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Author Topic: Solar Power for Studios  (Read 8894 times)

Keyplayer

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Re: Solar Power for Studios
« Reply #15 on: April 28, 2004, 08:12:50 AM »

ted nightshade wrote on Tue, 27 April 2004 13:08

What we need to know Keyplayer, is about your place- is it on the grid now? That's a biggie. Do you need solar to supplement or provide backup for grid power, or is it going to be all grid? Do you need refrigerator, washing machine and that, or are you willing to look at other possibilities? (I have an old fashioned icebox, yeah you put ice in it, and I take all the laundry to town every few weeks and run several kilowatts of driers all at once... ah, consumption!) And what all gear do you want to run?

*answer those, and we can get somewhere...*

Do you have a specific site already, or are you looking for one?



Keyplayer: Yes, my current address is totally on the grid. What I'm trying to determine now is what will be required for the new house I'm looking to purchase.

I'm looking for a 2 car garage house that will come in UNDER 2500 square feet. I was hoping to put the entire house on some type of autonomous energy source. So that means the kitchen appliances, hot water, hvac, home theater system, office pc's, the studio, and anything else.

I figured if I could work the cost into the purchase price and it would be relativly painless, since I'd just have to make the ONE monthly mortgage payment. The concern now is wether the cost of the system will severely limit the amount of house I can afford to attach it to?
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ted nightshade

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Re: Solar Power for Studios
« Reply #16 on: April 28, 2004, 12:00:04 PM »

Keyplayer wrote on Wed, 28 April 2004 05:12

ted nightshade wrote on Tue, 27 April 2004 13:08

 Do you need refrigerator, washing machine and that, or are you willing to look at other possibilities? (I have an old fashioned icebox, yeah you put ice in it, and I take all the laundry to town every few weeks and run several kilowatts of driers all at once... ah, consumption!)

[/b]

Those questions remain to be answered... I know it will take some research and thought to give good answers, but that will determine a lot about the cost of the system. John seems to have put together a very serious system for not too much money, relatively speaking, by using non-electric sources for various needs. There are plenty of $50,000 and up systems out there where people have to have all the usual electric luxuries- John's $12,700 seems very effectively and shrewdly spent in comparison, but as he says, not everybody can comfortably live that way.

Keyplayer: Yes, my current address is totally on the grid. What I'm trying to determine now is what will be required for the new house I'm looking to purchase.

I'm looking for a 2 car garage house that will come in UNDER 2500 square feet. I was hoping to put the entire house on some type of autonomous energy source. So that means the kitchen appliances, hot water, hvac, home theater system, office pc's, the studio, and anything else.

I figured if I could work the cost into the purchase price and it would be relativly painless, since I'd just have to make the ONE monthly mortgage payment. The concern now is wether the cost of the system will severely limit the amount of house I can afford to attach it to?



HVAC is an extremely power-hungry way to go. It will take a whole lot of solar panels to run that. There are other ways to accomplish much the same thing- keeping the house comfortable as far as heat and cooling. Basically the less stuff that's electric, the better, and energy conservation is paramount all around. As mentioned, it will be a lot cheaper to go all laptop and LCD than to power up the usual desktop and CRT systems- computers are cheaper than solar panels. Aqua-star demand hot water heaters (there's no tank) are very efficient and inexpensive to keep in propane- depending how many people you need to keep in hot water, this could be a good solution.

And definitely latitude is a big concern as far as how far solar will get you, as has been mentioned.

There's a whole world of things to learn about off-the-grid living- I researched and dreamed for years before I made the move. I would definitely look into the links posted above, and Lee I know has done a lot of this research and dreaming as far as things in the US. What a kick to find out John is off the grid too! Lots of reading and research for you to do to get a really specific picture of how to do it.

Good luck! For some of us, it's worth all the thought and effort it takes to live a bit differently in this way.
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Ted Nightshade aka Cowan

There's a sex industry too.
Or maybe you prefer home cookin'?

skiboy

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Re: Solar Power for Studios
« Reply #17 on: April 28, 2004, 12:01:12 PM »

Solar is kewl but...

from what I read and seen in hi-tec mags , Mitsubishi has developed and installed in a Japanese suburb a hydrogen fuel cell system.
This system consists of a natural gas to hydrogen converter in one box and a hydrogen ion exchange cells in a second box.
The cells produce electric current off their plates and hot water/steam during the exotermic ion exchange reaction thus delivering electric and thermal power to your household.
The projected price of such a system would be around 30.000 USD initially and its power output, although details are vague, should be enough to power a typicall ? bungalow household. The boxes are placed outside the house, the gas-to-hydrogen converter is the size of a washing machine and the cell box is the size of a big fridge.
It seems that Mitsubishi is keen to mass market this system in 2004/2005.

Or maybe that's old hat ?

skiboy
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seriousfun

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Re: Solar Power for Studios
« Reply #18 on: April 30, 2004, 03:17:42 PM »

There is a short article in the new Performing Songwriter magazine about Big Head Todd's solar powered studio

http://www.performingsongwriter.com/pages/77/tools.cfm

Home Studio: Todd Park Mohr
The Big Head Todd Frontman and his solar-powered studio tucked away in the Rocky Mountains.
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doug osborne | my day job

atticus

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Re: Solar Power for Studios
« Reply #19 on: April 30, 2004, 10:10:33 PM »

I am in the process right now of designing an off the grid studio. My goal is to use a combination of solar and wind power with a diesel (biodiesel) backup generator. I don't plan on having racks of gear set up so my power consumption should be fairly low. I am planning on building out of strawbale. I'll keep you posted on how it goes. Thanks.
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David Seymour
Mytek Digital
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nob turner

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Re: Solar Power for Studios
« Reply #20 on: May 01, 2004, 02:39:01 AM »

i don't know a lot about this subject... but a client had an experience that may be of value to those of you not planning to build a solar-powered studio, yet working in a solar setup...

my client was somewhere out in the australian boonies, and had found a great-sounding room in a friend's solar-powered house.  she wanted to record there on her laptop/mbox, but it kept crashing.  she emailed me to see if i knew why she was having problems, but with minimal info, i couldn't help her.

when she got back to the states, she told me she'd eventually found out that the house did have solar 110V, but that it hadn't been rectified to sine wave--it was square wave power.  that was what was making her computer crash.  lucky me, i had the task of assembling many of the partial takes that she got before her various crashes....
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Why do you think they call it the control room?
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