Unfortunately, I would need to treble the 8 metres of mast to avoid the turbulence. Apart from the budget issues, the local council might just notice that I don't have their permission to put this here :O
As I said, this is the best of a number of bad locations. I just hope I am justified in my investment.
Yes it is a TEA20 Grey Fergie, in poor condition. I hope to spruce her up a bit - there is a list as long as my arm that needs doing.
My cars are all Mercedes W123 300Ds, but I have 2 complete parts cars which have 280E engines One is even drivable.
The solar panels are on pivots and are elevated for the winter period. There are 4 adjustment points, but I generally just use the up and down locations as the changes are rapid for the other 2 points during spring and autumn.
The house is rammed earth construction with 10' ceilings and an iron roof. It has 'perfect' solar orientation and was architect designed to maximise solar passive methods. This failed in a couple of areas: There was no ceiling insulation when we purchased it, but we rapidly had wool insulation installed. The previous owner roofed over most of the solar access for heating the quarry tiled floor. I have plans to replace the sheeting with clear roofing to restore the solar gains.
Heating is fuelled by fire wood, supplemented by my "fire bricks", made by mixing sawdust with the by-product of biodiesel production or veggie oil filtrates, then packing into the waxed cardboard 1 litre milk cartons. I pioneered this method around 7 years ago and told Keith Addison of JTF about it. He has had it on JTF website since then. They produce around twice the heat of a similar sized piece of hardwood.
The majority of our lighting is by Fluorescent or CFLs, we are vigilant about leaving unused appliances or 'wall warts' on and the hot water is solar with a hot back in the heating stove. Electrical backup heating is available when we get caught out.
I doubt that we could reduce our electrical loads much below our current consumption and thus may need to add another 300W of solar panels to the array. But ONLY if the Wind Gennie doesn't come to the party!
Thanks to everyone for your suggestions, I have now considered them all and will utilise them as far as possible in this system.
|
Are you also going to add more solar panels?
