Northern Michigan Solar Cabin

Official home of "This Old Shack"

Learn about alternative energy, hybrid systems and watch pointless videos!

 Updated:10/10/2008

Welcome to our solar powered cabin, now with more pointless videos and photography. All power is provided by solar panels and a battery bank. Use the links at the left to learn more.  If you haveA photograph of our solar powered cabin. any questions, send me an email! I'm always happy to provide a convoluted answer to a simple question. At this site, you can learn from my real world experiences in solar energy production and how I produce power at our cabin in Northern Michigan. The cabin is located right on the 45th parallel near Gaylord, Michigan. Check out our photography site  which has some photos around the cabin in the nature and winter sections!

 

  Really great resources

 
Renewable Energy Access site

Member, Gasavers.org

 Weblog Commenting and Trackback by HaloScan.com
Green Trust is located in northern New York State and is a great resource for alternative energy options. Check them out. Say yes to Michigan!

 Free classifieds, lively discussion groups, meet people in your area, promote your business, network. Join Michigan's online forum today!

Alternative Energy Learning Resources
Peukerts formula explained Input your data for Peukerts formula Sierra Nevada Airstreams battery bank information.

Off the grid!

Latest Diary entry:

 Site news

Well, I got tired of listening to the usual garbage about oil and food prices and why there're rising like a loaf of bread with too much yeast. Now I investigate and you get to read about it in my Energy Blog

Beer, alternative energy and the world's most arrogant man. All in This Old Shack episodes

Be sure to check out the earthquake/volcano page while you're here! 

 		 

10-10-08; Sad but true, we haven't done a lot of updates to the site over the past few months. We are involved in several projects including the second part of our gas mileage episode in which Bill Xam finally blows himself up! Check this page for some of our latest videos!

The good news to report is this: our alternative energy system worked flawlessly throughout the summer.

7-30-08; The second part of the gas mileage episode of "This Old Shack" is being edited as I write this.

7-24-08; We are working on the second part of the gas mileage episode of This Old Shack as I write this. Release date at this point it 8-5-08.

7-15-08; The latest episode of This Old Shack is now available for your viewing pleasure. This is the first of two parts about fuel mileage and features hypermileage driving techniques.

7-9-08; In the hospital, out of the hospital, back in the hospital. Middle age is so much fun. 

LET THE GREAT TIRE SEARCH OF 2008 BEGIN! During the first week of July, we finally got the mileage of the This Old Shack truck dialed in at 25.6 miles per gallon over a 270 mile loop. Now we're going to test some low rolling resistance tires, Hankook Dynapro AS RH03 tires that tested in laboratory conditions as above average.

6-22-08; Photographs of weather stations in Michigan.

6-21-08; Each entry in the energy blog now has a comment link for posting comments. The comments are courtesy of Halo.

Watch our latest lightning video, shot at the shack last week.

Oh baby, do we have a video for you! I'm a storm chaser and as luck would have it we had a major lightning storm here at the main house. Lightning hitting the street in front of us, transformers blowing up and our neighbors getting hit by lightning. Check it out!

If you've watched my Youtube trailer for the season premier of This Old Shack, you're probably saying, "Bill, what the heck happened to your hair?". Go here to find out more.

Don't ask me why, but I've recently become interested in studying earthquake/volcano activity around the world; ash plumes and such. I've added a page with RSS feeds and links to satellite imagery. 

And finally the data you've been looking for, excerpts from the NREL redbook!

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has released their datasets for the climate. 

Carbon Dioxide map here. 

Spring weather outlook here.

 

northhouse.jpg (118099 bytes)
A lovely photo of the cabin in summer

But why?

There were several reasons for the switch:

  • Sprinkle of rain = power failure.

  • Giving a little back by not using so much.

  • Independent living.

Benefits:

  • Renewable power.
  • Learning about solar power.
  • Own stock in the solar panel company. :-)
  • I like batteries.
  • I can sit around smoking a cigar because I'm an energy mogul!

Drawbacks:

  • Maintenance.
  • Installation.
  • Bunch of black glass panels sitting around.

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Plugs and ads

 

  

 

Watch This Old Shack here!

How I test

Look, using testing equipment is all well and good but those spec sheets don't mean squat if you can't run YOUR stuff for as long as you want to. So what I do (so you don't have to) is get the equipment (batteries, inverters, solar panels) and put what I run on it. Usually about 30-50 watts at 12 volts or a few amps draw. You know, turning lights on and off, running a computer (a laptop) and whatnot. 

Throughout the test, a digital meter is run on the bank and a hydrometer is used once an hour to determine whether the meter is reading the correct voltage. During the sunlight hours on the panels, there is another digital meter installed at the primary junction box (where the panels feed into the 10 gauge cables that feed to the charge controller) that measures panel voltage and amps. Here is the Excel file of one of the tests.

One of the things that I like the best about alternative energy is that you can make it as complicated or simple as you like. Some people, even though they use alternative energy simply don't have a good grasp on the entire substance that goes into the makeup of an engineered system that has been built from scratch.

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