Fred, Live Wires, and "the boys" from Freedom Renewable

Fred's a live wire...plus, he can identify them quickly.

My street was officially road blocked.   A police cruiser, complete with flashing blue lights and a cop, blocked the street entrance.  Well it was blocked, but, not quite blocked for everyone.  Fred had zero trouble getting though. It's not that he blends in or is invisible, quite the contrary, he has presence, Chutzpah, that positive gutsy way of doing things.  I didn't know anything was wrong on the street.  I had no clue the street was road blocked!!!!   Fred drove past the cop, past the road block and past two sets of downed wires.   Fred's first words out of his big classic blue car was, "you have wires down".   He was holding  took a tool that looked like a Tide Pen.  He waved it at one of Unitil's primary downed wires,  "that's not live" ...a few minutes later Rich, and Mark called to say the cop wasn't going to let them though.   Fred headed out to pick them up and bring them back to the house, on his way down, he  stopped at another downed wire, "but that one is" ...the cop who was in charge of not letting anyone down the street came rushing over with "get in your car, get in your car now".  The cop was no match for Fred, his comment to the cop was, "I know what I'm doing, I"m an electrician".  I would find out later that was truly an understatement...Fred is much more than "just" an electrician.  He teaches everywhere including MIT, he's a ZBA consultant, a Vietnam Vet (med flighted out during the Tet offensive),  has a heart, and the coup de grace is he's an accomplished surfer, yep' that's right a surfer dude who surf YEAR round'...this is New England..you are not talking Florida or south...he's hard core.  So that's how I met Fred, Freedom Renewable Energy's electrician, he's the kinda' guy who makes an indelible impression.

Fred and I sat at my kitchen table waiting for "the boys" as he called them.   Rich, Mark and John were not able to make it through the police road block, but within minutes Fred spotted Rich, carrying an orange can of spray paint, waking through the woods and climbing over my dog fence in the back yard!!!!!!  You are not talking a walk in park like woods.  Rich was climbing through poison ivy, gnarled bitter root vines and some dense pines about a tenth of a mile worth.  Despite downed live wires, and police barricades the guys from Freedom Renewable Energy were at my house!!!!

Rich answered all my questions, marked potential areas where the wires would be located underground, and then headed back out, climbing over the fence, into the woods and off to another appointment with another client...wow!!!!  Fred joined him but had to leave his car since the cop wasn't letting anyone out or anyone in.  

The "boys" would later arrive to say hi and walk Fred down Bartlett Street, since his car was still parked in my driveway, held hostage by the Newton Police roadblock and Unitil.  It was great to see Mark.   I would find out later that Mark was the force behind that beautiful and moving Veteran's Memorial that includes all the name of vet's who have served even in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it's kept current thanks to a fund Mark set up. It's  in McGregor Park in Derry...wow!!!  These guys have quite a history!!!!

More Trees Out, More Light/Wind In

All for progress a few trees were sacrificed.  We took down a small group of about  red pines which will help create an opening to the northwest, our prevailing winds.  The Air-X will go in this spot behind and a bit westerly from the grid-tie 14 panel array.  

Above, "Dig Safe" arrived,  pretty much as Rich had said they would, quietly.  I didn't know until I spotted the little orange flag planted in our front lawn, see top photo.

Quality Tree finished up the job we would never have been able to complete on time.  The company with a crew of 6 guys flew through taking down some of the red pines towards the northwest, 2 huge white pines and 2 large oaks.  They started on Friday morning and were still able to make for their 3:30 tee time.


Click on the link below to see a YouTube Video of Quality Tree dropping one of our bigger Oaks.
Click Here

It's NOT a Crystal Ball but it DOES Show Our Future

 We have more trees to cut down but it's for a good cause.  We'll burn the wood we cut down in our woodstove and by clearing the area we'll have more hours of sun that will hit the solar panels.  The above shot is a "Solar Pathfinder", the convex cover sits atop a grid that shows months and hours.  By taking a view into this nifty instrument it shows specific trees that will come into play at different hours and different months.  We initially had about an 83% solar resource, we are going for the best we can get!!!!


Mark, from Freedom Renewable Energy, in Derry, NH is shown as a shadow looking into the globe and taking the digital photo of our resource.

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"Freedom, Freedom, Freedom, Freedom"

"Let the sun shine, let the sun shine in"

Lyrics from The Age of  Aquarius and the musical Hair 1969

Mark, from Freedom Renewable Energy, out of Derry, NH arrived today...things are getting closer!!!! WOW...all I could think of were two songs from 1969, and I sang them in my head, over and over again, ..one was from Richie Havens, "Freedom" and the other was from the musical Hair.  Mark took another look into the Solar Pathfinder, that globe that shows where the trees cast shadows and where we need to cut...we are looking better.  I've met Brian, a principal in the company, Rich, the project manager, and of course Mark who has been in constant contact with me over the past couple of weeks.  They have even agreed to help with a few add ons including some help with my Air-X and the stand alone off grid panels...the times here..they are a changing!!!!  Can't wait to meet the electrician.  They pulled the permit on Wednesday...must have been wild with the hours the building inspectors office is open it's not easy!!! 

Yesterday was Earth Day, I was part of the first rally on Boston Common in 1970,  I wanted to help make the world a better place, instead I ended up being part of the "establishment" and part of the problem.  I hope it's not too late, I want to be part of the solution.

We dropped more trees.  The top photo only captures part of the picture.  I have red swollen spots around my waist band where black flies snuggled up and feasted on my blood.  The spots are about the same circumference as a small tenderloin medallion.

  We'll  be able to seasonally adjust the frame for the best angle during the year.  I think it's a no brainer to go with a manual adjustment for panels...we live in the Northeast...read, snow, ice, sleet, and I can't imagine having a problem with a motorized tracker only to be stuck in some strange angle until a part arrives.  

 The second shot shows were they'll plunk down the pole mount.  Our 14 Evergreen 205's will go on the mount.  I've removed the experimental panels I put up last fall and I'll be adding to them with 2 more and securing them on a Unirack, no more "housewife designed" 2x4 constructed frame.  The Air-X turbine will also help keep the battery bank charged for the off grid portion of the system.

One more project to go, I have to move the composting bins I built last year, (third photo down).   Unfortunately our date has been pushed up to May 11....but the good news is they WILL be here!!!

Freedom, Freedom

Freedom, Freedom

Freedom, Freedom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wind...Hoping for a Trickle Charge

 Air-X

Our micro wind turbine arrived today.

I honestly don't expect much from this turbine.
Although we get some wind here, our location is not ideally suited for a turbine.  With my expectations set low I'll be happy with anything we get.  There are times here when wind is high and we have no sun.  It would be nice to be able to even trickle charge our battery bank, especially when we draw from it during times of no electricity from the gird, typically after a wind or ice storm.

The turbine itself is small, and with about 12mph wind will produce about 38Kw per month..not much.  I expect perhaps even less than that.  What I do hope for is it will be a small way to help charge the bank at night or with no sun but some wind.  We did better than I expected during our recent three day outage.  It's amazing how far you can stretch energy needs when push comes to shove.  The winds were consistantly high (over 25mph) for two days of the outage so with the wind turbine it would have helped to recharge our battery bank...we'll be finding out soon.

Solar Panel/ Battery Bank Data Since October 31, 2009

Click Here For Data


The above link lists solar data from October 31, 2009 including daily and monthly Kwh, Amp Hours, Max Voltage, (VOC as seen by the controller) Min Voltage  (As seen by the controller) and monthly averages.


We will be adding two more panels, which we will wire in series to the two we already have which will give us 700W.  It will double the output we already have.  In addition we will be taking some trees down that should increase effiency and decrease our shading problems, especially in the late fall and winter.   We will attempt to add a SunDanzer 5.8 Freezer that will run off the battery bank full time. The estimated amp hours draw per day  for the freezer should be less than 23 amp hours.  Our ambient temperature in the cellar ranges from about 45 degrees in winter to about 65 in the summer.

February Windstorm Power Out, Solar In

Power Out Solar Battery Bank In

I was on my radio, participating in the QRP Fox hunt and trying to get the NM Fox, K5DI when the power went out Thursday night at 10:14 February 25th 2010.  By the light of my laptop I unplugged my radio and headed to bed.  It was very windy that night.  The winds shook window panes in the bedroom waking up our puppy, who barked and my husband, who stopped snoring.  The next day the power was still out.  We dug out the power cord and ran the fridge to the inverter that runs to our solar battery bank.  We thought it would be a few hour event and our power would be back up within a few hours.  After cranking up the radio we found out winds exceeded 90 miles an hour just a short hop NE of us in Portsmouth.  Powerlines and trees were down everywhere. The outage extended to over 600K in our immediate area. Over half of our state was without power.   Once the fridge was going and shut off we ran the freezer for a while.  We had no internet connection on Friday, Comcast was down.  Our only connection to the world was news from my Droid via Verizon, a crank up power generated radio that gave us news throughout the weekend from WBZ 1030 in Boston, and FloTV which gave us news on Saturday morning about the Chile quake from CNN.  We learned from the radio report that our power outage was very extensive, and it would be a multi day power outage for most people. In light of the quake in Chile we put things in perspective, we have a home, heat, light and food.  We hunkered down and decided to use our resources as judiciously as possible.

Luckily when Harry heard the wind on Thursday night he filled buckets of water so we could flush the toilet, it came in handy.  I had the Big Berkley out and filled with potable water, things we have unfortunately learned to do here because of the number of times our power goes out.

On Friday morning I made coffee via a hand burr grinder and french press with water heated up on the woodstove.  I pulled out a few bags of fruit from the freezer, and emptied them into a large bowl for healthy snacking since I didn't know how well fruit would hold up without the freezer on it's usually cycling.  I wasn't sure what our 420 amp hour battery bank, powered by our two 175W 24 volt pannels would be capable of.  Harry gave me the bad news that the wx looked like it would either be snowing or overcast for the next 5 days. That means our solar panels wouldn't be able to recharge the battery bank.  I wondered if we would be throwing food out.  I asked Harry to pull out the generator in case we needed it.  He did but he wasn't able to get it working, he ripped it apart, even pulling the spark plug but it wouldn't even sputter.  I could only hope for the best that our little system would get us through.  My plan was to run the fridge until the compressor shut off and then to plug in the freezer and run it for a couple of hours about every 5-6 hours.

By Saturday afternoon we had internet...I would occasionally check by plugging in the cable modem.  Once I knew internet was back I plugged in the cable modem and wireless router to the Xantrax...we were both online with our laptops for about 15 minutes, we caught up on news, the Unitil power update, and mail.  By night I was feeling a bit more confidant, I pulled up the lid on the freezer, pulled out some frozen veggies and a large thick pork chop, all frozen solid and cooked them on the woodstove, life is good.   I had given my dad my multimeter so I wasn't able to measure the voltage of the battery bank.  We drove to Plaistow and bought a new one from Home Depot.  I felt even better when the voltage was showing as 12.9.  Between the snow and overcast weather the battery bank was not charging back as it would on an even mildly cloudy day...but we were still in the ball game.

By Sunday morning we still were without power, no utility crews in sight.  I was still running the fridge until I heard the compresser shut off then I'd plug in the freezer and run it for a couple of hours.  I pulled out a few frozen short ribs and threw them in the wood cookstove oven along with a couple of potatoes.  By midday the voltage was showing around 12.3.    By early afternoon we saw the utility trucks arrive on the street, we were hopefull we'd have our power back.  By mid afternoon, our power was back on, we plugged out of our inverter and back into our household outlets.  No food lost, our system a huge success!!!!


Here is what we ran for almost 3 days:

Fridge:  From about 7am to about 9pm about every 3-4 hours until the compressor shut off.  (Our fridge is a freezerless fridge.)

Freezer:  From about 7am to about 9pm I'd run it for about 2 hours about every 5 hours. (Our Freezer is an ancient 10cu' Westinghouse model)

Minimal Internet:  Wireless Router, Cable Modem for about 15 minutes total run from Xantrax

Cell Phone Charging: From Xantrax


Huge success!!!!  And I went from "Geek Mom" to "Super Mom" and I even got a "I'm glad you put in the system."

No generator noise, no generator gas smell, no gas cost, no running around towns looking for gas stations that are open!!!!  Great little system.