What books

Re: What books

No offense intended,, but read around this forum and you will realize that wiring your house for 12vdc only, and trying to power it with solar is a crazy idea IMHO.
It A: won't save you any money, and indeed will cost you more per kwh and B:will leave you with a house that has very little functionality.

If you are serious about getting away from the power company, you should practice the 4 tenets of solar energy. The first thing to do is conserve, followed by some more conservation, followed by a bunch more conservation, and then perhaps solar water heat, passive solar space heat, and then, and only then PV solar. Every dollar spent on conservation will save ~ ten in solar costs.

Grid tied solar will cost ~$8-10 per watt. Battery based double that.

A small off grid system big enough to handle most everyday loads might be ~ 2 kws,,,~ $10-20,000. If you are serious about this, I suggest that you get a Kill-a-watt meter (~$20 online) and start to measure and log your consumption. I suspect you will find your consumption is high enough at present to make a system VERY EXPENSIVE. For example,, the above mentioned 2 kw system,, on a PERFECT day will yield something in the order of ~ 6.5 kwh net to the plugs in a day. Realize that a toaster will use ~.3 kwh if used for 15 minutes a day,,,~5% of your daily yield. Add a coffee pot for the same time, you're up to ~10%,, microwave dinner,,,15 minute, now you are at ~15%, add the fridge and you will use (assuming a very good fridge) another ~10%. Now you are at 25% and you haven't lit a light, turned on the answering machine, or the computer, radio, tv, water pump, heater, air conditioner etc. You can soon see that you run up to 100% pretty quickly.

(Off grid systems run ~52% of name plate rating for ~ 6 hours,,,factoring in panel efficiency, charge controller ef, battery charging ef, inverter ef. wire losses etc).

So the named 2 kw system would yield 2000watts X 6 hours X 52%=6240 wh



As I suggested above,,, spend a bunch of time reading around this site. There are some very sharp folks here. Post your questions and think through what you are trying to achieve. Above all else,, understand enough to avoid the Ready, fire, aim syndrome.

Tony

PS I haven't even mentioned the cost of wiring the house for 12vdc. All new polarized wiring, huge wire sizes due to high amperage draws. (1200 watts at 120 vac =10amps,,, #14 wire. The same 1200 watt coffee maker at 12 vdc is 100amps! #2 wire maybe,,,)

Most household appliance are not made for 12 vdc, so you would have to restrict yourself to RV/Auto stuff that is not very well built and not very efficient.

T

Re: What books

Good links Bill. I had forgotten about the former Ladies problem(s) The latter is pretty recent.

T

Bill,, I edited my first response.