Solar Home Tour

This last saturday I visited a few of the homes on the Solar Home Tour in Ellensburg. My Aunt Janet, Uncle Mel, and Cousin Tim also went.

We visited a grid-tied home out in the Wilson Creek area (in the valley not the wilson creek in the basin) that was built with Raster block, had solar hot water panels on the roof, a wind generator that was spinning like mad (go figure....in ellensburg!) and a set of somewhere around 24 solar panels that were sensor driven to optimize sun angle. Pretty impressive set up!

We also visited a house that was completely off the grid that had 24 solar panels and a wind generator. Their micro-climate really reduced the efficiency of the wind generator (barely moving while we were there) and their solar panels were manually adjustable for sun angle. They had a set of regular ol' car batteries for storage. They used a lot of propane appliances and a generator to charge the system when things were running low. They also use the generator to pump water up to a big storage tank on the hill side and then gravity feed the house. They were living pretty well for being completely off the grid!