The Energy Renegade fights back.
The Energy Renegade fights back.
|
Submitted by: Windstalker  Subscribe to this Author |
http://cpagroup.pbwiki.com/The-Energy-Renegade-Fights-Back
Type of Content: Article The Energy Renegade fights back. A $300 investment that may well save me $600 or more a year. Let me explain. I live in a rural setting where cable is unavailable, the phone lines are junk, and water, sewer and natural gas are not available. I had to build a mile of road just to access my property and build a house. This has made me become more self reliant out of necessity. I had a well drilled, use cell phones, use satellite for both television and internet, installed a septic system, and use propane instead of natural gas. Well this Tuesday I had to fill the propane tank. It's a 500gal tank and the nature of propane dictates that 20% head space is left empty for a vapor space. Well the tank was essentially empty so we called for $300 worth of propane to be delivered. Traditionally that would give us ~6 months propane, about 35% tank level. We customarily had propane delivered 2-3 times a year. So we averaged ~ 70-80% a tank of propane a year, about 380gal. at ~$700/year. Well this time the delivery only filled 20% of the tank and in the small part of the radius or about 60gal or $5/gal. Ok so I did some rough math and 380gal x $5 = $1900/year in propane at the current price and usage. OUCH!!! This just HAS to Stop! There isn't much I can do about usage. We still have to cook, shower, wash clothes and dishes and dry said clothes. Looking at the usage I see that the most significant portion of the propane is used merely to heat water. That I can change. We live on the Texas Coast. It's pretty much warm and sunny here all year. Whenever I water the garden I have to let the water run until it cools. Water straight from the hose lying in the sun will scald you. What I am doing is building a solar water heater/preheater. For a $300 dollar investment I purchased 1 sheet of 1/2" treated plywood, 1 sheet of 1" thick 4'x8' foam insulation aluminized 1 side, 2 - 8' sheets of clear corrugated plastic panel, 2 sticks of 3/4" cpvc pipe, 30 sticks of 1/2" cpvc pipe, and enough street ell's, ell's and other assorted fittings to put this all together. I already have flat black high temp paint, 2x6's for the frame, an idle 500gal well tank and materials for a supporting structure. I also have a camera to document how all this will go together. I will start construction in the next few days and keep you posted on the progress. I'm considering starting another yahoo group just to document where the adventures in alternate energy take us. Let me know if you want to be invited to join. If this all works out there will be about $600/year that can be invested in more alternate energy infrastructure which will free up even more funds for more infrastructure. Ya' never know what you can accomplish once you get off the couch. --
Created 10 weeks 21 hours ago
|
- Flag as offensive
- Login or register to post comments
- 24 reads
