Best Information Sources

[allen84]

Anyone have recommendations for a GREAT information source on wind and solar? There's so much information out there, it's difficult to decide where to immerse myself for the knowledge.

I recently ordered a small (very cheap) wind turbine. Will soon be gathering batteries, solar panels and most likely some more turbines.

[Ellsworth]

I'd suggest using your fav search engine and keywords 'solar power forum.'

I'm not super hip on electrical, but I've occasionally used that search technique and found great info. Last I looked was maybe 2019, large boards, active membership and knowledgeable people answering questions.

And they are not sand-boxed like LHBA seems to be. Try the same technique with 'log homes forum' and you might see what I mean' if you compare duckduckgo to gogole.

I also use the same search string but substitute 'reddit' for forum. And there are FB groups too.

Occasionally you can find small businesses (mostly reselling Chinese imports that you can also find on Ebay) that are great at answering questions from tire kickers.

Also, try sending rreidnauer a PM. https://community.loghomebuilders.or...ll=1#post97605. If you poke around the threads here you'll find a few other very knowledgeable LHBA members, bright as the sun folks on the topic.

[donjuedo]

For a great source of info on solar, YouTube's Will Prowse is hard to beat:
https://www.youtube.com/@WillProwse

He's been around awhile and gotten into a wide variety of interesting tangents. To get started, I'd recommend his earliest videos. Those will teach you a lot of DIY basics.

Without any first hand experience of my own, I'm disappointed by wind. Mainly, where I like to live, similar to where you live, there is little wind that is fast enough to be productive. It works, but it costs a good bit for not much total energy output. And windier places are not very comfortable, in my opinion. Having said all that, I still might try it later. By the way, getting well above the trees should help a lot with more and steadier wind, compared to locating around the height of a rooftop.

[allen84]

I have a pretty good amount of wind. I have a big elevation change on my property and more big hills all around so there are some surprisingly strong winds. Sometimes down in the holler the air can be completely still but whipping so hard at the top of the hill that it sounds like the ocean. My main concerns are safety and not destroying equipment. Aside from that, seems like trial and error since I don't really know how much I will produce or use due to so many variables.

I bought the cheap little vevor 500w wind turbine. Directions call for a steel pipe 2ish inch diameter, minimum of about 5/16 wall... ish and about because it's all metric, 6-8 meters high. There is a mounting sleeve that will weld into the top of the pipe. The turbine swivels to turn and face the prevailing wind. I figure I'll see how much charging I get from one and if it withstands the strong winds before I buy more of them. I plan on having a small standalone metal building to hold batteries and electronics. Uphill from the house seems a better and safer location than having it in or attached to living quarters. The mounting plan (they are very lightweight) is to plant them like flagpoles. I think that will be cheapest, easiest and the least permanent way to do it... Plant larger diameter pipe in the ground, then stand the turbine pole into that pipe. While leveling, fill the void between the two with sand and seal the top to keep out water. I figure I may or may not need guy wires in addition. We shall see. Trial and error. Hopefully more trial than error.