I have a little solar setup on an outbuilding on my property and it made me think how at the very least it would be nice for a lot of things in my house. I can run any lighting, charging, 12V DC devices as much as I reasonably want all on a system that set me back less than $500 and has been operating a number of years with zero maintenance. It worked so well I've tapped into it for some of that 12V landscape lighting as well, just because the power was available and all I needed was a simple timer to make it work.
If I ever get bored enough, I might set up something similar to run always-on network devices in the house. When you take out the high powered stuff and focus on low current DC, solar is much more realistic.
Now if I ever could figure out HVAC, because that's probably 90% of my electricity anyway.
Stick a couple deep cycle batteries and a sufficiently large inverter somewhere in the power network and you can run appliances and power tools with it too. A 2000 watt modified sine wave inverter (good enough for light power tools, battery charging, etc) would run you like $160-180 and a pure sine wave inverter that you could use for computers and sensitive electronics is like $300.
That's awesome to hear. I am looking to put a well on my property and figure I could run the pump through solar, rather than digging up my garden to run a line. And like MLGS mentioned I was going to put a deep cycle marine battery in and use solar to keep it charged. As of now my only plans are to run radios during power outrages and the pump but it seems like I can really expand on that.
Window AC units have gotten pretty robust and remarkably low-power. Friend of mine had to cool his entire house when his main AC unit went out with just a single window unit, and it worked pretty well.
Gotta make sure you insulate the fuck out of your house, though. That's the real secret to minimizing power usage.
Oh yeah, my house is pretty efficient for its age. First thing I focused on after I bought it. While it's probably still a ton of my electric usage, I'm in a hot climate. I am.always shocked when I hear other people's electric bills though, I don't know how they use so much.
I have a little solar setup on an outbuilding on my property and it made me think how at the very least it would be nice for a lot of things in my house. I can run any lighting, charging, 12V DC devices as much as I reasonably want all on a system that set me back less than $500 and has been operating a number of years with zero maintenance. It worked so well I've tapped into it for some of that 12V landscape lighting as well, just because the power was available and all I needed was a simple timer to make it work.
If I ever get bored enough, I might set up something similar to run always-on network devices in the house. When you take out the high powered stuff and focus on low current DC, solar is much more realistic.
Now if I ever could figure out HVAC, because that's probably 90% of my electricity anyway.
Stick a couple deep cycle batteries and a sufficiently large inverter somewhere in the power network and you can run appliances and power tools with it too. A 2000 watt modified sine wave inverter (good enough for light power tools, battery charging, etc) would run you like $160-180 and a pure sine wave inverter that you could use for computers and sensitive electronics is like $300.
That's awesome to hear. I am looking to put a well on my property and figure I could run the pump through solar, rather than digging up my garden to run a line. And like MLGS mentioned I was going to put a deep cycle marine battery in and use solar to keep it charged. As of now my only plans are to run radios during power outrages and the pump but it seems like I can really expand on that.
Window AC units have gotten pretty robust and remarkably low-power. Friend of mine had to cool his entire house when his main AC unit went out with just a single window unit, and it worked pretty well.
Gotta make sure you insulate the fuck out of your house, though. That's the real secret to minimizing power usage.
Oh yeah, my house is pretty efficient for its age. First thing I focused on after I bought it. While it's probably still a ton of my electric usage, I'm in a hot climate. I am.always shocked when I hear other people's electric bills though, I don't know how they use so much.