Greening Your Home - Solar Questions

Hi, I've been looking for a while for info on small scale solar power for backup during power outages. Running a small fireplace fan or lamps. Can anybody point me in the right direction
Thanks

Just a small fan and some lamps? That sure is small scale, and you could get something like that going with just a few inexpensive items.

First thing you'll need is a 12V deep cycle battery. The bigger the better. You can get a nice sized 125Ah marine battery for around $100 at Wal-Mart (Everstart MAXX-29). Love those cheap little guys.

It would be best if you bought a 12V fan for your fireplace. You can also find 12V lighting, but let's say you wanted to power regular lamps.

For that you'll need a power inverter. I'd recommend a cheapo 750W one. You don't need that much power but in the inexpensive brands there's not that much price difference compared to the lower wattage ones. You can just plug your lamps, coffee maker, whatever into the sockets on this.

The solar panel(s) is where it starts to get expensive. It depends on how long of a power outage you're planning on, and how much money you want to spend. Guess I'd say buy the biggest solar panel you can afford. Since this is just for emergency purposes you can just use a portable one, and they can be had for fairly cheap. If the solar panel is anything more than a "trickle" charge type then you'll also want a $30 charge controller.

Thanks for the info

How does 3-15 watt solar panels sound to run an 18w fan motor (fireplace) sound. Will it charge the battery also. I realize it will all depend on how much sun I get. Last winter we were out of power for 7 days. I have a generator (8000w) to run the essentials (hous all electic including heat) but didn't want to run it all night, as I was only running propane fireplace. However after the storm I found out your not supposed to ren the foreplace without the fan. Lucky I ran the flame on low at night. Wife stayed in town, so all I really need to do is run the fireplace fan and maybe a lamp to see.
Thanks for your help.
PS I'm looking at harbor freight

If you are using a generator you would be far better off to just use a bank of deep cycle batteries during your off-generator time and use a larger capacity battery charger to charge the batteries daily.

A solar panel is a very low output device and you would need to spend a lot of money to get enough capacity to charge the batteries in a reasonable amount of time.
And, if it is cloudy you will be outta luck on recharging the batteries.

A sealed deep cell battery doesn't take much maintenance but of course they are the most expensive. Are you often without power for a long time? If so do you lose power during blizzards that may cover up your panels and not allow the battery to recharge when you need it? As greg said if you just need a wee bit of power at night as an alternative to the generator, the generator may be your best battery recharging option - the solar panels, possibly an inverter, etc add up quick for such a small scale use. If you were to have a full scale solar array on the house that charged a set of backup batteries, you used the solar by day, and then had the generator for a backup for the backup... that is where the cost of things evens out (especially if you can get rebates through your utility company - ours is paying for nearly 70% of our new solar array)

If you were to have a full scale solar array on the house that charged a set of backup batteries, you used the solar by day, and then had the generator for a backup for the backup... that is where the cost of things evens out (especially if you can get rebates through your utility company - ours is paying for nearly 70% of our new solar array)
70% ? ! ? Wow!! I wish ours did. When I build, I really want to be efficient and green where it's affordable. But we have co-op electric here, so nothing from that, and nothing from the state. All we get is the federal breaks and net 0 metering. I guess that's cause we have several power generating dams, and a nuke plant in the state.

Seems like the more common way is to not have batteries, but use solar or wind to offset your bill. Save the hassles and cost of batteries. Of course, that doesn't help in a power outage. But I plan on a generator anyway, as we have ice storms now and again, and where my property is it's likely to be 3 to 5 days if a bad one hits.

You really have to look at how common outages are and how long they last.

It is really quite amazing to find out how little electricity it takes to survive a utility outage. I live in a 1,550 square foot house in an area that is in-between urban and suburban. I rarely lose utility power but it has happened twice for extended periods in the seven years I have lived here.

By extended outage I mean one that lasts more than 24 hours. The first time I was without power for about 80-to-90 hours and the last time, just before Christmas of 2006, I was out for 60 hours. A few months ago I was out for about four hours.

The first extended outage wasn't as bad as it could have been because I was still working and therefore wasn't home enjoying the outage. Still, it did get a bit chilly moving into the third night. The outage of 2006 had outside temperatures in the 20's at night and daytime temperatures into the low 30's. At least I could put my groceries in an ice chest on the back porch and I had a propane camp stove to cook on. Still, with the inside temperatures dropping to 46 degrees it was less than comfortable.

I'm not much for urban camping. :rolleyes:

So I bought a small (3,000 watt peak output) generator and installed a transfer switch and panel to operate my refrigerator, furnace, computer, television and DVD player. When we had a storm a few months ago I pulled the gennie out and fired it up. I kept my house warm, my refrigerator cold and watched television until the cable went out about two hours into the outage.

I had considered deep-cycle batteries with an inverter before purchasing the generator. The cost would have been considerably more than the high-quality generator and would not have been as versatile.

Not exactly green but the obvious solution is another smaller generator. Cost about $200, uses maybe a qt per hour and will last 40 years.