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We have recently moved house complete with the newly made wine sitting fermenting in its bottles complete with airlocks The wine is still bubbling away nicely and we have invested in several more glass carboys To our intense disgust the wind whips across the valley and almost rips the plants out by the roots and we have found our new neighbours have a taste for anything – especially green but anything will do and my Bromeliads next to the fence have “chomp” sized pieces missing as they grazed along. Wind power here would not be a problem !
Here is a link for a pattern for a sustainable pair of sandals that you can customize to your own style and fit DIY sustainable footwear these were worn by Viet Cong guerrillas. Recycle old tyres into footwear and be comfortable at the same time.
We use about 400 to 500 kwh per month. We have a tv, computer,microwave, and of course fride, washer/dryer, and back up water heater. (solar water heater is the main one) Also how much would such a system cost, including batteries and inverters? Rough estimate okay. 500 kwh divided by 30 days is 16.6 kwh a day. I don’t know where you live so I can’t say how many peak sun hours you get so lets just use five. 16.6 divided by 5 = 3.3 kwh in solar modules. You said the home was off grid so $30,263.70 for parts. Add in 10% to 15% for the install and you got it . Really there is no way to know without asking you a lot of questions. What is the total wattage that will be on the system at any one time.. (tv set, freezer, coffee pot and hair drier and a few lights) that will tell you how big of an inverter you need. Then you will need a battery bank that will only be drained by 50% by the end of the day before re-charging. Which you can find because you know you use 16.6 kWh per day. 16.6 divided by 48 volts battery bank is 345 amp hours in battery power plus like said above you need to double that so 700 AH should do it. There is still more to it because you need to make sure that the 3.3 kWh in solar power will give you a 5% to 10% rate of charge. At 48 volts you would have about 68 amps so you are close to 10% so all is good so far. If you plan to do it all your self you should start out by buying the parts for a small system and teach yourself all about it. Or talk to a dealer. Here is a good info page to help you out. http://www.oynot.com/solar-info.html And here is a price list of complete systems. http://www.oynot.com/solar-grid-tie-backup-by-array-size.html I was thinking there may be some kind of water tank you could have above ground that could be rigged to supply your house with water. To fill the tank, run pipes from your roof gutter downspouts — both from the house and from any other outbuildings you may have. Clearly, all this works only if you live in an area where you receive adequate rainfall year round and only rare below freezing temperatures. There is another device called a "sand point" available at many farm supply stores. If you have a sandy or swampy area on your land, you can drive the sand point into the aquafer (ground water level). Water obtained in this way must be treated to be practical for household use. A suitable treatment method involves a 500 gallon aeration tank and a chlorinator. If all this doesn’t help, perhaps you could provide more details of your needs? In my endeavours to be completely off the grid and loving it I was speaking to a man who leases out caravans to live in while building or deciding what to build on your site. All the caravans come complete with solar panels and are all self sufficient – have them delivered to your site, move in and be completely self sufficient – how cool is that ? A little bit of thought and you can have rain water delivered courtesy of the Heavens rigged up from the roof of the caravan while you sit on your site and decided what you will build where. You can run most of what you need without too much shock to the system and still be off the grid, green and living the self sufficient lifestyle. Amazing vintage Caravans and character Vans – Flickr shots Solar Panels for Caravans are not only for stationery vans but on the go on holidays too. When you are on a road trip with a group of friends in a caravan, there are a couple of ways you can generate electricity. One of the most common options is to use a gasoline generator. However, many people do not like this approach because a generator is noisy and creates a lot of air pollution. The running cost for a generator is also quite high because you have to constantly top it up with gasoline. When you are out in the wilderness with your friends, … Read the rest of this entry »
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fitted to keep out insects.
so we can
the wine off to leave the dregs or finished yeast that has settled in the bottom.
