Solar panel on coop?

[conny63malies]

Building a new permanent coop is for me a long five years away. But you cant keep me from dreaming and planning. So my future dream coop will be a 8x12 salthouse design from Lowes. There will be an area of about 5x8 ft for the chickens and the rest will be for me as a work- storage -potting area. The inside divider wall will be plywood on the bottom and chicken wire on the top half, with a 30in door.

so here is my big question : Does it make sense to install a 45W (or so)solar panel kit for lighting and cooling.?. I figured solar would be safer than 120V regular power. Does anyone have solar panels on their coop? and if how many watts.
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=90599
Thats what i imagine, plus i would add a fan for cooling or a solar skylight fan(seperate from the light).I have seen it cheaper on ebay though.

 

[Chieftain]

Solar panels would be good for charging a 12 volt battery system that can be used for all sorts of useful things like lighting and keeping a water source from freezing.

But be aware that solar costs a lot of money per watt and it has limitations, as well as the cost/benefit ratio.

110VAC service to your coop is perfectly safe. You have electricity in your bathroom, no?? There is not reason why you cannot have power in your coop, if you protect yourself and your chickens with a Ground Fault Interrupter (GFI) device.

 

[Scott]

I working on getting my chicken house solar as we speak. You might want to check this thread .

 

[lauriruth]

Give up on a cure....just give in and feed the addiction!!!!!

 

[cutlass1972]

I pointed out on Scotts thread that solar power is not really cost effective. If you are wanting to do it to save money, you could purchase many more kwh of electric from the grid than you will get out of a solar setup. Is it more "eco friendly" I Am not sure, given what it takes to manufacture silicon solar panels, and lead acid batteries. I am setting my coop up solar becasue it interests me and if the power goes off theoretically my coop will still operate. Also if the power goes out I coudl potentially tap into the pwer my coop is producing for my own use (small things like a laptop, cell phone, etc..).

 

[Bossroo]

Consider the similar cost benefit of this example... show me the cost savings and environmental benefit for the ethanol fuel that is so bandied about as so great for the endvironment. My car gave me 27 miles to the galon on regular gasolene prior to the government mandated ethanol blend fuel. NOW that the winter blend of 20% ethanol I get a whapping 16 miles to the galon with the added pleasure of paying an extra $1.12 cents to a galon for this biofuel. Also my car sputters and looses power when I drive up any sort of a hill. When this happened the first time I had my car checked out at the dealer shop which cost me $ 327. 73 to find out that the cause of the problem was the biofuel. Ethanol is made by fermenting CORN which takes power to grow, harvest, transport to the biofuel plant, make and deliver to the pump . Then to add to the misery of less milage, I used to pay $ 5.95 for 50 lb bag of corn... now I have the pleasure to pay $13.95 for the same bag of corn. So, it costs me 5 X more $$$ to produce my own chicken on my own land for my own dinner. Wal Mart is starting to look more and more tempting.

 

[beerman]

I am looking at buying the same set up from harbor freight, I always wanted to try solar and it looks cheap enough to mess with. I am also looking at a small wind turbine.

 

[cutlass1972]

Make sure you research the harbor freight solar setup. I have not used or seen one but I was thinking of buying one and searched the net for experiences with it and it seems that I could nto find many people that where really happy with their purchase.

 

[conny63malies]

Quote:
For some reason the army thinks that chickens dont belong in a yard. If i had my house off post id do it in a heartbeat. But here on post in can get my DH in a world of trouble.

 

[conny63malies]

Quote:
Its not because of the enviroment, i want to use solar because i want to avoid running/laying 100-200 feet of cable one day. Solar would give me the freedom of putting the coop where i would want it.