Thursday, January 7, 2010
Want to learn more about solar?
There is a free workshop on active solar on January 30th at the Shelter Institute. Come learn about solar hot water and electric. There will an representative from Revision Energy and I will be talking about our house. There will be time to answer any questions after the talk. This is a free course and if you love good quality tools you will not be disappointed. Shelter Institute has one of the best selections of hand tools. Click on the Shelter Blog link and let them know you are coming. See you there.
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Hi Ben
ReplyDeleteI put in solar hotwater last may (2009). this provides domestic hotwater as well as heat into my radiant floors. I have a 3200sf ranch style home with oil burner backup.
As you too have discover Dec/Jan were not good "hot water" months for domestic but I found That I was getting 3-5 hours per day of radiant floor heat. Temp at the collector would get to 130-150 range this heat would than transfer to the heat collector tank and act as my burner for those hours. Its amazing technology. I have cut 2 oil tanks (330 gal tank). This will be my first full year with the system.
I see that you have grid attached solar electric. I am curious about the size of your system and what how you like.
I am concidering going off grid to whatever extent I can this year while the tax credits are available. I also understand from Revisison that the array prices are dropping.
tmcilve@sacoriver.net
terry mcilveen
Hello Ben –
ReplyDeleteI am THRILLED by your blogspot, and I hope you will keep it going. All too often, I have found similar blogs that focused on the physical structure of their housing and land holdings, and related day to day realities of living “independently”, which then either suddenly peter out, or rather than give us hard data and realities/choices/costs in this regard, devolve into something akin to “Gaia worship”. Although to paraphrase Seinfeld, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that!”
I am a right-leaning Libertarian, so perhaps my reasoning and incentives in choosing a more “green” or independent lifestyle may differ greatly from those of many of your readers. I would remind them that in the end, the final achievement of our goals result in the same physical realities, albeit from different political considerations. I value an independent lifestyle above all else, and the means by which I can realize that result are secured in choosing the same paths and values you demonstrate yourself.
While I would hardly disagree with the environmental aspects and goals of your lifestyle, as such proves to be a more rational/practical take on daily living in any realm you’d care to cite, my personal focus is on the embodied independence and thrift. Remember THRIFT, anyone? In the end, I believe that the end result affects the same ends, and should be useful as an additional point of argument with any of those less inclined to acknowledge the ecological benefits that thrift provides, much less those joys that ecologically sound living provides daily for one’s soul and one’s immediate surroundings, i.e; your own little patch of God’s green Earth.
I believe that any lifestyle that requires more than the Earth’s natural carrying capacity for your lifestyle is a false choice, closely followed by the same as regards financial choices as well. So much of what our country is presently negatively affected by right now is directly related to financial prolificacy, whether on a personal or on a governmental plane. Too many are all too often lured into a lifestyle that values luxury and false abundance over reality and thrift. All too many are consumed with either providing themselves with an abundance they cannot truly afford, or through the attainder of which they assume results in “positive” approbation from those with whom they’re not even personally acquainted.
I cannot imagine any greater “luxury” than that afforded by a home and a lifestyle that I can afford and that I have either fully paid for, or can easily afford – where my daily joy in the property and life as a whole is not blunted by the requirement and worry of continuing to “slave” for it. A home that, absent any external situation, I can afford AND provide with heat, light and water at little to no cost. A life wherein I can easily provide for my own sustenance if need be, with some minor daily adjustments and a little elbow grease.
Please continue educating us all through your own personal “experiment”. The reality you present affords your readers with more valuable information than pure theory and modeling can ever hope to contribute.