Building Project #6 for 2017 - Solar array and wind tubine

The last major project we built for the homestead this year is a solar array and wind turbine. For five years we have been buying ice in town to keep our food cold in our cooler. This has gotten a little old and expensive so we bought a small 7 cubic foot freezer to freeze ice.

I built a battery box for the 1000 watt controller, inverter, and four AGM batteries. My son-in-law ( @mericanhomestead ) did the installation and wiring.

We installed three 250 watt solar panels on the roof.

Next we bought a Primus Wind Power, Air 40 wind turbine. It is not so useful on nice sunny days, but on overcast days and during the nighttime hours it keeps the batteries charged. It has been up for only a few weeks, but so far it is working well. It requires only a 7 mile an hour wind to generate power.

The only downside is that we get sound vibrations in the house depending how hard the wind is blowing. If the wind starts approaching 20 miles an hour we turn the wind turbine off. Our only concern is lightning. We can’t save the wind turbine, but we have grounding rods and a lightning arrestor to protect the system.

So these were my goals for 2017.
Laundry house
An outdoor kitchen
Shower house
Feed shed
Wood shed
Solar array and wind turbine

Thanks for reading my post.

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Our “An American Homestead” family on Steemit:
Grandpa and Grandma: @hansjurgen
Daughter, son-in-law: @mericanhomestead
Grandson #1: @thehomeschoolkid
Grandson #2: Someday

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https://www.patreon.com/AnAmericanHomestead