I would be EXTREMELY cautious about investing in solar outside of FL, southern AZ, southern NM, SoCal. There are TONS of fly by night companies operating w completely false information. I am in Orlando, my DH is has a recent honors MS in Mechanical Engineering and we have been looking to go over fully to solar for 2 yrs and thoroughly researching. Here there is still NO solar avail that does not need a back up battery system to operate anything, after the sun goes down. There is no way you are running a fridge, even a dorm room sized one for 27 hrs straight w/o a storage battery system, those start at $10K on the cheap side. Start up wattage on most fridges is atleast 1600 watts. not to mention already owning a huge back up generator for hurricanes I can tell you, you are not supposed to run fridges on any generators besides whole house one's because they operate on a different wave-length and over time ruin the mechanics, when you hear them running on one you will know right away something is not right LOL. from Volusia Co FL down southward is THE most ideal conditions in the ENTIRE country for solar and here we still have to have back up battery systems. the other possible areas in the country for viable solar have far fewer constant sunny days hence even more need for battery back up. if there really were powerful solar generators that did work they would be ALL over this state years ago. everyone I know either has a whole house back up ($12k cheapest) or huge portable back up ($7k minimum), so solar would be most common here. Solar home power here is becoming more popular but still at it's cheapest runs $20k just for the minimum. I'm guessing the solar generator you saw is for 18 hrs a day sunlight running small things like a lamp while it's sunny outside... ~ liz

Thank you for the response, Liz. It sounds like you and your husband have done a lot of research.

It makes sense that if the whole house units were reasonable priced, everyone would have them. But, at the same time we're not talking a real house. This is a camp in the woods. There is no electricity available on our site and it would be costly to have it brought in. There is no house. Just a little one room camp where we go on weekends. It would be convenient to have a small refrigerator there (not nearly 20 feet - I just got that number off the brochure the booth had - but maybe a little bigger than a dorm fridge) so that we didn't have to buy and haul several bags of ice on a weekend to keep our cooler cold. Running our camp wouldn't even be the equivalent of running most pull type campers or mid-size RV's because we just don't have that much need for electricity on a regular basis.

We do have a gas generator at the camp. We turn it on when we want to use power tools to build something. Also on a chilly or rainy evening when we want to watch a VHS movie, or when we need to charge our cell phone. We're pretty primitive for the most part and we actually love it that way.

We wouldn't try to run our home on a small solar generator unit, just like we wouldn't try to do that on the gas generator we have. I'd still be curious to hear from anyone who has tried something like this in a similar situation. I realize, given the limited size group we are, that's not very likely, but I was just hoping. We liked the idea of having a little electric power that was accessible without the noise of the gas generator. We thought that would be a big plus.

The federal and state governments have some pretty good incentives out there, from what I hear.

incentives actually used to be good if you lucked out and got the 100 or so allotted to FL of course now no one wants any govt so those are long gone like the upgrading inefficient appliances incentive. Some counties in FL used to get very good rebates from the state but again now there is no money in it. here it certainly is economical to go solar, we have the most sunny hours in the day and most sunny days a year plus electric rates here are very high and A/C is used 9 months or more out of the year so utilities in central to south FL easily are $250-300 a month for 1500 sq ft. when you spend $4000 a year on Progress Energy it isn't too hard to think about spending $25k in a lump sum for solar if you will be in your house for 10+ yrs. LOL. not to mention HURRICANES and we went 24 days in 2004 w/o power we eventually got the big portable but you can't run those w/o being there, they also ruin A/C motors and laptops so some other option makes solar look even better! ~ liz

Liz, could you share more on this subject? It seems to me that anything that requires batteries (car, household use, whatever) can never be very 'green'. Where do the batteries go when they die? Is this sort of like nuclear energy -- clean until you look at the waste product? (And all the water, with nuclear.)

I don't see any answer other than reducing our desire for electric everything. Gives me shivers to see those night photos of earth from space -- all that *light*.

Can you put your fridge to sleep at night, when there ain't no sun?

Or ... have insulation three feet thick, all around it, to hold the cold in till morning? And that's without opening the door in the interim, of course.

Otherwise ... seems to me that you're gonna need batteries, which operate on direct current, ... and you need a several-thousand-dollar inverter to change one kind of current to t'other.

Up this way, my friend was able to operate his trailer home on just solar, and wind, but that inverter was costly ...

... he had a number of contacts, and he got his batteries from the phone co., who throw theirs out when only about half of their useful life is gone, so he claimed.

Didn't hear whether he figured that the new kind of power did nefarious things to his motors, etc.

ole joyful

OJ, Nope, the refrigerator can't be shut off at night, but the solar generator unit that I was talking about does include an inverter and battery storage as well as the solar panel.

On a side note, we would never, ever be operating an air conditioner or computer on this unit. We have no need of air conditioning at camp (our average July/August temps are only in the mid 70s) and we don't ever plan to take a computer out there!

I guess if it would power the small fridge, even if it shortened the expected life span of the fridge (at least within reason), it would do what I needed. Actually, we have an old camper set up out there as a 'kitchen'. We've taken out the living room/sleeping accessories and it contains only the kitchen area with tiny sink, 4 burner gas stove, and refrigerator. At the moment, we have this unit plugged into our gas generator and if I want electricity in there (to run a fan, or to run the little microwave for a few minutes) then we can start the gas generator. When we do that, the refrigerator turns on. I've never actually used it (kind of limiting to have one that only comes on when the seldom used gas generator is on), but if a solar unit would power it, we could plug this unit into that.

Make sure that you have the needed capacity. Motors, especially under load, which fridge motors are, to run the compressor, are energy hogs. Heating is, as well.

Since you now operate with a tiny sink ... I assume that you manage with only a plate or two? Minimal cutlery - Indians, and quite a few Africans, could show you how the individual using his/her own plate can manage without.

One advantage to being the sole inhabitant ... is that one can lick the plates/cutlery clean, without worry as to whether the next user might be someone else. That'd reduce the number of occasions that one would need to use the sink.

Not very useful when there's two or more sharing, though ... so it was somewhat inefficient/redundant to mention it here, right?

o j

Since your application is a camp that is used for a small part of the year, a solar installation likely is not economical. First, determine how large a collector panel is needed to run a small refrigerator 24 hr a day. A battery pack and inverter is necessary. Then, there is maintence to consider. The unit should be covered and put into storage condition when you leave. The battery pack needs care year around. A battery depleted of charge will freeze in winter. This means that you would have to leave the solar panel active during your absence and hope the charging circuits work. Over charging the cells is bad, also. A lead acid battery withstands overcharging better than others. After full charge, it hydrolizes its water breaking it down to hydrogen and oxygen gases. Too much of this causes the liquid level to fall in the battery requiring replenishment, and if no one is there to do this, that is not good.

Even with a good sized solar panel, a battery pack is needed to start a refrigerator motor. Electric motors meeting NEMA standards can have an inrush current up to 6 times its running current. Most real motors draw somewhat less start current. Typical refrigerator motors have inrushes of about 4X running current. A storage pack is needed to supply the current surge to insure motor start. A stalled refrigerator motor is in trouble. Many modern refrigerator motors have a built-in overload switch. A stalled motor draws excessive current and heats. After an overload current lasts for a short period of time, the overload switch opens, but soon closes again for another try. This cycle will continue until the motor starts or something burns out. After several such cycles, the motor can get too hot to start even if standard full power is available. In that case, it should be taken off line and allowed to cool before attempting a restart.

Years ago (1940s), a flame powered refrigerator was made. It was fueled by butane or propane. The trade name may have been Sevel. I don't know if any such appliance is available today. However, there are refrigerators made for RVs that run on the same principal. These gas units have to be level when operated.

We had a Servel fridge in Korea fifty years ago that had a small flat tank of kerosene under the unit, with a small lamp in one corner and it vaporized the coolant, that then moved up into the unit and condensed, sucking up heat as it did.

I don't remember whether there was a freezer unit included.

We had a Philips stove, bought and shipped from Hong Kong, that had a small tank of kerosene up on the wall that fed down into a stove and was vapourized in a heated tube filled with steel wool, then moved out to heat the tube continuously, the four burners and oven, but one needed to light the burners with a match, and burned with a blue flame like a gas stove. Used a lot less fuel that most stoves.

Most of the folks had one of those old kerosene-fired stoves with a large tube with a large round wicked burner at the bottom, that produced a yellow flame.

ole joyfuelled ... said to be full of hot air, at times ... but how can heat produce cold? Are you pulling my leg?

My gs lives in n.Calif and last year they moved everyone out of the apt building he lives in.They were out for almost 8 mos.During that time they tore the building down to the studs,then rebuilt it incorporating solar everything into the building.Once it was all done,they moved everyone back in a few apts at a time,as they finished up the rest of the apts he said no one has to pay any utility bills now as everything is solar and it all works very well.They have as much heat,ac and hot water that they need.
Kathi

I think what you are talking about, is basically what amounts to a solar powered trickle charger for a battery. Then it has a conversion unit so you can tap into that battery power to run, say, a small fridge. When the sun shines, the battery is being charged. I believe there is a small amount of charging even on less sunny days.

We were looking into one of those units for our chicken area, since there is no electricity. We wanted it for water pumping in the summer, a bit of heating by way of a light in the winter. Our bigger issue is how to keep the panels clear of snow etc. - they have to be up high to keep the chickens off them, but then they would be hard to clean.

I think it would be worth a try anyway.

Dances.

Winter storage is something that I hadn't thought of jemdandy, but it makes sense. Especially since our camp is snowed in, in the winter. We usually snowshoe in once or twice, to remove the snow from the top of a couple of campers and check to see that everything is ok, but other than that it's shut down from November to April (roughly). So, if we did have a unit like this, storing it in our basement over the winter would probably be a good idea.

Economical, no I don't think it's going to be economical. We'd be ok with 'not ridiculously expensive' for what we get out of it. And 'what we get out of it' would be as much convenience and enjoyment as it would battery power. The chance to have a little 'silent' power out in the woods would be really nice.

It's interesting that you, Jemdandy and OJ, brought up the gas powered refrigerators. They do still make them. They are pretty expensive (about the same as the solar generator we are looking at). They are something we have actually considered. The down side (besides expense) is that they are a one trick pony! You get refrigeration, nothing else. You can't use one to run a pump (on the well) occasionally, or to recharge a phone battery, or to make toast! That's why we pretty much ruled that option out.

OJ, that tiny sink in the camper actually never gets used for actually washing anything. We don't even have water hooked up to it. Actually, I usually just set my dirty dishes and spoons in it while I am cooking at the stove. When it's time to wash dishes, I gather everything up, and move it to a table outside (in nice weather) where I wash my dishes using a couple of plastic dishpans (one for wash water and one for rinse, which has been heated in a big soup pan over the propane burner) and spread the clean dishes out on a towel to dry in the sun! In rainy weather, I will make do with doing the same thing on the kitchen counter. That little sink is just too small to fit much of anything in anyway!

Kathi_mdgd, I'd love to be able to have a home run fully on solar like that!

Dances, the trickle charger sounds pretty much like what we're looking at. I will actually post a link here to the website for the item we're interested in. It's locally made, right here in the Michigan U.P. by a couple of former students from our local (and pretty well known) Michigan Technological University. A lot of good engineers come out of that school and it's good to see some of them using their talents so close to home!

Here's also a link to an independent review of the product:

http://www.suburbsolar.com/independent-review-of-the-easysun-1500-solar-generator/

There is some other really good information from the manufacturer at the bottom of that review, in response to some questions from the reviewer. Jemdandy, I'd be interested in your feedback after reading all of that.

Here is a link that might be useful: Easy Sun Solar Generator

i didn't realize they had such "critters"...and with the price of gasoline it can be pretty expensive to run...not to mention toting gas around..we did buy a gas powered one in an emergency situation...(needed to run the ac in mi...yes it can get darn hot!) when i googled noticed they included a modern windmill (home size)

Oh yes, it can get hot. Michigan is a tall state (north to south) and even here (extreme north) we get maybe a week or two of hot weather. Of course people here consider anything above 80 to be hot and 85 to be extremely hot! I have though, even seen it hit 100 on a couple of days in the past 5 years. Luckily though, it doesn't seem to stay hot here at night, and it's always cooler at camp. Even at home, we have only small window air conditioners in the bedrooms. We bought them summer before last and do run them sometimes.

A windmill would be a great energy alternative too, I believe, but aesthetics at camp would kind of rule it out for us there. At least I believe so. We do kind of like our mostly rustic looking area as is...

Hi jel,

Hey ... when it's raining, if you were to lay a 4" X4" stick along one side of the picnic table, you could set the dishes on the table, with one side up on the stick, and let the rain drop on the plate, then run down it, to get the washing done, quickly and easily!

The stove and fridge that we had in Korea in the 50s were powered by kerosene.

I don't remember their price, if I ever heard it, but don't think that it was inordinately expensive.

One of our missionaries had married a nurse who'd worked with the British Red Cross in Korea, and I think it was through her that they heard of their availability.

ole joyful