Plan the Perfect Homestead
(Page 5 of 9)
April/May 2006
Edited by John Stuart, Carol Mack and Megan Phelps
He also advises against building cheap; if you take on a project, be ready to spend what you must for good-quality materials and workmanship. “When we did the addition, we took the opportunity to re-side the entire house,” Ussery says. “It was a huge additional expense, but when the wind blows, I know it was money well spent.”
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Renewable Energy
For many people, the ideal self-sufficient life includes generating all their electricity from renewable resources. “We wanted to sever our fossil-fuel dependency and adopt renewable energy to meet 100 percent of the homestead’s energy needs,” says John Ivanko of Browntown, Wis. Ivanko and his wife, Lisa Kivirist, live in a century-old farmhouse. They use an EPA-certified woodstove as their primary heat source and get their electricity from a home-scale wind turbine.
Ivanko explains that their first step was to reduce their energy use, so that a smaller, less expensive wind energy system would meet their electricity needs. To do that, they replaced all the light bulbs in their house with compact fluorescent bulbs and switched to EnergyStar-rated appliances, which use significantly less energy. In 2003, they installed a 10 kW Bergey wind turbine.
Home-scale wind power can easily provide enough power for users to be completely independent of fossil fuel-produced electricity, but it requires a large upfront investment. Such systems can take as long as 15 to 20 years to pay off the initial costs, but it can take much less time depending on the energy incentives that are available in each state. A complete list of state incentives is at www.dsireusa.org. For those seeking a quicker return on their investment, Ivanko and Kivirist recommend solar water-heating systems. Such systems can provide all the hot water a household needs, and in states such as Wisconsin, which offer renewable energy incentives, they can pay for themselves in as little as three years.
Ed Smith, who lives in northern Vermont, says he considered wind for electricity, but ultimately decided on solar energy (more than 25 years ago). He installed 20 35-watt panels to power his house and has been happy with his choice. “The panels still put out their rated amps. The only expense has been batteries every five or so years,” Smith says.
Keeping the system working hasn’t been difficult, Smith says; he learned most of what he needed to know from catalogs and the rest from books. Although his solar panels produce enough electricity to supply power to his home, he does use an old gas generator to provide supplemental electricity for the tools in his woodworking shop, and he has a backup propane generator for the house. He also heats with wood in a masonry furnace.
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