People set off to farm worms with the only goal of being to sell worms to people, or to sell fertilizer (vermicompost) to people. That is totally NOT the way to think about it. Why? First of all, it makes you a salesman. You have to go out and sell yourself to other people in order to establish relationships, where those clients will buy your worms. Ditto with the fertilizer. Hold a minute, step back — examine this situation a moment.

Are you a good salesman? You are? Why sell worms then? There’s a million things for you to sell and make good money, and you don’t even have to get your fingers dirty. Car salesmen make great money. What about selling RV’s? Heck you sell 2 of those a year you can probably sleep the rest of the days each year. My point is this — realize what you’re doing, you’re making yourself a salesman. Make sure you are a very good salesman, and make sure you’re selling the right product — because if I really felt like being a salesman — worms would be the last thing I’d want to go out trying to hock (even though I enjoy raising worms). Not to mention the fact that I don’t like the idea of being a salesman.

Ok back on topic — commercial scale worm farming. Selling worms to other people, in my opinion, may be a side benefit, and you’re fine if you do it — and fine if you don’t. Selling vermicompost should also be a side benefit. I know what you’re thinking — “If you’re raising worms, and you’re not selling the worms, and you’re not selling the vermicompost, what is the purpose?” Ah, glad you asked.

Before I answer that, let me tell you about this massive worm farmer operation I’ve been researching — and (in my opinion) what they’re doing wrong. Read this article at the Rodale Institute about a huge Georgia worm farmer. I’ll give you a summary — he primarily sells worms to fish and bait shops, and he makes fairly good money doing it. On the other hand, he barely does anything with the vermicompost. Here is a quote from the article:

“You don’t see castings in big stores because they are expensive and most people don’t understand their value compared to traditional fertilizers,” he explains. “The other problem is it takes a relatively long time to make castings and so the supply is not there to meet the demand.”

As a result, this farmer is primarily sitting on all his worm castings, doing nothing with them except considering them a retirement plan. Someday, somehow in the future — maybe he’ll be able to sell these castings, but for now he has no idea what to do with them. The problem with them primarily is that people don’t know the benefit of them, so there isn’t a demand for it. There is no way to sell to the market unless you educate potential buyers. (By the way, if you’re going to be educating potential buyers, then you’re not only a salesman, you’re also a teacher.)

Now, what do I personally think he should do? Let me hint on it by quoting this farmer again:

The most opportune markets for vermicomposting, he says, are Ma and Pa nurseries, garden supply stores, greenhouses, flower shops, and organic farmers. But vermicomposting is still a relatively new practice in much of the United States.

To me, its infinitely obvious. Why not start a ma and pa nursery? Why not start a greenhouse? Why not start to grow flowers and wholesale them to flower shops? Why not be an organic farmer. Question — will your company have a significant advantage if you don’t have to pay for fertilizer, ever? Heck yeah.

This farmer in Georgia estimates he has (drum roll please) 2500 TONS of worm castings (accumulated over the last 10 years). In my opinion, this guy could start his own greenhouses on such a massive scale, that they would dwarf his sales of worms. This is what I’m talking about when I mention vertical farming.

If this farmer would do this himself, what is the advantage?

• Free fertilizer. Never have to buy any, ever.
• Skip being a salesman. Never have to sell vermicompost to anyone.
• Skip being an educator. Never have to educate others on the benefits of vermicompost.
• More highly profitable businesses. It is assumed that a greenhouse would turn a profit, even if you had to buy fertilizer. The fact that you don’t
  virtually guarantees the success of this venture.

What about having to be a salesman for the produce of the greenhouse? Ok, ya got me. You will have to sell a little bit, but I’ll tell you this much. I’d rather try to sell green, healthy heads of lettuce than worm poop. I’m thinking they would sell a whole lot better.

What am I going to do with my worm batch? (I’m guessing I have somewhere around two pounds of red wigglers by now). By the time they’ve bred to a sizable mass, I’ll perhaps feed them to fish, or chickens. If there is a market, I’ll sell the worms locally to fishers. I will use the vermicompost myself. I’ll grow all the produce my family needs and if there is extra, I’ll sell to friends and family. Finally, when my produce exceeds that volume, I’ll scope out local vendors and wholesale produce to them. There are many, many options when you’re a vertical farmer.

Vertical means controlling every aspect of a process — all the components necessary to do something. For instance, vertical manufacturing in the car industry would involve building the nuts and bolts, to assembling the bumpers, and every little aspect of the manufacturing process. By vertical farming, I mean managing the cycle of several components of a farming system that all work together.

I’ve been doing some more research, and I think I’ve come up with a better model for vertical farming. Before I get into that though, let me talk a little about one of the websites that I’ve been researching. It is called Synaptoman and he talks a lot about aquaponics (and complains a lot about South African politics). How good is his blog? It’s good enough to sort through 2 pages of political drivel in order to get to each gem of an article he has about aquaponics, it’s that good. If you are interested in anything about aquaculture or intensive fish farming, check out his blog and bookmark it.
So anyways, here is the new theory on vertical farming I have. The downtime for hot composting being 6 months, waiting for the chicken manure to age, decompose and not be a “hot” manure anymore (i.e. burn roots from excess ammonia when directly applied to plants), is a bit excessive. I’m completely scraping that portion.

In addition, worm farming is ok — but not nearly as profitable as what I think my new system involves. So here is the new plan, everyone please feel free to tell me what you think.

The new system integrates:

• chicken broiler raising (from one day old chick through 45 day ready to sell for food).
• aquaculture and aquaponics (either tilapia or bangus milk fish, still debating that one)
• to a smaller degree, worm farming — but not to produce vermicompost, and not necessarily to feed fish or chickens (though that may happen)
• and gardening

So here is a breakdown of how the system will work together.  First of all, the broilers.  Instead of having a goal of feeding the broilers worms, I intend to have their feed be 100% nutrition balanced food that is designed to make broilers grow as quickly as possible.  Worms may or may not be added to their feed.  This will be a commercial sized operation.  Their manure will be recycled through a system of vertical farming processes (explained below) — and growing the broilers is something I want to be able to scale up as much as possible for the purpose of selling the broilers.

Next — the chickens have to poo.  What to do with it?  One of two things.  If I decide on bangus fish for the fish farm — I will have the chicken manure go to a special pond designed to grow algae.  When chicken manure (any manure really) is added to a shallow pond in a nice warm climate — algae grows like crazy.  Bangus (milk fish) are in the family of carp, and they eat algae as food.  Now I’m planning on designing this system as low maintenance as possible.  So low maintenance, in fact, that I plan on building the chicken coop right over the pond, so that when the chickens go — it drops right into the pond.  The algae will help add oxygen to the water during the day time, which will allow the fish pond to be a little more intensive (higher density of fish).

There is a downside to this however, Bangus fish really like brackish (partly salt) water.  They are also difficult to breed, and all of the bangus fish fry must be purchased (from a location that is quite a drive away).  This is because Bangus fish don’t really get to breeding age until they’re at least five years old — and they only breed on the edge of the ocean in brackish water.

Or — I could choose to raise tilapia.  Then the coop setup would change slightly.  Instead of it going chicken poo > algae > bangus food — it would go chicken poo > fish food.  Although tilapia would eat algae a little, they would more go for the undigested ingredients of the chicken manure.

Benefits of raising tilapia — they can be raised in fresh water.  It is easier to raise tilapia babies (in fact it is possible to get special lines of tilapia which are red, or improved body form, or produce hybrids which have much larger filets).  I would have to buy expensive breeding stock for tilapia to do it the way I would want — expensive as in several thousand dollars a small breeder setup of one male to six females.  However, with the improved offspring, getting bigger and fatter in a faster time, with less food — over the long run it would pay for itself.  The improved breed tilapia have been improved as a breed by one gentleman (who created the first red tilapia, which he called a “Cherry Snapper”) for over 40 years.  For more information about the improved breed tilapia, follow this link.

The downside to raising tilapia?  My wife doesn’t think it tastes nearly as good as Bangus white fish.  My wife’s sister doesn’t think it tastes as good either.  In fact, in our local market bangus white fish sells for three times as much as tilapia.  But then again — they rarely buy bangus because it costs so much.  Another benefit of bangus, it tastes great.  Another downside — its full of bones and its difficult to de-bone.

There are many advantages and disadvantages to raising either tilapia or bangus and I’m still in the decision process of which to raise.  I would, however, like to fish farm intensively (lots of broiler chickens, lots of chicken manure, lots of feed for fish — directly or indirectly — lots of fish).  For more information about chicken poo going directly to feed tilapia, check out this blog article from synoptoman using chicken manure to feed tilapia.

Next, the fish water will be polluted and need to be filtered.  I intend to do this through a setup like the one commonly found at that synoptoman blog I referenced above.  The water is filtered through a series of gravel inside greenhouses.  The fish poo and debris and solids are filtered through a series of cement runners filled with gravel.  Through all these runners, the nutrients from the solid fish waste are settled and absorbed by plants.

Whatever is not filtered by plants — that is where the worms come in.  Yet, instead of actually harvesting the worms, they are left in the gravel — and produce worm castings.  These worm castings instantly start producing worm tea, or vermicompost tea, right inside the gravel (thereby improving the manure already coming from the fish).

All of this gets looped around back to the fish point of origin and cycles itself.

To make the project more interesting — we are planning on purchasing a piece of land that has a river with a head drop of at least a meter.  We dam it up and use it to construct a pulsar pump (or pulsating pump) that uses bubbles from the waterfall to compress air.  We can use the compressed air directly to add oxygen to the fish ponds — or indirectly as an airlift water pump.  The bubbles created by the compressed air will allow our fish ponds to be a little more intensive (stock more fish).  And the air lift water pump will be necessary to replenish water to the system as it will not be 100% efficient at conserving water.

Here are the benefits of this type of system:

• Fresh chicken and eggs
• Free chicken food and fishing bait
• Fresh garden produce
• Free fertilizer

Every part of the system is integrated. The chicken’s feed is offset by worms. The garden’s fertilizer requirements are offset by worm castings. The worm’s food is recycled chicken manure and trash that would otherwise be sent to the dump.

There are other benefits to this sort of system as well. For instance, take a chicken farm operation that is mainly designed to produce broilers (chickens which are raised for approximately 45 days from hatching and then consumed). If someone were to set up a system like this, there would normally be a lot of waste byproducts. If you scale this system up (a commercial broiler producing operation), then there would be a large volume of chicken droppings to contend with. Recycling the manure into hot compost, and then to vermiculture — turns this waste product into something beneficial.

Continuing with the benefits of this type of system — every household has a large amount of waste products. These include paper waste (cardboard, newspapers, product packaging, etc.) as well as organic waste (fruit peels, grass clippings and other lawn brush). We all know that landfills are being filled up and that the current setup of waste management in this country is not sustainable. Much of the waste forwarded to landfills will be consumed by this system, as worms love paper products and organic waste matter.

A quality farm that can produce a high volume of vegetables will require a large volume of fertilizer. Fertilizer is not cheap! If you love to garden, buying fertilizer on a small scale does not make a big dent in your wallet. However, if you are considering scaling this system up and producing several huge greenhouses with free fertilizer, the costs can become enormous. One of the beauties of this integrated system is the worm castings. I personally have five acres of land. To produce enough high quality worm fertilizer to farm the entire area will require a system that scales up easy. When finding the perfect balance however, I hope to have enough free fertilizer to manage without needing to buy commercial fertilizer.

I am currently in the process of setting up a system like this, and taking notes. In particular to nail down the exact details of percentages in order to scale the system up. For instance, what quantity of hot compost — will feed what volume of worms — will produce what volume of fertilizer for a particular garden size — will produce what quantity of excess worms — will help sustain what volume of chicken broilers, and back to the beginning (chickens producing hot compost).

What comes first, the chicken or the worm? I have started with chickens, I currently have 30 being raised as broilers with plans to raise much more. The reason I started with chickens is because their manure must hot compost for at least six months, and you must start by composting a full cubic yard all at once, mixing it 1 to 1 with carbon trash such as newspapers or grass clippings.

I also have my first batch of red wigglers growing. I started with a pound — they double every two months. I figure it may take me ten months to get my first pile of chicken manure composted, and by then I should have 32 pounds of red wigglers (five cycles of doubling, 1 x 2 = 2, 2 x 2 = 4, 4 x 2 = 8, 8 x 2 = 16, 16 x 2 = 32). For now I’m feeding them with newspaper and fruit peelings (its funny when you’re suddenly responsible for feeding worms, how much more bananas and watermelon you eat!) It takes a few months for worms to work through a pile of compost which has already been hot-composted, so I look forward to starting the greenhouse within a year.

Earth4Energy and Solar Panel Guides are a Scam

According to this article at a popular solar panel forum, accusations are made against “build your own” solar panel guides you can find on the internet. Namely — one that I promote on this website (Earth4Energy).

Lastly, don’t pay for those DIY Solar Panel Guides you see polluting the Internet, such as Earth4Energy.

The author of this post doesn’t think that the act of building your own solar panel (in and of itself) is a scam. Rather he is implying that there isn’t a single piece of information found in the guides that can be purchased that you can’t otherwise find for free on the internet.

I’m going to throw out the window for a moment the fact that I actually recommend this guide on my website, to be as impartial as possible about all the arguments that anyone is putting forth in this forum thread.

The first argument I have identified in this thread:

Information is Free On The Internet so Paying is a Scam

I’m going to call BS on this one — being as objective as objective can be — this is complete and utter nonsense. Lets abstract ourselves from the topic of “do it yourself solar” for a moment and tackle another similar topic that can let everyone look at this issue objectively. I am a website designer. It is helpful that a website designer knows a programming language called php, along with a database language called mysql.

There is an official website for php. An official manual. Official help files. There are hundreds of free PHP tutorial websites. There are thousands of free examples of how to program PHP on the internet.

That being said, let me make another statement that will show you how ridiculous the argument being put forth in that diy solar panel thread on the forum.

PHP and mySQL can be learned for free on the internet, so buying a book on PHP or mySQL is a scam!

Is it true that simply because you can find everything you need to know about PHP and mySQL on the internet, that all books on learning PHP and mySQL are a scam? Of course not, that’s silly. Just as silly as the similar notion about buying a guide for solar panels. Why is it silly?

• Maybe my time is valuable to me. If someone can save me time by organizing everything I need to know in a convenient book and save me many hours of researching for its “free” equivalent that supposedly already exists on the internet, then the guide will save me time — and time is money.
• How much do you make per hour when you work, Mr. solarpaneltalk.com moderator? Lets assume for a moment that it is $16.66 an hour. That means you have three hours to find everything you need to know about how to build your own solar panel before you are losing money. Earth4Energy has over two hours of video showing everything that needs to be done step-by-step, solar panel diagrams, pictures, lists of materials, everything that is necessary to build your own solar panel.
• Since he is so adamantly against buying solar panel guides that contain information he can “find on the internet for free” — my guess is that he has never even looked at the materials put forth by Earth4Energy.
• “Your better off just coming here to Solar Panel Talk and learn for free.” — He makes this statement as the summary of his “Solar Panel Guides are a Scam” spiel.  I’ve been there — I looked (I recommend that you all go there and you all look).  Some helpful information?  Yes.  Everything you need to build a solar panel?  No.  Not one video, no diagrams, links to other websites showing people who have made their own solar panels with pictures — and while those certainly are inspirational — they don’t tell you how many millimeters you need to space your solar cells apart from each other, or how to solder tabs to solar cells.

In any other area of information, buying a book to learn how to do something is considered standard practice. Why was Solar Panel Talk founded? Most likely to help green enthusiasts to learn how to build solar panels. Hopefully — the website owner and moderators have a goal of educating the public on solar technology to clean the environment and for the betterment of mankind. Except! — if your time is important to you and you don’t have enough of it to scrape the internet for everything you need to know on building your own solar panel, so you want to buy a book – then don’t bother.

There were actually a few good arguments put forth in the thread, and I will get those out of the way near the end — first I wanted to cover all the points I considered ridiculous. To put forth how zealous and ridiculous some idiots can be, read this comment in the thread.

You Get What You Pay For

Are you one of the types who would rather spend your time researching the internet for information on how to build your own solar panel, rather than buy a professionally made guide that explains how to point by point? Hopefully you find some good information. You know the old saying, you get what you pay for. If you go to Google and search for “build your own solar panel”, proudly perched in the top 10 is eHow’s gem of a stinker, literally one of the worst and dangerous guides on the internet on how to make solar panels. By the time you have read their guide over, either you will be lucky and come to the realization that you just lost 10 minutes of your life that you will never get back, or you will be unlucky and be the shame and ridicule of your local home improvement store community as you ask to buy one of them there fancy “DC meters” which operate like a charge controller and an inverter all wrapped up into one (ps that doesn’t exist).

This reminds me of yahoo “answers” … I sometimes go to Google and type a serious question I have about my baby’s fever and at the top of search results are “yahoo answers” filled with a dozen or so unqualified people throwing in crazy, unsafe and unhealthy answers. That’s not what you do when you have a serious issue to contend with — you look for an expert, like a doctor or someone who has spent a serious amount of time, research and money to put together a professional presentation to accomplish exactly what it is you want to do. You’re not going to find that if its free, because you get what you pay for — and there simply isn’t any professional solar panel installer who is going to put a ton of time, energy, effort, create videos, blueprints and diagrams for your do-it-yourself project for free.

Recommending Illegal Advice

This is a quote from someone named GoodDaySolar

IF you pay attention to internet ads, you’ll see a rising multitude of Earth4Energy* scammers posting “Google Adwords” inticements on just about every website after you type the keywords “solar” or “solar panels” or “wind” or “wind power”, etc. They appear to be real because they use real solar or wind information as a cloak to draw in their prey, but the giveaway is “build your own solar panels” or “windmills”. Just buy their PDF in a box first.

Go ahead and click on those ads every time you see them, then move right along to something else (notice the annoying popups and infomercial videos just long enough to get disgusted).

Every single click on their ads makes them pay Google (“pay per click”, or PPC, an SEO or “Search Engine Optimization” term) and distorts their “bounce rate”, another SEO term meaning how long a person stays to look at a website after clicking an ad.

Make scammers pay for running their scams. Each click will cost them around $1-3. The more that REAL SOLAR AND WIND PEOPLE call them on their scam, and make it too expensive to continue; the sooner it’ll dwindle away with other snake oil salepeople we all despise.

This is just classic. This idiot thinks that Earth4Energy is a scam — and he recommends battling it with click fraud, suggesting that every time someone sees one of their ads to click it. I’m fairly certain that is illegal. Can solarpaneltalk.com be held responsible for allowing its members to post recommendations on illegal activities? They moderate posts — in fact I posted to this thread with some objections approximately a month ago and my post was never authorized (it seems you can only post there if they agree with you).

Earth4Energy is not illegal, at worst it is paying money for something you might otherwise find for free elsewhere if you feel like investing the time to do the research yourself. (Unless that free information you found was copyrighted and put there illegally, then you would be doing no better reading that information than you would be downloading music for free on a P2P network).

What solarpaneltalk.com is advocating is illegal, allowing members to recommend click fraud which is illegal.

Legitimate Concerns

A legitimate concern in the that thread is that people who are pushing solar panel guides make it seem too easy. They make it seem like all you do is buy the guide and voila you can slap together a solar panel in an afternoon, piece of cake! Certainly this type of ridiculous marketing sets solar panel guides apart as being a scam?

Obviously I’m being sarcastic — I still get a kick whenever I see the title of this book on learning PHP in 24 hours. But to a certain extent, I will give this thread an ounce of credibility and agree with them that most people who market “solar panel how-to guides” don’t reveal the true cost of installing solar panels upfront. I like to see myself as being different, as you can tell from my website, I try to make the costs of installing solar panels known (not just monetary cost, also investment of time, energy, etc.)

That being said, let me try to dissuade you from buying a solar panel guide by telling you up front what it is going to take for you to have a usable solar panel system:

• You cannot receive a guide and the next day throw together a solar panel from scratch in your garage. It will take some planning, shopping for parts, ordering parts on the internet and waiting for them to arrive.
• You will either need to already have, or to buy some tools. If you do not already own tools, the tools themselves may end up being the most expensive part of your solar panel installation.
• Your homemade solar panels will not qualify for net metering. Net metering is the act of slowing down or reversing the spin of your power meter. It is the act of feeding power back into your grid when you are producing too much energy, so that you can use it during evening hours when you are not producing energy. You cannot do this with homemade solar panels, because they need to be UL listed.
• Your homemade solar panels will be too much of a hassle to qualify for incentives or tax breaks. Whatever the incentives in your area, offered by your local power company, offered by the government — your homemade solar panels will either not qualify for them, or be so much of a hassle to get them to qualify that you won’t do what is necessary to qualify.
• Works great for small solar panel applications — extra expenses for large. Since you are not using net metering, you will need to store your power. The energy will be stored in deep cycle batteries. They are not cheap, in fact they will probably cost more than the solar panel themselves. If you want to power your entire home on solar power — you may in fact need an array of 20 or more deep cycle batteries, costing several thousand dollars. Whereas solar panels may last for 25 years, the batteries do not, expect them to need replacing every 5 years at least.

Have you been convinced not to buy them by reading the above? Good — I hope it prevented you from buying a solar panel guide without knowing fully what you are up against.

That being said, homemade solar panels are still cheaper than professionally installed solar panels, even considering the fact that you won’t qualify for net metering, and you won’t qualify for tax breaks and other incentives. If you already have a tinkering workshop and some decent tools in your garage, have some patience, you understand it isn’t just slapping one together on a Sunday afternoon and it will be a significant investment to see enough energy to provide a financial return — then building your own solar panels makes sense.

I’m going to pull a “solarpaneltalk” on you all! I spent a good amount of time writing this article, but I don’t expect one penny for it. I’m not going to bias this article by posting a link to Earth4Energy, even though I do on other pages of this website. If you’ve read this far — just go to google and search for Earth4Energy, check them out without using my affiliate link.

Psych. I know you all work hard for a living. The last thing in the world I would do is ask you to work for me for free — you have better things to do with your time, and if you were doing it for free then you wouldn’t be doing a very good job of it. This website represents an investment of my time to educate people on the benefits of building your own solar panels. Even non-profit organizations pay their employees wages. If you found the information in this article useful, understand that making a solar panel isn’t just a walk in the park, but you are still intending to buy a solar panel guide if you can find a good one — Earth4Energy is a good one. This is my affiliate link for Earth4Energy.

Today? He is a DIY builder and flipper of homes on a new reality TV show on the DIY Network. His new show is on the DIY Network, and it is called The Vanilla Ice Project.

As it turns out, while he was touring and selling albums in the early 90s, he made a lot of money, over 20 million dollars. During the peak of his music career, he purchased luxury homes in many swanky areas, L.A., New York and a retreat in Utah for skiing. At the end of his world tours, he realized he didn’t even use the homes. He decided to sell them, and when they sold he made several hundred thousand dollars profit on them. This gave him a taste for the DIY home rebuilding scene.

In 1998, after he got married, he decided to get more heavily into rebuilding homes. For some 12 years now, Vanilla Ice has been not just flipping homes, but rebuilding them — as well as buying land and building them from scratch.

What caught my eye the most about this article I found about Vanilla Ice on DIY Life is that when he does the rebuilding, he attempts to make the home greener. Some examples of the things he does –

Plus, we create less of a carbon footprint. We use a lot of LED lights. We got rid of a big dangerous water heater in the garage. If you ran into it it would have flooded the garage, or if you break a gas line in the garage and light a cigarette it would explode. So we installed a tankless water heater outside. It costs less to run, and you never run out of hot water.

Vanilla Ice still tours, he currently goes through over 100 concerts a year. But he also works on DIY rebuild and flip projects.

Rotten Egg of a Tutorial from eHow

How in the world does eHow.com rank for anything? Somehow they rank top 10 for just about any topic you can think of when it comes to a how-to tutorial. They have a rotton egg of a page explaining how to build your own solar panels.

The person who wrote this article knows absolutely nothing about solar panels. It occurred to me that it would be good to write an article to refute it point-by-point, both to counter this sort of misinformation on the internet, but also because I have another motive for this article which I will outline at the end of this eHow thrashing. Here is the first point of this eHow article …

First things first you need to find yourself a small solar panel that is 12 volts or higher. In this case a 16 volt solar panel will suit your needs the best.

It is pretty easy to find a panel like this and your best bet is to go shopping at a local RV store or even a small marina. You should be able to find one that is priced around or even below $100.

This article isn’t even about building a solar panel. It is about buying a solar panel. It also throws out an irresponsible price-quote of $100 or less. Let me ask a question — eHow did this article get to rank #3 in google when searching for “build your own solar panel” when it is clearly about buying a solar panel? Anyways, there are things to be learned by dissecting this article so I’ll continue.

The article mentions that the solar panel will cost around $100, for a 12 to 16 volt solar panel, without even mentioning how many watts it is. You can have a 15 watt solar panel that is 12 volts, or you can have a 120 watt solar panel that is 12 volts, the only difference being that one produces almost ten times more power than the other — using a $100 price tag on such a generic, wattless (new word, I made it up) “solar panel” that could be any amount of wattage is just as ridiculous as saying you can buy a car for $100, not mentioning whether the car was a matchbox toy or a Ferrari.

So, if you are going to write an article about buying a solar panel (instead of building one), one of the most important factors to reference would be the price. The only price tag in the whole article is the $100 for some random solar panel that you cannot even calculate the cost per watt on, but it fails to mention the cost of other necessary expenditures (and even fails to mention some items that are necessary). The system he is talking about is going to reach about 4 to 5 times the cost as he is referencing in this article. Continuing to point #2 –

The next thing you are going to need is a battery. While you may be tempted to go big or go home on this one, a smaller yet rechargeable battery is your best bet.

A 12 volt lead or acid battery will do the trick. The type you are looking for here is a deep cell cycle (correction mine) battery as they are built the best for constant and continuous use.

Of course the term is deep cycle battery, not deep cell (maybe he confused solar cell with deep cycle battery).  In the first part of point #2 he recommends that smaller is better, and in the second section he recommends a deep cycle battery (the most expensive type, there isn’t anything more expensive and they really don’t have small deep cycles or large deep cycles, there is only one size and its the size of a car battery).

Since his article is really about buying a solar panel, now would have been a good time for him to mention that a deep cycle battery will cost about $125, more than the cost of the solar panel he is recommending. Point #3 …

In order to build your solar panel safely you will also want to purchase a battery box. This will offer protection from the battery and the power it exudes in case you are working in small quarters or have small children running around in the area.

Yeah it sure is a good idea when you are rigging up a dangerous electrical system which will have children playing around, to make certain you build a box around the battery.  Actually, I’d further add that if you are going to have kids playing hide and seek under your solar panels or leapfrog over your battery, you might want to rethink where you are installing this expensive and potentially dangerous-if-tripped-over electrical equipment.  As long as we’re talking about encasing stuff, how about throwing in some details about a more important issue — how will the solar panel be mounted?  On the roof?  The battery needing a box is a no-brainer, a bigger area of concern and cost (mounting the solar panels) is not even discussed in the article.  Point #4 …

The next materials required are a DC meter that matches the voltage of your battery and a DC input. These products will allow you to convert your energy from the panel and apply them to power sources around your home. Of course if you are hoping to power AC appliances you will need an inverter as well.

*Twitch* — *Stifles a Cringe* — folks, a DC meter is simply to measure the amount of power the solar panel is generating, i.e. how many watts it is producing at any given moment.  For heaven’s sake, do NOT use a DC meter to convert your energy from the panel.  I will give the author the benefit of the doubt and say he is most likely talking about a charge controller.  It is hard to say because a charge controller isn’t even in his list of necessary components for the eHow guide.

A charge controller does what he says the DC meter is supposed to be doing, kind of sort of, well not really.  A charge controller evens out the wild power generated by the solar panel into a consistent flow so it doesn’t fry your battery.  It is absolutely needed — but it doesn’t really convert the energy from the panel and apply them to power sources around your home, because the inverter does that.  This was the “OMG I have to write a blog post about this rotten egg” moment when reading this article.  He is trying to meld the concept of DC meter, charge controller and inverter, all into one. Then in the last sentence he references maybe needing an inverter, which means whatever he thought he was talking about before that was not the inverter. Point #5 …

It is now time to actually put the labor into your solar panel. Use a handheld drill to attach your meter and DC input to the top end of the battery box. Next use some insulated wire to connect the meter to the battery.

Be very careful to only work with one wire at a time and connect the first wire to the negative input first. Use the same procedure to connect the DC inlet and the solar panel to the battery itself.

Is this what qualifies the article as a “build your own solar panel” tutorial? A DC Meter isn’t even necessary for your solar panel to operate, it is only necessary if you wish to test how many watts your solar panel is producing, otherwise you put it in a tool drawer and forget about it. Again, assuming he is talking about a charge controller, this would be attached to the solar panel before the current hits the wire, not on the battery. Incidentally, for a system this small a charge controller will run about $50.

It seems to me quite a random thing that he suggests that this is where the elbow grease begins, so-to-speak. Drilling the battery box. Hopefully, people pay close attention to the “box” and the battery is not inside when it is drilled. I hate to think how many battery-acid-splashing-catastrophes potentially might be occurring. Probably none because by the time someone has gotten this far in the tutorial, they will have been laughed at so badly by the RV shop and wherever they were buying parts from that they would have given up on this tutorial long before then and gotten their hands on a real tutorial.

Now you are ready to start converting the sun’s power into your own usable energy. Close the lid tight with a cord and put the entire product out into the sun. Wait for about 8 hours and then get ready to bask in some home made energy.

In reality …

The solar panel was purchased (ok fine, it should work — it wasn’t built it was bought). From the solar panel to the charge controller. From the charge controller to the deep cycle battery. From the deep cycle battery to the inverter. (By the way, inverters are running from $1 per watt for a micro inverter, to 60 cents a watt for a conventional inverter). From the inverter you can power your appliances. Half of what is mentioned above was not mentioned in the article (no reference to solar charger, no costs on anything but a wattless generic solar panel). Assuming the solar panel was 80 watt, you are looking at perhaps $160 for the panel at $2 per watt (that is cheap), $125 for the deep cycle battery (which, if you are buying a solar panel retail, it most likely qualifies for net metering so you might as well just use the local power company to store your power instead of spending money on a deep cycle battery), about $150 for an inverter, plus incidental cords puts this project over $500.

Why Did I Write This Article?

I have put much work into this website, research and writing the various articles available here. It is rather frustrating to do so much to produce such good quality content, only to compete with websites like eHow which produces complete nonsense articles. Adding insult to injury, recently my website has been banned in Google, it cannot be found in the top 1000 results searching for anything. After researching the matter I found dozens of scraper websites stealing my content, or producing splog spammy backlinks to this blog which must have raised some kind of Google red flag. It appears I’m writing for almost no-one now.

Rhetorical question …

How does eHow get away with publishing complete nonsense articles on anything how-to and ranking top 5, while quality websites writing unique, original 1000+ word articles and up getting banned? Pure frustration. I requested a reinclusion with Google and I really hope this article gets read by whoever it is verifying that this is actually a quality website.

Vindication

Today is November 6, 2010. It is exactly 10 days after I posted this article. My website has resurfaced and when I searched for “build your own solar panel” — I came in just above eHow. Maybe Google read the article and decided that this site is better than eHow after all.

Installing an irrigation pump run by solar will save you time, will increase productivity, and is more economically sustainable than other types of irrigation. Regardless whether you are supplying water to a small garden in your backyard, many fields of farmland or you want to entirely live off the grid, a solar water pump is a quality investment that will yield dividends for years to come. Below let us show what you need to do to select the correct style of an irrigation pump powered by solar perfect for your needs and build a solar irrigation pump, and how to guard your solar pump from being damaged. After this, we will point out ways to get a tax credit using alternative energy water irrigation installment.

Selecting the Best Water Pump for Irrigation

There are two basic styles of water pumps, the kind that works on the surface and a system that is buried far beneath the earth in a well. The surface type of pumping water can be convenient if you have a stream, lake or river close to your site. Surface pumps have a series of water pipes to carry water away from the surface water source to either a storage tank or directly to the location where it will be consumed. However most installers need to install a buried well water method for their water pump installment. A solar water pump is submerged in a well which is below the ground surface up to 1000 feet down. The pump is connected to solar panels with the water sent to the surface and placed into a raised storage tank or a pressurized water holding facility.

Choosing the Right Water Storage Installation

Having selected the best method of solar water pump for you, the following step is to choose the system you will use for water storage. There are three main types of water storage. One type of water storage is to keep water inside a container that is lifted above ground level. A raised type of storage can use gravity to pressurize the pipes for water flow without needing extra power. This type of water storage functions the same as a water tower. In this fashion the tank provides water when the sun is down and when it is cloudy. This style of pump only operates as it is pulling water from the well.

The next style of water pump is ground level water tank using a pressure pump. Using a ground level water storage tank, utilize a pressure pump so the water has enough pressure to move through the system. The storage tank can still hold water to be used on cloudy days although the pump can only function when it is bright enough to operate the pump.

The next type of installation involves using pump to pressure tank. This type of system needs no water storage tank, however it only runs when there is light. When compared the other systems, this type has the smallest up-front costs. The disadvantage about this method is that it will drain solar batteries at evening and when it is cloudy. The battery may wear down quickly before the sun can recharge them, leaving you without water.

Selecting the Right Area for Your Pump and Water Storage

After you have decided upon the kind of solar water pump, and then the method for water storage, the next step is to select the proper area to have them placed. The pv solar modules should be situated in a location which has the best sunlight possible. If you will not utilize a solar tracker, place the solar modules in a position where they will get the most sunlight through peak hours of sunshine every day. Many home systems will utilize solar panels set in a fixed position. For large-scale systems like supplying well water for a farm, installing a sun tracker device on your solar module is an excellent option. A sun tracking device positions the solar panels to the sun, positioning towards it through the day, maximizing the solar power available. A sun-tracking device should produce an extra twenty to forty percent more power on sunny days beyond a fixed solar array.

Solar Pump Care

After investing all this money into your solar water pump, you should take precautions to prevent the pump from being harmed. There should be a water level sensor to alert as the water tank is close to being full to power off. Some pumps have this out of the box, verify this with the manufacturer. Verify that your solar water installation and solar panels are properly grounded. This will keep the panels system from being damaged caused by an electrical storm. Installing solar water pumps makes available tax credits. Usually you can deduct 30% of the cost of your system. This credit should be effective through 2016. In addition to this credit, you will save the cost of your solar water pump system many times over through the years.

Installing an irrigation pump run by solar will save you time, increases production, and is more economically sustainable than any other irrigation method. Regardless if you have a small backyard garden, fields of crops or you desire to live where city-supplied water is not installed, a solar pump is an investment that will pay off for years to come. Here we will point out what you need to do to select the right type of solar irrigation pump best suited to your purpose and install a solar water pump, and ways to protect your solar water pump from harm. Finally, let us point out how to get a tax benefit with solar power water irrigation installation.

Which Type of Solar Pump is Necessary for Your Needs?

The two differing styles of water pumps, those that function on the surface and also a style that is submersed deep below the ground in a well. The surface method of pumping water can be utilized when you have available a water source such as a stream, river or lake in close proximity. Surface solar pumps use a set of pipes to carry water from from the surface water location to either a water storage tank or directly to the location where it can be consumed. However most users will require a submersible well water solution for their water pump installment. The solar water pump is submerged in a well that is underground up to a thousand feet deep. This pump is connected to solar panels and the water pumped up and placed into a raised storage tank or a pressurized tank.

How to Choose the Right Water Storage System

Having decided upon the right type of solar pump for you, your next task is to select the style you will need for water storage. For practical purposes there are there 3 main styles of water storage. One method of water storage is to place water inside a tower which is raised above ground level. This kind of storage using an elevated tank will produce pressure enabling water to move within the system. This kind of water storage functions the same as a water tower. In this way the water tank provides water during the evening and when clouds cover the sun.  With this style the pump only needs to run as it is extracting water from the ground.

The next system of water pump is ground level tank and a pressure pump. With a ground level water storage tank, apply a pressure pump so that the water has enough pressure for using. The storage will then hold water to be used on times of cloudiness although the pump can only run when it is sunny.

The next kind of system involves using pump straight to pressure tank. This system needs no storage tank, although it only operates when there is light. Compared other systems, this kind has the smallest initial costs. The disadvantage of this system is that it will drain solar batteries during evening and when it is cloudy. The solar battery may discharge without the solar panels can replenish them, leaving you with no water.

Decide Upon the Right Site for a Pump and Water Storage

After you have picked the style of water pump, and then the method of water storage, thereafter is to find the best location to place them. The pv solar panels need to be situated in a location that has the best sunlight available. If your solar panel setup cannot use a solar tracker, place the pv modules in a direction where they will receive the highest volume of sunlight through most productive hours of sunshine each day. Most home systems will utilize solar modules tilted in a set direction. For large systems like supplying well water for a farm, attaching a sun tracking on your solar module is an excellent option. A sun tracking module positions the solar panels towards the sun, facing it through the day, maximizing the solar power possible. This can produce 20% to 40% extra electricity on summer days beyond a fixed solar array.

Pump Maintenance

After investing all this money into your solar pump, you should take steps to prevent the pump from being harmed. There should be a floating sensor to alert as the water tank is approaching near being full to shut down. A number of solar pumps come with this out of the box, verify this with the supplier. It is a necessity that your pv solar pump system and modules are grounded properly. This is to prevent the solar pump installation from being damaged caused by lightning. The installment of solar water pumps qualifies you for tax credit. In most cases you should be able to get credit for 30% of the system cost. This credit should be effective through 2016. On top of this credit, you can save your investment into your solar water pump system several times as years pass.

Advantages vs Other Types of Pumping

Should you install a solar irrigation pump, or use a hand pump, windmill pump or gasoline pump?  Following is a breakdown exclusive to this blog “gogreenandsavemoney.org” of the advantages and disadvantages of each method of water pumping.

Review the table above to discover whether a solar irrigation pump is the best solution for your irrigation needs.

On the other hand, horizontal axis (the kind you regularly think of when you think of windmills) have various benefits that will most likely make them superior to vertical axis depending on your situation. This article focuses on helping you decide which is better for you.

If you are interested in vertical axis wind turbines, this blog has a good breakdown of how efficient vertical axis wind turbines are. I’ll give a summary though and add in my thoughts about which is better for any particular situation.

The wind has a certain amount of power within it that can be converted to mechanical power via a wind turbine. That amount is 59%, discovered by German scientist Albert Betz. When discussing horizontal wind turbines, windmills exist that can harvest nearly 50% of the power in the wind. However, when it comes to vertical wind turbines, that amount dramatically drops — the average vertical is about 5% to 10% efficient, whereas a superior designed vertical can be up to 15%.

Vertical = 15%, horizontal = 50%, its not hard to see which one is superior in most situations? (That being said, there are many horizontal wind turbines that are not constructed well and will only produce half of what it otherwise could generate.) If horizontal wind turbines (HAWT) are 3 times as efficient in generating power as vertical axis (VAWT), why would anyone want or need to fuss with a VAWT? Well there are a few instances where a VAWT can be a superior choice.

Benefits of Vertical Axis Wind Turbines

• VAWT are excellent for producing power in low wind. Sometimes the volume of electricity generated is not the main concern, but instead a consistent supply of electricity. VAWT are popular because they can spin in even the faintest wind. They are often promoted as being able to be mounted directly on the ground.
• VAWT can be lower maintenance in some circumstances. Not all VAWT are less maintenance (see below to see disadvantages of VAWT). One specific instance where VAWTs have been used successfully are small Savonius style design being used to power lights on a waterbuoy to help visibility at night (the model of vertical axis windmill pictured at the top of this article is Savonius).
• VAWT are a good choice when your average wind is not very strong. Regardless of how fast the wind blows at your home during periods of higher wind, if you consistently receive a low volume of wind, a VAWT can be a better choice as it will spin even in the lowest winds.
• VAWT make for great homemade windmills projects. A vertical axis wind turbine can be considered easier to make than a HAWT. The parts spin at only about a third of the speed, making it for less wear over time. There are many videos on youtube showing some fantastic vertical axis windmills, many of which can be made with a 55 gallon drum cut in half and made for $150 to $350 (depending on the quality of generator you decide to use). An Ametek alternator can run fairly cheap ($60), whereas a Windblue can run up to $250. The Windblue is capable of generating more electricity with a smaller RPM.

Those are the benefits of using a vertical axis wind turbine, but are there any disadvantages? There are plenty!

Vertical Axis Wind Turbines produce far less power than HAWT. They produce only one third of the amount of power.  If you have a decent consistent breeze, a horizontal axis will produce far more power.
VAWT can be higher maintenance in some circumstances. This section is not talking about the Savoinus style, instead it is referencing the Darrieus style.  The Darrieus style is the type of VAWT that looks like an egg-beater, with scoops extended from the base via bars.  For a very small windmill that deals with a low volume of wind, of course they will last quite some time.  However, if you are planning on sticking one of these in a situation where it will spin at a high speed frequently, it can cost more in maintenance.  Just because of the nature of the beast, the design of a VAWT leads to wear above and beyond what a HAWT would receive.  At issue are certain facts, for instance centrifugal force.  Both HAWT and VAWT are subject to centrifugal force as they spin.  With a HAWT, the greatest strain is where the blades meet the base, which happens to be where the blades are the thickest and sturdiest.  With a VAWT, the blades are extended away from the center.  The design does not call for a sturdiness where the blades are connected from the base to the blades — in fact the more this area is bulked up to account for the weakness of this style of VAWT, the less efficient it becomes, so it is a balancing act between generating power and lowering maintenance.
Never buy a commercially made VAWT. You are almost always certain to get a better deal on a conventional style horizontal axis windmill, with far more electricity produced for the wind it receives. VAWT should be made as a do-it-yourself project for situations where lower wind volume is expected. It would take a very long time to “pay off” a VAWT, the ROI on a commercially purchased vertical axis would be very slowly over decades.

The best argument for VAWT is for when there is low wind. However, if there is low wind, and you really want to tackle a rewarding do-it-yourself project, diy solar panels would be a better return on investment than a windmill.

Something I never really understood when I was younger — you see people making a fuss about saving water.  Its not entirely obvious up front why wasting water is such a bad thing.  For instance, fossil fuels — most people get it.  There is only so much oil.  When that oil is burned, it creates pollution, it creates greenhouse gases, the ice caps melt — most people understand that.  But when it comes to water, why is wasting water such a bad thing?

I’m not talking about water in the desert — of course water in Arizona is at a premium and hard to come by.  But in other areas of the country, water is extremely abundant.  If you have a well pump, the water comes from the ground water table which is continually replenished — so why is taking such a long shower a bad thing in regards to wasting water in this case?  Following is a list of reasons why wasting water is a bad thing.

Cleaning the Water Before it Gets to You

If you get water from a city water system, as many people do, it takes energy to clean the water.  It its an expensive process to purify the water and treat it so that it does not contain contaminants.  Water is treated with chlorine and sometimes fluoride and other chemical agents to properly treat the water to be safe and potable.

Cleaning the Water After You Are Done

Often times, our drains lead into the sewer system. The water from your faucet is combined with water from your toilet. This water contains human waste and as such it needs to be treated. A sewage disposal plant will need to treat the water, allowing bacteria to break down the sewage product before it is released (often into rivers).

Save Money on Water

The theme of this blog is not only to go green, but save money doing it. Many of us ignore water bills because they, on average, are far less costly than the electric bill. Even with that being the case, a water bill is a considerable expense. In today’s economy we need to save all the money we can. Letting water run unneeded for extended periods of time is like dumping cash down the drain.

The Water Source is Not Recycled

Many of us have a vague concept of what goes on with water that goes down the drain, thinking that somehow it gets recycled and we reuse it. In reality, most water for city systems comes from lakes. The water enters the city water system from the lake and goes to your house. After you are done using the water, it goes to a sewage treatment plant and then on to a river. This is what happens with most water — it starts from lakes and ends up in rivers which eventually find their way to the ocean. The only way it gets recycled is if it evaporates along the way and rains its way back into the lake. There is a constant drain on water reserves and, depending on how often it rains (or doesn’t rain), water becomes scarce during drier seasons.

How to Save Water

So water has to be cleaned before it gets to you. It has to be cleaned when you are done with it. It depletes local water tables and lakes and raises your monthly water bill. Are you convinced that saving water is good for both your pocket and for the environment and society in general? Good! Now you are probably wondering some good ways of conserving water. Here are a few ways.

• Take shorter showers. The author of this blog (myself) lives in the Philippines. Sometimes, the water goes out here at odd times. When there is no pumping water but I get myself a bucket of clean water — you would be surprised how clean you can get with such a small amount of water.
• Fill up a cup of water to use when brushing your teeth. It is a common practice to turn the faucet on and leave it running nonstop while brushing teeth, which can last a few minutes. Resist that temptation by putting a glass next to the sink which you can use to hold water and rinse from after brushing your teeth.
• Consider ways to conserve water on landscaping. Many people water their lawns and other shrubbery to keep it nice and green looking. Consider other options. Astroturf has come a long way in recent years, not only will it reduce your need to water, it will also reduce your need for maintaining your lawn with mowing (which not only wastes your time, it also consumes fossil fuel and creates pollution when you use a lawn mower).
• Set up a Water Runoff Barrel.If you feel the need to water your landscaping — consider a barrel to capture water runoff from your roof. Use this water for your plants or lawn to conserve water. You can also use the water for things such as washing your vehicles.

These are a few ideas that will make a huge impact with saving and conserving water.