"Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” Theodore Roosevelt
Hi. I'm Linda and my daughter is Becky. We are striving to become a self sustaining homestead here at Harmony Acres. The quote above has recently become my mantra. Like many women, I assign myself more tasks than even Wonder Woman could achieve on a daily basis. Becky does the same thing so "the apple didn't fall far from the tree". Country Living is very satisfying but it is also a lot of hard work, especially for two "beginners" like Beck and I who are learning as we go. Sissies need not apply for country life but a hottub would be nice.
This is what we have to work with:
two ladies who have never lived on a farm,
five acres of land (probably another acre if all the brush were cleared)
the totally unpredictable Oklahoma weather.
Our goal is to reach a happy medium somewhere between helpless females and doomsday preppers. Every day is an adventure around here.
We started our quest with a DIY solar panel array. Why wouldn't we want to utilize an unlimited free source of God given energy? We're smart people, right? It's going to shine anyway, so why not use it? My long suffering big (and only) brother David has come to the rescue (again). He is like "Tim, the tool man" (sitcom Home Improvement) on steroids. He really can build it bigger and better!
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| He custom built the metal frame to perfectly fit the solar panels. Pretty impressive, huh? |
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I knew what I was doing until you started "helping" sis. Now I'm a little confused! Where did I say the red wire went? Becky is amused by our good-natured bickering.
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These four panels will produce 920 watts per solar hour. It takes a 1000 watts to make one kilowatt. Doesn't sound like much until you go to pay the electric bill and see that it really adds up. A penny saved is a penny earned.......... Can I get an "amen", ya'll?
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The electric line then runs into the house and connects to the invertor (green lights are good. means it's putting power back into the grid) and the invertor then plugs into a wall outlet. Ours has a 1000 watt capacity with a lot of safety features. If the electric goes off, it will shut down automaticlly (this is a good thing as Martha Stewart would say). Pretty cool, huh?
This is my solar clothes dryer. Nothing like having your granny panties waving in the breeze to amuse those passing on the road on the back side of the house.
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Just when I thought we were ahead of the game, our antique (circa 1976) central heat and air unit gave up the ghost and we had to replace it on January 25 of this year. We bought a heat pump because we have natural gas as well as electric that we can use to supplement the heat this winter. Geothermal would have been nice but it is a little in the "you've got to be kidding me" price range.
Since we replaced the unit and put up the solar panels the first of February, this is the breakdown of our usage:
2011 2012
February 1537 kw 788 kw
March 950 kw 741 kw
April 950 kw 525 kw
May 1318 kw 711 kw
Total 4755 2765 so far we have saved 1990 kw
That's about $140 in actual usage plus the power cost adjustment is about another $45 (don't even get me started on PCA).
The total cost of adding solar was around $2200 which included extra pvc pipe to run the electrical wire through and really long pipe to elevate the outside line to make it safer to mow and clean around and the metal (which ain't cheap) to build the frame. We plan to add more solar panels as we can (this will call for another invertor) and a wind mill as well.
The heat pump cost around $5000 (we'll be making payments on that puppy for a while). Bottom line: I don't have to feel guilty about staying cool this summer (another string of over 100 degree temperature going on here) and the power of the sun is a free resource we have an ample supply of without harming any part of the environment.
It is every man's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.
~Albert Einstein
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