Solar Power Shed Project

[RavensRoost]

RavensRoost,
After reading the suggestions about having an exit for the radiator fan, I took it for granted that it was sucking air in, through the radiator from the outside. Much like a car or tractor radiator would.

I just looked at the schematic my solar contractor made and it is indeed a "pusher" as drawn. So the air is being exhausted through that opening. I have not been to my property for several weeks and have not seen the generator run myself, only from what the contractor told me. I am going up at New years and will confirm after the final walk through.

But for now, according to the schematic, consider it a pusher fan ... directly exhausting to the outside through that opening in the photo.

Rob, then you are going to win on this one!

You may still have more heat in there than you would like when genset is running, especially summers, as the "doghouse" enclosure will radiate heat from the engine as not all of the heat will be pushed out through the radiator. (CUMMINGS, sorry about saying Onan, must have got Onan from Patrick's earlier post about air-colled Onan diesels in a military van.) See how it goes and take it from there. You may need to add a pressurizing fan and another exhaust louver independent of the generator to push remaining heat out, or other treatment.

Merry Christmas! (We get to spend Christmas through New Years at our "rancho" this year, and it might even be a white Christmas which is a treat for us!)

RavensRoost

 

[patrick_g]

Bruce in Prescott (Rhymes with biscuit), I concur. Rob lucked out. It is way easier to capture the effluent and vent it to the outside with a pusher. An electric fan with its supply air drawn in low on the north side of the bld and exhausted near the high point would sure help. You could power it directly from the genset in series with a thermostat so it will run only when the genset runs AND the temp setpoint is exceeded.

If any of the more delicate electronics are particularly close to the gen set you could consider a radiant barrier to "shadow" the electronics.

Pat

 

[Doc_Bob]

Bruce in Prescott (Rhymes with biscuit),
Pat

I always thought it rhymed with real hot.
Bob

 

[patrick_g]

Sorry Doc but one of the quickest ways to ID yourself as an unknowlegeable tourist is to say Press Scott instead of Prescut. It is pronounced flat with no emphasis on either sylable.

How do you pronounce Prague? (Prague in OK not Europe)
Eufala?
Miami in OK not in FL?
Pottawatomie? (Indian tribe, possibly of Viking origin and a county.

Prague has long A sound and only one sylable, not the ah sound for the European city.

You fall ah (sometimes yoiu fall uh) with the emphasis on fall.

Miami is My am uh

Pot ah what oh me

Regional dialects are fun, huh?

When in New York try to visit Lawn guy land.

In ND Minot rhymes with Why not? but the "why?" list is way shorter!

Pat

 

[Egon]

You bye's be needing a new thesaurus.

Newfie slang

 

[3RRL]

I found out that the generator radiator fan is definitely a "pusher", so all the hot air is being exited to the outside. The contractor put a thermometer in the shed to test how much it heats up with generator running for 1-½ hours. This was done in the after noon. The temperature only rose 2° after the test so this is good enough for to keep the instruments safe. This is a pretty reasonable test because we sized the system to reduce as much generator time as possible, so it may only kick on approximately 30 days out of the year, and for short periods only (we hope). During the Summer months, it may never need to come on except it's weekly self-exercise.

Here is a shot of the generator running, well ... of the power command screen anyway.

 

[3RRL]

We had our final walk through and were super pleased with the project. Our contractor really did a good job and we are very pleased.
The system is complete now and ready for the general contractor to use when he builds our home. There is 110v and 220v available to him. There is also water available from our well, so this will save us the cost of him having to bring up generators and truck water up while he's building. This is no small amount either, considering the year or more to build and fuel costs at a remote location.

I talked about the power vents on the battery side of the shed. There is one for each bank of batteries. They run constantly to remove any gasses, even though we have 96 of those miser battery caps that traps the vapors. Here is a shot of one of them.



This is a shot before everything was cleaned up around the shed, but shows the lights on and the two power vent exits near the top of each side. Our propane tank is filled and plumbed also. It has lines that run to the house, the barn/shop and the generator. It also has a "wet line" so I can fill up my small propane tanks such as for the bar-b-que and the lanterns at camp.



Our home will be located approximately 150' behind and to the right in that picture. It is a small plateau overlooking the entire valley.

 

[3RRL]

One last set of pictures of the Watsun 225 dual axis Trackers. Here they are "asleep" from the front and rear views. In the background of this first photo, you can see the view we will have from our home, except from a slightly higher elevation. The trackers are approximately 30' lower on an embankment below the homesite.





Also a couple more views to the South and to the East.





Thanks for looking.

 

[Defective]

Gee Rob...

Better have a chat with your contractor about his drinking habits. Looking at TrackerBackside.jpg, he's got everything tilted to the right.

 

[EddieWalker]

Rob,

Congratulations!!!!

Nice to see all that you've accomplished. It's been a very impressive project and you did a great job documenting it and explaining what you were doing and why. Both are very helpful in understanding something so foreign.

What's really amazing is just is just one step towards building your home!!!

Thank you,
Eddie