Going off the grid...Does anyone use solar for energy in their home?

[chickymama25]

Thank you! I will wait until DH gets home and we can begin researching! Let the savings roll!

 

[swimcoch]

My wife, daughter, and I have been living off grid for almost one year. Utility power was not an option where we wanted to (and did) build.

If given a choice, we would have the same system (6 kW) but hooked to the grid so we would not need the large battery bank. I hope you do add some solar pannels...but stay tied to the grid. Check out homepower.com. They have a great publication that will be great for your education on the topic.

If I can answer any questions about solar living, just ask.

Doug

 

[raventearsx]

My fiance and I have been living off the grid for months. It has been our dream to do this together since we started dating. We own 30 acres on the edge of the Chihuahuan Desert in SW Texas, and we make electricity with photovoltaic panels, homemade wind turbines, and a biomass gasification generator. It is a lot of work but we have never been happier. We are starting to raise chickens (day-olds will be delivered April 27th!) and we will plant our garden soon. I would also like to get some goats for dairy, but we aren't quite up to that step yet.

If you want to be more involved in the way your home works and where your resources come from, instead of just buying everything from a store or supplier (which I assume you are if you are raising chickens!), living off the grid with a sustainable lifestyle is so fulfilling and gratifying. We love making our own electricity and doing as much for ourselves as possible. Good luck, but definitely do a lot of research. You can check out our websites: www.allenergies.net (for alternative energy projects) and LivingOffGridinTexas.com (for info on our off-grid homestead).

-Sara
"Live simply, so that others may simply live"

 

[JimWWhite]

Quote:
In the summer time we open up our windows and doors to heat up the house. Does that count?

 

[Gonzo]

I don't now, but I would Love to figure out how to do it myself!

 

[MoSo]

It's easier to start building with solar in mind than to retrofit existing. One of the things solar has trouble with are large turn-on load appliances - well pumps, refrigerators etc etc. If you know you are going solar, it pays to buy appliances which are designed for the use (or are designed to run 12v). Unfortunately, those tend to be expensive. Also if you are designing from scratch you get a chance to work on sun angles and passive solar, which helps a ton. Our house is passive solar, radiant floor heat and solar thermal panels for domestic hot water (probably soon to run the floors as well) and even when it's down in the teens and single digits in the winter, if the sun is out we don't need any other heat during the day.

My best recommendation would be Home Power magazine - you can subscribe on-line or most likely find it at your local library. They are good about featuring a range of projects, not just the "here, throw money at the system" type things.

I usually go on a couple of the solar/green homes tours in the state, and frequently you see someone with far more money than sense, where instead of doing all the things like insulating and replacing windows, etc, they just looked at their electric bill and sized a system to run that. Really not the way to go, there are a tion f things to do first.