Some of the wood in Leanne Smith’s timber frame, off-grid home in Sisters, Ore., has a unique story.

The ceiling of the entry foyer also has century-old Douglas Fir reclaimed from the barn of Leanne Smith’s uncle.

“That’s my uncle’s barn that blew down,” Smith says, referring to the century-old Douglas Fir in her kitchen cabinets, living room floor, foyer ceiling and fireplace mantel.

The home’s exterior arrived in panels on a flatbed truck and was assembled onsite in Sisters, Ore.

 

The 2,900 square foot home, chosen as “This Week’s Green House,” uses other recycled materials, such as stainless steel with a shimmery patina for a kitchen countertop.

The master bedroom has Travertine floors and the exposed timber frame beams.

Its greenest feature may be its 27 rooftop solar panels which provide all its power. Since the house, on 27 acres, was so far from public utilities, Smith decided to go off-grid. The 5.1 kilowatt system cost $54,00 before tax credits and about $24,000 after them.

“We’re demonstrating to people that even though we’re off grid, we don’t live in a closet,” she says, citing the home’s openness and modern amenities.

Smith, a retired Department of Energy chemist, and her husband Doug, a former DOE nuclear engineer, are now Oregon representatives for Davis Frame Co., a New Hampshire company that provided their home’s exterior.

Davis Frame began making timber frame homes in 1987 by hand in a converted dairy barn. In 1997, it moved to a bigger, mechanized facility in Claremont, N.H.

“Timber frame is an age-old craft,” says Jeff Davis, company president, fescribing the exposed natural beams and traditional wooden joinery.

Davis says his homes are not only beautiful but also energy efficient, because he combines timber frames with structural insulated panels or SIPS. Together they provide an envelope that’s at least twice as efficient as most homes. The walls have an insulating value of R26 and the roof, R40.

Smith says her home has additional layers, including air space, that provide more insulation. Its exterior arrived in panels on a flat-bed truck.

“It went up very fast,” she recalls. The interior finish work took another four months and the house was completed on Halloween Day in 2008.

Davis’ timber frame homes don’t come cheap. He says they’re mostly custom and their exteriors, which he sells throughout the United States via kits, cost $60 to $70 per square foot. Once the homes are completely finished, they typically cost between $200 to $250 per square foot, not including site and land costs.

Smith estimates her home cost $640,000, including the solar array and the road they built, but she says its zero energy bills and its lovely finishes are worth every penny.

“You should see the Travertine floors against the Douglas Fir. You need heart medicine,” she gushes.

Her house also has in-floor solar heating, a cistern, low-flow plumbing fixtures, Energy Star appliances, efficient LED/CFL lighting and high-performance Eagle windows by Anderson.

It has no air conditioning. “We don’t need it,” she says, adding that its SIPS panel keep the heat out in the summer.

To sell others on their version of the American dream, she and her husband are holding a workshop at their home on June 19th.

Their home won the top or platinum certification from the Earth Advantage, a Portland-based nonprofit group that rates homes for eco-friendliness.

Smith says they lived in Colorado for many years but never plan to move again. “This is where we were born,” she says. “This is home.”

The Perendev, originally coined from the phrase “perpetual energy device,” but later changed to the more politically correct, “permanent energy device”.

A magnetic motor (or magnet motor) is a device which converts power of or relating to or caused by magnetism (e.g., “magnetic forces”) into mechanical force and motion, with no other input. It usually provides rotary mechanical motion. The machines that utilizes the properties of a magnet for mechanical energy.

Running Magnet Motors Witnessed

Have you ever seen a magnet motor in operation? By “magnet motor”, I mean a motor in which magnets are the only driving force. Maybe its via magnets repelling magnets, or attracting, or both; and the result is continuous rotation.

 

Four of twenty New Energy Congress members who responded to an anonymous poll this past week said they had. One out of every five — twenty percent — of those who answered the poll have personally seen a magnet motor in operation. I wasn’t one of them.

 

Conventional physics says that it is “impossible” for magnets to provide a primary energy source. Yet thousands of researchers worldwide have been pursuing the task of building a working magnet motor. Many claim to have achieved this objective. Most of those are quiet about their accomplishment. None have reached the marketplace.

 

Science tends to lag behind inventors who don’t know what is or is not possible, revising their laws to fit the new observations. If magnet motors really are possible, scientists will no doubt figure out where the energy is coming from, whether it is from the Zero Point, or from some new principle of magnetism hitherto not appreciated.

 

The Steorn “Orbo” is allegedly one such motor, which was supposed to have been debuted for the world to see on July 4, 2007, but it ran into problems, and instead the world saw a gizmo not running. (Ref.)

 

Meanwhile, millions have seen a video of what appears to be a running magnet motor — the Perendev, originally coined from the phrase “perpetual energy device,” but later changed to the more politically correct, “permanent energy device”. (Ref.1, ref.2, ref.3)

 

Myself (left) with Mike Brady, assembling his Perendev magnet motor.

I happen to have been involved in that motor. I helped assemble it in Johannesburg in December of 2002 when it came from the machine shop, but we couldn’t get it to run during the week that we were there. The video was produced a couple of months later by the inventor, Mike Brady; and I was given permission to publish it in Aug. 2004 prior to a German television debut that was supposed to take place but which never materialized. (Ref.)

We had our mechanical engineer associate, Douglas K. Furr build a 1/4-scale replica of the Perendev design, with Brady’s permission, but were not able to get it running. For some reason, often when people see a video that has been posted of that motor, they think it is a functioning device, even though the video shows me spinning and stopping the shaft with my hand, and I state that we’ve not been able to get it to run on its own. I guess their thinking it is a functioning magnet motor is due to a wishful thinking syndrome or something.

In all this time, I’ve heard of a lot of claims to working magnet motors, some of which seem credible, but I’ve never personally witnessed one running.

I’ve also surrounded myself with a lot of experienced people in the field who are open minded but who require proof. I founded the New Energy Congress a couple of years ago in order to review the various exotic clean energy technology claims and then rank them according to a set of the criteria including renewable, affordable, credible, and safe. We compile these in a Top 100 Clean Energy Technologies listing.

Then a couple of weeks ago, when I was consulting John Dunlap, an entrepreneur who wanted to advance magnet motor technology, I was embarrassed when I couldn’t answer whether or not any of the approximate forty NEC members had personally witnessed a magnet motor running. I could answer for myself, but I couldn’t answer for them.

So on Sept. 19, I wrote to the NEC: “Have any of you members of the NEC seen a magnet motor in operation in person? “By ‘magnet motor’ I’m referring to motors that run only on magnets, with no other motive force. A separate question would be whether you were able to confirm that the magnets were not diminishing in gauss in the process of providing rotational power, but my present primary question is more broad, relating to a magnet-only-powered motor.

“It seems like maybe one or two of you have witness one in person, but I can’t recall who or what. I’ve heard of some 20 – 25 different claims to working magnet motors that seemed possibly credible, but have never seen one in person.”My second question would be, if you have seen one in operation, would you be willing to go on record as having done so?”Since it is possible that if you have seen one, you are under NDA not to disclose that, I’ve created an anonymous poll”

The wording of the poll was simple:

“Have you seen a magnet motor in operation in person? ‘Magnet motor’ = a motor that run only on magnets, with no other motive force.”

Two members of the congress came forward in the private NEC forum to discuss their experiences.

One said that he had not yet confirmed that the magnets were not diminishing over time, and that he was under NDA from giving any details, but that he was very encouraged by what he had seen. Formerly, he was among the skeptics who did not think that such a motor could be built.

The 20% affirmative response by the NEC members is not representative of the public at large, inasmuch as the NEC is composed of people who pursue exotic energy technology.

A follow-up poll has been prepared for the general public (posted above). I’ve also created a poll (Sept. 29 – Oct. 12) for the fe_updates newsletter group who received my email notices of the daily FreeEnergyNews.com news items. That group is more likely to have results resembling those of the NEC, than of the public in general. Also, the general poll above is not going to be a true reflection of the general populace inasmuch as people who come to this news page in the first place are likely to be an unusual set to begin with.

I also plan to follow this NEC poll up with additional polls of the NEC about some of the other exotic technologies we cover, such as electromagnetic overunity, electrolysis overunity, gravity wheels, and cold fusion.

Though such such polls are not the same as a scientifically sound validation using calibrated measurement tools, video documentation, and other data collection, it does help increase the hope factor for these technologies that science rebuffs — as they did human flight, among other things they said were “impossible.”

# # #

REFERENCES:

• Poll Results (private for NEC members only; Sept. 19-26, 2007)
• Preface email from Sterling to a private NEC forum (private for NEC members only; Sept. 19, 2007)

###

Referenced Links

• Zero Point Energy, The Fuel of the Future – Book by Thomas Valone, 2007.
• http://IntegrityResearchInstitute.org – Valone’s site
• Third International Conference On Future Energy – October 9-10, 2009, Washington, D.C.  Organized by Valone
• Crystals Turn Roads into Power Stations (10 December 2008, New Scientist issue 2685)
• U.S. Patent 5590031 – System for converting electromagnetic radiation energy to electrical energy. Dec 31, 1996. “First ZPE Patent”
• SPESIF – 2009 – Valone will be presenting a peer-reviewed paper on ZPE at this conference.

(editors note: from:http://pesn.com/2009/01/21/9501515_ZeroPointEnergy_Valone/)

For more information on how to build a Solar Air Heater go to: Solar Heater Guides

Posted by Chris van der Zwaal in Solar energy

Last spring (2009) I wrote my first article about building my own solar panels (just to be clear : for making electricity) . At the end of the day on December 31, 2009, I had finished installing my panels totalling about 400 Wp. So now its time for an update.

The Solar Cells

The installation is made up of 8 panels, 27.5 x 40 inches each. The panels are made with solar cells, size 6 x 6 inches. I estimate the power of the panels to be 50Wp (or slightly higher) each. These cells were new and unused, lying somewere on a shelf in a warehouse, almost forgotten. I got them pretty cheaply (around $ 0.62 per Wp), understandibly because the efficiency is only 9 %. And that, these days, is considered very low.

Picture of the Cells

Transmissivity of Glass

After my article from last Spring, I have done a lot of research: the transmissivity of the glass especially kept me busy because the transmissivity of ordinary glass was very poor. To be able to measure this transmissivity, I built a test panel. I made 2 “strings” of 12 Evergreen cells (by “string” I mean cells connected in series). The picture shows these 2 “strings”. If you look carefully, you can see 2 different pieces of glass in front of it.

 Without glass in front and in the sunlight, I connected each string to its own multimeter to measure its respective shortcut current. Of course, that gave different values (the multimeters as well as the strings are not equal). So by interchanging the multimeters, I got 2 measurements and averaging those 2 values gave me a pretty accurate figure of the difference. The next step was to put a piece of glass in front of only one of the strings and leave the other string without glass in front. I took a measurement and recorded it. Then I placed the glass in front of the other string and again recorded the measurements. I had to repeat these steps, but now with the multimeters interchanged. This way I got 4 measurements and by averaging these, I got a pretty good and accurate result about the influence of the light transmissivity of the glass on the shortcut current. Of course this does not measure the maximum power point of the cells, but I assumed that the result about the transmissivity will be the same. It would not be logical if it would be different. So now I was able to test the different sorts of small pieces of glass that I had gathered. In the end, I chose the most economical glass. Ordering it in a relatively large quantity of slightly more than 1000 square foot, I got it for a very acceptable price. It is 0.12 inches thick and it is tempered! The price: $ 1.90 per square foot. Of course I am not going to use it all for myself but I sell it to other DIY solarpanel builders. This way they can take advantage of my low price and also know they get tempered glass with a reasonable transmissivity. The ordinary glass measured below 80% compared to my tempered glass, which is about 90%. So now I have glass with a very acceptable transmissivity, it is tempered, and the price is pretty low! At that time I already had the 6 x 6 inch cells (they have a different size than the Evergreen cells requiring another size of glass) So part of the delivery of glass were about 40 pieces with the right size for my panels. The other 2 sizes are for Evergreen panels with 36 or 72 cells each.

And This Is What It Looks Like

The Installation Ready and Fixed to My House

On the night of December 31st, my solar panel installation was ready! The only thing to do was sit and wait for the sun, and I was lucky because the next day, the first day in the new year, it was a full sunny day. Being a day with not many daylight hours and a sun at its apex only 15 degrees above the horizon, my installation worked like it should. The first day maximum was 265 Watt of electricity “pouring” into the grid through the gridtied-inverter. The panels are almost exactly oriented to the south: 175 degrees on the (true) compass. So that is about as good as can be. The tilt of the panels is somewhat steeper than optimum for the whole year, which is around 32 degrees. I had mounted them at about 50 degrees. This is far better for the winter season as the sun is so low on the horizon. I have plans to alter the angle around April or May to accomodate for the higher apex of the sun during the summer. With my construction that will not be too complicated to do. You might be able to understand this when you look at the picture.

And This Is What It Looks Like

Some Figures and Measurements

The cells are a lot bigger than the Evergreen cells which are about 3 x 6 inches: they measure 6 x 6 inches, so they are twice the size. But as their efficiency is 9% (Evergreen cells: 14%) their output is not double, but around 55% higher. I calculated the Evergreens to generate 1.5 Wp each (placed behind the glass) so these cells must be 1.5Wp x 155% = 2.32Wp. I have 24 cells in a panel (size 27.5 x 40 inch). That gives 24 x 2,32Wp = 55,68 Wp per panel (for now I will consider them 50Wp each to have a conservative assumption). I now have 8 of those panels and they are all connected in series. They are feeding a Philips 500 gridtied-inverter (it is second hand and it is a predeccessor of the Stecagrid 500 commonly used in the Netherlands, being most presumably the same). So I have 8 x 55,68 = 445 Wp. For now I will consider it 400Wp.

Of course, I will not see this high output for some time to come, but as the sun starts to go higher above the horizon my output will also rise. That indeed is what is happening : on January 1st, I got a reading of 265 Watt, but as the days progressed (waiting each day for sunlight but most days were cloudy all day) the readings got higher indeed. So far my highest on Februari 3th was already 373 Watt !! And that is very promising.

The temperature of the cells probably was below 77 Fahrenheit (25 celsius) which is the temperature at which solar panels are tested and measured to give their WattPeakPower. With higher temperatures, this output decreases considerably (and of course at lower temps the output is higher). Roughly 1% per 4 degrees Fahrenheit (or 1% per 2 degrees Celsius). So at approximately 131 F ( 55 C ) the output is around 15 % lower. The temperature of a solar panel can go way above this temperature.

The reason that the sunlight is weaker when the sun is low on the horizon is that the light has to travel a much longer distance through the atmosphere and then a lot of energy is lost. One can calculate the comparison between several angles above the horizon. You simply compare the sinus of 15 degrees and the sinus of 20 degrees and then compare these two : sinus 20 / sinus 15 = 0.342 / 0.258. The funny thing is, and I did not expect this, the readings I got from 15 degrees (on Jan. 1st) and 20 degrees (on Jan. 28th ) are 345 Watt / 265 Watt. This is about the same ratio.

What I also did was measure the voltage and current coming out of the panels into the inverter. Multiply these figures and you get a very accurate figure about the Watts that the panels produce. Now compare this figure with how many Watts the inverter is “pouring” into the grid. Look at the picture below to see these measurements. It is a simple calculation to find that the efficiency of the inverter is about 95%, but it is not accurate as the powermeter that I use surely does not take into account any phase shift that will be there between current and voltage. I just have to assume that within certain limits it is correct, but those limits probably are “wide”.

 If I take my highest reading of 345 Watt and correct it for this 95% I get the power that the panels made at that moment : 363 Watt. I have high hopes that I will see readings of higher than 400 Watt and then I can be very content. It would mean that (after correcting for the inverter) the panels are well above 400 Watt. The power meter is a simple one. I bought 2 of them. I opened one of them to internally switch input and output. I thought that it would be nescesary because the current in this situation flows in the other direction through the powermeter. However, I found that the “un”modified powermeter worked just as well. Of course this does not mean that it applies to all other types of powermeters.

Inverter

Picture of the Voltage(87.1) and Amperes(3.02) (Input-Side of the Inverter) and Power (251)(Output-Side of the Inverter)

The Cost of My Panels

I have calculated that the cost of one panel is around $ 83.00 (at the present rate of 1.39 dollar to the euro). My aim has been to get a panel for € 1.20 per Wp. I express this in euros as the rate of the dollar is changing so often and I live in an euro environment. But this € 1.20 at present equals $ 1.68 per Wp. Well it seems that I have reached that goal. But I must say that I have been rather conservative with this aim to prevent disappointments. Nice thing about this is that I will probably even go below this aim! If and when my panels produce 400 Wp I will have reached my goal, but right now it is very likely that I might even go 10% higher. So my price per Wp will be below € 1.10 or $ 1.51 per Wp. In this situation, my panels are 55 Wp each. But I must honestly say that I did not take into account the extra cost I had for buying some extra tools. On the other hand , building more panels will reduce that influence. And that brings up the next chapter.

Plans for the Future

It is a lot of fun doing this project and I have started preparations for building another 8 panels. My final goal is to make 40 of them. As you can see on the picture, my present home will not be able to accommodate many more panels, so I am very glad that I am going to buy a new home with lots of space to place the panels on the ground in my far backyard .

Some more remarks.

The panels are made exactly according to the double glass principle that I described in my first article. For some more detailed info I have a second website: http://doctersnuggles2.come2me.nl

I had hoped to have my installation ready last summer but gathering and choosing the right materials took a lot of time. It was important to do and it was worth it. Hopefully it helps to make the panels last a lot of years and that in itself will hopefully take a long time to prove. The choice of the glass especially took a lot of time.

By selling cells and other important materials for building a solar panel, I got a lot of extra ideas from others, and that was one of my aims. I got in contact with quite a few do-it-yourselvers and we exchanged a lot of information. That also resulted in a forum for “do-it-yourselfers” but it is in the Dutch language. The fact that it is there indicates that there are enough others building solar panels.

Possible Improvements

Talking about different ways to build a solar panel, I can say that there are about 5 others developing/finding a way to use EVA lamination to completely seal the cells. This is also the material that is being used by most solar panel factories. Through my contacts I have been lucky enough to get some of this EVA. It is past its expiration date, but tests have shown that it still works fine. If they succeed in finding a simple way to apply/use it, then I will start using their method too for future panels. The efficiency of the panel will increase (according to some internet articles) if the air gap between the cell and the glass is removed and replaced by this lamination. As the air is not there anymore the lightrays will have less (strong) transitions (air into glass – glass into air – air into the cell). Also the reflecting between the front of the cell and the backside of the frontglass will be less. The efficiency of the panel in this way can rise from 90% up to 95% . Read also the comments about this in my first article.

The Testpanel

Posted by Chris van der Zwaal in Solar energy

Because I think that the price of a solar panel is still pretty high(in Europe), and because the stimulation from our government (in the Netherlands) is not so good (very,very complicated and time consuming) I started the project of building my own solar panel. I would like to invite anyone who has some experience with this or is interested in it ,to give me any advice or remarks about it. The main challenge is to build a panel that can withstand heat, cold, rain and hail for many years.

Buying My First Solar Cells

In October 2008 I bought my first 100 cells via Ebay. But as I later learned, they were still very expensive: 300 Euros for 100 cells, including shipping. I was told they should produce 1,98 Watt each. Below a picture :

The First Solar Cells

After some experimenting and very long brainstorming about how to continue, I found another seller on Ebay who had the same cells (of which he gave the specification that they were 1,75 Wp each……) But these were slightly damaged.

Well I decided to buy 500 cells ,a mix of 3 different qualities. The seller had not counted these cells but there were 620 cells, of which after a first selection , just over 500 were reasonably good. Not a bad deal to start with. And a lot cheaper! Also now I had over 100 cells for practice on soldering and handling.

The 620 Cells.

Building the First Small Panel.

Well I got started. Beginning with the soldering-technique, that takes some practice, but after a while you get the hang of it. And now my first small experimental panel is ready! The main focus and moreover challenge is to get the cells 100% sealed: air and water tight. The cheapest solution for me is to make a double-glass construction. And the cells in between the 2 plates of glass. The panel is made of 12 cells, each 0.55 Volts. On the picture below you can see many purple coloured wires. Those wires are each connected in between each cell so afterwards I can still do some measurements to compare each separate cell.

My First Do-it-yourself Solar Panel

The First Measurements in the Sun

I must say that at first I was worried whether I would see the cells really produce the power they should. But after building a variable resistance (making it possible for me to roughly find the maximum power point) the sun at last was shining (not much sunshine here beginning of February) and I got my first real measurement : 15,5 Watt. According to the specifications the panel should give a maximum of 12 x 1,75 W = 21 Wp.

Given the fact that the glass takes away about 10% of the power,without the glass it would have been about 17 Watt. I expect that during summer as the sun rises much higher above the horizon, the measurement will give higher readings , thus coming closer to the specifications…. I am using normal 4 mm (0.16 inch) glass because it costs me nothing. If you just look around near places were they renovate old houses you can get the old glass for free…… This compared to the real stuff they use for solarpanels which is quite expensive and probably very difficult to find.

Influence of Heating the Panel in the Sun.

During the first measurements, I found that the heating up of the panel was pretty strong. But this especially was the case for the backside. were the cells are glued upon (using the same kit I used for glueing and sealing the panel). This panel is 12 mm (0.47 inch) thick : 2 plates of glass each 4 mm (0.16 inch) and 4 mm in between. What troubles me is the temperature-difference between the front and backplate of glass. This will result in different expansions creating stress on the sealing,if that is repeated too often it will start leaking. Now I am using the same kit as is being used in solar panel factories. But it still worries me. A solution can be to keep the panels small, so the difference in expansion stays minimal.

Improvements

A solution to the temperature-problem can also be to make the gap between the 2 plates of glass smaller. So the heat will be more evenly dissipated to both the front and backside ( thereby also creating more cooling capacity). My next panel (picture below) is the same size,the difference is the distance between the 2 plates of glass : it is now 1.5 mm (0.059 inch) …..and this also makes the sealing a lot easier and thereby better. I have used pieces of copper winding wire that I happened to have : 1.2 mm (0.047 inch) thick. I took several pieces of about 3 cm and spread them evenly along the side on the glass backplate. Then the kit along them all around the full edge. And finally pressed the front plate on it. The result is a gap between the plates somewhere between 1.2 mm and 1.5 mm. So on the inside, there is some trapped air (with, of course, a certain amount of humidity in it), which can potentially cause condensation. But my hope is that the amount of that is so small (only very small amount of air……) that it will not be a factor…… ( In the first panel I did put some stuff that can “eat” the condensation. I got this out of old double glass that I separated,the stuff is inside the aluminium strips between the double glass edges)

The Improved Panel

The kit will have to dry for a few days, but anyhow the weather forecast does not indicate any sunshine the coming days………

First Results

Bottom line is that if the output of each cell really hits 1,75 Wp then I can come to a price of Euro 1,20 per Wp (or even lower than that….) And with such a price the panel will not have to last for 20 years……..but off course that is my aim ! That will be the main challenge ! But I must say with this second panel my hopes are getting higher.

You can find more (and more up to date) information on my website

Well, who feels like building panels also ? Or give me some advice, or share experience. I do not mind getting negative critics because they might be correct………and they are there to be solved !

Next Phase

Update: 15 februari 2010:

The first systeem of 400Wp is now fully functional and produced it’s first electricity. The cost price is now around $1.68 per Wp and is expected to drop to $1.10. More information about the next phase in the project can be read in the article Built Solarpanel Installation Now Operational.

Free Power

Free power isn’t totally free you will need to invest in equipment; but the power you make will be free. You have a large advantage over power companies when you make free power at home. No delivery charge. 

Power companies collect power or convert it then deliver it. They divide the cost of investment over 30 to 50 years and charge you for the investment and delivery amortized over time. 

What is the delivery cost if you make your own power (Zilch, zero, nothing)? If you hire a contractor to install energy devices at your home the cost will not be much cheaper than the Power Company. Your payback period will be as high as 25 years, not much better than the Power Company’s payback period. 

The rules change when you make your own power with a do-it-yourself (DIY) approach. No delivery charge, no contractor cost and investment payback period is usually under 5 years. 

Here are seven reasons to make DIY homemade power:

 
1.) Free power is everywhere. You just need to collect it. 

 
2.) Collecting free power is easy with solar, wind, and solar hot water systems. 

 
3.) Free power investment is cheap for DIY. DIY projects can be 1/10 the cost of commercial and payback is 5-10 times faster, usually under 5 years. 

 
4.) The governments encourage free power collection. The government will pay you. In the USA the tax credit is 30% up to $2000 for solar electric and solar hot water and up to $4,000 for small wind turbine. That is not much for commercial investment of $20,000 to $80,000; but this is a lot for DIY projects of $100 to $6,000. 

 
5.) Free power is green. The more you collect the less the power company pollutes our planet. That makes a greener planet for our future and the kids’ future. 

 
6.) Do-it-yourself guides that make free power projects easy and low cost are cheap. Projects are a $100 – $200 investment. Multiple projects can get you off the grid completely. 

 
7.) Remote sites like a vacation home or cabin, hunting lodge, campsites can be powered by these free power projects, no gas generator and no kerosene. 

Solar Panels

This Is What It Looks Like

Solar panels are a collection of solar cells, soldered together into a system. The cells can be purchase on eBay for about $50 per 100 watts of power. You assemble the cells in to 70 – 175 watt panels. Installing the panels is a matter of some brackets and wire. Solar panel installation is much more flexible and portable than wind turbines. 

Solar panels produce 18+ volts in to a battery charge controller. The controller fills deep cycle batteries with the power during the day. Power can be generated most days, even with clouds. 

 The limitation of solar panels is the sun. It’s up only half the day. A power inverter converts the battery’s power to household power for your normal use, day or night. Building several panels can achieve 1000+ watts of power. 

Small Wind Turbine

DIY Wind Turbine

Wind turbine is not for everyone. You need an open space, not because they are too large but because the wind flows better in the open. You need a minimum of 10+ M.P.H. wind speed with 20+ M.P.H. being ideal. An advantage to wind turbines is the wind can blow all day to produce power day or night. Another consideration is the wind turbine needs to be on a tower. 

The taller the better, in the 20 – 60 foot range. This usually requires local zoning permits. If these are not a problem you will get twice the power out of a wind turbine than for the same investment in solar panels. The break-even point is $400. More than that, the wind turbine is less costly to build for the same power output. 

You can easily get 450 watts to 1,000 watts from one DIY homemade turbine. Like the Solar Panel description above, you store the energy in deep cycle batteries and use an inverter to make household power, day or night. 

Solar Hot Water

Solar Hot Water

The power required for a home hot water heater is about 30% of the household energy budget. The solar hot water can easily cut that in half. Solar hot water uses the greenhouse effect. 

Build a box with a glass cover and some pipes and you can get hot water in the range of 120 – 130 degrees Fahrenheit winter and summer. Feed this hot water into you hot water heater for storage and the hot water heater will shut down, no power consumption. The hot water heater will only run when a boost is required like washing clothes. The construction is cheap and easy. 

Solar Air Heater

Solar Air Heater

Think about it. Free heat for the garage, basement or out-building. No wires not power costs. Supplement your house heater with free heat from the sun for as little as $30 in parts. 

Assuming you have most of the common parts around your garage, then yes you can. Even if it costs you a little more, its a fun “DIY Project” for the weekend.  

Geothermal Heat Pumps

Geothermal typical System

Geothermal heating and cooling technology provides exceptional performance and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) agrees that a geothermal heat pump is the most energy-efficient, environmentally clean, and most cost-effective space conditioning system available. 

    Today’s best geothermal systems outperform the best gas technology, gas heat pumps, by an average of 36% in heating mode and 43% in cooling mode! 

       You can save 25-50% on home electric bills compared to conventional heating and cooling systems. Imagine what you could do with the extra money in your wallet! 

The Reason for Guides

Do you want to know how to do these projects, what materials to buy, how big or small to make things? Get a DIY guide is the answer. For under $50 you can get a step-by-step guide, a plan and in some cases where needed you get a video tutorial. 

Which guide is best? Where do you get the guide. Go to www.ResidentialEnergykit.com for help. 

Off-Grid: Green Homes, Yachts, Vans and Cabins

How to live off the power grid.

Off-Grid living, (not using a power company) is a requirement for some remote locations like a cabin at the lake, hunting lodge, campsite, barn, field station, mobile home or a yacht. To live Off-Grid you need to make your own electricity. Conventional ways could include a gas or diesel powered generator that costs $1,000 – $5,000. The fuel cost alone to make energy will be expensive as much as ten times what a Power Company charges. What if you could make free power? Consider the Sun, Wind and Magnetism as free energy sources.

Living Off-Grid can be a way to save cost but that would require no cost power. Making power with solar panels, wind turbine generators or magnetic powered generators is how you can create free energy to get Off-Grid. You need to know-how to put these free energy generators all together for a reliable system. Concern for reliability may still include a gas or diesel generator but need a much less significant size and cost.

Evaluating Your Energy Loses and Improvements Needed

This is the most cost effective step. Any cost you have hear will pay you back 300% to 500% in the first year. Finding improvements in you energy consumption such as heat loss through windows door, ceiling, walls etc.

DIY Home Energy Audits

Think about replacing lighting with the new LED lamps. Appliances need to be Energy Star compliant an the list goes on and on. You can do the evaluation in a day. Develop a plan and do the most important first. In the next step you will define the amount of power you will need and that translates to the size of you off-grid system. The smaller the system, the less it will cost. So you see this step is very cost effective. See Easy-Energy-Audits

Evaluating Your Electrical Load

Your main electrical loads are appliances, cooking and lighting and in a few situations hot water heater, heat and air-conditioning. All have a calculation and a duty cycle. For an illustration a refrigerator consumes between 350 - 550 watts while the compressor is operating. The compressor “ON” ratio to compressor “OFF” is the duty cycle. In a day the 350 watts multiplied by the duty cycle of say 30% would evaluate to 24 x 350 x 30% = 2520 watts per day or 105 watts per hour average. Your energy source and power storage would need to be big enough for this load. Repeat the calculation for all the loads and you will determine the size of the Off-Grid scheme.

Power Sources for Electricity

Solar

If you enjoy a lot of sun you ought to consider Solar Panels. These devices can deliver 70 - 175 watts of free energy for each panel for a portion of the day. By having several panels, 1,000+ watts of free energy is feasible.

Wind

DIY Wind Turbine

Wind turbine generators can create 450 - 1,000 watts of energy the entire day. How much free energy they produce can vary with the wind patterns. Wind turbine tend to be more efficient for the installation dollar when the weather conditions are favorable. You need a minimum 10+ MPH and 20+ MPH is ideal. In addition you need space for a tower and a zoning permit.

Magnet Generator

Magnetic generators are allot smaller devices in the order of 24 - 100 watts. Their advantage is making free energy at a regular rate 24 hours a day, each day regardless of the weather. Several magnetic generators should be considered. A standard gas or diesel powered electric generator can produce energy also but not free energy.

Solar Hot Water and Solar Air Heaters Reduce Electrical Load.

These two devices are a good way to reduce the burden of electricity. Electrical heat is the most power hungry use of electricity. Getting heat from the sun will reduce the electrical load by over 30%, thus the cost of electricity power installation.

Solar Hot Water

Solar Hot Water

systems can use the sun to heat water that is stored in a well insulated tank. The temperature of this water can exceed 140 degree fahrenheit. If you choose an active system you can plumb the heated water throughout the home as primary heat. As a passive system it would augment the hot water heater.

Solar Air Heater requires no moving parts yet it will heat a room with just air currents, of course only during the day. It need not be a cloud free day for it to work.  The construction cost is very low, cheat even.

Energy Storage

All the above electrical energy sources need to store up their energy supplies to get totally Off-Grid. Power storage is in the form of deep cycle storage batteries.

Power Storage

Deep cycle batteries are unlike your car batteries. Car batteries convey a lot of energy for a few seconds then get re-energized. Car battery’s chemistry will be damaged if they get strongly discharged. Deep cycle batteries can supply power for hours by design an are not damage by strong discharges. Deep cycle batteries approximate cost each is: $129 @ 33 Amp Hour to $200 @ 450 Amp Hour. The battery Amp Hour rating should be two times the anticipated load. The batteries last longer that way. Battery maintence and renovation is important and can be costly. See How To Recondition Batteries

Battery Charge Controllers

To correctly charge a battery from the above energy sources you need a charge controller (regulator). The controller will take a variety of energy source voltages from 14 volt to 48 volts and regulate it to charge the batteries safely. Over charging protection circuits are included. Charge controllers cost from $24 to $84 for 4 - 30 Amp models.

Battery Power Inverters

2000 Watt Power Inverter

To use the free power that you have stored you need to take the battery voltage and direct current up to household voltage and alternating current with a power inverter. Household voltage of 110 Vac or 220 Vac are electronically made with a device called an “Power Inverter”. Inverter power output rating (watts) is important to consider. This power output needs to exceed your peak power load. Inverter cost range is at $36 @ 400 Watts to $852 @ 2,000 Watts. Having more than one inverter gives you built in backup.

Backup Systems

2,000 Watt Gas Generator

Backup systems are mandatory for Off-Grid living. By definition you do not have access to the Grid energy. Your stored power is your primary line of backup. That should be designed for a 24-hour load. What do you do after that? If your solar, wind and/or magnetic power sources no longer work. You will need a gas or diesel generator. Because you have battery power storage, you just need to refresh the batteries and that will take a much smaller generator. A 400-watt gas generator will cost $102 and a 3,750-watt gas generator will cost $500. Don’t forget these generators have a fuel and service cost and don’t provide free power.

Conclusion

Off-Grid living is an exciting idea and can have free power. Live or play anywhere without a Power Company. If you purchase Solar Panels @ $5 per watt or Wind Generators @ $1 per watt you will be paying 3 to 10 times what it would take to make your own Solar Panel or Wind Generator. Magnetic Generators are near impossible to buy. To make your own power sources buy a guide. The guides will show you how to make these power sources at home. Free power is the way to go Off-Grid.

If you want my critical review of two of the best guides Go To: www.ResidentialEnergyKit.com