Garden Fever

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Jim

“Garden fever”; is that state of mind that is the results from being cooped up all winter in the house planning your spring vegetable garden. Generally occurring in late January to late February when it is still too cold to get out and actually start doing some of the things you’ve been planning all winter. It is to be noted this condition is closely related to another malady commonly known as “ cabin fever”, and the cure for both conditions is the same; warm weather.

Many of us plan from year to year what we want to do with our vegetable gardens the next season. After a vegetable garden is planted and growing in the summer we can see better ways we might have done one thing or another. Rather than tear up what we have already spent time and effort getting going and starting over we will postpone the changes until the next growing season.

We spend all winter sitting in the warmth of our homes planning what we’re going to do with our vegetable garden this year and how we’re going to do it, but somehow we always find different things we could have done a little better or differently. As the wintry months start to give way to a little warmer weather we are anxious to get out and get started with our grand plan for this year’s vegetable garden. We have to be patient and not jump the gun, so to speak, and get stuff planted too early only to have it come up and get frozen back in a last wintry blast of cold weather.

Sure, there are things we can do during the pre planting season such as mixing compost into our soil and tilling up new ground but, although necessary, that just doesn’t give the satisfaction of actually putting seeds in the ground.

If you use cold frames, like we do, you can get an early start on many of your vegetable plants. We usually start such things as tomatoes, peppers, and other cold sensitive plants 6 weeks or so before our expected last frost and get a little bit of a head start on the growing season. It must be understood though, that this is no substitute for actually putting seeds in the ground.

Some root crops, like potatoes, carrots, beets, onions, and others can be planted earlier and have a good survival rate, but the majority of garden vegetables need warm days and nights that are not too cold. These warm weather vegetables are he ones we long to see flourishing in our vegetable gardens.

Now is the time to put a few finishing touches on your vegetable gardening plans and get everything ready to go. Even though the temptation is great for all of us to get out there and start planting, it is not time yet, and will not be time for a few weeks yet. There is no sense in getting stuff planted, watching it come up, only to see it frozen back with that last cold snap that we all know (from experience ) is coming.

A Solar Electric System

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Jim

I am continually getting questions about how to hook solar panels into someone’s house or directly into some appliance or other. What this tells me is there are many people looking into the use of solar panels to generate electricity that have absolutely no idea how a solar electric system actually works to produce useable electricity for their house. I will explain it to you.

Solar panels produce electricity when the sunlight strikes the photo electric cells in the panel. I will not go into the technicalities of how that works because that is not within the scope of this article. The important thing you need to know is that a panel will generate electricity when exposed to sunlight. Most panels available to the general public produce 12 volts direct current (DC) at what ever is the wattage rating of the panel. Panels are available in different wattage ratings depending upon the size and quality of the panel. Obviously, the higher wattage panels are more expensive than the lower wattage panels.

To make practical use of this power for most household appliances, it is necessary to convert it into 110 volts alternating current (AC). (Some 12 volt appliances can be powered by hooking directly to the panels but this is not the norm, and only works when the sun is hitting the panels). Conversion of 12 volts DC to 110 AC is done in 4 steps;

The panels convert sunlight into 12 volts DC which is fed into a charge controller.
The 12 volts DC is fed from the charge controller into the batteries where the energy is stored until needed.
The 12 volts DC is converted directly from the batteries into 110 AC by use of an Inverter.
The 110 AC is fed from the inverter into the appliances to be used.

So, a solar electric system consists of;

Solar Panels
Charge Controller
Batteries
Inverter
Necessary wiring to connect all these items together

To answer the most common questions I have been asked;

No. You cannot hook solar panels directly into your household wiring and have an inexhaustible supply of electricity.
No. Solar panels do not produce electricity at night.
Yes. Solar panels will produce some electricity on cloudy days but not as much as on sunny days.
Yes. The power generated is directly related to the intensity of sunlight hitting your panels.
Yes. You can power everything in your house with solar generated electricity if your system and storage is big enough. Is it practical? Not always.

There are some appliances that are just not practical to power with solar generated electricity. For instance; electric cooking stoves, electric space heaters, microwave ovens, electric water heaters, air conditioners, all use large amounts of electricity. They can be powered by a solar electric system, but it would have to be large and therefore, expensive.

If you are considering the use of a solar system to generate electricity for your house, give yourself an energy audit. The easiest way to do this is to read your own meter or look at the kilowatt hours on your last light bill. From this you can determine how much electricity you normally use, and how much solar generating capacity you would need to become your own Power Company.

There are many ways you can cut down on your use of electricity. For instance; we use propane refrigerators, 12 volt lights, propane cook stove, wood heat, solar water heater, and there are many other things you can do to cut down on your use of outside power.

I hope this gives you a basic understanding of how a solar electric system works so that you can make intelligent decisions about solar energy and how it can fit into your personal situation.

Wind Generator, Is It Worth The Cost?

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Jim

Wind Energy

I have used solar panels to generate my electricity for more than 15 years with good success. They are reliable and very low maintenance. The only complaint I have with them is that they do not produce much on cloudy days which we have often in the winter season.

On those winter days when it is cloudy it is usually also windy which would seem to be ideal conditions for a wind generator. My thinking is that if I add a wind generator to my solar system I would have the ability to charge my batteries even when it’s cloudy and with the added benefit of charging all night when the sun is unavailable.

With all this in mind and after 6 months of research into the various wind generators on the market, I have finally purchased one I found at a reasonable price and installed it myself.

The installation was not difficult and was accomplished easily. The units made for non commercial use are small (mine has a blade length of 18 inches for 3 blades) and weighs around 7 lbs. complete. I mounted it near the front door so I could monitor it constantly for output and noise level.

The best news is that I have yet to be able to hear it at all even when it is turning in a 20 mph wind. All I can hear is the wind in the trees but not a sound from the wind generator. One of the most common complaints about these units is noise. I certainly do not see any problems in that regard with mine.

I plan to monitor my wind generator for 30 days, measuring the output and then post a review to let my readers know how it is working out.

Kindle;

Posted on November 17, 2011 by Jim

Kindle For Off Grid And Emergency Preparedness Use

Ever since Amazon came out with the Kindle Readers, everyone has had the opportunity to possess their own personal and extensive library, cheaply. This is especially significant to those of us that live off grid because these little units can be adapted to be charged with a small solar charger or the cigarette lighter in your vehicle.

A Kindle is ideal for off grid and emergency preparedness use because;

These little units are small and very portable. You can carry a Kindle in your shirt pocket easily and they weigh next to nothing.

As I mentioned, they can easily be adapted to charge with a small solar panel or the cigarette lighter plug in your car.

Even the smaller Kindle will hold up to 1400 books.

You can easily read them even in direct sunlight due to their new screen technology.

You do not need a computer as the Kindles all have built in WIFI and some even have 3G to utilize the cell phone signal to download books.

Some of the models have web browsers for surfing the web and games.

You can take your library with you anywhere you go for reading entertainment or for quick access to your reference library.

Kindle has a vast library of books that you can get free.

You can get one from Amazon for as little as $79.00.

I am not one of the guys that must to have every new gadget that comes along. In fact, I am more likely to resist something new, but considering all the advantages, a Kindle has to be just about one of the most useful and practical gadgets they’ve come up with in a long time.

The Kindles are a good choice for emergency preparedness as well as off grid use. You can keep all your instruction manuals for immediate use anywhere you are and they are handy to keep the kids busy until the power comes back on because they also have some with game capability. Your kids can find hours of amusement with one of these things, that is, when you are not using it.

They make great gifts for anyone on your list (including yourself), and it’s a gift for which the giver will be long remembered and appreciated.

Go now and look them over at the Off Grid General Store (click to the “Kindle” page), or click where it says; KINDLE.

Off Grid Housing; Quick and Cheap

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Jim

So, you have a piece of land and you want to set it up for living off grid. One of the first things you’ll be thinking about is housing. The most expensive investment most of us have is our home. Whether it is in a city or country our homes consume much of our disposable income for many years before we can get them paid off and truly call them ours. This doesn’t have to be the case.

There are many alternatives to housing that do not have the price tag of a conventional three bedroom house built on the spot by a contractor. The alternative I’m going to talk about is pre-fab buildings usually sold for storage sheds or work shops. These buildings are ideal for off grid use. There are many other alternatives but this is what I used to build our home, so I’m speaking from knowledge of living in two of these buildings, year round, for four years. Some of these buildings can be bought in kit form for you to assemble yourself or, like the buildings we chose, pre-assembled and delivered to your site intact.

These buildings are well built and are weatherproof when they are delivered to your site (ours even had the option of being pre-painted). They can be set upon a foundation for stability just like any other building and for the most part are very sturdy. One of the main advantages I found to this type of housing is that you will have immediate shelter from the time it arrives on your site. You can take shelter in it while you are finishing the inside to your own satisfaction.

We decided to use two buildings because of the limited size that could be hauled in over our backwoods roads. The largest available buildings we could get in here was 12ft. by 24ft. The buildings we chose are constructed of garage door panels which are 2 inches thick with foam insulation between the metal panels. This eliminated the need to insulate them.

We chose to make our bedroom and living room in one building and kitchen and bathroom in the other. All the construction I had to do in the bedroom was frame in 2 closets which I did with 2×4’s and did not wall them in so we didn’t need to wire lights in them for visibility, or put doors on them. This had the added advantage of keeping them aired out so we do not have the mildew and mold problems some of our neighbors have.

The kitchen/bathroom building was another matter. I had to install all the plumbing, bathtub/shower, and sink in the bathroom part and build a partial wall to separate it from the kitchen area. The kitchen area had to have sink, counter-tops, and overhead cabinet, plus I had to plumb it for propane as we have kitchen range and 2 propane refrigerators. All of this took a while, but was done a little bit at a time so it didn’t seem like so much work.

Since we are completely off grid and do not even have the possibility of access to outside power, I installed a 60 watt solar array for each building. The kitchen has 1 deep cycle marine battery which is adequate to run lights and 3-12 volt fans. The bedroom has 4 of the same batteries because of our laptop computers and satellite modem. These are adequate for lights, fans, and computers too if we don’t stay on them all day. I run a generator some evenings to power the air conditioner in summer and for an extra charge to the batteries when they need it on cloudy days.

Since buying our buildings, I have seen some very attractive storage buildings which would make very nice houses and even some that were 2 story with an upstairs room that would make a nice bedroom. There are some very interesting low cost storage buildings out there that could be converted into quick, cheap, alternative housing for off grid use.

You Control Prices

Posted on October 1, 2011 by Jim

At least once every day, I hear someone complaining about the high price of something they bought, yet they paid the price and bought it anyway. It doesn’t matter whether it’s groceries, gasoline, or anything else, you control the price you pay for everything. This is a hard concept for some people to grasp, so I’ll explain how it works;

In college Economics 101 they taught us about the “Profit Maximization Curve”. It is actually very simple. A company puts a product on the market at a price they know will sell. Then they gradually raise the price until the sales drop off markedly. Then they drop the price back to a level which produces the most profit. Not the most sales, but the price at which the level of sales makes the company the most profit. This way a company maximizes its profit on the product. This is a generally accepted practice in the free market system.

How does this relate to you? It is simple. The higher the price you are willing to pay for something, the higher the price will go. For example; if you are willing to pay $1.00 for an item but unwilling to pay $1.25 for it, when the price is raised to $1.25 you will quit buying it. This will force the seller to drop his price back down to a price you are willing to pay, or to quit selling the item altogether. Since no one wants to go out of business, the seller will drop his price to what you will pay.

That is how it would work if you were the only one buying this item. Since there are many potential buyers in the marketplace for any particular item, all the potential buyers must be taken into consideration. As long as a sufficient number of people are willing to pay the price, the price will continue to rise until the number of people willing to pay the price drops to a level that causes the seller to lose money from reduced sales. Then the seller will be forced to reduce his price to recapture his share of the market.

You as an individual cannot single-handedly control prices but, you as a part of the buying public can and do control prices to a large extent. No, you cannot force a seller to sell things for less than they cost him to produce, he would be out of business quickly, but you can force him to sell his products at a reasonable price.

As an example; what if no one in the U.S. bought a gallon of gas for one week? Do you think the price would go down? Of course it would, and it would go down dramatically. Everybody knows you will never get all the people in the U.S. to quit buying gas for a week, but if enough people would buy no more than they actually needed, it would cut down on gas sales enough to force prices down.

All you have to do is quit going for Sunday drives, instead of making 2 or 3 trips to the stores, get it all done in 1 well planned trip, carpool to work if you can or take the bus, cut out unnecessary trips. It isn’t that hard to figure out how to save gas and it works with other things, too.

There you have it in a nutshell. You both as an individual (the buying public is composed of many individuals just like you), and as a member of the buying public, have the ability to control prices. You can choose to exercise this ability or not. It is up to you. Either way, you’ve made a choice; you will either commit yourself to do something about these high prices or you will commit yourself to remain at the mercy of continuously rising prices until you can no longer pay them and be forced to do without. What will you choose?

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Off Grid on Lee's Ridge

Off Grid Solutions, Plans, Products, and Ideas for Living The Good Life