Choosing Renewable Energy
(Page 3 of 7)
April/May 2008
By John Gulland and Wendy Milne
Living with limits to energy can be a challenge when getting ready for visitors and parties. I learned this early, and I learned it the hard way. Within weeks of switching over to 800 watts of solar power we had company coming for the weekend. As usual, I set off to vacuum our three story house top to bottom. Just as I made my way down to the first floor, the entire electrical system shut down when the batteries fell below a set level of charge. I obviously had a lot to learn. Overnight guests usually need some coaching on low-impact living. Our house is complicated, with an array of switches and rules for their use, few of the nonessential appliances, less light and variable access to hot water — not an easy transition for people used to on-demand energy.
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Over the years we have worked toward more self-sufficiency as John has been cutting all our firewood and I have been slowly expanding our gardens to provide more of our food.
John: We had to make a number of big changes before we could even consider relying on our own power. First to go were the 220-volt electrical loads, because the inverter that converts power stored in batteries to alternating current for household use only produces 110 volts. We needed to swap out the kitchen range, well pump, electric furnace, water heater and clothes dryer. With the obvious energy hogs gone, we ended up with a propane range, a 110-volt well pump, an oil-fired water heater and a new “furnace” consisting of a radiator and fan unit that uses the water heater as its heat source. These unglamorous changes cost several thousand dollars, as well as a fair amount of time and effort. By far the cheapest conversion was from the electric clothes dryer to a clothes line.
At the time, compact fluorescent light bulbs were just coming on the market and cost up to $20 each. We spent several hundred dollars to replace almost every bulb in the house, a conversion that today would cost less than a quarter of what we invested.
Because of the cost involved, we waited several years to exchange our desktop computers, with their electrically hungry 20-inch monitors, for laptops that consume a fraction as much electricity.
I have come to understand that cutting big electrical loads and learning to live day to day with less electricity takes up more time and attention than installing solar panels or a wind turbine.
Wendy: I got a serious scare one sunny but bitterly cold winter morning when John was away. I was running our woodstove hard, and after getting the house up to a comfy temperature, I decided to take a shower and enjoy all the hot water the stove had produced.
But when I came downstairs after showering, I heard an ominous hissing and rumbling of water boiling in the system of pipes behind the woodstove. Just then a pipe burst and boiling water spewed onto the hearth and the living room floor. After quickly considering my options I raced to get a wheelbarrow. I shoveled the fire from the stove into the wheelbarrow and dumped it outside in the snow. Lucky for me, just an hour before the pipe burst the oil delivery truck had filled the tank of our rarely used backup heating system. That meant I didn’t have to spend the day watching the water in the living room freeze into a skating rink. John reworked the system shortly after that incident, and it has been working fine ever since.
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