Off The Grid

True that the thermal mass is more the plaster, not the straw, and as I understand it, the sun's heat doesn't penetrate all that far into the material.

I just dropped a couple hundred bucks on insulation to keep my attic warmer, which should pay for itself in a winter or two in terms of energy savings, something the oil company doesn't want you to know (they'd just as soon have you not have any insulation at all, that way they make more money).

After I built my kitchen I decided to turn my attic into a living space, a master suite with a bedroom, a bathroom, a balcony, and a wood stove for heat. There's a spiral stair case going up to it, and it's been freakin' freezing the past week or so, so the attic gets cold quickly despite the fact that I insulated it fifteen years ago, but the insulation is inadequate. 'Course back then I didn't know anything about insulation. I figure if I insulate it more, and add a vapor barrier, I should be able to keep it warmer even after the wood stove burns out, with all that heat from the lower level creeping up through the hole in the ceiling formed by the spiral stair case.

In addition to the master suite there's a sorta man-cave den area up there my friends and I sneak off to to grab a smoke while hiding from our kids, lol. Anyway, the den has a few sky lights I installed fifteen years ago before I knew how impractical they were. It occurred to me this morning that I can capitalize on those skylights. They can serve as glazing for air solar panels, of the design I spoke of earlier in which you take soda or beer cans and stack them together, cutting the tops in such a way as to create a diffuser between one can and the next. Then you mount them to a panel of insulation and spray them with flat black spray paint. I could mount them so that they are easily removable when the weather gets warmer, or when I want more light up there.

Good idea on the raised beds for the gardens, 'sounds like you must've raised them a couple feet or so, what did you use for retaining walls?

I've got a solar green house I built off my kitchen, but the solar patterns are such that I don't reap much benefit right now. It'll be the bomb in late winter/early spring, and should extend my growing season considerably.

And don't get me started about growing herb, you guys have it made up there in Canada. I've wanted to grow my own for years, but at this point I could lose everything if I get caught. That seems to be changing though, now that the government is so strapped they can't afford to continue this senseless war on drugs. I guess there are some things to be thankful for in this mess.

 

...and if I didn't know better, I'd swear you changed your appearance to look like Julian Assange, my hero, lol.

 

We haven't yet... the raised beds are on the list of things to do. They will be built using railroad tie with cedar covering the insides of the beds (to keep the leaching from the tie away from the growing soil).

See, a lot of people makes this mistake... we don't actually grow any herb here at the moment, do the exact same reasons... If the cops arrest you and can prove (which has nothing to do with truth), that you paid a single mortgage payment with 'drug' money, they can take it all...

I don't take any risks that put the property in danger.

And yes, it is Julian Assange...

Follow the signature link to a thread about him.

 

Cedar is an amazing material. It resists rot and insects, and best of all it's natural.

After spending some hours crawling around in the space above my attic, I think I've got it insulated. The bummer was the pitched part of the attic roof I couldn't get to, because it's finished and I didn't want to rip down the sheet rock to add insulation. For that I added sleepers and tacked up reflectix insulation, which is basically bubble wrap with a highly reflective coating. An expensive option, but it works well if you provide an air gap behind it. Now with the wood stove going it stays toasty up there, long after the fire burns out.

I'm surprised y'all have the same issues with growing we do, but I guess it pays to be careful, and the cost of herb has gone down while the quality has gone up in the past few years, at least that's been my personal experience. Like I say, some things we can be thankful for, lol.

 

...and as for Julian Assange, we can all be thankful for him as well, because the only way to effect meaningful change in the world is to expose the truth.

 

OK, so I finally bit the bullet and spent like six grand on solar thermal equipment, including two solar panels, a forty gallon indirect water heater for my domestic, and an eighty gallon tank for the heating loops. I've got a circulator pump that runs directly off a 20-watt PV panel, so when the sun's out, the circulator runs, no need for controls. I'll keep y'all up to date as I progress.

Mind you, I haven't abandoned the idea of PV panels, and even batteries and a transfer switch, but for now I'm looking to get the biggest bang for the buck, and thermal's where it's at as far as I can tell. You get something like a 5-to-1 return over PVs when you look at the cost of the equipment versus the savings in energy costs, particularly now that oil is so expensive.

 

That's awesome man.

Well... everything except the size of that bullet... lol

 

The panels are mounted on the roof, and the plumbing's routed to the basement, now I just need to hook it in, test the lines for leaks, and crank it up. So far it's been easier than I expected, but it's always that getting it to work after putting it together part that always kicks my ass, lol.

I spoke to a guy today about solar PV's, evidently the cost of the inverters and the panels has gone way down since I last assessed it, time to reconsider...

 

Well, I used to say that people should wait on pv panels, because the price will be coming down...

Now, I think each person should try to balance their pocket book, with their faith in how long the system will last...

If you can afford to get pv panels, get them... while you are at it, you may want to check into replacement glass for each panel. Barring any physcial damage, most of the 'wear' on them is just on the glass surface. Technically speaking, you will lose about 1% efficiency per year due to glass wear... replacing the glass brings you back up to near normal even after 20 years.

 

Thanks for the link, that place has some good stuff for camping, which I will look into when I can afford to.

At this point the panels are totally hooked up and the system has been brought online, but just my luck it's been cloudy and rainy, so I haven't had much of a chance to see it work.

If you're doing it yourself make sure the components are rated for high heat, since the fluid coming out of the panels on a hot summer day can reach 300F, so you gotta use copper. Pex and PVC are only rated for 200F. Sweating the joints is the way to go, mapp gas works better than propane for that. Make sure the joints are clean and use plenty of flux, and heat the other side of the joint to the point where the solder melts into the joint. As for components, in addition to collectors and storage tanks you need air vents at the top to fill the system, an air eliminator, an expansion tank, and a circulator pump with a check valve at the output to prevent back flow. Also plenty of ball valves to isolate components like the circulator pump, in case you need to service it, and drain valves to drain the thermal loop and the tanks if necessary. In freezing climates use propylene glycol antifreeze, and if you put a fill valve at the top of the system on the roof you can fill it that way, then hook it up to your water pump with a hose to top it off and bring the pressure up to 30 psi or so. It's also important to test for leaks prior to filling it with antifreeze, which is expensive. I've got a test jig I can hook it up and fill it with air up to around 60 psi. If it holds all night you're good to go. Also, make sure the panels are grounded by running a ground wire from the panels down to a ground rod. If you don't, your hot water system becomes a lightning rod, which isn't too cool if you're in the shower when lightning hits.

It's a financial commitment not to be taken lightly, so gotta do your homework and run the numbers before you jump in. I would love to do what's best for the environment, but I'm not willing to break the bank for it. If everything works as expected, I should be able to save enough oil to where the system will pay for itself in three to five years. Not a bad return, considering the stuff will last at least twenty years. As for the glass, you're right, I spent a little more to get really high quality panels with good glass. You wanna avoid polycarbonate for the glazing because it gets cloudy after a few years.

Now if instead of giving the oil companies subsidies to the tune of four billion a year to drill for oil we at least put some strings on those subsidies like requiring them to use that money to develop renewable energy maybe we'll get somewhere, but I don't see that happening any time soon. I noticed my PV panel is made by none other than BP, so I know those guys are in the renewable energy business, they just don't focus on it that much because it's not that profitable--it won't be until more people reject oil and go for greener alternatives. And if you wanna do what's best for the environment you gotta do it yourself, the government won't help you unless you wanna go through one of those lame programs they have that serve only to enrich the contractors who install the systems, which they charge you an arm and a leg for. Although, in a way the government will help you, because you can deduct the cost of the equipment off your income tax.

 

The government had an amazing program for pv here, although they have cancelled it/are cancelling it (still honoring signed contracts of course. They would sign 20 year contracts with people to buy the electricity they produced from solar... at 10 times the price we pay for it as consumers...

Yeah, that's right, they are paying 10 times what it sells for.

http://microfit.powerauthority.on.ca/

Now, I'll admit, I am no financial genius... but when I heard about this program, I knew three things... it wouldn't become a permanent program... it would cause the cost of electricity to go up... it would help the cost of pv come down... and I wanted to be part of it.

Unfortunately, unless you have the money or the credit rating to borrow the money, it isn't feasible... Someone sent me a link to this company though;

http://haysolar.com/

They come and build you a barn 36x250' (other sizes available) and cover the roof in panels, and they collect the money off them for 20-25 years... then it all becomes yours.

The best part though is that you can use the barn, as long as you don't make any structural changes, add any heat sources or such... basically, you can use it for storage of equimpment and supplies... PLUS of course (which is the best part) you can use it as an animal barn...

and if society happened to collapse before the 20 years is up, you are sitting there with a barn and 100k watts of generating power...

yes, I signed up, I still wont know til later this year if I made it or not though.

 

Ignore all that about that company... after contacting them today, and having a long converstion in which I though things were going amazingly well, things went... askew...

I already had a lease signed with the company, but apparently, hay solar sold part of their business to an american company.

One of the partners from that company (the guy I was talking to today) sent me a new lease and said if I didn't sign it, it could literally be years before getting approval... but with the new lease I would be put on the "Super Priority Status" which would ensure my application was dealt with immeditately.

When he sent me the new lease, all the provisions describing the barn were gone, replaced with;

No mention of wall covering, doors, windows nothing... On the original site, you can see they had it all laid out with specific options being made clear for each.

With the way the new lease is written, they can walk in, put the poles in, roof on, pv panels up and collect the money, and there wouldn't be a thing I could say about it.

When I asked him to add some specifics to the lease covering these aspects, he literally blew me off...

I forwarded all this info onto the gov agency that takes care of these things and informed them all that I want nothing to do with any of the people or companies involved in this.

 

Well, now, there's your problem, lol, welcome to the world of American Capitalism. Nothing gets done around here unless someone can exploit the shit out of someone else.

I've looked into the solar lease program here and it's bullshit as well. I would be signing my life away to be held hostage financially for twenty years, so, what, I can feel good about what I've done for the environment? Fuck that. Our government will never give us more than what amounts to political whitewash until the will of the American people tell them to do otherwise, and it'll have to be through their wallets, not their votes. A guy at the gym told me that the oil companies should be subsidizing renewable energy, that they could make a lot of money on selling the equipment. My response was, who do you think makes the equipment now? Of course, the oil companies, and the reason they don't want us to buy into it is every capitalist's dream is expendable product, namely oil, not the equipment, so their financial bottom line dictates that they discourage renewable energy, regardless if they can make money on it.

So the only viable way to build the renewable energy infrastructure for yourself is to do it yourself. You can hire a contractor, but the more they do, in terms of design and labor, the more they rape you.

I finally got this thing hooked up and running, and the sun came out yesterday. The pump came on and the thermal loop heated up from 62 F to 120 F. I imagine it'll take a few days to bring the temperature in my tanks up, but I expect the thermal loop will probably get considerably hotter. I still need to button things up and get the insulation on the pipes, which brings up the point that you gotta use fiberglass to insulate the pipes, not that cheap plastic shit that'll melt down into a sticky mess and possibly start a fire.

 

So far so good, the shit's running and I'm getting most of my hot water for free 'cause the furnace hardly kicks on at all, not even after my kid takes a shower, and that says a lot, lol. However, I think I can do better, so I've ordered another 20W PV panel to drive my pump, which cost me 109 bucks, and I plan to angle it a little more west to get more circulation time out of my day. I'll also probably end up getting another thermal panel, but that'll be down the road.

Last night I went to a presentation from a retired professor who was sharing his knowledge of PV panels. Earlier in the thread I'd kinda dismissed PV's as expensive and complicated to install, but he presented a very pragmatic and inexpensive approach, which basically entails the kit shown in this http://www.amazon.com/Ensupra-ReadyMade-Solar-Energy-Watt/dp/B004NANFX2/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1307462774&sr=8-4"]link, only he uses six 180W panels and two Ensupra 550W grid tie inverters, which he connects to a "Y" that he plugs into a wall socket in his garage. This system's easy, 'cause all you have to do is plug it into a wall socket, no permanently installed equipment to be inspected by the town, and the system's safe, assuming you don't plug too many of these inverters into one circuit, you gotta pay attention to the ampacity rating of the circuit and not exceed it. If the power goes out or the plug is pulled out of the wall, the inverter kicks out, so no worries about getting shocked. And you don't have to mount the panels on your roof either, you can build racks for them in your back yard or just lay 'em on the ground in a sunny location. He advocates as I do that you get 12V panels, and connect them in parallel. If you connect them in series like the contractors do (because it's cheaper for them to install), you lose power if one panel gets shaded, not so with a parallel configuration. If you want to have a battery backup, you can add it to the system with a transfer switch and a charge controller/inverter to charge the batteries. The point is, the system's scaleable, which was the one thing holding me back before.

If you get someone to install a grid tie solar system for you, expect to pay about $10-$15/Watt, but if you do it yourself, you can get it down to $1.50-$2/Watt. I pay around $0.10/KWH for my electricity, so if I had a 1 KW system, which would cost me around $2,000, I might get 200KWH per month, which would save me $20/month, for a pay back time of around ten years. The system should last at least twenty years, so that's a two for one return on investment, not as good as solar thermal, but not too shabby.

This guy also got into the implications of an impending energy crisis with fossil fuels, something the media won't tell you but the experts know about, namely that in 2012 the gap between supply and demand will suddenly increase, and the supply will drop dramatically from there, what he calls the "energy cliff," at which point the demand for alternative energy equipment will spike, and it may become difficult to get and expensive.

Another interesting point this guy made as someone presented the classic leftist argument of why not get the government to do more for us, the answer of course being they never will, so you gotta do it yourself--it's good to see a retired professor agrees with me, and he came to the same conclusion independently, so maybe I'm on to something.

 

I think this confirms my worst fears...

I may be the cheapest person left on earth... because that still sounds awfully expensive to me... lol

But, besides testing to make sure it does shut the power off if there is a black out, it is a nice kit and a good way to start and expand for sure.

I'm still more impressed with your hot water set up though... lol

 

Thanks man, solar thermal is the way to go if you live in a temperate zone, low hanging fruit so to speak. PV's are pricey, but you'll be stoked you have 'em when the grid goes down. I'll probably get a 1KW system like this guy was talking about for a couple grand, enough power to keep the lights on, and the water pump and the furnace running, plus with a 12V system, I can drive most of my electronics directly.

If you're like me, you don't like batteries, but it would be pretty sweet to have some storage for those stretches you don't have sunshine. I also need to look at wind or hydro (I've got a stream in my back yard), but I don't think I have enough of either to justify the expense.

Another thing to consider, and my buddy the organic farmer from Canada of all people brought this up, is the fact that all the shit that's on the grid these days is dirty power, lotsa high frequency harmonics comin' in due to ridiculously complicated loads, so the wires in your house are like transmitters, and that shit ain't good for ya, so if you can get off completely you might be doing yourself a favor, but it comes at a price. Of course, the less energy you use, that price comes down dramatically.

 

water power??? got something for that too... lol

http://www.microhydropower.com/

 

Nice. Everything I've read suggests hydro gives you the biggest bang for your buck for electrical energy if you've got reliable flow, and I happen to know from experience there's a shitload of energy up your way in Canada to be harnessed, it's just a bummer when the power companies up there do it on such a huge scale, it fucks up the environment. If people who live next to a river can drop some equipment in there to get what they need, there wouldn't be a need for this large scale environmental plundering, we could all be content supplying ourselves with the energy we use, and we would use less because we would steer ourselves away from energy hogging appliances and an energy hogging life style, so you end up with a consumer base that's educated and looking for ways to use less energy. At least I'd like to think so, until I see so many fucking SUV's around, but then again, we gotta give those folks time to change their ways, which they will once the cost of oil gets high enough, and it will.

...but, there are HUGE capitalist entities that subsist entirely on the energy economy, and they want you to be afraid to think such thoughts. No, you can't do that, it's against what's conventionally accepted, right?...

...which is bullshit because you can do it, and it's easy.

If we can get away from our dependency on energy from the big companies, and instead harvest it ourselves, we can call the shots ourselves, which is why the big companies (and the govm't, who works for them, not us) are working so hard to prevent this from happening.

 

if you can get the flow, especially if it's year round, it is the way to go...

The one place we had been hoping to get years ago had three lakes across the property with a drop of 15+ from one to the other... it was going to be our main source.... ah well, shit happens...

 

Well, you might be able to talk whoever has access to good hydro gradient into some sorta cooperative energy deal if you help fund and plan it, but you would probably need to go through the dreaded grid. Oh well, it's gotta be good for something. And the energy capitalists would be real jazzed to know you were exploiting them for their power lines while getting your energy for free, right? Sorta reversing roles and dealing them the wood for a change. No wonder they don't want us to think about this shit, lol.