Solar power for the barn?

[Mitra]

Our new barn is a good 200 yards from our house and we do not have electricity or water at the barn. This has been challenging over the course of this harsh Maine Winter. We currently have extensions cords going from an outlet outside the house to all three coops and then that string ends at the barn where we have a light and a radio. These two items are not a huge draw but we have learned that we are wasting a lot of energy (and it's costing a lot monthly) to have this system of extension cords.
We called an electrician that we have used before to come and give us an estimate to get electricity to the barn. To do this to code, the estimate was $1500. YIKES!!!!!
If I'm going to make that kind of investment, it seems like it should be to something renewable - like solar. I want to cut down my dependence on the grid, not increase it. So I started by looking on e-bay and craigslist. A simple "solar panel" search yeilds pages and pages of things to look at but I don't know what I'm looking for.
What would I need to be able to power the barn with for a couple of lights and a radio? What about a milking machine?
I know that if I did a little research, I could probably answer these questions but....with so many experienced people on the board, I thought I'd cut out some research time and re-inventing of the wheel ;D
I'm also about to purchase my first solar fence charger for my "pigs in the woods" program. Does anyone have any reccomendations? I was astounded by how many different manufacturers there are. The ones I'm looking at are between $150 and $200 (new).
Thanks!

[Jessika]

Mitra, I don't know about solar for the barn but solar chargers, that is all I've used. It is an art, and we frequently have dead batteries except for the really big one that cost about$1,000. We needed absolute assurance that fence would never go dead as it holds a lot of big pigs out of sight 1/2 mile away from the house. Maybe where you only have 2 pigs it won't be a big deal. All the cheaper chargers we have in the price range you list have failed us but we are in the woods and sunlight isn't real direct. Gallagher is the best brand we've worked with. I would say buy the best you can afford. Our really good one has a standard sized solar panel seperately charging the fence charger. We've borrowed a Parmak 12 volt that was pretty good too, and we'll probably get one as a backup. We have 4 solar chargers total. You should have a back up plan in case of extended overcast weather.
Jessika

[kelly]

Mitra, I will speak to DH tonight and get a little more info for you. but our whole system is shown on photo gallery and that powers our house AND barn. Our biggest draw is the water pump. You'd be surprised how little a radio uses, our system doesn't recognize it as a power draw so I HAVE to turn on a light to get the music, or something has to be on at the house.

I wonder if your biggest issue would be how to convert the battery energy ( which comes from the sun) which is DC to AC for your electricity. We have an inverter in the house or you would need all DC "appliances". You will also have to consider our winters and little sun, we use a generator to recharge the batteries as we use the stored energy.

I'll write back later or tomorrow!
Kelly

[catherine]

Oh, Mitra...great topic! We'd love to gradually reduce our electricity dependence, and work towards being off the grid, too. However, in the meantime, all our electric fences are battery powered, with small solar panels to recharge them. We got our stuff mostly from Premier. We've found that the system stays pretty fully charged on the plain wires around the cattle, where there's very little drain from weed load. However, the poultry netting we have around the geese and pigs is a bit different story. We started the piglets inside the poultry netting, because they were so small, and we wanted to be sure nothing could get to them. Now, they are probably pushing 200 lbs., and I DARE anything to bug them! lol. We probably need to retrain them to just a couple of lines of electric, but hey...this is working...lol! Anyway, they root around enough that they sometimes throw up a berm of dirt, grass and hay against the fence, or they toss a feed trough onto the bottom of it, grounding it abit, draining the battery. So, every few weeks, we still have to trade out the battery for a charged one. The worst "issue" we have with them is the fact that they like to toss their big metal double feeder around. We keep trying to figure out how to anchor that feeder in place, but they keep "unfiguring" it. We arrived the other morning to find they'd tossed it half way over their fence, flattening the fence completely. They were still inside the fence, as were the geese who have a similar pen, running off the same battery. However, as soon as we drove up, the pigs came charging out to greet us, so excited by their "handiwork". We have to get another battery system, so we can seperate the geese from the pigs, as I KNOW the pigs could defend themselves, and know where "home" is (they go back in each night, just like the chickens and geese! lol). However, any old critter could take apart our sweet geese. Yikes!

About getting electricity to the barn, well, my DH and I were just wrestling with that same problem. I'm actually happy to hear that you've been doing pretty well with your cobbled together extension cord system. He's an electrical engineer, and was telling me I just couldn't do that safely...and our Barn is probably about a similar distance from the closest electrical outlet as yours is. I haven't yet checked about what it would cost to have the power company connect up the Barn, but I don't doubt it'll be something comparable to what you were quoted...plus they'll probably want to run it above ground on poles, and I don't like that at all. I'd want it underground...run alongside underground water piping, which I know would make the whole thing just cost that much more...sigh...someday...I hope...I pray!

We've been using a VERY VERY LOUD generator to run the power tools, while we've been working down at the Barn. It's only redeeming features being 1) power tools work, and 2) cows are no longer afraid of loud noises in there! lol. I was cringing at the thought of being forced to run the generator to power the pump to milk the cows..."to live in the house that Jack built"...woops...wrong story, sorry! lol Anyway...I was just going to try to "gut" it out with Katie by hand for a while. However, I KNOW that no one else in the family will ever, ever spell me in milking if we can only do it by hand. If I want help, I'm going to have to figure out how to get power down there, and decide which milking system to buy. So...thanks...I'm going to run extension cords for now, and learn from this post and elsewhere about how much solar we would need to run a pump, lights, a tea kettle for hot water (any better ideas for that?), and a radio. Thanks again for starting the thread!

[Claire]

If Max is wiring savvy you might get away with wiring the barn yourself. We found out when we put power and water to our barn that we were exempt from any inspection because it was agricultural. Our barn is 900 feet from the house- we put in a 4 foot trench, laid the lines for everything in PVC pipe, hooked everything up, and covered it up when we knew everything was working.

Whatever you do put power and water in your barn- it makes livestock tremendously more pleasurable when you don't have to haul water every day and do chores by flashlight!

[buxombeefcowdairy]

Mitra, make sure you get a fence charger that is labeled "low impedence". These will not ground out from grasses growing onto the wire, and will still deliver a good shock.

A solar powered fence charger can work for you and the pigs, but it will likely take more time and attention, and perhaps a spare battery and battery charger. You will need to check often to make sure the charger is putting out enough volts to keep the pigs away from the fence. Electric is more consistent, as long as your electricity is reliable.

I would also find out what level it takes to keep the pigs in. Our horses only need 2,300 to 3,000 volts to keep them from 'testing' the fence, but the cattle need 6,000. A regular fence tester may only tell you 'yes' or 'no'. The better (and more expensive) fence testers, or an electrician's voltmeter, will tell you that the fence is still on, AND how many volts are running through it. The last time I priced them, they were $85, but we still have ours and it is one of the most valuable tools on the place. If you gave my husband the option of either owning his fencing pliers, or the fence tester, he'd opt for the fence tester- you can use other tools to replace the fencing pliers.

[mrskk]

Our barn is only about 200 feet from our house and we started out with extension cords for power and dragged a hose out to water every day (having to coil it in the basement every night during the winter so it wouldn't freeze up). We did that for 3 years, then bit the bullet and rented a backhoe to dig a trench (4 feet down) to run electricity and water to our barn.

We did all the work ourselves, as there was an available circuit on our panel. In total, for equipment rental and supplies, it probably cost us about $1500, but it was one of the best investments we've ever made.

I, too, would love to go to solar and wind power for our own uses, but I know that is a major investment. Someday, when our lottery ticket comes in...
Karen

[kelly]

Ok folks this is what I learned!

RealGoods catalog has a worksheet for figuring out how much energy you use.

To run our whole place we are getting 12 - 2volt batteries, They are more costly but with good care they will last 15-20 yrs, they are costing us $5,000 installed. The less expensive battery bank would have run approx. $3,000 but would only last 7-10 yrs.

We have 8 75 watt solar panels and 2 40 watt as seen in the photo gallery.

If you want solar you will either need all DC "appliances" lights, milking machine, etc. Or you can invest in a inverter that will switch it over to AC.

You can put in a battery bank and use a generator to keep them charged, then add on panels as you can.
Our generator is going to be a 6,500 volt(?)

We use a solar powered fencer but from the sounds of it our critters are not the norm 'cause ours is weak and rarely if ever does anyone try it for fencing we use the wide brown strap type. We use a fencer that uses batteries to switch back & forth, I think that is a Gallager.

I hope this helps some!

Kelly

[Mitra]

Thanks for all the great info on both "solar" and the fence charger. I can understand better what I'm looking at/for.

A quick update. Yesterday, after I posted this, a very cool thing happened . DH's brother, Bret from Alaska, took a hop up from a conference in D.C. to see his Mom, Joann. He's staying for a few days. He came over yesterday afternoon and explained a lot about the "inputs" for solar to us. He also explained how to easily do what we needed to, to get electric to the barn (he's built and wired his own three storey house in Alaska). There is a huge difference in the price to get started on solar, even with the minimal amount of power we were talking about.
Then he did an even more amazing thing. He took his brother (my DH) to the nearest Home Depot (45 minutes from here) and got everything needed to wire the barn and he's doing it today! Max is thrilled to get this hands-on tutorial.
This would be huge any time but for us it's especially huge because finances have been very tight this winter. We are very thankful.

I'm sticking to the solar charger plan for the fencing but now I have a much better idea of what I need to look for. Thanks again! We do have one of those nifty fence testers that gives you volt information. Now there's a neat toy

[catherine]

Ooooh! Is Brett from Alaska adoptable??? I NEED a brother like that! ;D lol! Tell him he could instantly have family clear across the country if he adopted us ALL!

Wow, he wired a 3 story home? Sounds like he's quite the handiman, and good at figuring things out. Ask him to post on here about what he's doing to set up your new system, please??? I've got an electrical engineer in my DH...so he'd be more likely to understand what Brett suggests! lol. I think it'll go WAY beyond my pay grade! lolol. Maybe we need to be sending HIM the oranges!

[catherine]

P.S. Congrats on your soon to be fully wired barn! I can't wait to hear all about it! Just think...lights, pump, radio...what else will you be able to enjoy out there? On demand hot water maybe (tea kettle or otherwise!). What a wonderful gift Brett is giving you, one that you'll use and appreciate every single day! The man is gaining Stars in his Crown!