While you are working on your solar panels or solar heaters, you can also explore other small projects that can make your house a better place to live in.

Here are some projects that take you less than a day to implement. And many of them are very helpful in lowering your energy bills as well.

Most of them do not cost more than $100+, so if you have a little time and a little cash, you can begin right away:

1. Install solar screens

Solar screens help to keep your house cool during summer. It prevents heat from coming into your house through the windows. As such, your air-conditioners will not need to work as hard.

Most solar screens are quite affordable. The best ones are those with a metallic, reflective surface. They reflect radiation away instead of absorbing it. They are also pretty durable.

2. Solar ventilators

Ventilators can be installed at your attic, powered by solar energy. During summer, you can activate these fans to pump the heat out of your interior. This alone can cool your house considerably.

All you need is a small fan, a small vent that comes with a cover and a small solar panel. You don’t even need rechargeable batteries. It stops working when it becomes dark, but you won’t need it at night.

Try it.

When the weather gets colder, remember to cover them properly so heat doesn’t escape through these vents.

3. Solar powered air circulation

When you heat up your house, warm air rises to the top. They are all trapped at the ceiling or attic. Heat is not distributed evenly. You can install a ceiling fan to push the heat down, or use solar power to pump warm air down to ground level.

The effect: Your home warms us faster and you’ll feel more comfortable.

For this project, you’ll need a small solar panel, a set of rechargeable batteries, a long pipe and a small exhaust fan.

4. Landscaping

Planting trees, scrubs and bushes around your house can give you many benefits. You will not only create a beautiful and rejuvenating environment… You can prevent bitter cold winds from blowing against your house in winter and shelter your house from strong sunshine during summer.

5. Install solar light tubes

Solar light tubes allow natural light to enter your house while keeping the heat and precipitation out. They cost a little more. But you can experience the benefits of full spectrum lighting in your room without expensive illumination technology.

Continue Reading:

1. 7 Different Ways of Using Solar Energy At Home and In Your Office
2. Challenges and Difficulties In Using Solar Panels And How To Overcome Them
3. Survey Your Household Energy Usage Before Installing Solar Panels

Installing RV solar panels can be a daunting task at first. However if you have a sense of logic and are good with your hands, it should be a piece of cake for you. This assumes you are familiar with the construction of your recreational vehicle.

First and foremost, you have to select the correct solar panel for this application. This requires in-depth knowledge on different types of PV panels and a good understanding of your energy consumption pattern.

A good sales consultant is able to help you choose an ideal set of solar panels for your mobile home. He is also able to help you select mounting brackets (panel mounts) and accessories that complement your purchase.

Once you’ve got your solar panels ready, you will have to find a charge controller, a junction box, a drill, some sealant and lengths of connecting wires.

First, cover the surface of your solar panels with paper so it doesn’t generate electricity. Then make sure all power sources are disconnected. This includes the coach battery, the generator and all shore cables or connectors.

After this is done, find a good spot on your roof for the PV panel. You should avoid places that are near to heat sources and large vibrations. On top of this, the mounts must be attached on spots with good structural support. Otherwise the weight of solar panels may cause the metal underneath to bend after some time.

You can choose to run your cables through vents instead of cutting a new hole. Therefore mounting your solar panels near to a vent may be a good choice, depending on what the vent is originally used for.

When fixing the panel mounts, you will need to seal the gaps at the holes on the roof structure to avoid leaks.

After the PV panels are mounted, they should be well within the edge of your RV’s roof. Otherwise passing branches or leaves may get caught at the solar panel frame and start tearing it away from its mounts.

Soon after the solar panels are mounted, you can start to fit the charge controller (power regulator) at a corner inside your RV. You can also cut a hole in the interior panel just to hold this component.

Finally, connect the wires from the solar panels to the charge controller and test to see if you are getting the correct voltage output. Then run cables from the charge controller to the coach battery, making sure the polarity is correct. (Meaning you must connect the positive battery terminal to positive regulator terminal and then negative terminal to negative.)

With RV solar panels installed, your batteries are charged whenever your recreational vehicle is out in the open.

For optimal performance, install a separate set of deep-cycle batteries and allow your solar panels to charge it during the day. In this way, your appliances can draw from a dedicated power source without touching the vehicle’s electrical system.

Continue Reading:

1. Recreational Vehicle (RV) Solar Panels
2. Solar Panel Installation
3. How To Build A Solar Panel Charge Controller

RV Solar Panels

There are many benefits to install recreational vehicle (RV) solar panels. The most important one is you can go further without having to worry or plan to stop at the next RV Park to charge your batteries. This may be obvious. But when you can’t find an RV park to recharge your batteries for the night, you can get pretty frustrated.

More and more full time RVers are planning to install solar panels on their vehicles so they can reap the full benefits of using solar energy to power up their equipment in their recreational vehicles.

Before you decide to buy a solar energy kit to hook up onto your recreational vehicle, there are a few points you need to work out. The first and most important step is to determine your total energy needs. This affects the number of solar panels you’ll need to buy and the batteries and size of inverter you need to have.

In order to size your solar energy system, you’ll have to make calculations with considerations to the energy you’ll use in a typical day. After sizing your required solar power system, you can then know if you have enough space inside your RV for the batteries and inverter.

You’ll also need to consider having a backup generator in case the worst happens…and these situations occur from time to time.

If the solar power system is too big to fit into your RV, the best solution is to reduce your energy consumption. Some practical electricity-saving advice given by fellow RVers are as follows:

- Avoid cold places that needs extensive furnace use
- Never fall asleep with the TV on
- Always switch off lights and equipment when not in use
- Do not leave any lights on throughout the night

You may also want to consider using a catalytic heater, as this does not require electricity. Since heaters would otherwise consume a large part of your solar generated electricity, this may help you get away with a smaller solar energy system.

You may also be wondering how much it costs to install a complete RV solar panel system. Depending on the quality of your solar panels, batteries and inverter, an approximate cost for each complete panel system is about (more or less) $500.

You may choose to buy a portable solar panel to charge your batteries and see if using solar panels suits your way of life. Very soon, you may be hooked to it. Then you’ll experience for yourself the benefits you can only experience with a set of RV solar panels installed on your recreational vehicle.

Continue Reading:

1. Solar Energy Panels For Big “Toys”
2. Recreational Vehicle (RV) Solar Panels — Run Your Appliances With A 12VDC Panel
3. Solor Panel Inverters – Multifunction Solar Panel Inverters

Heating and Cooling Accounts for 44% of Your Household Energy Consumption

There are 2 important reasons why you must create an energy efficient house.

First, you can reduce your energy bills. With energy rates rising, it becomes more important to keep your monthly utility bills in check. You can save as much as 30% of your bill when you improve your home energy efficiency.

Second, you can reduce your carbon footprint. Simply by improving your insulation, heating system and being more energy efficient, the average household in the United States can reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by more than 1.5 tonnes.

Energy saving and efficiency should be achieved without sacrificing your comfort. There are many things you can do to plug energy leaks and improve equipment efficiency. Many enhancements can either be low or no cost while achieving its long-term energy savings objective.

For New Houses…

If you are designing and building a new house, there are building materials and construction techniques that can help. Your builder can integrate energy-efficient features to the structure of your home and its interior. This is done without sacrificing its aesthetics.

The home builder you engage may be able to provide you with cutting-edge ideas. However you have to keep in mind that alternatives exist. At times you may feel that a particular solution costs too much. Remember that it’s your prerogative as a customer to ask for a solution that makes more sense financially.

Technological improvement over the past few years gives birth to different ways to make new homes energy efficient. These ideas are based on a few fundamentals such as thermal insulation (having a good thermal envelope), proper ventilation and installation of energy-efficient doors and windows.

A thermal envelope isolates the living spaces from cold and heat. This refers to the walls, flooring and roof assembly. It also includes proper sealing for windows and doors.

It is important for houses to have a high insulation R-value. Many energy efficient homes have much higher R-values than the requirement set by local building codes.

The R-value is an indication of a material’s ability to resist heat transfer (conduction). Lower R-values encourage faster heat loss.

A well-designed house has a typical insulation level that ranges from R-20 to R-30 in the walls and R-50 to R-70 at the ceiling. Also, appliances that give out heat (such as dryers, heaters and washers) are usually located at the basement. With proper insulation, these electrical equipment can help to warm up the house.

Window designs are also important. The average house loses more than a quarter of its heat through windows. As a rule of thumb, windows insulate less than a wall. This is true even for modern, high insulating windows.

Since you are living in the northern hemisphere (most of us are), you have to design your house with fewer openings on the northern, western and eastern side. South-facing windows allow sunlight to warm up the house. So they’re encouraged.

These south-facing windows should have an overhanging roof or an awning over it. This prevents overheating in summer.

When choosing doors and windows, look out for those marked with an Energy Star label. These products insulate much better than those without.

Outside the house, strategically located vegetation helps to reduce heating and cooling costs.

In general, energy-efficient homes require smaller heating and cooling systems. For example, if your house is properly designed, you may require a heating system less than 50,000 BTU/Hour for very cold climates.

Small-capacity heaters and air-conditioners are cheaper. This savings help you defray the additional cost required to buy good insulation material for your house.

For Existing Homes…

There are several things you can do to improve the energy-efficiency of your current home. Most of these revolve around insulation since heating and cooling consumes more than half of your energy resources.

Plugging up air leaks.

Cold air leaking into your home cost you an additional 5 to 30 percent in heating cost. This is surprising but true. Thus you have to eliminate them as soon as you’re free.

You have a high chance of locating a leak in these places:

- Cracks in the wall
- The chimney
- Ceiling and wall lights
- Wall openings for pipes and electrical cables to run through
- Doors and windows
- Places where two different construction materials join

You can simply fix these leaks using clear silicon caulk or expandable-type insulation.

Check your insulation.

Sometimes insulation can be pushed aside as you (or your handyman) are fixing stuff like light fixtures. As a result, voids are created in the insulation.

This lowers the R-value of your ceiling or walls. A quick fix for this problem is to use expandable foam insulation to fill the voids.

If you need to improve the insulation of your house, start with your ceiling where most heat is lost. Then, if resources allows, move on to insulate the walls of your family room, then the bedrooms.

Sometimes, you wish to give your facade a makeover. Consider getting new siding for your house that also has good thermal properties. As you spruce up the look of your home, you can also double up the insulation of your walls.

Check your doors and windows.

Since doors and windows are the weakest links in the insulation chain, it pays to give them proper attention. If you are still using single-pane windows, consider changing them to double pane or storm windows.

Again, if budget is an issue, you can always start with the family room or your master bedroom.

Other improvements that make a difference

If you have an attic, a lot of heat can get trapped there in summer. A proper vent system can get the heat out. This helps to keep your house cool.

Sometimes your HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) system can get clogged up with dust or grease. This makes the fan work much harder to push air through. As a result, energy is wasted.

You have to change your filters regularly. It’s usually better to use cheap filters that frequent cleaning or changing often rather expensive ones that get clogged.

Using energy-efficient household appliances (and lights) also help you reduce your energy consumption. If you’re thinking of new ones, get those with energy saving features. They do not cost a lot more, yet they can help to reduce energy consumption by a big factor.

Finally, installing timers and motion sensors for your fans and lights help you reduce energy waste. (This is especially useful if you have children.)

These tips above, when implemented, makes your home energy efficient. When you cut down on power consumption, your monthly energy bills become cheaper. And this is good…

Continue Reading:

1. 7 Different Ways of Using Solar Energy At Home and In Your Office
2. Survey Your Household Energy Usage Before Installing Solar Panels
3. Before You Install Solar Panels, Plug All Your Air Leakages

Overcome Hurdles

Despite many benefits solar panels give us, there are sometimes obstacles that prevent them from being installed on your property.

We’ll discuss 3 of them in particular and attempt to shed light on how to solve each type of problem.

Challenge #1: High Upfront Cost

This is a common one. There are a few ways you can still install solar panels without burning a hole in your pocket.

You can get a loan. There are many ways the bank can structure this loan. Often, your supplier can help you apply for it. Sometimes the supplier can even lend you the money.

Ultimately, loan repayment spread over many years. You have to pay a monthly installment to offset the loan. Your aggregate savings will not be as much as when you do without a loan (due to payment of interest).

But you’re better off this way, financially. Your solar panels help you save on energy bills. By having solar panels earlier rather than later, you can enjoy free electricity sooner.

Another way to go around this challenge is to install a small system that can be scaled up later when you have the money.

Or you can opt for used or refurbished solar panels. These may not be as efficient as new ones. Yet when you do your calculations, you can often get your money working harder for you with this option.

(Tip: Calculate how much power you can get in total for every dollar you spend.)

Challenge #2: Timing of Electrical Supply

PV panels produce electricity when the sun is shining. Often, your family use electricity only in the morning (before going to work) and in the evening (after coming back from work).

This means solar panels produce electricity when you’re not at home. Thus there must be some way of storing the energy so we can use it at our convenience.

One solution is to use large rechargeable batteries to store the entire day’s energy production. This is especially useful for homes that are located in remote parts of the country where it is too expensive to run transmission cables (just for a few families).

With batteries, the acquisition cost of your solar power system increases. Thus many people opt for a grid-tied solar power system.

This design allows you to channel unused electricity back into the power grid. For your power contribution, the utility company pays you at a rate known as the Feed-in Tariffs (FiTs).

At night, when your family returns home, electricity is drawn from the grid. Thus you are really using the power grid as an energy storage. And this is good for you as much as it is for the power company.

Challenge #3: Red Tapes

If you want to mount PV panels on roofs (or the building structure), you have to adhere to building codes. This is for your safety. When these restrictions are not adhered to, you risk damage and injury if you overload the building structure such as roofs.

However building codes are sometimes a pain in the neck. It’s not that we can’t solve this problem. But it gets irritating when you have to make many calls to government agencies just to solve simple issues at times.

The best way to tackle this problem is to share your concern with your contractor. He’ll likely be able to solve the problem better than you. This is because he would have encountered many of such issues and also solved them. Very likely, he’ll know who are those guys handling this stuff and may even know then personally.

Apart from different obstacles, there are also cautions that you must know about when handling solar panels. This are especially important if you are installing your own panels or repairing them yourself.

1. Danger of electrocution. PV panels supply your house with electricity. They are capable of generating a lot of energy. If you have to handle them, please use precaution. Remember to wear thick safety gloves and put on safety boots. If you need to climb onto your roof, remember your safety harness as well.

2. Risk of PV panel damage. If you have to handle your PV panels yourself, please make sure you have the necessary qualifications or knowledge. You may render your warranty void if you open or dismantle certain parts of your solar panel. You may also damage different components if you wire electrical connections in the wrong orientation.

When you meet with challenges, the best action you can take is to pick up the phone and call your contractor or an expert…or a friend who had prior experiences with solar panels.

Continue Reading:

1. Why Are Solar Panels The Best Investment For Your Home?
2. 7 Different Ways of Using Solar Energy At Home and In Your Office
3. Creating An Energy Efficient House – A Primer On Why You Should Do It and How

Many appliances for RVs, boats and camping use 12VDC supply. When you are outdoors having fun, these appliances provide you with all the convenience and comfort. Here’s a list of such 12VDC appliances:

• Hair Dryer
• Heated Travel Cup
• Heavy Duty Metal Fan
• Wet Dry Vacuum with Gallon Canister
• “All Season” Heater/Fan with Swivel Base
• Crock Pot Slow Cooker
• Flexible Map Light
• Frying Pan
• Heated Fleece Blanket
• Portable Stove
• Rechargeable Flashlight with Adjustable Head
• SnackMaster Deluxe 12-Volt Family-Size Cooler/Warmer
• Digital/Electric Compass with Ice Alert
• et cetera…

I’m sure you’re familiar with these…

However there are times when the accumulators run empty just when you need to draw power from them. Thus a 12VDC solar panel will be ideal to ensure these appliances work at all times. With such nifty devices, these inconvenient moments will only be  memories.

During the day, solar panels will bring the accumulators to full charge. At night, power is drawn exclusively from the batteries. If you’re running some appliances only during the day, you may not need batteries… you can plug straight into the solar panels to power these appliances.

Many appliances do not really care if the power is clean, so you can also power most systems that require 120VAC using an inverter. Although you loose efficiency, it may be worth a try.

Continue Reading:

1. Recreational Vehicle (RV) Solar Panels
2. Solar Energy Panels For Big “Toys”
3. Sizing Your Solar Energy Panels – Part 2

It is important to have a charge controller. Otherwise the batteries will either not get charged or they could be damaged from overcharging. In order to charge a 12-volt battery, the regulator (charge controller) will have to maintain a charging voltage between 14.0 to 14.5 volts.

There are many types of charge controllers you can build. The easiest is the simple on-off type shunt regulator. This type of charge controller is simple, efficient, easily built, and cheap. It is also pretty reliable. Its small size makes it portable. Thus you can use it on many applications like your yacht, car and recreational vehicle (RV).

However the voltage on the battery will not be very constant. Disconnecting the battery can also result in high voltage output spikes from the regulator unless precautions are taken.

There are other design considerations that you may want to implement:

1. When the solar panels are not generating electricity, the circuit should be turned off. Otherwise current can be drained through the PV panels. When the sun is up and the PV panels start generating a fair amount of electricity, you can use transistors to start directing the current into the batteries.

2. As long as the rechargeable batteries are below 14 volts, the batteries get charged. When the batteries reach 14.0 volts, it is fully charged. Thus the circuit needs to stop current flowing into the batteries. You can use an operational amplifier (op-amp) to achieve this effect.

The components needed for building solar charge controllers are common and are therefore easily available. The operational amplifier you choose should be of a low power rating so there is lesser current drain through the component.

Here are some components that you can use as main components to your circuit:

TLC271 Operational Amplifier

a. TLC271. This operational amplifier combines a wide range of input offset voltage grades with low offset voltage drift and high input impedance. It also offers a bias-select mode that allows you to select the best combination of power dissipation and ac performance for your application.

b. SB540. This is a Schottky barrier rectifier. The advantage of using such components instead of standard silicon and germanium diodes is that the forward voltage drop is only in the range 0.15 to 0.46 volts as compared to a 0.3 or 0.6 volts respectively.

For the components that you use around these components, their % tolerance is not critical.

These components can be fixed on a printed circuit board or perf-board as usual. Then you can mount it in a protective box of your choice, depending on the environment you are going to use this in.

A solar panel charge controller like this can be built in an hour after you’ve got your PCB etched and ready. And it’ll probably be cheaper than you imagine.

Continue Reading:

1. Have Your FREE Bonus eBook “How To Build A Solar Panel” Emailed To You Now:
2. DIY Solar Panels — Charge Controller Basics
3. Making A DIY Solar Powered Reading Lamp

Are you ready for what Multifunction Solar Panel Inverters can do for you? Let’s jump right in…

Multifunction solar panel inverters combine the best from Stand-Alone Solar Panel Inverters and Synchronous Solar Panel Inverters. They are of course more expensive, but these are the best choice for your solar energy panels.

This type of inverter allows you to generate excess power to be stored in a battery bank. As such, you are able to use energy from the grid, from the solar panels or from stored energy in the batteries. You can even connect a standby generator to the whole setup. Let me illustrate…

During the day, solar energy panels supply your household appliances with power. At the same time, the battery bank is charged up to store energy for the night. If there is surplus electricity, they can be sold to your local power company.

By evening, the batteries will be charged up. At this time, the inverter provides AC power to the house from the batteries. If the batteries are flat, the inverter taps into the grid to charge the batteries and power up the house at the same time.

If a standby generator is used, the inverter will synchronize its power so it can be added to an existing source of power. Many multifunction solar panel inverters are not as efficient as synchronous inverters because the system must have a battery. However, they offer functions that grid-tied inverters do not.

Continue Reading:

1. About
2. Sizing Your Solar Energy Panels – Part 2
3. Sizing Your Solar Energy Panels – Part 3