Solar power

[Paul B]

I live in an incorporated village and the codes are very tough. All homes need to be stone on the front and brick on the back, No frame houses. all homes need to have a fireplace, there needs to be at least one finished room on the second floor and the roof must be made from 3/4" plywood. The village was more worried about what it looks like than if it works. They called the engineer a few times for the specs, especially wind loads.
But they finally let me have a building permit.
Paul

 

[Skimmy]

great thread...

i was thinking about a small coral greenhouse being run by a solar panel array that would live on an adjacent roof, shack, etc.
i figured i might be able to use natural sun in conjunction with t5's and led's powered by solar panels.
i'd use low watt tunze/vortec style for flow, and low watt/high performance skimmers
a great idea my brother in law came up with was to modify some solar light tubes with a large magnifying lens and apperature(for control) so you could increase the power coming from a regular solar tube. also mabye have a motorized "sun chaser" that would move a collector as the sun moves across the sky.
it wont be long before we could really do some serious reefing with little to no power from the grid

 

[Katchupoy]

thats good news Paul. If only I have that much money. Right now, my 45 watt harbor freight panel are producing/saving enough power for me to use it solely for my washing machine needs. It can supply power for at least 10 full loads of front load washer before my volts goes down to 12.0 (start from 12.7 fully charge). 150 watts per load based on Kill-A-Watt. So thats roughly 1500 watts of use in one week. And that will be charged for at least 4 to 5 sunny days.

 

[Paul B]

Today I finished installing all 22 of my panels, now I can't wait for the sun to come out so I can see how much I am generating

 

[Paul B]

It was partially sunny today so it was producing about 3,000 watts which made me very happy.

 

[Scooterman]

Paul where did you get those Sharp panels?

 

[Paul B]

Paul where did you get those Sharp panels?
__________________

A company called NPCP, you can Google them

 

[miwoodar]

Wow Paul - that looks great. What is the angle of your house? Roof pitch?

 

[danno14]

That is a beautiful sight sir!
D

 

[trido]

Wow Paul - that looks great. What is the angle of your house? Roof pitch?

Looks like a 4/12 to me.

Very nice... Makes me want some.... If only my neighbor across the street would fall the forest of cottonwood trees.

 

[Paul B]

I raised that part of the roof long ago, it is easy to walk on I would imagine it is only about 15 degrees or so.

 

[Scooterman]

Looks like a 4/12 to me.

Very nice... Makes me want some.... If only my neighbor across the street would fall the forest of cottonwood trees.

Hate cottonwood trees, nothing but big leaves that won't go away!

A company called NPCP, you can Google them

Thanks Paul

 

[Paul B]

Hate cottonwood trees, nothing but big leaves that won't go away!

We don't have cottonwood trees but my neighbor has an oak tree about 60' taller than my house. So I contributed some money and got him to hire a tree trimmer. They removed at least 5,000 lbs from that tree and now I do not get any shade on my panels.

 

[miwoodar]

We took quotes on our roof in the spring. Woah, it's expensive. The incentive programs help a lot though. IIRC, our break even point would have been about 7 years or so on a system that would have supplied ~75% of our usage. Unfortunately, our house is not at a great angle. We don't have any pitches facing due south.

I hate cottonwood trees. Piles of leaves. Piles of cotton. Branches that want to break off and crash your roof.

 

[burning2nd]

ya killing me paul...

you got me telling guys at work about this...


this is so bad ass its not even funny.
we should elect paul panels for president

 

[burning2nd]

We took quotes on our roof in the spring. Woah, it's expensive. The incentive programs help a lot though. IIRC, our break even point would have been about 7 years or so on a system that would have supplied ~75% of our usage. Unfortunately, our house is not at a great angle. We don't have any pitches facing due south.

I hate cottonwood trees. Piles of leaves. Piles of cotton. Branches that want to break off and crash your roof.

raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

/\
|
|
thats the sound of a chainsaw ripping up some cotten tree's


Im in the same boat.... when i am ready i will drop trees "strategically"

 

[tike]

Wow Paul that's awesome! My wife and I are tooling around to figure out solar for our home.

 

[Paul B]

you got me telling guys at work about this...

I think in 5 years, almost all homes will have it.
I wish I knew about it years ago.
Now I have to change my 50 year old oil burner boiler and install gas. The problem is I don't have a seperate entrance into my basement which is finished. I have to break the thing up and drag it up through my living room. I wonder if it will fit in my tank

 

[Scooterman]

I sure wish we all had incentives to install solar panels like that, man it just makes sense.
Bummer on the boiler, it doesn't get that cold down here to need one, most of the time I can get away with a couple space heaters. LOL

 

[Paul B]

WE do all get incentives like that. Check with your power company.
As for my boiler, It costs almost $3,000.00 to fill my oil tank which almost lasts through the winter, but not quite.
At least now I am making electicity. After I convert to gas I also want to do some solar heat. They with an electric car I will be in good shape.