# Anyone in Ohio using solar?



## J2E1 (Oct 15, 2009)

I'm looking into doing some heating projects related to Gary's at builditsolar.com and am trying to track down if it's worth my time in this overcast state.


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## 12vman (Feb 17, 2004)

Power.. Yes.. Heating.. Nope! Just ain't 'nuff sun in the winter.. IMO..


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## fishhead (Jul 19, 2006)

I wonder if there isn't some kind of "irradiance" table that shows the power of the sun in OH during the winter just like there are rainfall tables.

I think it might be here.

http://www.builditsolar.com/References/SunChartRS.htm#SiteSurvey


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## J2E1 (Oct 15, 2009)

12vman, that's what I'm thinking as well. It's just so cloudy here all the time that it doesn't seem worth it. I'm even looking into a parabolic solar concentrator to squeek out some heat and focus it in a smaller amount of water. I'm around the Dayton area, what sort of system are you running?


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## 12vman (Feb 17, 2004)

I'm tucked way down in the lower corner of being silly in some eyes and ultra frugal.. 

I survive on 512 watts of panel and 4 golf cart batteries. Everything possible operates direct from the battery @ 12 volts d.c. or less. I use small inverters occasionally when needed.


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## J2E1 (Oct 15, 2009)

Well I'd definitely say you're ultra frugal with your power consumption. No complaints there, just personally not interested in going that far. I may tinker with a parabolic or archemedies death ray style and see what happens but that'll be over the coming summer/fall/winter. PV is definitely good year round because you can always use electricity, solar heat is good for hot water year round but only usable in the winter for creature comfort home heating.


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## Drew Cutter (Dec 30, 2008)

Solar for electricity . No . ROI is bad. Using solar tubes ,with force air furnace . Yes . You can get your money back in a short time. Wind , maybe if you check the wind maps and you have the big bucks. You need a very tall tower and lots of money for the turbine to make it worth it. Their is company in cincinati that does solar tubes (Blue ash , ohio ?) and columbus.


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## Drew Cutter (Dec 30, 2008)

http://www.apricus.com/html/evacuated_tubes.htm . I believe their is distributor in Indiana , that has installer in columbus and cincinati . Couldn't seem locate the names , very easy.


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## 12vman (Feb 17, 2004)

"Solar for electricity . No ."

Hmmm.. I musta been wrong for the last 12 years.. LOL


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## Drew Cutter (Dec 30, 2008)

12vman . How many square feet is your house ? You are saying that you were able to power your entire house totally by solar panels. The only place in ohio that gets enough sun (maybe) is near cincinati. Have got your money back on your investement and how soon ? This ultimate question. If you got 15 or more years , you might get your money back. Most people expect to get their money back in less than 10 years. I don't seen that happen with solar for electricity. Now if the buy back of your excess power was higher i can see maybe.


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## 12vman (Feb 17, 2004)

My house is around 960 sq. ft. Yes.. I supply most all of my needs that requires power from the battery. I use propane fridges and heat my water with propane and cook with it. All of my lighting, pumps, entertainment items, 2-way radio stuff, ect. operates just fine with 4 golf cart batteries and 512 watts of panel. My sig. other can operate her curling iron and blow drier with an inverter. I can make her margaritas so I'm not missing a thing..

I have a gasoline generator for all of the heavy stuff like the washing machine and for back up of the battery. I may use 5-6 gal. of gasoline a year. My generator is only 2800 watts so I don't have a huge investment there.

Investment.. I have around 6k in my total system. (Panels, Controller, Batteries, Wiring, All of the hook up stuff inside) I've invested $640 dollars in the last 10 yrs. to replace the batteries. I figured a conservative electric bill of $45/month @ 11 yrs. would pay the system off and it has! I'm starting on my 12th year so it can pay for itself again BUT this time all I need to consider is the cost of the battery replacements every 5 yrs.

I agree.. If anyone would invest into a grid tie system around here and expects a pay off in their lifetime is insane! The only rational way to come out somewhat even is to do it the way that I do it. I understand the added monthly costs of using propane but I don't believe the jobs that I use it for could be done any cheaper by using electricity. If I were to build my system to cover all of the jobs that the propane does, I'd never get it paid off within a reasonable time. And the things that I use propane for, I could survive without. I can cook on a fire just fine..

I don't have a 100" plasma TV or an electric dishwasher but I do have all of the creature comforts that I need and enjoy. I downsized big time and that's the key. Anyone in their right mind that expects to take a standard home, convert it to solar, and make money is crazy! Or, even get a return on their investment, for that matter! It's a determined mindset and sacrifices must be made to even consider it. All of the mindless things taken for granted must be carefully scrutinized and picked through carefully. The "City Slicker" mindset is gone! Frugalness and survival becomes the main objective and total responsibility for yourself is key. If one can't think like that, then it's best they forget it..

Yep.. It can be done in Ohio but it ain't for sissys..


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## Drew Cutter (Dec 30, 2008)

I couldn't justify spending 30,000 on solar for electricity. Heating the home with evacuated (sp) tubes , yes. For around 6000.00 to heat a 1700 sq ft house , yes . I even looked into the new above ground geothermal units . Still a little rich for me . Too bad they don't make steam units for the house to generate electricity.


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## 12vman (Feb 17, 2004)

30K..? I think that's a very conservative figure for around here. Maybe X2..

I'm not really convinced that those tubes would do much in the winter around here. Most of those companys will put a big glop of jelly on their product to sell them so be careful.


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## WisJim (Jan 14, 2004)

A parabolic reflector requires brighter and clear sun than many types of solar electric cells need to produce power. I first installed PVs back in the 1980s when they cost about $8 a watt in 1980s dollars or over $17 a watt in 2009 dollars. However, now you can buy PVs for $4 a watt or less, down to less than $2 a watt. My panels that I bought back in the 1980s long ago paid for themselves in the value of electricity produced, and they still work as expected. I always wonder at the priorities of people who will by late model cars or vehicles that will never "pay for themselves" but need to figure "payback" for any kind of product or technology that has even a remote potential for producing something of value even if that shouldn't be the primary reason for doing it. There are many other reasons to put in a renewable energy system, including independence, security, and environmental reasons.


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## Drew Cutter (Dec 30, 2008)

Its not really the solar tube that you got to be careful (Unless the fact that most tube and solar panel are produced in china) . This system works really well in europe ( i. e germany that get less sunlight than we do). Its the installers that you got to careful about . No real license or certification needed (For example NC) Solar tube is up to around 96 % efficient . You do need a backup water storage tank for over night heat.


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## 12vman (Feb 17, 2004)

I believe it could work but I don't believe that I'd have much area around here to do much of anything else. What I'm saying is that it would take a whole lot of them to replace my wood burner, no matter how efficient they are. I understand that even filtered sunlight will create "some" heat but that's the majority of the season. Not too many sunny days in the winter, even partially sunny.

It would make more sense to assist a water heater than trying to heat a living space.


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## Drew Cutter (Dec 30, 2008)

You must be blessed with firewood . Around here its getting harder to heat by wood. Plus the liability laws on cutting wood that come down from a storm. Most insurance companies require two source of heat. I found a stove that would heat and allot me to cook meals in a pinch.


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## SolarGary (Sep 8, 2005)

Hi,
You can get a pretty good comparison of your areas sun to other areas using the NREL Redbook -- search down this page for "Redbook":
http://www.builditsolar.com/References/SunChartRS.htm

There are a lot of other helpful solar tools listed on the same page.

So, download the Redbook for your state, and also the Redbook for some good or fairly good solar locations -- e.g. Colorado has a lot of very good locations, Montana (where I am) is fairly good. Then compare what the Redbook says you get to what these other locations get. This should give you some idea. There are very few locations where solar heating can't work, but its certainly better in some places. 

Some types of solar heating collectors are dirt cheap to build, so you can hardly go wrong.

The efficiency of solar heating collectors varies -- 50% might be pretty typical in sunny weather, but it depends on the outside air temperature and collector temperature and the design of the collector. You can get actual measured efficincies for a bunch of collectors for whatever sun level and ambient temperature level you want with this calculator:
http://www.builditsolar.com/References/Calculators/Collector/ColEfic.htm#efic

Evacuated tubes are generally less efficient that flat plates in sunny weather, but get better as it gets more cloudy, but remember that there is less heat to gain when its cloudy.

Some direct comparisons of evac tube systems to flat plate systems here:
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/WaterHeating/water_heating.htm#Evacuated Tube

Lots of cheap solar space heating systems you can build here:
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/Space_Heating.htm

Some of these systems are as little as $2 per sqft to build -- its hard to go wrong at these prices even if you have a lot of cloudy weather.

As WJ pointed out, parabolic reflectors don't work well under cloudy conditions -- for these reflectors to work, the light has to come from a single direction, and cloudy weather has lots of diffuse light (from all directions), and little direct light.

Gary


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## stanb999 (Jan 30, 2005)

My issue with solar heat is the simple fact that if you have an efficiently built house you get a ton of solar gain when it's sunny. For instance here when it's actually sunny my heat load goes way down. But I still need some heating at night. So it would not really help much.

Of course we have heavily insulated the house and it's built sensibly with mostly south facing windows and only one north facing thats in the pantry so the room is only passively heated.


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## Drew Cutter (Dec 30, 2008)

The very first rule before you do anything in alternative heat is to well insulate your home. This will bring down the total cost of what your really need . If i remember my reading on flat panel vs evac tube system its where you live and how cold it get at night . Plus the number of cloudy days. Flat panel would be ideal for AZ and evac tube for Ohio .


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## J2E1 (Oct 15, 2009)

So not is just being cloudy in Ohio depressing, my solar dreams are slowly dying which is stacking on the depression. Figuratively on the second part, no sun makes me grumpy. I just sold my previous house so I'm currently in an apartment with delusions. I'd like to live a bit farther out and that means no natural gas line likely, so the 'standard' alternatives are Electric, Oil, Propane. Was hoping to suppliment with something renewable and more economically sustainable. We may be building our own so I can plan to maximize our insulation and solar gain possibilities. Solar in most cases seems to be the best approach given it's available. Ohio winters just don't have that availability.


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## 12vman (Feb 17, 2004)

Delusions are just dreams with a couple of bumps in the way. Keep the faith. If I can do it, anyone can..


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## greg273 (Aug 5, 2003)

Drew Cutter said:


> Solar for electricity . No . ROI is bad. Using solar tubes ,with force air furnace . Yes . You can get your money back in a short time. Wind , maybe if you check the wind maps and you have the big bucks. You need a very tall tower and lots of money for the turbine to make it worth it. Their is company in cincinati that does solar tubes (Blue ash , ohio ?) and columbus.


 Since when is 'Return on Investment' the main criteria for anything? What is the ROI on grid-supplied electricity? Does any of that money paid out over the years EVER come back? 
The fact that solar electric actually WILL eventually pay for itself should be kept in mind. Yes, it will take a LONG time, maybe 20 years, but at the end of that time, you will have burned not a single ounce of coal, nor a single gram of uranium, and you will still have 20+ years of FREE electricity to look forward to.


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## greg273 (Aug 5, 2003)

J2E1 said:


> So not is just being cloudy in Ohio depressing, my solar dreams are slowly dying which is stacking on the depression. Figuratively on the second part, no sun makes me grumpy. I just sold my previous house so I'm currently in an apartment with delusions. I'd like to live a bit farther out and that means no natural gas line likely, so the 'standard' alternatives are Electric, Oil, Propane. Was hoping to suppliment with something renewable and more economically sustainable. We may be building our own so I can plan to maximize our insulation and solar gain possibilities. Solar in most cases seems to be the best approach given it's available. Ohio winters just don't have that availability.


 If youre going to be building, you have the opportunity to design your house so that you dont need $40K of solar panels to be self-sufficient! Insulate well, orient your place towards the sun, and you'll go a long way towards working WITH nature. Consider a partially earth-bermed house...use the constant temperature of the earth to your advantage!


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## SolarGary (Sep 8, 2005)

Hi,
If you are going to build your own house, you have a great opportunity to do it right.
Living in Ohio, you will use more energy for space heating + water heating than for electricity, so, I'd concentrate first on those. There are lots of good techniques that don't add a lot to the cost to make the house thermal envelope good -- lots of them listed here:
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SolarHomes/constructionps.htm
Some of these are very well suited to an owner/builder.

Gary


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