Residential Solar Panels

BB, install the line inside. We have two of them. Clothes will dry overnight in the winter and you get to humidify the house too! We need to get moving with the solar thing this year for the reasons that you mention. We're Xcel customers, so the process should be pretty easy. Some folks up the street from us did the Solar City thing. I need to talk to them in more detail about their system (a 3 kW array).

 

Anything with resistance electric heat (dryer/space heater/hair dryer/toast/coffee pot etc is very inefficient. (It takes way more BTUs at the generating end, then it give back at the load end, somewhere between 3 and 10 depending on how you calculate it. Therefore, using some other heat source for any heat generating appliance dramatically reduces the load on any power system.

For example, a 2kw dryer, running for 2 hours a day will draw as much power (8kwh) than all the rest of my household needs put together.

Contrary to perception, things dry pretty well, and very quickly in super cold. The reason is that the air tends to be dry, so the water may freeze in the clothing, but that water will sublimate back onto water vapor quite quickly, never turning into liquid water again. The worse case scenario is hang the cloths out for the day, bring them in stiff and frozen, they might become damp, but they will do a final dry in the house.

It is always amazing to me how people sometimes forget that nature will do much of our "work" for us, such that we don't have to use energy sucking machines to do that work. Drying laundry is pretty easy to do, and net/net saves a ton of energy.

Icarus

 

Interesting stuff about drying clothes!

Do the clotheslines drip at all? We'd consider it otherwise.

Also, I'm in Colorado, too. If you're in the market for panels, we used Namaste Solar (the folks who did the PV system on the museum of Nature and Science) and they've been great! Very attentive and far more professional than other vendors we solicited bids from.

If you want to use them, I have a $250 off referral coupon (that also nets me $250)! PM me with your address/contact info if you want me to send it along.

Also, you probably discovered this already, but our stimulus fund rebates are handled by the "Governor's Energy Office" whose rebate website is RECHARGECOLORADO.COM.

 

If you wash the clothes washer (i.e. spins at the end), then the clothes are dry enough and don't drip on the line. We use a couple of folding wooden racks from WalMart for our clothes drying. Works great.

One trick to eliminate wrinkles: blow air from a box fan on 'low' into the hanging clothes. They dry faster, and no wrinkles, so you don't have to use an expensive electric iron later.

 

Update ... the 30% Fed PV (and other renewable) legislation doesn't expire until 2016. I'll send you a link if you like.

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I do find that they aren't as stiff if they dry with a slight breeze on them as well.

Using any of the new HE washers, the clothes come out almost just damp to begin with. Less water held by clothes = less energy necessary to dry them. It's really a win-win.

I purchased one of those portable pop-up umbrella clothes lines online and I move it inside and outside depending on the time of year. I will say that I've slacked off quite a bit this year using it, because it's become so darn easy to just dump everything into the dryer (I didn't use to have a dryer until a year ago). I put my little umbrella underneat a vent downstairs and it keeps a constant breeze on them since I keep the fan blowing 24/7 in my house. It also helps that I have a wood pellet stove in that room, which helps with the drying aspect, too.

I noticed that since getting a dryer and using it more, that my electric usage went up almost 3 kwh a day on average - my utility bill breaks down the average daily usage. I'm trying to get back to more discipline and hanging them up again!

 

What I like about PV is the decentralization of generation. If you have everyone in a community producing a large portion of their own power right where they use it then there is a huge reduction in transmission loss. It's amazing how much juice the power plant has to produce and how much less actually reaches the end user.
But what is clear is that we simply have to reduce demand overall. That's the bigger future challenge in my mind. (Typing as a Kill-A-Watt is tabulating away behind me.)

- D

 

No drips. We have an old school vertical axis washer, and they wring less out of the clothes (in addition to using more water) than the newer front loaders. We have no problems with drips at all.

For our drying, I'm thinking about have a guy come over and help me design a new dryer vent that dumps the hot/damp exhaust air into our living space. It will be configurable so that in the summer I can send that air outside like normal. In the winter we can use the extra heat and humidity.

Bum, I'll ping you when the time comes. Would love to get you the $250. I know a fella that works at Namaste, so I'd go with them because of that. Plus, an acquaintance of mine is one of the top solar guys at NREL, and his array was installed by Namaste. That's a fine endorsement to me.

We don't need a huge array, we avg < 300 kwh/mo I believe (I haven't run the numbers for 2010 yet).

 

We actually use an old fashioned wringer machine. It brings the clothes out much dryer as the wringer removes more water than any spinner. Additionally, it uses a ton less water.

We (not me, but my wife!) wash one load of whites, then using the same water and soap, do a load of work clothes, and maybe a third. Then we drain, rinse a couple, and use that rinse water to wash another round if we need to. So for ~ 3 loads of laundry, we use two tubs of water! It takes a bit more time as you can't set it and forget it, but like many things we trade time for energy (money)!

 

Thanks for the tip! We do have a high efficiency washer so we may have to try that. Heck, if we have them dry on clothes hangers, we may just be able to move them straight to the closet afterwards.

That's great news! I didn't know they renewed it. I hope they do the same for energy efficiency home improvements next year (I could use some new blinds/windows).

That's actually one reason why I love my eGauge so much. It really helps me realize what sort of draw there is from pretty much anything in the house. I can walk around the house with my iPhone and switch lights off or unplug appliances and see what kind of impact it makes in real time via the graphs. My (incandescent) Christmas tree bulbs, for example, use 200w!

On a side note, has anyone else used the Belkin Conserve Insight? It's like an easier-to-use Kill-A-Watt that has a four foot cord between the outlet and the monitor interface (so you don't have to crawl on your belly with a flashlight to get a reading). It's pretty slick!

You can see my Amazon review here (feel free to mark it "helpful" if you think it is since it helps my reviewer rank):
http://www.amazon.com/review/R16IURSIGD13NI/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B003P2UMP8&nodeID=&tag=&linkCode=

 

Although it is considered a bad idea to vent a dryer inside, I agree with the idea to vent it inside in the winter. We started doing this about 5 years ago, and it has made a huge difference for our wood floors. The floors used to shrink in the winter due to wood heat, leaving big gaps which things (dust, small item) could fall into. Now our wood floors stay tight all winter due to moisture added by the dryer--and we only run the dryer for 5 minutes each load before handing clothes to finish drying.

 

Cool! I'll see if they'll let me just scan and publish the voucher to make things easy.

Namaste was also the company standing alongside Obama when he signed the stimulus bill at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

Obama Signs Stimulus Packed With Clean Energy Provisions - NYTimes.com

They were a little more expensive than some other vendors, but far more professional and reputable.

I got a quote from another vendor who I talked to over the phone one evening and they sounded totally lost. The guy on the other end said something about not understanding how to use the estimating software or something. I figured he was just some low-paid grunt they used to answer the phone at night... then he mentioned he was the owner! I said "no thanks" to them.

PS - One more reason Namaste is awesome: they just sent me a branded aluminum water bottle in the mail for Christmas.

 

Why is it bad to vent the dryer inside? I'm a 28 yr old male, so I don't know lol. They do sell those inside boxes to hook up to the dryer for those without an exterior duct for it. I used that, and it worked well (when the cat wasn't knocking it over). Downside, is that there was a lot more fine dust that was generated in the laundry room.

As far as the thought of making something that can be vented inside during winter and outside during summer, I'm picturing a PVC type contraption with the duct being secured to it. Maybe something you could simply unhook from the exterior duct and close it off during the winter.

I just hang the clothes up during winter and run a humidifier all winter long. Then again, I don't have hardwood floors, although it is in my 5 or 10 year plan for an improvement. I have laminate (not too fond of it after almost 5 yrs) downstairs and carpet upstairs. I think I'll flop and do carpet downstairs and hardwood upstairs as part of that plan.

 

In the January 2011 issue of Fine Homebuilding magazine they answered a write in question about venting a dryer inside. Basically it was a big NO because of moisture problems, air quality (dust) and very little gain. The whole article isn't online, but a preview here shows the prefab vent:

Preview - Tapping into a dryer vent for heating - Fine Homebuilding Question & Answer

- D

 

While the idea of heat capture and even humidifying is good, there are are some risks to doing so. A preferred solution would be to run the dryer duct inside a return air duct to a furnace, picking up the heat off the dryer. That way you keep the lint, and excess moisture out of the house. Venting dryer moisture into the house can add too much humidity too fast in many cases.I tried it once and it was not very satisfactory.

Just my opinion.

 

Sometimes hardwood floors in the bedroom can be a bit of a bummer, the floor isn't super pleasant to step on in bare feet, better with an area rug though. That said, area rugs can be removed for cleaning/cycled to another dirtier part of the house as they wear/replaced if necessary, carpets are kind of a pain. And after a while I wonder how dirty they really are.

 

I agree. It's sort of a double-edged sword in a way. I would definitely do area rugs in the rooms with the hard wood floors. I think they're easier to keep clean than carpet, though. I have 4 cats, and one had digestive tract surgery about 7 years ago and has a tendency to throw up hair balls everyday. Needless to say, replacing any kind of flooring isn't getting done during his lifetime. I've bought a bissell carpet cleaner about 2 years ago. It makes a BIG difference with the carpets and how they look when I clean them. The hardwood floors feel nice to step on during the summer but not so nice during the cold winter months. There's a few spots that the furballs have pretty much ruined the carpet (steps, esp) so it'll need something done with it eventually.

 

Icarus, we got GREAT incentives from both Irvine water district as well as the gas & electric utility providers for purchasing our new front load washer. These new babys spin out at 1,200 - 1,600 rpm !! Aint NO wringer gona get THAT much water out.
I kid you not ... the centrifugal force is so great ... the clothes are actually stuck deep down into the little perforated drain holes of the stainless drum. The amount of drying these high speeds have is unbelievable. Then there's the water saving issue. HUGE amounts of electricity get used ... pumping water to areas (like so cal) far far away. Lots of people like to live in warm/dry areas like so cal ... which obviously have LOW water supplies. Front loaders use only enough water to wet the clothes. Rather than have clothes SWIMMING like fish ... this means it takes WAY less energy to HEAT your clothes' water. I wish we'd have gotten one of these suckers years & years ago. The electricity to run the pump & agitator, the amount of water and amount of water heating fuel (gas/oil/coal-electricity ...what ever) all get used in MUCH lower quantities.

 

Electricity is something that we cannot live without. But at the end of the month when we see the electricity bill it does not give us that pleasure and enjoyment. But you can get some relief from this problem if you get residential solar panels installed on your house. A residential solar panel has many advantages. The most important of them is utilizing the natural resource which otherwise is generally wasted and if you buy a residential solar panel you can save your tax. If you are planning to invest so much on it, you can always consult a professional before buying it, because these panels are very costly and they are not just any simple object which you can buy every day. Go for the best one that is available. Invest once and enjoy its advantages for a long time without any kind of hazards.

 

If you're considering solar power for your home, there are a few things you need to know. For Solar panel for homes in Florida, you can check this contractor. Here's what you need to know about solar power before making the switch.

1. Solar power is most effective in sunny climates. If you live in an area with lots of suns, solar power can be a great way to save money on your energy bill. However, if you live in a cloudy or rainy climate, solar power may not be as effective.

2. Solar power requires a significant upfront investment. Solar panels can be expensive, so you'll need to make sure you have the money upfront to pay for them.