my gas bill was $900 about 7 months ago, long story short i didnt have the money to pay the bill so they shut it off. my natural gas company charges a minimum of $40 per month, even if you use zero gas. i have two addresses. since they shut the service off at both locations so far this year i have saved 7 months x $80 for $560 plus all the fees and taxes in fees alone, they even charge a fee just to pay them, so if i was to guess i bet i have actually saved closer to $700 for a service i didnt even need.` i have about 4kw of solar panels that i diy installed over the course of these last couple of years. i also have about 50kwh of batteries that i bought new about 1.5 years ago. unfortunately i used lead acid as i was able to get a decent price and they were new and local with a nice warranty on them. i have tried to keep each battery at or above 12.1v. it dawned on me this fall that while my inverter cant handle the central air, it could easily power ac windows units. this idea evolved into using two hose portable ac units each one also has heat. each portable "ac" seems to only use about 1kw while running. i live in a small 900sq ft home, but its well insulated with all new windows and doors. i have been able to heat the house completely this cold season off of just one unit even though i bought two of them. i have only one of them set up in the spare bedroom and it runs for about 10 minutes, then shuts off for about 5 minutes then turns back on and completes the cycle. that math means that i am using about 700wh per hour to heat my house, which works out to about 7 cents per hour at this current temp and its 29F outside now and windy as can be and this is assuming i dont have solar, which i do, which means i can heat the house almost for free. i only paid $120 for one heat pump unit from a pawn shop and $50 for the other. they claim these heat pumps are 3 to 11 times more effecient that resistive heating elements, but i have not done any testing. i also bought several 1500 watt space heaters just incase these things stop working. i assume they stop working a some low temp, and it can get very cold where i live, but i have some ideas on how to deal with that too even with out using the space heaters. plus you can wear more clothes and use heating blankets, whish use very little power, but i am sitting here in my living room in nylon shorts and shirt and no socks lol i have designed a configuration with various voltage sensing devices and relays that watch the battery voltage, and once the voltage reaches 57v on a 48v battery, it moves the portable heat pump from the grid to my battery power inverter. once the voltage of the battery drops below 51v, which is about 12.7v, it switches the portable heat pump back to the grid. i did it this way so my batteries will be used as backup, lighting, tvs, computers at all times and if the solar panels can keep the battery charged, they will get the pleasure of running my heat pump, which should keep the electric bill lower. the other space now with out heat has tenants above, behind and on both sides of this space and is filled with computers that are on and running. we have been having to run the ac despite it being cold out even recently the way i see it is, i have an extra $700 going into this heating season subtract the $170 for the two heat pumps leaves me with $530, divide that by 3 of the coldest months and we have $176 for each of those months. i calculated what it would cost to run of these heat pumps continuously for 24 hours 30 days and its about $90, thats assuming it never shuts off and i know it will. its 31f outside right now and 68f in my living room and the heat pump is not even on at the moment. plus i wont be paying for the gas bill for the rest of the year and its damn fees and taxes to have it simply connected. plus my solar system is normally good for about 15-20kwh per sunny day, which means i get the heat for free. its funny when money is tight you start to see just how shafted we all have been and didnt even know it. they say gas is cheaper, sure says who? the politicians? the lobbyist? the gas company? if i only had more panels and a slightly larger lifepo battery i would cut this cord and get a small 4kw gen as a backup i probably should have just made a video rather than babble on in this wall of text lol
We've got the FAR infrared panels as our heating source. They are nice and very effective. They heat the fabric of the room so once the room is up to temp they don't seem to use that much in theory. Early days for us at the moment as will be our first winter with them. Removed our gas boiler due to not wanting the tank any more Wish we could get our solar installed. Solar market a little broken in the UK at the moment.
I have 2 200w panels in an indoor window. My question is will the panels still generate heat when not plunged in? with summer coming I wonder if I will need to take them out.
Lucky to be in France still, your electricity is quite inexpensive. The result will be very interesting. Investing 2000€ of non used oil every year into batteries should able you to only use your own ectricity at some point.
Mate you'd be so much better off with a split air con unit - outdoor unit and indoor unit - ive measured a 5kw Mitsubishi one and it uses 800w at the wall but then turns on and off and on and of so uses less than that and it bangs out the heat. Mind you that's 8 years old I bet the newest ones are even better!
@@Bensgarage he means a "mini split", which is similar to how central air works, except it can also do the reverse, and blow hot air inside and cold air outside, it basically flips the air exchange devices and can also be used for ac in the summer. i wrote a wall of text above basically saying thats what i did but i am using two hose portable units that go through the window with the air hoses, but sit inside the room doing their magic.
Hi can you please give us more information on ribbon heater and performance and where to purchase it
my gas bill was $900 about 7 months ago, long story short i didnt have the money to pay the bill so they shut it off. my natural gas company charges a minimum of $40 per month, even if you use zero gas. i have two addresses. since they shut the service off at both locations so far this year i have saved 7 months x $80 for $560 plus all the fees and taxes in fees alone, they even charge a fee just to pay them, so if i was to guess i bet i have actually saved closer to $700 for a service i didnt even need.`
i have about 4kw of solar panels that i diy installed over the course of these last couple of years. i also have about 50kwh of batteries that i bought new about 1.5 years ago. unfortunately i used lead acid as i was able to get a decent price and they were new and local with a nice warranty on them. i have tried to keep each battery at or above 12.1v.
it dawned on me this fall that while my inverter cant handle the central air, it could easily power ac windows units. this idea evolved into using two hose portable ac units each one also has heat. each portable "ac" seems to only use about 1kw while running.
i live in a small 900sq ft home, but its well insulated with all new windows and doors. i have been able to heat the house completely this cold season off of just one unit even though i bought two of them. i have only one of them set up in the spare bedroom and it runs for about 10 minutes, then shuts off for about 5 minutes then turns back on and completes the cycle. that math means that i am using about 700wh per hour to heat my house, which works out to about 7 cents per hour at this current temp and its 29F outside now and windy as can be and this is assuming i dont have solar, which i do, which means i can heat the house almost for free.
i only paid $120 for one heat pump unit from a pawn shop and $50 for the other.
they claim these heat pumps are 3 to 11 times more effecient that resistive heating elements, but i have not done any testing.
i also bought several 1500 watt space heaters just incase these things stop working. i assume they stop working a some low temp, and it can get very cold where i live, but i have some ideas on how to deal with that too even with out using the space heaters.
plus you can wear more clothes and use heating blankets, whish use very little power, but i am sitting here in my living room in nylon shorts and shirt and no socks lol
i have designed a configuration with various voltage sensing devices and relays that watch the battery voltage, and once the voltage reaches 57v on a 48v battery, it moves the portable heat pump from the grid to my battery power inverter. once the voltage of the battery drops below 51v, which is about 12.7v, it switches the portable heat pump back to the grid.
i did it this way so my batteries will be used as backup, lighting, tvs, computers at all times and if the solar panels can keep the battery charged, they will get the pleasure of running my heat pump, which should keep the electric bill lower.
the other space now with out heat has tenants above, behind and on both sides of this space and is filled with computers that are on and running. we have been having to run the ac despite it being cold out even recently
the way i see it is, i have an extra $700 going into this heating season subtract the $170 for the two heat pumps leaves me with $530, divide that by 3 of the coldest months and we have $176 for each of those months.
i calculated what it would cost to run of these heat pumps continuously for 24 hours 30 days and its about $90, thats assuming it never shuts off and i know it will. its 31f outside right now and 68f in my living room and the heat pump is not even on at the moment.
plus i wont be paying for the gas bill for the rest of the year and its damn fees and taxes to have it simply connected.
plus my solar system is normally good for about 15-20kwh per sunny day, which means i get the heat for free.
its funny when money is tight you start to see just how shafted we all have been and didnt even know it.
they say gas is cheaper, sure says who? the politicians? the lobbyist? the gas company?
if i only had more panels and a slightly larger lifepo battery i would cut this cord and get a small 4kw gen as a backup
i probably should have just made a video rather than babble on in this wall of text lol
We could really do with more storage (batteries), but let's see how this pans out over the next few months.
We've got the FAR infrared panels as our heating source. They are nice and very effective. They heat the fabric of the room so once the room is up to temp they don't seem to use that much in theory. Early days for us at the moment as will be our first winter with them. Removed our gas boiler due to not wanting the tank any more
Wish we could get our solar installed. Solar market a little broken in the UK at the moment.
well done ben, your doing very well
I have 2 200w panels in an indoor window. My question is will the panels still generate heat when not plunged in? with summer coming I wonder if I will need to take them out.
Do you mind me asking, is it worth changing over from gas, to solar in Ireland 🇮🇪. Thanks very much and God bless..
Heating our house using our solar system ended up being very expensive as we don't have that much storage on our batteries.
@@Bensgarage thanks very much for your help. I hope you and your family have a great week and God bless...
Lucky to be in France still, your electricity is quite inexpensive.
The result will be very interesting.
Investing 2000€ of non used oil every year into batteries should able you to only use your own ectricity at some point.
That’s the plan, just installed some more panels and next will be more batteries.
Mate you'd be so much better off with a split air con unit - outdoor unit and indoor unit - ive measured a 5kw Mitsubishi one and it uses 800w at the wall but then turns on and off and on and of so uses less than that and it bangs out the heat. Mind you that's 8 years old I bet the newest ones are even better!
Not sure what you mean by outdoor/indoor unit. Do you have any links, as we are open to any suggestions.
@@Bensgarage he means a "mini split", which is similar to how central air works, except it can also do the reverse, and blow hot air inside and cold air outside, it basically flips the air exchange devices and can also be used for ac in the summer. i wrote a wall of text above basically saying thats what i did but i am using two hose portable units that go through the window with the air hoses, but sit inside the room doing their magic.
talk talk talk talk