Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[chickengr]

I would like to get into solar power, more or less as an educational project.

I thought it would be great to set up a solar panel and recharge my tool batteries for "free." However, when I looked into the least expensive solar kit from Harbor Freight, it was about $150 for the setup. Looking into the numbers, I discovered that it cost me about 1-2 cents to recharge each of my tool batteries using grid power. That comes out to 7500 recharged batteries at the high end to make up that initial $150.00 investment.

Considering I recharge maybe 10 batteries per month on average, that comes out to a payback period of 62.5 years!

So, I did not buy the solar kit I was looking at just for its limited use of recharging tool batteries. Obviously, if a person lived off grid, you would have many uses for solar power and that would make solar a more viable option.

A few months ago, I watched a YouTube video where some guy was advocating most people would be better off with grid power, backed up by a battery bank power station and a gas/diesel generator in case the grid power goes down. In his example, his battery banks would keep his house running for about 3 days off grid. If grid power was still out at that time, he would run his generator for a few hours every day to recharge the battery bank. For his needs, he looked at spending about $70,000 for a whole house solar setup, or about $2,000 for a battery bank and generator setup.

For him, it made much more sense to go the battery bank and generator route. He was advocating that a battery bank backup system was a better economical solution for most people who have access to grid power. After all, if you have grid power, the chances of not having power for more than a day or two is pretty low. If you lived in hurricane zones, and maybe had to go a week or longer without grid power, the generator and a tank of diesel would last a long time.

My idea would be to have some kind of a portable battery bank that was plugged into my car's 12v outlet and recharging all the time while I'm driving. If the house lost grid power, I could just unplug the battery bank from the car and hook it up to my house power box.

At any rate, cooking chicken and veggies from a solar panel is pretty cool. Way to go!

I put 6 540w panels, 12 2v/720 ah batteries and 6 kw inverter for around 6500 eur which is $ 7150. I have a diesel 6 kw generator. my friends connected them for free. I don't use generator any more as it takes about 1 hour to fully charge batteries with solar panels.

I am 100% off grid. with electricity bills here and money they asked to bring the line to my house my payback is just 1 year.

 

[gtaus]

I am 100% off grid. with electricity bills here and money they asked to bring the line to my house my payback is just 1 year.

Location matters. In the 1990's, when I was stationed in Naples, Italy, the electric rate was easily 4X-5X the price of US rates. Dear Wife and I got very good at not wasting electricity. Also, the grid electricity was not very good, and we had numerous brown outs and black outs. The brown outs were actually more hazardous for my computer electronics, so I had a big battery backup for my system that could keep everything running for many hours in brown outs, and for a couple of hours if we had a total blackout.

Sounds like you have a nice solar setup. I don't know of anyone here in the US that has a 1 year payback, but I suspect that you had to factor in a high cost to run a line to your house and the expense of the grid power even after that.

I like the idea of being able to live off grid, but I'm more than happy with my grid power on those cold winter nights here in northern Minnesota which runs my electric off peak furnace. Our off-peak electric rates are half the normal electric rates. So, it's a good deal for me. Also have the hot water heater, air conditioner and the clothes dryers on off-peak rates. Saves a lot of money.

Nowadays, I save money on building pallet projects and making stuff from salvaged lumber. Fortunately, I enjoy making things out of pallet wood, mostly garden related projects. This time of year, we are eating all kinds of fresh food from the gardens. And next year I hope to add some more raised beds and grow more types of food. Dear Wife does not can food any more, but we have been freezing fresh garden beans the past couple of days. Learning how to freeze other stuff as well. Nice to have fresh food from the garden to enjoy in January!

 

[gtaus]

Thrift Store salvaging...

OK, not exactly pallet wood projects, but yesterday I picked up some nice wood products from our local church charity thrift store for free.

On my long list of things to build with pallet wood, I wanted to have a magazine rack for the "reading room", aka the bathroom. As luck would have it, I found this for free outside the Thrift Store....

It's in really good shape. No idea why they put it outside for free, except that maybe the young people today do all their reading on their smartphones?

Alongside the magazine rack, there was a wooden towel holder that matched. So, I picked that up, too....

I have not yet decided where to put this rack. For the picture, I just put it on the floor to give you an idea of what I found. They look like a matching set to me.

Both are simple designs and if you had some good pallet or salvaged wood, they would be pretty easy to make. But, picking them up, already made, for free is even better.

Those were a nice find, but there was also a patio deck table umbrella there as well. It's not brand new, but no tears or rips and the crank works. Here is a picture of it after I put it on our patio table and opened it up to stretch out....

It's actually a heavy-duty umbrella and has a tilt feature if you want to block out the sun from a certain direction. I opened it up all the way and maybe those wrinkles will work out after a little time. If not, no big deal. It was free and it works great just the same.

 

[gtaus]

Elevated sub-irrigated plater update...

Just want to share a picture of my elevated sub-irrigated planter out on our deck. I planted it full of beans. Dear Wife and I love fresh garden beans, plus I really like how green everything looks out on the wooden deck. I built this planter years before I got into pallet wood projects, but if I made one today, you bet I would make it out of pallet wood and save myself about $60.00.

We have already been harvesting fresh beans to cook up for supper. It's so nice just to walk out to the deck and grab a handful of fresh beans. Also, I made 2 jars of Spicy Pickled Beans and put them in the refrigerator. We wait at least a week before eating them.

Google picture of the recipe I used....

Since it's not real pressure canning, I just saved some glass jars with lids from applesauce or something like that and washed them out. The spicy beans stay in the refrigerator until they are used up. They don't last forever, but you can count on a number of weeks after opening.

 

[gtaus]

You might have guessed, but it's another rain day here, so I hope you don't mind the few posts I made on only tangentially related to pallet wood projects. I'll be back working on my chicken coop maintenance as soon as I can. I have a bunch of progress photos ready to go but have been waiting to complete the project before posting pics. Later...

 

[ChicksnMore]

Thrift Store salvaging...

OK, not exactly pallet wood projects, but yesterday I picked up some nice wood products from our local church charity thrift store for free.

On my long list of things to build with pallet wood, I wanted to have a magazine rack for the "reading room", aka the bathroom. As luck would have it, I found this for free outside the Thrift Store....

View attachment 3596986

It's in really good shape. No idea why they put it outside for free, except that maybe the young people today do all their reading on their smartphones?

Alongside the magazine rack, there was a wooden towel holder that matched. So, I picked that up, too....

View attachment 3596991

I have not yet decided where to put this rack. For the picture, I just put it on the floor to give you an idea of what I found. They look like a matching set to me.

Both are simple designs and if you had some good pallet or salvaged wood, they would be pretty easy to make. But, picking them up, already made, for free is even better.

Those were a nice find, but there was also a patio deck table umbrella there as well. It's not brand new, but no tears or rips and the crank works. Here is a picture of it after I put it on our patio table and opened it up to stretch out....

View attachment 3596996

It's actually a heavy-duty umbrella and has a tilt feature if you want to block out the sun from a certain direction. I opened it up all the way and maybe those wrinkles will work out after a little time. If not, no big deal. It was free and it works great just the same.

Those are some great finds. You might enjoy an app called "Freebie Alerts: free stuff app". You tell it where you're at and it sends alerts for free stuff offered within a certain distance. I've seen some nice stuff listed in it for my area.

I love working with old furniture. Here's a little $2 table I'm currently working on. Turning it into a chess table for my youngest.

Have a ways to go but enjoying the process.

 

[gtaus]

Those are some great finds. You might enjoy an app called "Freebie Alerts: free stuff app". You tell it where you're at and it sends alerts for free stuff offered within a certain distance. I've seen some nice stuff listed in it for my area.

I'll check out that app, but I live in rural area so I doubt I'll get many hits. People here leave free stuff out on the road by their mailbox. If you drive by and see something you might be interested in, you stop and pick it up.

I love working with old furniture. Here's a little $2 table I'm currently working on. Turning it into a chess table for my youngest.

That's a very nice looking table. Good luck on your chess table project.

I remember playing checkers with my grandpa when I was a young kid. I'm now in my 60's, but I still cherish those times together with him. I doubt young kids will feel the same about their smartphones years from now. It's just not the same playing a game with a machine compared to sharing time with someone who you care about. You are not making a chess table, per se, but rather you are making future memories for your youngest. Hope you play chess with your child and build those memories for them to remember when they get older.

 

[gtaus]

I got a chance to go outside and sand down the DIY wood filler putty I made with sawdust and Titebond II glue. It sanded down OK, but I noticed that the first batch of putty that I mixed up had too much sawdust in it and it was rather bumpy. The second batch I mixed up used more glue and that went on better, dried better, and sanded better. If I do it again, I'd use even more glue to have a smoother putty before applying it on the wood. It's a learning experience.

After sanding, I gave the trim a couple coats of white paint and called it a day. Next time I'll paint the walls red and see how that goes.

The DIY wood putty filler I mixed up is going to be OK, but not the highest quality. When I sanded it down, there were still small pockets and voids in the filler. A good sandable primer paint might cover that up with no problem, but I'm using a couple coat of barn paint. So, it's not going to be perfect, but it's an outside building not interior trim work. I took some pictures which I'll post when everything is done. It's looking better each day.

FYI, I could have spent more time on sanding down the filler until it was perfectly smooth, but my objective is to get the project done, not to get it done perfectly. After all, it's a chicken coop way out in the backyard.

I mentioned before that the "trim boards" I used on the original coop build was just OSB ripped down to 4 inch wide strips. That saved me a lot of money at the time. The pallet wood I am now using to replace the old OSB trim boards is a big step up in quality. Plus, the pallet wood was free.

 

[ChicksnMore]

I'll check out that app, but I live in rural area so I doubt I'll get many hits. People here leave free stuff out on the road by their mailbox. If you drive by and see something you might be interested in, you stop and pick it up.



That's a very nice looking table. Good luck on your chess table project.

I remember playing checkers with my grandpa when I was a young kid. I'm now in my 60's, but I still cherish those times together with him. I doubt young kids will feel the same about their smartphones years from now. It's just not the same playing a game with a machine compared to sharing time with someone who you care about. You are not making a chess table, per se, but rather you are making future memories for your youngest. Hope you play chess with your child and build those memories for them to remember when they get older.

Well...she's college age so not a lot of free time left any more. But we did spend a lot of time playing chess when she was younger. If I'm lucky, she'll still find the time to join me occasionally

 

[chickengr]

Location matters. In the 1990's, when I was stationed in Naples, Italy, the electric rate was easily 4X-5X the price of US rates. Dear Wife and I got very good at not wasting electricity. Also, the grid electricity was not very good, and we had numerous brown outs and black outs. The brown outs were actually more hazardous for my computer electronics, so I had a big battery backup for my system that could keep everything running for many hours in brown outs, and for a couple of hours if we had a total blackout.

Sounds like you have a nice solar setup. I don't know of anyone here in the US that has a 1 year payback, but I suspect that you had to factor in a high cost to run a line to your house and the expense of the grid power even after that.

I like the idea of being able to live off grid, but I'm more than happy with my grid power on those cold winter nights here in northern Minnesota which runs my electric off peak furnace. Our off-peak electric rates are half the normal electric rates. So, it's a good deal for me. Also have the hot water heater, air conditioner and the clothes dryers on off-peak rates. Saves a lot of money.

Nowadays, I save money on building pallet projects and making stuff from salvaged lumber. Fortunately, I enjoy making things out of pallet wood, mostly garden related projects. This time of year, we are eating all kinds of fresh food from the gardens. And next year I hope to add some more raised beds and grow more types of food. Dear Wife does not can food any more, but we have been freezing fresh garden beans the past couple of days. Learning how to freeze other stuff as well. Nice to have fresh food from the garden to enjoy in January!

I used to freeze a lot staff. I miss it now but without freezing I eat more fresh food. I have a huge fridge with a freezing compartment.