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Rank: Admin
Groups: Administration
Joined: 10/20/2007
Posts: 1,525
Points: 3,139
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Does anyone on the boards here use it at home? I have a few lights for my shed that are solar, but I am thinking about making more of an investment in not only portable solar power for laptop etc, but maybe also look into more solar applications for our house. Anyone had any experience with any products they can say "awesome" or "sucks" about?
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Rank: True Noob
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Joined: 10/31/2007
Posts: 8
Points: -73
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I personaly dont have any solor power other than the driveway lights and they work good but many many people around here use solor panels for heating water and their houses. It seems to work just fine for that. Not for sure how it will work out for power unless you live in some place like AZ.
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Rank: Admin
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Joined: 10/31/2007
Posts: 224
Points: 696
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Cyan your house could be pretty good for some solar given you have no big trees. I have heard it's not cost effective really to go solar if that's what you are thinking but as far as saving natural resources it is :)
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Rank: Admin
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Joined: 10/20/2007
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Not necessarily planning on going solar for power (completely unfeasible), just looking at alternatives for hot water heating and the like and beginning research. I saw a really cool article in Make about building a electricity producing wind turbine and I assume there is probably a fairly large community of people dedicated to hacking away at this stuff on their own for back up power or to power specific parts of their homes. A lot of people on here seem pretty tech savy, was wondering if anyone has dabbled in it or done any research on DIY projects. Anyone out west? -Cyan
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Rank: One of the Main Weird
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Joined: 11/1/2007
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I'm a bit unconvinced by PV solar power, simply because you need a lot of surface area to generate house-sized power, and the energy costs of producing the damn things are pretty alarming too - which kind of undermines the environmental argument. Solar heating, however, is very well established and will produce decent hot water in surprisingly cold climates. If you've got the kind of hot water system that will take it, it's well worth looking into (our hot water is via an on-demand boiler so can't utilise solar heating as well). Domestic wind turbines are finally becoming a realistic option - I was looking at some stuff last week which is a DIY install; a turbine (fairly small blades, something like 2.5m or 3m sweep I think) which feeds into a box which just plugs into your main power board and will automatically feed your house with as much power as it can produce, and take the rest out of the grid. Very cool and not too expensive - if you've got the wind for it (built up areas like London are not so good for reliable wind!)
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Rank: One of the Main Weird
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Joined: 11/6/2007
Posts: 151
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a podcast I listen to has an ad for this website http://www.kensolar.com/can't say either way about their products but it might provide a little more infomation.
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