(My emphasis in Betty's message.)
My parents built our home in Miami, FL in 1949. At that time, in that
place (from my childhood memory), homes were built individually, and
our home and the others in our neighborhood had solar water heaters.
They were simple affairs, inexpensive, just a galvanized steel pan
containing copper pipes zigzagging to and fro a few times, then filled
with tar and covered with glass. In the Miami sun, ours provided all
of our hot water needs on all but a handful of days per year; and an
electric heater in the storage tank took care of those days.
Then the area's population began to grow rapidly, and tract homes
began to be built. The Florida Power and Light company offered those
builders incentives and authorized them to advertise their homes as
"Gold Medallion All- Electric Homes". No solar water heaters allowed.
Think of those hundreds of thousands of homes, broiling in the Miami
sun for all of those years, burning all of those tons of fossil fuel
to heat water, that could have been heated by the sun!
------------------------------
[We did not have air conditioning. We just opened our windows and
there was enough space between the homes to allow enough of a breeze
for us to feel comfortable.]
On Mar 27, 2008, at 10:51 PM, betty wrote:
I've lived in a solar house since 1980. We have at least 100 trees.
From my experience with passive and active systems, all you need is
daylight--sun, clouds, rain or snowy weather, direct or reflected
light--to produce enough electricity to run a battery charger, or
produce enough electricity to run most home appliances, including
recharging a laptop; same weather conditions apply for heating and
cooling.
Most people I know who live in apartments, even basement ones, have
at least one window. There's enough light coming in through a window
to use a PV battery charger, or the panel can be hung out the
window--doesn't even have to face south. Ambient light can also
activate a trickle charger indoors. Besides it's not likely that an
individual apartment would have its own independent connection. The
building owner, manager, super, would have the FIOS boxes installed
in one location for the entire building.
No, "we" aren't generalizing. It continues to amaze me that there
are so few people _in_the_US_ who take advantage of almost free
heating, cooling and electricity, and simply make up excuses for not
doing it.
Aren't we generalizing a bit? I'm under trees here, there's not
nearly
enough sunlight to charge batteries. People in apartment buildings
would have the same trouble.
On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 1:56 PM, b_s-wilk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Photovoltaic solar panels are the sensible answer to unlimited
backup
> for FIOS. They can be standard equipment with FIOS boxes. PV
solar
> panels are small and will keep the backup batteries charged
> indefinitely, even on rainy days.
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