To solar or not to solar
 

That is the question.

Still holding about 80% FRN in a 4.5% CD with 4 months left to go. I own my home and plan on holding onto the property for quite a while. I am in FL so there is plenty of sunshine basically year round. I have a couple specific questions.

Would I be better off using the ~40k the solar will cost me to invest in a hunting cabin on some acreage or should I just consolidate my prepping to the home I currently own. A little more info on that, I am just outside of Gainesville, FL which is a medium sized college town. I am in a neighborhood but I have about 1/2 acre of land that is fenced in that could be used to grow some veggies and such for myself (I have thought about planting some fruit trees as well.) I guess it all kind of depends on how hard TSHTF.

How hard would it be to hook up a solar system myself? Do I need to have electrical experience or is it something I could do by following a manual and using my head? That would offset a huge part of the costs (~7-10k).

How safe do you think it will be in a rural setting when the dollar crashes? Keep in mind I live with 2 of my best friends and we are all armed to the teeth .
Do you think there is enough time for me to let my CD finish (about 4 months) or should I be running to the bullion, land, solar or possibly working with europac.net and Peter Schiff to invest?

The idea of investing in a off-the-grid type of land and 40+ acres in the country somewhere is very tempting as well.

So I guess this basically a "what would you do in my shoes" type of post. Thanks in advance for any and all responses I welcome any constructive criticism. Sorry this is so long but I have a ton of questions.

Oh and also how long does everyone think we have before something huge happens?

Brent:smokin:

Re: To solar or not to solar
 

40000 is a pretty huge solar setup i used to live in a trailer with a 45 watt
pannel probably less than 500 dollars worth.

Me i like dirt and trees and i dont like traffick what do you like? when you
can answer that you will know what you want to do.

you can do a hell of a lot with 40000

If i had 40000 to be pondering with solar and wind power would be at the top of my list
but i already have my dirt and trees and a nice quiet road.

Re: To solar or not to solar
 

you should be able to get solar for $10-20k. You'll make the money back on utilities in about 10 years, give or take, depending on usage.

Re: To solar or not to solar
 

$40K seems high. A coworker is building a house in north AZ completely off the grid and the quote for the solar system is only $15K

Re: To solar or not to solar
 

On time, we could have 2 years or 2 days. I don't think even TPTB are sure. I cleared institutional money long since. Any after your 15 - 20k solar put in PM will just grow and you could be looking for a more rural property. I don't know Florida elevation. Anything less that several hundred feet above sea level would not interest me at all. The weather is getting too spooky.

I also don't know much about your town, so posters who do and you will have to assess that. If you are on high enough ground and the town has a sense of community and you like it, you could stay and put in those fruit trees.

Re: To solar or not to solar
 

i think isolation in a rural setting is hazardous. i prefer rural but neighbors will be needed ;or very very isolated- hidden- re security.

college city might be a little less social unrest.

solar panels might be a target if sharp/long severe shtf. i got a couple small mobile ones for radio etc.

Re: To solar or not to solar
 

Solar: 40k will get you a 4kw system installed, which for most homes, would offset most of the electrical usage, so that becomes a matter of payback period versus the life of the system. You'd have to factor in tax credits, any buyback your local utility system might have, etc.....but most likely, you'll find in most places, you won't break even on the deal ever....but there are a LOT of variables here, so you'd have to figure for yourself.

IF you're doing a 40k solar system with the idea that if TSHTF, your life will go right on like nothing happened, then I think I'd forget that idea. Would you REALLY want to be the only beacon of light in a fairly dark world ? Do you have an army to defend the beacon ?

Instead, look at preps from "whole forest" point of view, not picking out one tree and fertilizing the crap out of it :D

Start with what you GOTTA have....water....got a well or spring ?....what good is a big solar system going to be if you have to abandon ship because the muni water doesn't flow any more ? ( just an example....you may have this well covered )...then food....decent storage ( I consider that a year, minimum ) and then move on to food production, because almost no one can store enough to live forever.

That fenced 1/2ac is a start.....now, have you ever actually grown food ? Although gardening ISN'T rocket science, there is a learning curve......and a starving person doesn't have the luxury of going to Food City if 'things don't work out' with the garden after TSHTF.....then a means and skills to preserve food. Although Florida has probably the longest growing season of anywhere in this country, you STILL have a winter where about the only thing you can grow are greens. Two months of salad is gonna make you a lean, mean, survival machine.....ahahahaaaa

Then, defense. 99.9% of the rest of your neighbors aren't thinking past the SouperBowl, having gotten their chips and dips from the store on the way home Friday.....and when TSHTF, you won't believe how many of 'em are commies......"from those with ability to those with need"......you being the party of the first part.....so get seriously ready to defend what is yours and not be punished for your forethought.

Finally, back to the solar. Let's assume the S-really-did-HTF....how much power do you REALLY need ? Walk thru the house and list the stuff that will now be landfill material: TV, microwave, electric stove, electric dryer, electric central air ( I know you got it there :D ), and so on.....now you're down to a few lights for occassional use, and some refrigeration to store food easier/temporary. Guess what, a 2kw system you can install for 15-20 grand is now plenty.

THEN.....when you get all the above worked out, if you somehow manage to have some excess FRNs, by all means, buy PMs.

Of course, if you really think nothing could ever change to the point we'd need what I outlined above, and each of us must decide that for themselves.....I can't see you from my house, and really don't care........then I'd probably buy more and more PMs in direct relationship to the amount of fiat I saw the govt.corp spreading into the sytem.

But I tend to think worse case, prepare for that possibility, and hope I'm wrong.

When could something happen ? You've already gotten the timeline....could be tommorrow morning, or could be 2 years, or could be never. My line power went out for about an hour this morning, and the wife and I looked at each other and said almost together "EMP ?".....nah....squirrel in a transformer down the road.....ahahahahaa

But I know one thing for sure......better to be prepped YEARS ahead and hope you never need it than to be sitting around one day late with the other 99.9% of the idiots out there.

Re: To solar or not to solar
 

What will one well placed EMP do to a solar system. I would assume it would fry most of it.

I think solar should be limited to systems that charge batteries.

SB

Re: To solar or not to solar
 

Squirrel, that is my conclusion as well...

Re: To solar or not to solar
 

EMP would fry any battery chargers, inverters, all the stuff plugged in, etc. The system would be kaput.

Re: To solar or not to solar
 

Brent, To address your question about the 'CD' It depends on which bank it is in. The penalty will be large if you pull it out now. I never liked the idea of paying someone to invest for me when there are a lot of informative people on sites like this to help you. I did read Schiffs book 'Crash Proof'. Towards the end he has a lot of good ideas on where to invest in the coming climate. I would rather have my money in physical metals rather than a solar system. The guys here are right, you don't want to be the only one with power on if things really get that bad. I have a retreat in the back country. I will leave my house in the city immediately if things go south.

Re: To solar or not to solar
 

I don't have any solar setup, but I looked at it, since I am planning to move to southern Arizona (the dollar crashing may delay me a couple years tho')...

If you want a small setup, 3 or 4 sq. yards of panels and a couple batteries that you can run smaller 12V invertors straight off of, that is not a bad idea. It can come in very handy, is portable and doesn't cost too much. You can recharge cell phones, flashlight and radio batteries (if they are rechargeable, that is!) and run some LED lights at night easily.

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As far as running your whole house, solar power is very expensive.
One guy on another forum said it best when he said "there's only three problems with home solar power--the cost of panels, the cost of inverters and the cost of batteries".

A typical whole-house setup costs WAY more than 15K, more like 35-45K is what I've read of. And that is for a grid-tie system, that has no storage batteries of its own. A decent amount of industrial-grade storage batteries would add at least $10K on to that price. Common "deep cycle" batteries like marine and golf-cart types, are not really very durable under regular deep discharge use. AGM is one type of very good battery, but they cost 8-10X what a regular car battery does, for the same size/capacity battery.

Even if you have a grid-tie system (that pumps electricity back into the grid) you are limited by how much per month you can reduce your utility bill. My utility bill (for example) has three main charges on it: the line fee (the cost of line maintenance), the electrical usage (actual electricity used) and the natural gas usage. If you generate electricity and pump it back into the grid, most utilities will not credit you any more than your electrical usage (you still have to pay the line fee and natural gas, if it applies). So (in the example above, of my utility) you will still have to pay the line fee and natural gas charges every month. You are effectively limited in how much money you can save every month, to the amount of electrical power you would have used.

And even at that--you generally don't save any money by using solar electricity. The cost over the long term basically comes very close to what buying utility power would have cost you. And much of the time, the solar setup will cost more. The only states where home solar power is common is California and Arizona. The reasons for this is only partly the sunny climate; both these states offer sizable subsidies for home-solar setups. Some parts of the rocky mountain states get a lot of sunlight too due to the high altitudes, yet solar setups is not nearly as common there, because those states don't offer nearly as much subsidies.

A lot of people do it in California just to be free of the rolling blackouts--and the rolling blackouts is the reason that Cali subsidizes as much solar as they do. (--of course the CA state budget is in the toilet now, so we don't know how long solar subsidies will last. but that was the reason last year, anyway-)

The only time off-grid solar clearly makes economic sense is if you have a house on a very-remote location, many miles from any transmission line. Under those circumstances it can cost $10K-$20K or more just to get the utility company to run poles and wire out to your location. THEN is the time to consider a off-grid setup.

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What you might also do is a cost/payoff comparison of having a windmill as well. In much of the US, a windmill will give a better return on investment than the same dollar-amount of solar panels will.

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A very good print magazine to read for info on low-cost/low-eco-impact living is Mother Earth News. You will see if you look that they talk about SMALL solar electric setups, but they don't often do stories on massive home-solar-power setups, because these cost a fortune and simply don't save you much over the long run.
~

Re: To solar or not to solar
 

If you are the least bit interested in solar, go buy a online subscription to:
www.homepower.com

They are the best resource I have found bar none on solar. They have full schematics, do it yourself projects, water heating, wind, etc. All laid out in an easy to follow format.

TG.