The UPS Dude brought us the Sun!

Harry and I are sometimes like little children. We think that when the UPS guy comes to the house, its full of Presents. We never really take into consideration that we have PURCHASED these items, we only get excited about their delivery to our doorstep! So yesterday the UPS guy brought us another goody! He actually brought it right into our garage without our knowing but thats not the point of my story. This time he brought us a SUN OVEN!!!

We knew the solar oven was coming because we bought it, but we were very excited about it being here regardless. While I was at work today, Harry set it up and made it operational. I was going to write a post about his first attempt but when he sent me his timeline, it was so freaking funny, I figured I would just post it as is for you to enjoy! This is quickly becoming my favorite "dave" post!



12:00noon Take lunch break from every day job as a Linux Sys admin and decide to make Corn Muffins using Nuclear Fusion.

12:03 Gather necessary items like the brand new “Sun Oven” which has previously been cured in the Sun and washed.

12:10 Begin Oven pre-heating… Outside temp 85 degrees F and Clear skies

12:20 Dawn Mad Scientist “aka Welding” goggles and check the oven temp without burning your face entirely off… 275 Degrees

12:25 Begin mixing corn Muffin components in a safe < 85F area, aka the kitchen Snap picture for documentary program



12:30 Finish Mixing batter, dawn Mad Scientist goggles and oven mitts… Snap picture for posterity sake just in case things go awry


12:30 Leave Goggles on and check oven temp… 325, not quite there yet…give it few more minutes

12:35 Check Oven temp again, no need to put the goggles on because I never took them off after the last time given their level of coolness 350F, Rock-n-roll

12:36 Snap quick picture of Plutonium gloves and batter in the pans



12:40 Insert the three small loaf pans into oven

12:41 Forgot to put the goggles back on after snapping the picture of batter, Why is everything purple?

12:42 Try that again………Loaf pans in oven @350

12:55 muffins are rising… so far so good… given the slightly lower temp than what the recipe calls for, this may take longer than the 15-20 on the box. If we were using a regular oven we would be at 400 but given the solar, we are at just under 350ish

12:15 Muffins are Done…. That’s a first for me… I’ve never made anything with a solar oven before, come to think of it, I’ve never made corn muffins before either.


Every Solar oven should come with Welding goggles….

2009 wish list!

So many exciting things are starting to happen and I cannot wait! We did NOT get up to the cabin as hoped this weekend. Sometimes life gets in the way I'll tell ya! Anyway I did promise to give you a glimpse into the spring though with what our plans for 2009 are. We have so many hopes and wishes for this year!
One of the more exciting things is that we will be planting a 'trial' garden up there. Dave is working (in his head rmember) on a way to automatically irrigate the garden and "critter proof" it as best as he can.

We are also planning on adding onto the driveway so that we can get there in teh winter. All we would need is to hire someone to push the snow away so we can put our cars/trucks off the road.

I would like to complete the bathroom. Last year we ran out of time (and wood btw) before we put walls up and connected the pipes. Basically the sink and tub dont hold water yet.

We will be planting fruit bushes in addition to our already extremely plentiful blackberry bushes. I put in a few "trial" blueberry shrubs to see if they can make the winter (heavy snow load), actually produce fruit, survive deer/bear/others etc. We will have more info about that in the summer months but so far so good!

Personally we had goals regarding health and we are currently tackling the cigarette thing. I am also trying to run. I think being in better shape will help with the great shmoopywood experiment!

Wood, we have to cut split stack and store more wood. I mean we need an unbelievable holy crap amount of wood stacked and ready to go.

Organization, we have a ton of stuff but its everywhere. Dave is a one man tool tornado and we are both pilers. Inevitably he puts a tool down and I will pile stuff on top of it. Its really frustrating for both of us because he can't find something he needs and makes a mess while looking and I am picking up the new mess and piling it on top of something else!! Can we say counterproductive?

Oven: we are working on building a cob/adobe outside oven. Ok wait... we are working on mental plans for said oven.. and yes thats right it will be a "test".

Construction will be happening as well. We would both like to finish the walls under the stairs and put the door in for the basement. That leads me to the next thing which is walls in the "guest" room. We have yet to finish the railing as well.
although we both would love the kitchen work to start, it really is lower on the list I think. We are not sure yet what we need in there so it would be sad to put thins to gether only to have to move them in order to accommodate the new plan.

Finally (or at least the last thing I can think of) we are working on the solar (yay)

so thats it so far. Any tips?
:)

Dave's Solar Update:

Some quick additions to the earlier solar post.

In the following pics, you can see our temporary charge controller. This was a fun experiment when we first started learning about solar power and the components that go along with it. The setup we have has been providing steady light from a 13w CFL and a small fan with power during the night.

7amp charge controller that is rated for 7 15W panels, purchased from northern tool. Currently we only run 2 panels for a total of 30W. Convenient that it was small enough to bolt into a standard electrical box.

Here is one of the batteries. We had two dead car batteries laying around in the garage waiting to be recycled when I found out that Tractor Supply would take the cores and refund some $$$ of new batteries. Purchased two Stowaway 12V deep cycles. Each is 105 amp hours

Dave's Solar Posty :)

Here is the small scale solar test setup. These are each 15W panels that run to a 7amp charge controller and take care of our VERY small lighting needs at this time. We alternate between two 105amp hour 12V deep cycles. Each has a small inverter attached (one is 175W and the other 350W). In the last year, these have worked out very well for us and can easily run either a CFL or small fan during our weekend trips. If I recall correctly the panels were about 79 bucks when we got them last year and they were to be used as our small scale test however they have the power to keep two small batteries charged.

Using aluminum stock that was laying around in the garage, I fabricated a perimeter frame to hold two panels. Its upside down in this picture but there is a pin through joint that I made so that the angle can be changed as the seasons change. The aluminum is light and weather resistant as well as being very easy to work with on the drill press. I don't work with metal very often but some jobs do require it...this was one of those jobs I just couldn't get away with making out of wood ;-)

Here you can see their temporary location. Not exactly sure how efficient a solar panel will be with a Great Dane blocking the sun ;-) Future pictures will likely include these on a fence pole mount.

Can't wait to go from a 30W array with two small panels to a 800-1000 array and 1000 amp hour battery bank ;-) however this system seems ideal if you have a remote shed or outbuilding, bobhouse and can afford a few days of charging in the sun. Our average usage on the weekends is maybe 20 amp hours on these, which gets replaced during the week.

Energy Consumption - From Dave

A thought from the editor in chief of SW... we have really tried to stop being such energy hogs and although not all of our appliances are energy star, some of them are relatively new (3 -4 years old) and financially we cannot replace them at this time. We are leaving this afternoon so I hope to have new photos and an update for you by Monday!

OK, back to your regularly scheduled program...

Some quick thoughts about the Renewable power system and where we would like to be.

One of the items I neglected to mention in the previous post was a very helpful tool in gathering the necessary numbers (in order to size the system). I'm sure they are available on the web, but we got our Kill-a-watt EZ P3 from Northern tool. Its a small device that plugs in-line with the 120V AC electronics that you want to monitor. Sure, many of the books or calculators tell you to check the back panel of an appliance which is fine for say a radio or light, however if you want to check the power consumption of an appliance that goes on/off throughout the day, the kill-a-watt is a must and will stay running for as long as you want and continually update itself for current and total consumption. Our 7 cu ft chest freezer is a great example. Over the course of a 24 hour period the freezer (which BTW is in our basement which stays pretty close to 75 all the time) will consume 1 KWH. Multiply that out by 30 days and you've got 30 KWH per month required ;-)

Instead of spending 5X the money on a DC freezer, our intention is to use all 120V AC Energy-star appliances at camp. Current plan is to move our existing freezer to camp and attempt to make it even more efficient 1) by putting it in the stable/lower temps of the basement and 2) building a box around it made of high density insulated foam panels from lowes or home depot. Course we'll keep the vents open so all heat from the compressor is removed but in theory this should help at least a little.

Honestly we haven't done very much in the way of comparison with what the average American household uses for electricity for a family of 4. There is so much info on the web its difficult to know, so we are looking at our own numbers and using our previous usage with our current (more mindful) lifestyle as a baseline. We live in what I would consider a well insulated 1900 sq ft house, 100% CFL's, Oil Heat/Hot water, Well pump, Full Time Telecommuter and some appliances are Energy Star as all the normal things that you would find in any US household (TV's,Video Games, Computers, AC etc). Prior to making any attempts to conserve our normal monthly usage was in the 800-900 KWH per month range. Now that we have replaced all the lights with CFL's, Turned of Phantom loads, and are paying attention to lights and waste, our numbers have dropped to between 600-700 KWH per month. This was NOT difficult at all and we are not sacrificing comfort, we are just not wasting.

Our goal at the camp... 100 KWH per month and 100% renewable. Of course this is going to be somewhat skewed as we're not running big screen TV's, Oil Furnace, Oven, Dishwasher, Video Games, Telecommuting, however that is exactly why we are there.....so that we can escape from those things ;-)

Post by Dave

Well. I got hubbster to put together some solar information about what we are looking for, what we have discovered etc. Here goes:

The solar wish list and moving to the Big Leagues:

Up until this point, we have made do with candles, the occasional oil lamp, propane lamps (common to camping) and a small scale battery/inverter combo. The Battery combo that we had been using (seen under the table on the left) for a single CFL or a very small table fan has served us quite well and had reduced our need for the propane/oil lamps. We have two 12V deep cycles that we purchased (with trade in of old cores) at Tractor Supply. Each is 105 amp hours, tied to a small 150W DC to AC inverter. This allows either a CFL to be run or tiny tabletop fan that we have used at night. System is to be charged off two 15W PV panels and a 7amp charge controller which we got from Northern Tool. Pictures to come shortly. This was a great way to reduce the need for other light sources as well as start the sometimes daunting task of learning about everything solar.

Depending on how things go in the next week, this is the gear that we hope to purchase.

Heart of the system will be a Xantrex XW6048 which is a 6000 Watt DC to AC inverter that will tie everything together. Next up is the Battery bank. So far the plan is 4 concord 12V 255amp hour AGM's, to be wired together producing a bank of 1020 amp hours and 48 volts.

The inverter will be tied into our generator as well as a PV array, at this time 4 x 200W panels should do it.

More detailed info and pics to come!