years before we added electric lights we had 12 lamps and 2 lanterns. Our house was brightly lit! Even now we still have one or two but use the electric lights mostly……afterall, they are free. The lanterns we could hang on the front porch for a night light and my husband would carry one when he went out to give the horses their night hay.

This house it turned out was already set up with a pitcher pump out front for water, an outhouse, a Servel propane refrigerator, a propane cooking range and a huge Alaska wood stove. The chimney was not set up correctly and we could not use the heating stove till my husband put a new chimney in, but the items were in place. The house had no bathroom only an outhouse. So we bought an old claw foot bath tub from a junk shop and the downstairs bedroom quickly became our bathroom. We also had purchased a Sun Mar composting toilet which we used a few years then after reading the Humanure Book started using the famous sawdust toilet. One of the first things my husband did was to install drains so that we could use the bath tub and sink even without running water. I heated water on my stoves and poured the water into a sink or the tub and still do. Before he did that we did use a solar shower outside. But not good in cold weather so he quickly put in the drains. That made it so we could shower or take baths and use the kitchen sink. Washing dishes in dish pans and dumping the water outside was not a job I liked to say the least!

In the beginning we used the small propane tanks that are used for gas grills for our propane. We filled them at our local convenience store. Had 5 of them and would take the empty ones with us when we went to town. Did that for the first few years. Now our propane is hooked up to a big tank the propane company comes to fill it up. Like that convenience! Since we took out our refrigerator which I wrote about on a previous post we are using less propane. Eventually we will have the SunDanzer units but for the time being no money is being spent on refrigeration except for buying ice when it is hot out. Which is a short time here in NY state.

I hope this helps for people with questions on how to get started with finding that piece of property. Another thought I had is that you can contact a realtor, which is what we did. Tell the realtor what you are looking for. Many times they show you what they think everyone wants….not what you really want. They may have listings they don’t show much because they think it isn’t good enough. But once you get them to see what you really want………they may have many of those listings for you to choose from!

Copyright © 2009 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 Mar 31

Since I have been living for ten years now in an off the grid home I have learned so much on how to conserve my power. In the fall and winter the time we call “dark days” of October, November and December it is essential to be very careful. Since we do not have what is called a “normal” house as of yet, many things that others take for granted I do not even own. So it is probably not that hard for me as it would be for someone else. Looking for energy efficient appliances should be the first thing you do when you are thinking about changing to your own system.

I am used to cooking on a wood cookstove, though I do have Premier Propane cooking range. What is so unique about mine is that it does not have any electrical parts. No timers, no lights, not even a oven light, no clock and most especially no “glow-bar”. Now what is a “glow-bar”? It is the reason so many people cannot use the oven in their gas cooking ranges when there is a power outage! 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.

Ordinary AC refrigerators and freezers run on over 200 watts AC, and run many hours a day. Most have less than 2 inch insulation. Fortunately, special refrigerators and freezers are available which use less than 30% as much energy. Sunfrost refrigerator products have 4- to 6-inch insulation, and a quality compressor on top where it can’t put heat back into the box. The RF-12 model runs 50 watts for 12 hours a day, totaling 600 watt hours a day. Compare that to the standard models which use around 3000 watt hours each day. Just think how that would cut that electric bill down!

It goes without saying that another big saving for any household is to hang your laundry outside. I do that, and even in the snowy cold winter of New York state. It is no big deal to me, and I admit to liking the way my home looks with my laundry hanging on the line. 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. But what a savings for the family on the grid as well! 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, saving 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 good way to save on the electric bill every month. I have purchased a brand new energy star model made by Whirlpool under the name of Cabrio and it uses so little power that we don’t have to run the generator to operate it. It goes without saying that these energy efficient appliances are a little pricey. But worth every penny!

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. Even if you never go off the grid but just dream about it, changing your appliances is a change that could really impact your usage and bills.

Copyright © 2009 Kathleen G. Lupole

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