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" POPULAR MECHANICS contributor Ben Hewitt will keep readers updated online as he researches a series of print articles for the magazine on alternative-energy technologies--using his own home as a test lab. Hewitt and his family live off the electrical grid in northern Vermont; in the coming months they will be experimenting with ways to improve their lifestyle, while reducing their dependence on fossil fuels. -- The Editors It&amp;#039;s been a while since I responded to any questions/comments, so that&amp;#039;s the order of the day. Sorry for the delay; thanks for reading and keep &amp;#039;em coming.--Ben Re: Solar Home Project: Rolling In Power! I have found several websites online that offer LED light bulbs for around $40 each. They are only rated at 25-30 watts though, so it might be hard to use them in areas that need more lighting. BH: Intriguing. I haven&amp;#039;t looked into that, but I know that LED bulbs have pretty much taken over the headlamp market for their long life and low draw. Re: Solar Home Project: Rolling In Power! Hi Ben, Good to hear the &amp;quot;Ice Box&amp;quot; is running now. the cold snap has me burning more wood now. At least I have it to burn in Northeast CT. Now you have hot water and cold refrigeration with little current draw. What&amp;#039;s next? Any luck with the wind mill? There are some conviences that you must have, water is one of them. Ever thought of a cistern and gravity feed? Fill it while power is plentiful and draw off when it&amp;#039;s not. It might cost more money than it saves. Just a thought. Take care. ... Happy birthday to your oldest. And Happy Holidays, Paul Pomfret, CT BH: Thanks Paul. Haven&amp;#039;t had much time to look further into the windmill, but will eventually. As for water, we have a great well (30 gallons per minute at 100 feet \u2026 we were dancing the day the drilling truck was here!), and although the pump is a big draw (about 1500 watts, me thinks), it only runs for a couple of minutes at a time, for a total of maybe 15 minutes/day. You bring up a great point: Many of the things that would be great to do, that make sense from an energy standpoint, cost a lot of dough. We&amp;#039;re constantly weighing the cost/benefit ratio.  Re: Solar Home Project: Is Your Cold Box Running? My wife, daughter, and I are just now beginning our hunt for land. Until recently we were convinced that we MUST be on the grid, but articles such as yours are contributing to a slow but steady change in attitude. Since we&amp;#039;re in Southern Arizona, sunshine for power is NO PROBLEM. On the other hand, cold boxes such as yours are not an option in this heat. Thanks for the articles. It&amp;#039;s always good to know that someone out there has accomplished what we are setting out to do. Good luck to all of you in the COLD states this winter. In Tucson we&amp;#039;ll be drinking cold beer in the warm sunshine all winter long if you care to visit! : ) BH: True, you won&amp;#039;t be utilizing a cold box in AZ\u2026 but don&amp;#039;t worry: You&amp;#039;ll have plenty of sun to run a fridge and keep that beer cold!  Re: Solar Home Project: The Great Chest Fridge Experiment 240-volt fans? Brrr.... BH: Did I type 240? Of course, I meant 2400;)  Re: Solar Home Project: The Great Chest Fridge Experiment Good Morning, I just finished reading the 12/05 article and can&amp;#039;t wait for more. Congrats on the chest freezer conversion. Sources for additional batteries are out there ... usually free. I have 9 100AHR 12VT batteries that I scored free, just some sweat and labor. i use them for emergency back-up for Amateur Radio. They are on a constent float charge and ready at the flip of a switch. If you can get a variance from your town, the amateur radio community is a great place to get used towers. Usually very cheap and more sturdy than you want to build. New is very expensive. More info on where to buy these items, specifically solar PV panels. Something I have always wanted to do but never have. Keep warm in VT. We got more snow today here in CT. Maybe we will have a white Xmas for a change. Happy Holidays, KE1LI BH: I did approach our local phone utility at one point to see about batteries, but their recycling schedule didn&amp;#039;t work for us. But a great point. A little digging around can pay off big.  Re: Solar Home Project: Sinkhole Solved? As a former HVACR tech of 16+ years I agree. A full freezer keeps a better temp than an empty one. I say look elsewhere. Re: Solar Home Project: Sinkhole Solved? As someone who taught refrigeration for 12 yrs I assure you your repair man is being less than truthful. In actuality a full freezer uses less electricity than a half full freezer. This is so because the mass of the food holds temperature more consistently than empty air space. Re: Solar Home Project: Sinkhole Solved? i wish my wife would read this. i can&amp;#039;t even open the freezer door without trying to catch the falling food!!!!!!!!! BH: We&amp;#039;re familiar with that problem. I&amp;#039;ve almost broken toes that way!  Re: Solar Home Project: Sinkhole Solved? I think your mom in law knows what she&amp;#039;s talking about, but I&amp;#039;m hoping you&amp;#039;ll investigate manufacturers&amp;#039; claims for all the energy saving features of their various products, automobiles to flashlights! Let us know, We&amp;#039;re counting on you! Re: Solar Home Project: Sinkhole Solved? Hi Ben, I,ve been haveing a blast reading your ongoing saga. Thanks. Ben I spent a year in Scottland and as anyone knows the Scots are a very frugal bunch, and a lot of those guys don&amp;#039;t or didn&amp;#039;t have a fridge. What they did is that in the pantry of the kitchen which had a door on it they had a hole in the ceiling of the pantry and the cold air from the attic would keep the pantry cold. I think that if you did somthing like that you might want to insulate the walls around the pantry. Regards, Mike BH: Great idea, although we have cathedral ceilings \u2026 so it wouldn&amp;#039;t work for us. But for most.  Re: Solar Home Project: Energy Sinkhole Discovered In Northern Vermont Home! I can&amp;#039;t help wondering whether the energy consumption ratings on appliances are hyped on the basis of ideal laboratory operating conditions (in this case, lab ambient temp: 40 deg. F). Maybe you should run similar checks on other appliances. Please let us know results of factory check on your refrigerator! BH: That&amp;#039;s a great point and certainly true of fuel efficiency ratings. I have to say that once we got the fridge running properly again, it ate almost exactly the amount claimed. Actually, a bit less: it was averaging .9 kw hours/day according to our Kill A Watt. But that&amp;#039;s in winter, when the ambient temp in our kitchen is about 65.  Re: Solar Home Project: Energy Sinkhole Discovered In Northern Vermont Home! Just because a refrigerator is rated for 380 KWH / Yr doesn&amp;#039;t mean you can simply divide that amount out by the hours in a year. The energy consumption will vary based on the ambient temperature in the house, how much the door is opened and how much thermal mass (food) is in the refrigerator. More importantly the nominal per-day KWH usage will absolutely not be evenly spared across the day&amp;#039;s time. The defrost cycle which runs a resistive heating element to melt off frost buildup on the coils may only occur once a day or possibly even less frequently, but it will absolutely represent a momentary spike in energy consumption. I&amp;#039;ve read that off-grid folks often buy older manual defrost refrigerators used, or disable the auto defrost mechanism on newer refrigerators to eliminate the power spike from the defrost heater. Of course this means that you must remember to manually defrost the coils from time to time. Pete BH: Great point, Pete. As I just noted, all our readings have been during winter, when ambient temp is around 65. I have noticed the tremendous draw when the defrost cycle kicks in. Ouch!  Re: Solar Home Project: Energy Sinkhole Discovered In Northern Vermont Home! By the way, GET RID of the electric refrigerator!!! I have looked at a lot of fridges, if the ambient temperature is comfortable for you, count on your fridge running 50% of the time!!! Get a PROPANE refrigerator, look for the least propane usage claims make em prove it. Remember, each time you convert your energy you lose some amount of it, you can measure the loss using an amp meter and a volt meter, multiply the readings of amps x volts = watts. For example I used DC electronic balast and got 1 amp draw on a 12 volt system for each one. 1x12=12watts ( that is with a 12 watt bulb!!! ) Check each installed component including the wires for energy loss! More than a 3% voltage drop across wires means you are wasting energy heating the wires! Tweak everything you have the best you can before throwing more money at it. Jaime BH: Thanks for the tips. The reasons we went electric: 1) during the summer, we have copious power 2) propane fridges are $$$$$ 3) propane is getting very pricey and will likely get more so in coming years 4) most propane fridges are small (about 8 cu. ft.).  Re: Solar Home Project: New Photovoltaics On The Way! Have you talked to Paul Hunt, of Hunt Utilities? Check out his research campus. Also, I would like to show you my ideas and business plan for investment 5/06 to create LEGAL cob homes in Utah. I had always thought to use masonry heaters. Why have you not used these? Also, will be working with Tom Flynn for ceramic water filters. What do you use to bring well water up to taste? Finally, I would love it if you could look over my ideas and give me advice, but I need an e-mail addy. The overview is 15 pages but its more than half pictures and diagrams. Marni BH: Have not talked to Paul; I&amp;#039;ll check into his campus. Interestingly enough, we have considered a masonry heater, but it really comes down to economics. In other words, we don&amp;#039;t have a spare $15k kicking around;). Also, I have some concerns (having talked to many people who have them) that a masonry heater would not fully heat our 2200-square foot house. We don&amp;#039;t filter our well water. It&amp;#039;s pretty darn tasty as is.  Re: Solar Home Project: New Photovoltaics On The Way! I see you&amp;#039;re working on &amp;quot;off the grid&amp;quot; solar. What about &amp;quot;on the grid&amp;quot; backfeed solar? I live in NYS and believe that there are state programs for these systems. Are there similar programs in VT? BH: Yes, there are. See my first installment in the magazine (Dec 05) for more info.  Re: Solar Powered Home Project Hello Ben, Fascinating article. It is interesting to me that your neighbor can accumulate credit with the utility company in VT. When I visit a state like Florida, I can&amp;#039;t help wonder why all houses there aren&amp;#039;t equipped with solar panels - the sun is very intense. It would certainly help people when a hurricane passes by. They would have a backup that recharges itself and they wouldn&amp;#039;t spend days or weeks in the dark waiting for the utility co. to fix things. If energy prices keep going up, as I believe they will, I forsee a time when houses in sunny states, all supply excess power to a national grid. BH: I think you may be right.  Re: Solar Home Project: More Questions Thanks-I think I get it \u2013sort of. Here&amp;#039;s why I ask. A/C is probably the biggest expense here in the South and that is electric only. Runs pretty much Mar-Sept/Oct. My last 2 bills avg. use is 124 Kwh/day@ .07/Kwh. Family of 5 homeschoolers. We do not keep it like an igloo-75 deg.+ but the single largest expense is electric. We get so much sun for so long in the season that I am looking to supplement what is no doubt an increasing cost for electricity by adding solar. I guess I see the time when I could sell power back to TVA whenever consumption drops off\u2014produce in the day and sell back at night, for example. Reduction of consumption for a family of 5 in a 50 yr old home is vital and we are certainly working on that\u2014the house was only built to accommodate so much load back in &amp;#039;54. We are here and using power all day most days. We made the conversion to the compact Fluoro bulbs quite a while back and are continuing to replace as the old regular bulbs fail. We have a good exposure and long summers so I wanted to see what I could expect over 30 years if I ADDED these types of systems. I don&amp;#039;t see adding enough panels to make myself energy independent just better use what we have. Again, not looking for a short-term deal but more for the long run /what to do and where to go to get additional information to help make the decision. There is very little here locally as a resource except the power co. BH: Well, 127kwh/day is a LOT of juice. I&amp;#039;m not savvy enough to do the math off the top of my head, but it&amp;#039;s safe to say you&amp;#039;d need an EXTENSIVE and EXPENSIVE PV system to chip away at that in any meaningful way. And considering that you&amp;#039;re getting electricity at 7 pennies per kdub, and it&amp;#039;s really difficult to make the case for powering your AC via solar panels. I&amp;#039;d recommend looking for ways to run it less: window blinds, fans, etc. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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