Solar Power Shed Project

[patrick_g]

Egon, Yes... They are all made of ticky tacky and are all the same. There ware blue ones there are green ones...

Pat

 

[3RRL]

Yep, even if I never get my investment return it's still there for us and we did what we wanted. In fact, none of this is for an "investment return". It's for our retirement payback for all the hard years I slaved. I'll try to enjoy (finally) what years we have left. If I save a few bucks along the way, which is always good, well then that's great. Can't take it with you anyway and I'm sure not gonna leave it all for the kids....maybe the grandkids though.

Thanks for the good wishes guys.

 

[Buckeye_Jim]

Someone said "if I'd known that grandkids were going to be so much fun, I'd been nicer to their parents".

 

[EddieWalker]

Rob,

I just recomended a friend read this thread from another site, but was wondering how it's working for you? Did you have enough power during the short, overcast days of winter? Did you have to run the generator? Any updates?

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[3RRL]

Hi Eddie,
Thanks for the referral to your friend, I hope he finds it useful. The system is up and working but we have not taxed the system under full load. The contractor is going to start some time in May this year and he will be using it for all on site power. At this time the system powers the well pump 27/7 and miscellaneous re-chargeable items/battery chargers we use at camp. There are also several motion detector lights around the perimeter of the shed that come on as well as lighting inside the solar shed. The solar panels wake up every morning when the sun hits them and they start tracking until dark. Then they fold up back into their "sleep" position for the night. Right now, the generator only comes on once a week for it's weekly exercise period only.
Thanks for asking.

 

[sandman2234]

Considering the battery investment and warranty, I was just wondering if you should have held off on buying all of your batteries at the beginning.I think buying half of them would have been plenty. Reduced capacity until the house and shop were built, but easily made up with the generator, if needed.. Plus it would give you a break of almost two years between having to replace half of them, if you split the original purchase time by two years (during house building) Having them sitting there just for the contractor's minimal use seems like a big waste, dispite saving $10K on his costs.
Course I do realize that hindsight is 20-20...
David from jax

 

[3RRL]

David, indeed hindsight is 20-20.
One factor is that the original General contractor was fired and the original house plans were scrapped. So that in itself represented quite a time delay. I'm stuck with what I did now, but on the flip side, the new Log home project is moving right along. Not only that, but since the last post we have added a few plug ins such as a small refrigerator to make life more comfortable at camp. Also all our re-chargeables don't need to be hauled home anymore.
lol...I guess I'm making excuses now.

 

[tommu56]

sandman2234
Its far better to have all the batteries the same age different age cells don't charge the same rate.
If Rob added 1/2 of them later they would be over charged or the old ones would be under charged and limiting the whole bank (weekest link is the weekest battery)

The only other way he could have done it was to just put some in now for construction.
Then buy some new ones when construction is done and send me the old ones for my cabin. LOL

tom

 

[sandman2234]

Tom,
That would have been ok with me, but getting him to pay the freight on the old batteries might have been a chore. Granted your trying to protect him from having a mismatched set of batteries, but shipping hazmat batteries would cost a fortune!
David from jax

 

[angelsmile]

Since we are experiencing economy crisis right now, we ought to find ways on how to lessen our daily expenses. We all prioritize expenses at home and it's really amazing to have this solar energy for our homes. It is great to save money from our electricity bills. Saving is really important nowadays, we have to earn more in order to live graciously.