All About Solar- Part 3

What to expect…..

Because the process of installation can take so long you probably want to limit the amount of time you spend figuring out what you need and where to put it. Most solar companies are going to ask a lot of questions about your habits, the sun vs. shade on your property, and the main question will be your prior years usage. You’ll want to have your information before they show up to help streamline the process.

I am a paperwork packrat. After an IRS audit I learned to keep every possible bit of paperwork for at least 7 years, and keep it organized so I keep every single electric bill. This was super valuable during the solar process we were able to show very clear patterns of usage. If you haven’t done this get on the phone and order your past year or two years of bills.

If you have time start making lifestyle changes and watch your bills closely to recognize patterns of usage and see if adjustments are making any difference. The first thing you can do is replace every single bulb in your home with energy saving bulbs. Beware they are very different from your regular 75w super bright lights. It may take some getting used to. You may want to try a couple different types and see which are the best for your needs.

If you have a year or so before you are ready, start tracking where the sun and shade hit your property. We did this for two weeks in the summer only and found out that our house cast a shadow much longer than we would have ever anticipated in the winter. Winter is the season we needed the most sun and the fewest shadows. Make a map so you can show them specifically where the shadows are in each season.

They are most likely going to want you purchase enough equipment to never have a bill but like I’ve said previously you don’t want to purchase super expensive equipment to sell energy back to the electric company for a fraction of the cost you pay them for it. You need to dig deep and decide what the best senerio would be for you. Also anticipate any future additions and energy efficient appliance purchases. We installed a new on demand water heater and that has cut out us turning the water heater on for days on end. Water heaters are one of the top three energy consumers in your house.

If you are installing the panels yourself you need to be aware that the slope of the panel will greatly effect the efficiency of the panel. That is, you often see solar panels resting at an angle so that it can maximize the amount of sun rays that hit it. If it was completely vertical it would cast shadows on itself and if it was horizontal it would only really get maximum sun once a day at noon in summer. Basically the sun changes its position in the sky based on the season so its not in the same spot at noon in June as noon in December.

The link below tells a very accurate description of the above reasoning:

https://www.spaceacademy.net.au/spacelab/notes/solpanel.htm

Our panels are angled more in favor of winter to maximize the the sun rays when there are the fewest. You will really want to research this subject to make the best decision for your setup. Make some coffee because it can be dry subject matter to read about. You will have to have this answer for the installation crew if you are choosing to have it done for you.

April 28, 2021 0

All About Solar – Part 2

When to purchase your solar panel system:

We started the process of purchasing our solar panels around May and they were not actually installed until the end of August. We missed the whole sunny season!!! We had no idea how long the process would take. If we had to do it all over again we would have held off for a while.

Several factors go into perfect timing. We live in an extremely cold climate so we wouldn’t have been able to have the panels installed in the winter due to the serious ground frost here. Even if they were going on our roof the snow and ice can be a problem. I imagine that would go in reverse for warmer climates. The 110f – 120f summer in Arizona would not be the best time to have workmen install anything outdoors because of their health and welfare.

Finances are a big factor for timing as well. The salesmen we used was a bit of a fast talker, he was nice enough but offered information about tax credits that we found out later didn’t apply to us so we were making financial decisions based on getting a 30% tax rebate. It turns out that the rebate is not in fact a rebate but is a tax deduction.

Here’s the break down:

We paid $43,000 for our system so we would be eligible for a 30% tax deduction equaling $12,900 the year we had it installed (It is lower now). But for us to actually be able to take that deduction we would have to be paying at least $12,900 in taxes that year. Because we are low income and have several small children we don’t pay that much in taxes and therefore couldn’t take the tax deduction that year.

The salesmen had mentioned that maybe we could take the deduction the next year and we should ask our accountant. The answer is no. *Eye roll* He was a fast talker like I said.

In hind sight we should have held off and purchased it after we sold the real estate we had for sale that had a capital gains tax that could have been offset by the solar panel deduction. If only I knew then what I know now…..

One of the reasons it took so long was that we needed a permit even though we live in the county and don’t have any convents the local government had to “Ok” it and tell us exactly how they wanted it done. Our county is very slow and they couldn’t agree on how deep the ground frame poles should go into the ground. They finally decided on 5 ft. Think about that. Huge heavy poles holding up a couple solar panels had to be sunk 5ft!!!! I believe the poles for a whole house foundation are down 3 to 4 ft.

It just so happened that the company we used was running a special deal the month we purchased the panels. I don’t know why that month was so special but it is worth asking if they have any upcoming deals. Our deal was a free nest thermostat and they would replace all of our light bulbs with really fancy low energy usage light bulbs. This is where the salesmen’s fast talking got him into a bit of trouble. He said he would replace “All” the light bulbs including all of them in our home, the little cottage also on the property and the barn. The count came to around 350 bulbs. If you purchased these types of bulbs at your local hardware store you would expect to pay around $10 a bulb. He offered to give us $3500 worth of light bulbs and a $250 thermostat. We held him to his word, much to the chagrin of the company owner .

The link below is the thermostat. We love it, it’s well worth the cost but luckily we didn’t have to pay for it!:

https://www.nest-thermostat.com/

The electric company will have to come stand by when the system is either plugged in or unplugged. They will need to put a special meter in and make sure you don’t damage anything. You will have to work on their time schedule which can dramatically slow things down. We choose the exact time they were completely overhauling all the meters in the area which meant the wait was outrageous!!!

The takeaway here is make sure you are ready to work on this for several months and get with your accountant to understand the tax implications for your situation before you speak to Capt. Slick Talker from the solar company.

Below is the latest .gov info about the tax credits. It has a great Q & A section that covers a lot of common concerns.

guide-to-federal-tax-credit-for-residential-solar-pv Download

Stay tuned for the next part in this series: All About Solar – Part 3 -What to Expect.

April 21, 2021 0

All About Solar ~ Part 1

The world has been a little upside down in the last year or so and a series of unfortunate events have illuminated how fragile our supply chain is. We all enjoy the experience of having everything we need right at our fingertips. This includes an endless supply of electricity supplied by an endless supply of electrical employees.

Renewable energy is a hot topic right now, everyone wants to know how they can get off the grid with solar or wind. Unfortunately it is a pretty complicated answer each one having its own positives and negatives and understanding how they work can be a little head spinning.

First things first if we are going to use the phrase “off – grid” we need to know what the definition of off – grid is.

Definition of off-grid

: not connected to or served by publicly or privately managed utilities (such as electricity, gas, or water)

There are varying degrees of “Off the grid” from having a well and septic all the way to having no utility connections within miles from your home and everything in between. I am of the opinion that if you are living with any utility that you privately manage you can be considered off the grid.

The fact is unless you are living out in the wild away from anyone and you use nature as your potty, drink fresh stream water, and chop wood to cook and warm yourself you will always be dependent on the grid in some fashion. For example if you have solar and are not connected to the electric company but rather have storage batteries you are still dependent on the batteries to be produced and shipped to you just like you are dependent upon the solar panels being available for purchase to replace broken panels etc.

Three things will determine what off the grid degree is right for your life.

1) What is your goal?

If your goal is to save money you need to downsize your home, turn off lights when you leave a room, and turn the thermostat down. “Renewable Energy ” is expensive initially and expensive to maintain. To truly save money you will have to make some serious lifestyle changes for Renewable energy to pay for itself.

If your goal is to be less dependent on the supply chain you should shop locally to keep your local options available. It’s great to not have to worry about other people providing for you but you will always have a certain degree of dependence on people around you. Communities always depend on each other to help. You will always have to purchase equipment and have repairs made on your equipment so choose a local business to work with if you can so you shorten your supply chain.

If your goal is to be environmentally friendly you should probably start with other lifestyle changes before investing in solar or wind energy. Stop buying plastic junk, stop eating processed foods, and cut your driving down to 1/4 your normal usage. Solar panels and wind turbines are not very different to any other energy source when it comes to pollution. Buying more stuff is never an environmentally friendly option.

2) What is your budget?

The reality is that solar panels and wind turbines are still relatively new products to the market and until the demand significantly increases the prices are going to stay pretty high. How high? Our solar panels cost $43,000 and we are tied to the grid feeding back to it. If we had enough batteries to store all the energy we produce we would have to purchase about $10,000+ for more equipment.

The sticker price is shocking especially when you realize that they only last up to 25 years. The batteries last between 5 – 8 years depending on your climate.. We are not wealthy by any stretch and I’ll dive deeper into our goals later but we looked at it like this, $4,3000 over 25 years equals $143 per month for electricity and that price is locked in for 25 years. If the rates go up we don’t feel it our rate stays the same.

If your budget is any less than $25,000 you would be wise to hold off on the purchase and start training yourself to make better use of the energy you are paying for. This article explains where most of your energy goes.

https://www.directenergy.com/learning-center/what-uses-most-electricity-in-my-home

10 years ago the rates had gone up on our electricity and one winter we received a particularly high bill. To add insult to injury, we hadn’t been home for a couple weeks that month. We couldn’t figure out what drained so much power. My husband took the bill to the local power company (when you could actually go to the office) and sat down with one of their employees. They tracked the usage for the whole month it turned out the highest usage had been at night and that meant it was our water heater! We had forgotten to turn it off and it was chugging along trying to keep the water hot for no one!!!

That story really drives home working on your budget before you invest. Three things were causing the water heater to suck up so much power:

First it was in the cold utility room with no heater so we put a water heater jacket on it.

Second it had a bad heater element so we had it turned all the way up making it work over time heating the water so we replaced the element and turned it down.

Third we don’t use hot water often enough to warrant it chugging along all day and night. My wood stove has 3 kettles on it keeping the water inside them boiling hot all the time with no extra power usage. We put an on / off switch on the wall that turns it off when we don’t need it and on when we do. I have gone days without turning it on because I use the kettle water, even for baths.

So figuring out how to reduce your energy consumption is going to help you budget for your purchase making your investment save you more money. Any money you save can be put aside to help fund the project. You will be amazed at how much energy you waste.

3) What are your expectations?

Solar and wind energy are not consistent energy sources. Nature will determine whether they will work or not. If you want to be completely off grid solar with your own batteries you will have to prepare yourself for some days that you have limited power depending on where you live. We get a lot of sun here in Wyoming but England, where my husband is from, can go days with very limited sunlight. You can have as many batteries as you want but if the sun isn’t shining you aren’t producing energy. The same goes with wind.

A big thing I hear a lot of is “I want them to pay me!” Well the truth is they pay a lot less for power than you do. Every utility company is different but for us we pay around $0.15 per kwh we purchase from them and they pay us $0.04 per kwh they purchase from us. Our excess energy is saved or “banked” as they call it and paid for in a block in November. So once a year they add up all our excess energy we produce and pay us for it.

So lets say in December we use a high amount of energy but because the days are so short during that month we don’t bank as much solar energy. We are paying $0.15 kwh for any excess energy we use that month but we just had excess energy the month prior that we just sold for $0.04 kwh. They get you coming and going I swear.

You can’t just mindlessly consume energy in a lazy way. If you want to make the most of your investment you would be wise to use the least amount of energy you can now to reduce your initial investment costs. You don’t want to purchase a huge system just to produce energy they can buy at dramatically reduced rates. You want to get your energy consumption narrowed down now so you can purchase the right amount of panels and equipment. Purchasing equipment to produce passive energy for the electric company will never make financial sense.

Now that we know how the system works we make very sure to use as much banked energy we can in October and November. I don’t mean we leave all the lights on and just act careless I mean we organize any projects on the homestead that require a lot of energy during those times. Any welding projects are done in those months, sewing projects, charging up batteries for all the equipment, washing and drying stored linens, anything that you do that requires you to use energy outside of your normal usage would be best done in these months.

Follow the next article as I describe the process of actually purchasing solar. When to do it, what to expect and who to purchase it from.

April 15, 2021 0

Cooking on a Wood Stove – Part 1

Almost everyone that visits our home is immediately struck that we don’t have a conventional electric or gas cook stove, we have a wood cook stove and use it exclusively to cook and heat our home. I have been cooking on my stove for over 7 years and love it. The model in my kitchen is a Prity 2P50:

https://prity-bg.com/en/products/cooking-stoves/prity-2p50/

When I started looking for wood cook stoves this model was perfect because of the basic look and the width but the oven height was a serious concern. The height of the oven feels very low but when its comparably measured to a conventional oven it is only about two inches shorter if you take into consideration the electric elements above and below. All my pans easily fit in the oven without a problem.

This is a Bulgarian wood cook stove so it does a have a few quirks about it. The temperature gauge is in Celsius which is an easy fix you can just get a free-standing thermometer that stands inside the stove that registers Fahrenheit.

The door completely comes off the hinges without any trouble. The door is light weight which makes it a one person job to connect and disconnect. I leave the door off unless I plan on cooking because loads of heat pours out of the oven heating my kitchen and dining room effortlessly. If you want the heat to stay on the cook top you can push a knob in that activates an internal damper allowing the heat to bypass the oven and stay intensely on the stove which is a great feature for summer.

One of the main things that threw me for a big expensive loop was that the intake chimney is a size 5 which is standard in some parts of Europe, but as with everything, ‘Merica has gotta be bigger. We size our chimney pipes size 6 in the US. The difference isn’t much visually but size 5 chimney pipe is exclusively special order anywhere you go which is French for: Le Pricey. We opted for just sizing up to 6 which makes the pipe look a little funny but this isn’t a show piece and functionality won out.

Re-reading what I’ve just written makes me sounds like a wood cook stove sales person, that’s not my intention. When I was searching for my own stove I could find a lot of information on measurements and what it looks like but nothing on the nuts and bolts literally. Cooking on a conventional stove is different to cooking on a wood cook stove but shopping for one is different as well.

I could talk, or type as it were, you’re ear off all day about cooking on a wood cook stove so I’m going to break the blogs up so its a little less overwhelming. If you’re interested in hearing more follow along as I discuss setting the fire in the fire box, keeping it going, and cooking things without burning them.

If you’re still reading this and you’re still interested feel free to comment or email. A wood cook stove isn’t just a huge purchase it’s a lifestyle and finding people that are as excited about it as I am is like finding a needle in a haystack. I can’t wait to hear from those who have stoves or just want to know more.

April 4, 2021 0

Wool Socks or Delicious Lamb Chops?

Wyoming ranks 4th in sheep production in the United States which is really saying something when you consider the population of sheep (356,000) is over half the population of people (580,000) in Wyoming. The main harvested product from Wyoming sheep is wool. Wyoming produces the second highest yield of wool in the US second only to California. Click the link below to learn more about the history of Wyoming breeds and wool production in Wyoming.

https://mountainmeadowwool.com/blogs/the-mmw-blog/sheep-breeds

Being a shepherdess myself I am more than a little bias when I say wool is a superior product to polyester/rayon or even cotton however the latest industry production trends seem to agree with me. More and more American made wool product companies keep popping up because the product quality has increased so much in the last 30 years. Thin merino wool is a game changer in the textile industry not only is it warm and waterproof but it is soft and luxurious now as well. Wool is also a renewable product that can be grown all year long in all types of terrain unlike cotton that needs warm sunny weather to survive. The link below is an American made sock company.

https://www.farmtofeet.com/

The Sheep industry is tightly entwined in the Wyoming framework, yet I don’t know a single person from Wyoming that eats lamb. I can’t be sure but I believe the main reason is the breeds Wyoming sheep farmers raise are for wool production and not meat production. Unlike cattle, the breed of sheep matters when it comes to taste and texture of the end product. As a rule of thumb most wool sheep have a strong lamb flavor that most Americans find too gamey on the other hand most meat sheep don’t lend themselves well to soft luxurious wool. There are a couple sheep breeds that have dual purpose but I can’t think of one breed that is excellent in both.

Just to add to the complication, sheep also have certain breeds that do not produce wool but instead produce hair. Hair sheep, as they are called, are not very common but tend to be meat sheep as the “wool” or hair as it were is generally not suitable to be spun as a wool product. The benefit of hair sheep is they lose all or at least most of their wool-hair in the summer which is great for farmers that don’t want to shear sheep. We have a hair breed, Dorper, but because we live in such a cold climate we still have to shear them although it is usually only on the back and neck area if we don’t, by midsummer most of our sheep look like they have mohawks.

So which breed is best? It really depends on what your goal is. Do you want meat? Do you want wool? As in everything you do the success of your goals depends on your planning. Your choice of animals will depend on the area you have to graze and your access to inexpensive reliable feed. Small farmers that have several types of animals and maybe 40 or less acres will find wool sheep unnecessarily taxing. Shearing sheep is a huge event and just shearing a couple a sheep a year takes a long time to see a return of investment on equipment like shears, electric outlets in the shearing location, etc. When we shear our sheep we don’t really worry about damage to the wool or filth in it most of the wool ends up as insulation in the barn, cat beds, or even bum lamb beds. If we were shearing for quality it would be a much bigger deal.

We choose Dorper sheep. They are the classic black head white body meat sheep with hair instead of wool we raise our sheep for meat only. Dorper sheep have the mildest meat flavor and are small and sturdy with an easy going temperament. We live in an extremely cold climate and have never had a problem with them. We do however bring them in the barn during lamb seasoning to make sure the lambs are born out of the elements which insures lambing success every year.

I love wool and would love to learn to spin it and make cute little socks but there are only so many hours in the day and our end goal is to be self sufficient in our food production while trying to buy clothing products locally. For us the choice was clear, we want easy meat sheep to compliment our small homestead. The link below has tons of info on Dorper sheep.

https://domesticanimalbreeds.com/dorper-sheep-breed-everything-you-need-to-know/

April 4, 2021 0

Why Wyoming?

I was born and raised in San Francisco, the city by the bay. It was a beautiful city with romantic beaches, the best food in the world, and art… The ART is some of the best in the world the whole city is brimming with museum’s, murals, and just people painting right there on the street amazing!!!

There are a lot of people I mean a lot of people. Around 18,000 per square mile and they don’t all bath properly or relive themselves appropriately. Gross. That many people create noise, such a deafening noise you can barely hear yourself think. The noise is 24/7 you can never get away from it unless you leave the city and even then the nearest peaceful place is well over 50 miles away.

Some people are extra charged by the excitement and bussle of the city but for me it was completely over stimulating. I can’t function when too many things are going on. My focus is fragile and fleeting so I can only thrive in wide open spaces with clean air to concentrate. Wyoming provided both.

Wyoming is truly the final frontier. With fewer than 590K people in the whole state it ranks as the least populated. We are outnumbered by cows somewhere around 3 to 1. It’s affordable, clean, quiet and I can leave my keys and purse in my car in front of my house knowing it will always be safe.

Its not a coincidence that Wyoming has such a low population the weather is brutal like regular negative degrees days, nine months of winter, and then there is the wind….. I kid you not the wind can rip the door off your car, pick up a small child, and blow over a semi truck which is a regular occurrence on I-80 through the entire southern portion of the state. The weather here is similar to Mars.

You have to be tough as nails to farm in these conditions, I regularly break open frozen water for our livestock about seven months of the year I keep a sledgehammer next to the water tank. Gardening in this weather at our altitude of 7000ft is pretty much extreme gardening. When you have a farm you have no choice but to get out in the elements to care for your animals.

At the end of the day Wyoming is my home and has been for over 23 years I can’t think of living anywhere else even with the crazy weather. We have wide open spaces, the best fishing and hunting, and the cleanest air in the country. I love the peacefulness of this beautiful place and I like that the wind keeps out the riff raff.

March 30, 2021 0