Both plan a small unit able to carry part of their daytime load. One has it all planned out to wire into the kitchen circuits and to the water heater, if the power goes out they said we still have warm showers & frozen peaches.
The Washington friends are within sight of several homes with solar panels. A study indicates solar installations form in clusters, when your neighbors get it and trumpet their savings and lowered concern for outages then everyone runs the numbers. Another plus, homes with solar PV's sell for more than those without, and much faster.
Would love to get in on it, but where I live the architecture committee will not allow it. Maybe it will change in a few years, by then I should be in a smaller house in another state, or an asylum for the sexually insane.
I have a small solar panel that plugs into the cigarette lighter socket to maintain the charge in a car battery. There's a LED light that blinks when it is charging and it has blinked after the sun has gone down, but not quite dark yet. It works on cloudy days. Solar panels will work on cloudy days, just not as efficiently as sunny days.
ReplyDeleteKulkuri; Thats interesting, keeping your car battery up with sunlight. I see there are lots of little units now on the market that charge cell phones and small devices, they are pretty high for what they accomplish, but the price should fall as more are sold.
DeleteThe idea of being self-sustaining ought to be everyone's goal, and damn the neighborhood association that wants to stand in the way of folks getting off the grid. Screw 'em, you're the neighbors, reform the neighborhood! I think we should all have solar generators ready to kick in when the power goes out, and don't understand why small, affordable units aren't already available for us to snarf up and use.
ReplyDeleteSquatlo;
DeleteI wish it was easy, it takes an 80% vote to change the covenants, it took us 2 years to get composite shingles approved (shake or tile was the rule). Bucking the covenants will not work, we have a couple of top rate lawyers in the neighborhood that work for free for the homeowners association, and they win everything on compliance issues. As I said I will be moving in a couple years I imagine, maybe the PV issue will be approved by then, maybe not, next place I go I would like to have a chance to get off the grid if I can swing it.