Alternative Solar Energy Mountain Cabin Project

[willterryart]

Nice, I wish I could afford to do this right now - I'll work towards it - it's the way we should all be thinking...I don't think we have much longer on affordable oil... If more people watched the documentary "Colapse" more people would be doing what you're doing.

[MrJivePirate]

@willterryart can we afford not to do it?

[yellowdotz]

where do you live so I can steal those panels? :p

[ryuson2000]

man, that's a pretty nice looking house.

[truegwbfan]

the gases that come out of some rechargeable( secondary) battery is normal.

[davidrrrd]

you know for a few more bucks you can add wind power to your system too.

it will help with wind at night to reduce your battery's depth of discharge.= longer battery life.

[AtvProjects]

Very Nice:) I was thinking of putting a train cart Box(I think that's what there called) and almost doing the same thing but all the way underground and a ladder down, good thing i Didn't. I love the Solar Panels:) I wish i had them.

[mrsparex]

Good simple video...thanks /encouraging

[tatonkazi]

Total project, inverter, controllers & all was $2500 not counting our sweat equity & the help of a few knowledgeable friends. The whole point is, where public power would have cost over $15,000 we made it happen & our pay-back period to break even was less than 5 yrs even with replacing the batteries every 4 to 5 yrs. New technology is making this type of solution even more practical in todays energy world.

[tatonkazi]

The buried refrigerator truck box keeps the battery temp regulated. It works well. You are also correct in assuming that the electricity was not free. However, the panels were from a University project & I got them at less than $200 apiece. Batteries are from a high-rise stand-by system where batteries are replaced every 2 yrs. Essentially unused in 1989 when purchased from a battery salvage company. The wiring is from oil drilling company salvage & cost 2 cents per foot.

[DavesTreeFarm]

Burying the batteries is a good idea. It allows for a constant temperature. Heat limits battery life and cold limits capacity.

[DavesTreeFarm]

Those are Kyocera 85w/12v panels. They produce about 5A each. With about 5 hours usable sun = 100AH at 12v or about 10AH at 120v, which will give 5AH per day assuming a 50% depth of discharge (I'm not even considering the loss at the inverter, etc). That's not a lot of power.

As for "free"electricity; Those panels are worth about $2000, and if those are true deep cycle batteries you can count on another $1000 to $1500 plus the inverter, charge controller, etc.