# Looking into solar for house electricity



## kyle (Mar 26, 2011)

We have a small home in SW BC Canada. We will be doing solar greenhouses (farming will be our income) and using compost adn that for house heating (in floor). Still looking into that stuff. Also will have a fire place or 2 for backup and extra heat for winter.

But now we are thinking getting some solar going for all our house stuff except water heater and range. Basically lights, tv, gadgets etc. We dont use much electricity, maybe 2kw a day. but our family will be growing, so that will rise im sure.

I am not sure where to start. I have read some, but i fee I am missing the building stones to understanding and jumping in too far and its not clicking. Does anyone have any good links/resources to explain the bare bones idea of how it al works? I want to keep hooked up to teh grid in case of system failures, but i am thinking running them separately. Have the grid come into the current box and keep it hooked up to things like freezer/fridge/range/water heater. then run all house hold outlets separately.



hous eis about 1000 sqf, and I will be tearing it inside and out refitting it for our goals, so rewiring is not a concern as walls will be changed anyway. This wont be done until 2013 when we hopefully have enough money saved. But i want to plan now as to make it all sound and logical so there is no "crap gotta redo that" in 5 years.


here is alink to our weather where i live, I think it is probably suitable. Another sight says average of 271 sunny days a year.


http://www.climate-charts.com/Locations/c/CN71475010362060.php










thanks for any help you may be able to give 

Edit to say i ave read the sticky, and am right now going through threads


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## Sunman (Apr 16, 2011)

Hi Kyle,
Couple of things I didnât understand in your post, but I do understand Solar.

1.	âusing compost adn that for house heating in floorâ. Radiant Heat??
2.	Only 2 KW a day for electric with range and water heater?? Doesnât sound right. Maybe 20 KW/day.

Those climate charts arenât really where itâs at for figuring Solar output. You want to look at InsOlation values which are compiled by NASA and others. They basically are an 11 year average of how much sunlight falls on a sq meter of collector to produce 1000 watts {1 KW}. 1 KW = 3,412 BTUs. It is based on Latitude. 
Here they are for British Colmbia at 48Â° by month 
1, 1.82, 2.93, 4.01, 5.13, 5.54, 5.85, 5.28, 3.88, 2.17, 1.11, 0.86 yr average = 3.29 

Converting meters to sqâ , you get about 90 watts of power for every sqâ of collector by multiplying the average monthly Insolation value by sy Sqâ of collectors.. Or 317 BTUâs/sqâ of collector.

Note, those Insolation values are based on collectors being flat. By placing Collectors at 49 to 65 degree angle you will increase the Insolation value by at least 25% each month from September to March. . .

That being said, and myself a Master Electrician for 20 yrs, I *would not *go with PV. It is a lousy Return on Investment. Wait 5 yrs till they perfect the Thin Film PV manufacturing process. They can do Thin Film efficiently in small runs, but mass manufacturing still has problems. It will cut costs in Â½ when they get it figured out.

Think about it, you pay a lot more for Heat and Hot Water than you do for electricity. Hot Water Heaters use about 30% of the average electric bill. Thermal = 73% efficient, PV = 15% efficient.

If possible, use Radiant Heat with PEX piping in the floors of your house and greenhouses. Go to my site, http://www.ValleyForgeSolar.com and download Heating.xls and plug your Insolation Values in. First add about 25% on the values from September to March. 

Call or email with any Design questions.

Sunman


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## MichaelK! (Oct 22, 2010)

kyle said:


> We have a small home in SW BC Canada. We will be doing solar greenhouses (farming will be our income) and using compost adn that for house heating (in floor). Still looking into that stuff. Also will have a fire place or 2 for backup and extra heat for winter.


It's good to set you sights low when thinking solar. You'd be surprised how many people think they can stick one panel up on the roof and then simutanously run their air con, hot water heater, and the washer/drier all on solar. It just doesn't work. Heating the house with compost? Maybe the greenhouse, but you'd better have a real source of heat for the home.

Forget the fireplaces as a source of heat. On average, a fireplace will make the whole house COLDER! Install a good woodstove instead. My cabin has two, one cookstove, and one in the main room for heating. You can get a hot water insert for a lot of stoves that is plumbed into a vertically positioned water tank. A thermosyphin loop makes free hot water. Our cabin has a propane stove for warm weather cooking so we don't have the woodstove buring in July.




kyle said:


> here is alink to our weather where i live, I think it is probably suitable. Another sight says average of 271 sunny days a year.


Coastal BC, 271 days of sun per year? Get real!!! More like 271 days of dense clouds and rain. I used to live just south of you in Washington and I'd predict you'll get 90 days of sunny weather each summer. That's all! Wind power might be a much better source of power for you, with solar as a backup. You'll need a generator for when neither wind or solar cooperates.

What I would suggest is to first go to your local public library and look for books on DIY power. If you have the grid available, you might find it ultimately cheaper to get connected, but use grid power for just things like lights, electronics, and the refrigerator. If you can supply all your heat and hot water from wood/solar you'll be saving the bulk of power consumption, but still have reliable power 24/7. You CAN NOT realisticly have an alternative energy system that can supply power to an electric stove or an electric water heater, or an air conditioner.


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## wy_white_wolf (Oct 14, 2004)

Kyle 

Visit here and pick the location closest to you. Then scroll down to the "Solar energy and surface meteorology" table. I think you'll find that having less than 1 hour average insolation available in the winter will eliminate the possiblity of an off grid system. With off-grid you need to go by worst case. I think you 2KWH daily consumption would require about a 4-5KW array.

Grid tried one you have about 3.5h average insolation to work with so it'll depend on what you can get for net-metering. I don't know what Canada offers but have heard some good things.

WWW


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## kyle (Mar 26, 2011)

Wow, amazing information, thank you guys very much. Let me try and clarify things, as it seems i did a very poor job before haha.

my 2KWH/day was based on our current use in the tropics. I only kept it the same because we will eb relying on wood heat for the house and probably wont have an electric stove. The refrigerator we use now is small, about 4' high. We use little electricity and dont use heaters/air conditioners. But i realize the 2KWH will probably be higher in canada due to heat. 


The house will be refitted with in floor heating using solar heat (via greenhouse attached to house) and wood heat. this will be pumped with water under the floor. This paper is basically what we will be doing, with some minor adjustments as we learn more: Solar heated home using an attached greenhouse and a woodburning stove by David Mears et al.

links: http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SolarHomes/plansps.htm

essentially we will be relying on heating our house via heat sink under the floor and water pump, and also small fans for air movement from greenhouse/house. heat will be collected from solar greenhouse style and fireplace. I think i am using the wrong word for fire place. I mean those metal standalone types with piping, not the big brick chimney style. Fire place with have a coil in it which will heat the pumped water through the floor and back.

Our house is already hooked to land lines and is a normal, small functioning house. I dont wish to disconnect it totally, i want to keep the land lines for backup. Also wood heat will be an ultimate backup in case of bad storm, we have about 4 wooded acres to get wood from.

We are hoping though, to supply 100% of our energy needs without land lines and oil related energies. we have a 30x12' pitch roof facing south (looks about 30 degree angle, but not sure) and also have a 20x30 addition with flat roof which can have angled solar boards put on them. Finance is the biggest draw back, but aside form that i have no issues with filling the entire roof. We are going to have about a $20,000 limit max for the entire solar scenario.

I grew up in southern Vancouver island. those charts and numbers above surprised me as well as we saw mostly cloudy days. But i have never lived in Port alberni, from which those numbers came, so i couldn't say. That site said it was the 9th sunniest place they looked at in canada. But i really cant say much more than what i have read. to be honest, the math behind solar is rather foreign to me, but you really helped my understanding sunman, thanks!


Compost heat I was considering for house, but scrapped it for above mentioned method. We will be building an experimental compost heated greenhouse. Because we will be trying to create about 50-100 tonnes of compost a year for our farm anyway, we though why not try...its going to get hot anyway, why not try and harness some of it? that will also be using fans and the ground as a heat sink. but housing is my biggest concern here.




> If you can supply all your heat and hot water from wood/solar you'll be saving the bulk of power consumption, but still have reliable power 24/7. You CAN NOT realisticly have an alternative energy system that can supply power to an electric stove or an electric water heater, or an air conditioner.


Heat I am confident to supply, water heat for showers i honesty have doubts. I am new to all this so I really am not sure. water heater, refrigerator/freezer, and a few outlets i am thinking of keeping on grid power.

Do you guys think it is stupid/wasteful/illogical to run some things throughout the house form the grid power box, then wire up everything else to the solar system? basically having 2 independent systems, but things like a fridge and lights could be plugged into the grid outlets if solar failed for some reason.

We are already going to be raising the house, tearing out floors taking out the crap under the house (its built horrible and is all rotting) and filling, adding foundation replacing walls and roof etc. Basically one step above tearing it down and rebuilding it. So at that level of renovation, rewiring (which with its 1940's wiring will be done anyway) is not really a lot more work.


I truly appreciate all you adice. You have no idea how informational and helpful ti all is, really!

thanks.


EDIT: i foudn this weather site for my area a couple days back. Still trying to learn the terminology and solar systems, but here is a link if interested. It gives solar potential for the area.

http://www.alberniweather.ca/itselectric/its-electric.html but i dont get what is based on (panel size/type)?

from:http://www.alberniweather.ca/

edit again, foudn this graph shouwing w/sq meter http://www.alberniweather.ca/index.php/daily-solar-radiation-large-graph/


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