The Grid: Getting Off It (Step One - Research)

[hsifeng]

Well kids, I think it is time for me to look into this more seriously. We wanted to wait until we put in the garage (so that the solar panels could go there instead of on the house) but I don’t know if that type of esthetic consideration is realistic anymore. I only hope they can put them on the BACK of the house so that they aren’t so nasty looking in the front.

 

Our friggin electric bill was over $450 in the middle of the summer this year and over $650 in the middle of the summer last year. Nach.

 

I understand there are companies in my area that are doing solar leases as well. Other ‘off grid’ items I would like to look into.

 

1) Home gardening: Seems we might be doing a bit of a ‘community garden’ since we have oodles of yard spacetristinmorgan andsaoirse42 are interested in pitching in.
 

http://www.hgtv.com/gl-wildlife-other/no-work-garden/index.html

http://www.americanprofile.com/article/562.html

 

2) Reclaiming Rainwater: A great way to water your garden, and with a mulched garden it takes even less water!

 

http://www.watercache.com/

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/natres/06702.html

Any other great resources folks would like to point me towards?

Comments

[bedpimp.livejournal.com]

I don't trust that solar lease deal. Feels an awful lot like the timeshare concept. We should hit up gryphonlsb for the company that came out and gave him a quote. I think it's Solar City. The quote was free and the information was top notch.

The back of the house shouldn't be a problem. We'd want the panels on the south side. Not sure how much surface area we have up there, though.

As soon as Tom's back from his honeymoon, I'll see if he has any suggestions. He works for Burning Man and is spearheading Black Rock Solar

Do we want to think about building a slow sand water filter?

[bedpimp.livejournal.com]

Looks like Solar City is a lease, too. :-(

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

I have no problem talking to them about a lease; it means that we can get cheaper, cleaner energy and not be tied down to equipment repair costs and outdated gear once we get ready to pay for an installation.

Wanna look into their appointment schedule?

I am also interested in talking to Tom about what he has to offer (the problem being we is POOR and can’t afford much more than we pay currently on our average PG&E bill as a monthly payment).

As for the water filtration: First we have to look at our roof and figure out how to set up the piping to get the water we have up there into the filter.

[bedpimp.livejournal.com]

I think Black Rock Solar is doing commercial/industrial stuff, but I can pick his brain on technology and vendors, at the very least.

What is our average monthly PG&E bill?

Do we need 3 refrigerators? Perhaps swap one for a big freezer?

I can do an appointment, if you'd like. Any chance we can get the roof over the service porch looked at, too?

Gutters on the roof, filter/reservoir on the service porch. That will give us a bit of water pressure without needing a pump.

[bedpimp.livejournal.com]

The trees on the east side of the house will need to be topped or removed for solar to be really effective. If we could make the plastic roof over the laundry room load bearing it would give us another 15%, give or take.

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

The cost of that type of tree work is prohibitive (thousands of dollars). Perhaps we should look at a ground installation adjacent to the shed instead.

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

If we are going to take a fridge out, it would be the kegorator: There is no way we will be able to operate the whole house off of one kitchen fridge, so it is the logical choice to go if something has to. Have you checked with PG&E on the relative costs of electricity for our appliances to see what we would be looking at in savings if we got rid of it ($29/month per one site)?

As for the overall electricity: Based on the last three months that would be $246/month.

Cost on the roof over the porch has the same issues as the cost of topping the trees. We need to look at a possible ground install or what we can get in currently free roof space on the back of the house.

Looking into the sand filtration system is going to take some figuring since we need to all be happy with the location and the concept before we get too far down that road…

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

Are you out of town this weekend? We need to check this place out for garden/general supply purposes: http://www.restorefresno.org/pages/inventory.html

[bedpimp.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm out of town this weekend. Do you get Monday off? It is Oppression of Indigenous Peoples Day, you know. ;-)

Oh, that's very cool! That's like what happens to the lumber after Burning Man!

[gryphonlsb.livejournal.com]

The guy talked to me at work few weeks back (also one of the guys who came to the house earlier this year to give me the low down)

I have his card at the shop and can get you that info

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

Yes please!

O Goodie! Someone I can Geek Out with ...

[dravon.livejournal.com]

Check out this article - there's something new in the works for solar power potential, and if it pans the days of the huge ugly (easily breakable) panels are numbered. yay!

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre49429h-us-solar-flexible/ -- Scientists develop solar cells with a twist

When I lived in Virginia, the house we lived in wasn't particularly old (I guess ~40 years could be considered old) but it was particularly poorly built. It had zero insulation, and in the Virginia mountains where snow and ice was common, this was decidedly unpleasant AND expensive. Since I could stand by the thin windows and feel the cold radiating in, I decided to cover the windows with a thick insulating plastic. I didn't do the job as tidily as was possible, but I saw a tremendous improvement in terms of insulation against both heat and cold right away! And you don't have to do all of them at once. Get the plastic when you have the money, and staple it or nail it or put it underneath a pretty trim inside or outside.

Another trick I learned was to use the daylight to my advantage. I put heavy material curtains on the windows. In the summer when it was hot outside, I'd shut the curtains on the sunny side of the house and this served to keep the heat out while at night I'd open all the curtains & windows to cool it down. What really worked well was keeping the curtains closed during the winter evenings and open during the day (on the sunny side only), letting the sun add whatever it could to heat the house. If your place gets any direct sunlight, you'll notice a difference in those rooms in terms of temperature when the curtains are drawn.

Then there's the trick of insulating any pipes or water heater you have access to. It sounds simple, and many people do wrap their water heater in insulation but they forget the hot water pipes. In my case, the pipes were just hanging out in the unfinished ceiling of the basement, so they were easy to get to. If they are sealed up in the walls or ceiling ... oh well. This saved us quite a bit in heating oil too.

*thinks* Energy vampires are evil, as jillwheezul mentioned, but there are a whole lot more in your house than just chargers. I have my TV and all attendant stuff on a power strip with an on/off switch. When not watching TV, I don't need the little red light on the DVD player and the other crap to tell me that they are OFF ... if the light is on, they are using electricity. I also pulled the plug on the clock in the kitchen stove, and all the other clocks in the house are powered by lithium batteries.

You could also check out my Amazon wish list entitled "Food and Land Use" -- that's chock full of books on various off-the-grid topics such as composting, vermiculture, grey water systems, and other such stuff. Maybe a topic in there will give you an idea for something else you can do.

Re: O Goodie! Someone I can Geek Out with ...

[dravon.livejournal.com]

Oops. Too many comments. I meant to click the "reply" button under the original post, but I missed. Sorry!

Re: O Goodie! Someone I can Geek Out with ...

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

http://www.restorefresno.org/pages/inventory.html I think I need to drag the boys out to this place over the weekend. We may find that our garden set up is more affordable than we think...and they might have curtain rods!

Re: O Goodie! Someone I can Geek Out with ...

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

The house has had some upgrades already: New roof (with blown in insulation under it), new double pane windows, new AC/heating unit and water heater with built in insulation. However, I can almost guarantee that I need to look at the caulking around my windows and doors since the installers didn’t do a very good job with that when they put the new stuff in. We are also lacking regular housing insulation and are operating two full households (each with its own kitchen and bathroom set ups) out of the same house.


The big move that I really do need to make soon in that ‘keeping the cold out and the heat in department’ is making curtains. I know, I know. How in the name of Hades does someone who can sew lack curtains? *head desk* Honestly, part of the delay has been that I want nice curtain rods and they cost money: I need to go look at the local ‘recycled’ home good store and just bite the damn bullet.

I like (and sort of use) the whole ‘cold side of the house/warm side of the house’ trick with fans and open windows in the summer. We only turn on the AC when we have to (learned that the year of the $650 July bill).

We do need to check out our pipes. I think most of them are in the walls and ceilings (so they will be insulated when the rest of that gets done), but there may also be some under the house that we can get wrapped up nice and tight.

Thanks for the poke in the right direction!

Re: O Goodie! Someone I can Geek Out with ...

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

Finally read the article here: http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre49429h-us-solar-flexible/

This is part of why I like the lease idea - we can upgrade to the new tech once our lease is up instead of getting permanently settled with the old stuff.

[jillwheezul.livejournal.com]

Have you changed over to the new light bulbs yet? They apparently are a money saver.

Some other little things that supposedly help are unplugging your chargers (for phones and stuff) when you aren't using them, and that specifically laser printers that are left on eat a suprising amount of electricity.

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tips, love! We already have the energy efficient bulb throughout the house. The next steps (as it is an OLD house) are insulation - can't afford it at this point - and solar - which we can apparently lease or rent.

So, solar it is! *grin*

The communal vegi garden will help in a lot of ways too as it will both supplement our food intake (in the healthiest, most organic way possible!) and provide for more sunshine time and good old fashioned yard work.

Thomas Jefferson said, in 1781 "Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus in which he keeps alive that sacred fire, which otherwise might escape from the face of the earth." And on 1785 Aug. 23 in a letter to John Jay, "Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to it's liberty and interests by the most lasting bands."

[twistedcat.livejournal.com]

i recommend reading stachmckenna's blog, especially her urban homesteading tags...

[twistedcat.livejournal.com]

that should read stacymckenna

i am typo girl

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

Thankees, will do!

[shadowd1.livejournal.com]

i don't know if y'all qualify, but you should look into http://www.gridalternatives.org/

they did a presentation at our district back in February, looking to form partnerships to secure volunteers for solar installations. At the very least, they could probably point you in the correct direction for the best alternative, if you don't qualify.

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

Thank you honey, I will look into it!

[tristinmorgan.livejournal.com]

hehe make sure you spell my lj name right or else it links to a 15 year-old's lj with a quidditch obsession.

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

Whoooopes!