Installed 8/30/96 . . . . updated 6/20/97
Is There an Energy Efficient Washing Machine ?
Does Solar cooking Really Work?
How can I dry food without using electric power?
Can I Save Electrical Power on my Refrigerator?
Is There an Energy Efficient Washing Machine ?
© Copyright 1996 By Charlie Collins From "Ask Mr. Solar" Column Published 1/3/96 Daily Spectrum
Question from Marge Wood, Internet from Texas
Question: I have heard a lot about cooking what the sun. Please tell me
about it -- does it really work and what do I need in order to do it?
Mr. Solar: Marge,
Has their been any improvement in appliances so that they use less electricity. I am especially thinking about a clothes washer. It seems that my current washing machine takes a lot of water and electricity, but it really doesn't get my clothes as clean as did my grannies. Can you give me any information on this. Thank you in advance.
Marge, yes there has been recently announced a manufacturer in the mid west that has developed a radically different washing machine. It is called the System 2000 washer.
Their washing machine has a top-loading horizontal axis design which means that you can load your clothes as you normally do from the top, however it operates like the old fashion type. It uses less water and therefore saves much less ware and tear on your clothes.
The substantially improved wash performance is due primarily to the fact that it uses a hexagonal (six sided) shaped clothes basket which is placed in an octagonal (eight sided) shaped water tub. This creates a passive pump between the two containers which pulses the wash water through the clothes load six times per revolution. Existing H-axis washers use a round cylinder inside of a round cylinder orientation. Theirs does not have an agitator to tear at the clothes, but rely only on the dropping of the clothes to do the cleaning with a strong movement of water around the clothes within the basket.
In talking with the manufacturer he tells us that: "The System 2000 horizontal axis washer tumbles laundry on its side, using up to 66% less water and 75% less detergent, when compared to current model agitator washers. The top-loading, hexagonal tub design powers water through the laundry for consistently cleaner clothes. The electronic drive creates faster spin speeds to remove more water and allow the clothes to dry faster.
"This washer is more expensive that current models. A typical grid connected home could save over $250 a year on the cost of electricity, hot water and detergent."
Actually for the "off the grid" user this is a very important new product as all the current washers available take an enormous amount of power and therefore the home owner needs a very large inverter just to do their wash.
Does Solar cooking Really Work?
© Copyright 1995 By Charlie Collins From "Ask Mr. Solar" Column Published 9/5/95 Daily Spectrum
Question from Ellen Camblo, Newton, Mass.
Question:Greetings from Mass. I have heard a lot about cooking what the sun. Please tell me
about it -- does it really work and what do I need in order to do it?
Mr. Solar: Ellen, you know the sun is a very hot spot in the universe and there are several ways for you to use this heat. Of course one is to cook your meals with solar power as we do many here on the Do It you can see Fran using our Solar Cooker in the catalogue section in the Appliances area.
In order to use the sun to cook you need to have some form of heat focal collection. The simplest way to do this is for you to make a box using any material and enclose the inside with aluminum foil so when you point the box towards the sun it will become hot. Then you can add a pot for your food that you wish to cook.
You can increase your temperature of your homemade cooker simply by using mirrors instead of the aluminum foil and therefore reduce your cooking time.
There is a powerful four quarts conical 3' diameter reflector that focuses the sun's rays on a cylindrical axis solar cooking stove on the market that is very simple to operate. It has a galvanized sheet metal reflector coated with reflective film and a sturdy steel gambols with feet. We have mounted ours on a 2" pipe mounted in concrete so that we do not have to take it in after use.
We have found that cooking with a solar cooker greatly improves the taste of the food. Fran and I really do not understand why. As an experiment we have cooked potatoes four different ways, in our oven, in our pressure cooker, in water and in our solar cooker. The potatoes were all from the same batch and we all definitely realized a much more earthly taste with the solar cooked potatoes than those cooked any other way. We have also found that meat as well as other foods does definitely taste better in our solar cooker, why I really do not know. If any of you readers have had the same experience, please write us and let us know and what you think the reason is for this -- thank you.
Another definite advantage of having a solar cooker is that should your power go
off then you will always have hot meals, as long as we have sun on our planet.
How can I dry food without using electric power?
© Copyright 1992 By Charlie Collins From "Ask Mr. Solar" Column Published 9/6/92 Daily Spectrum
Question: How can I dry food without using electric power?
Dick G.
St George Ut.
Mr. Solar: Dick, I recommend that you use a solar dryer like to the one that we have here on the Do It Homestead. As you know the Indians as well as our forefathers, and the pioneers in this area used only the sun to dry their food. We are very fortunate here in southern Utah that we have such a worm dry climate that we can dry food. You can do as the early settlers did and just dry in the sun on a sheet, however we find there is a problem done this way. That is why we built our solar dryer, mainly to deep the ants and other small creatures out of our food. Please note the sketch.
SOLAR FOOD DRYER : the air flows in through screened holes in the left bottom(a) and flows around the black painted 55 gallon drum. As it travels between the drum and a heavy plastic cover(b) the air is heated. Then the air enters the drum from a hole in the bottom(c) and after flowing through four nylon mesh screen trays(d) holding fresh food it exits through the top screened holes(e).
This is made from a 55 gallon drum which holes four drying trays, each are approximately six square feet making the total drying capacity about 24 square feet. That is equivalent to the size of a single bed. Also this is at least five times larger than any commercial dryer on the market today.
We built ours several years ago and it works very good. The material cost is about $75.00, however there is a lot of labor involved and therefore if you were to have one made it would cost considerably more than that.
You will find that using our type dryer you will be able to dry more food quicker than you can on any type of electric one as our type is so large. Also you will enjoy using a pollution free solar product.
If you would like to see ours we will have it on display at our next open house which
will be
this fall here at the DO IT Homestead.
Can I Save electrical power on my refrigerator?
© Copyright 1995 By Charlie Collins From "Ask Mr. Solar" Column Published 1/24/93 Daily Spectrum
Question:I understand that keeping food cool as well as freezing is the largest electrical power usage in the modern home. Is there anything that I can do to reduce this and still have refrigeration?
Bill M.
Las Vegas, NV.
Mr. Solar: Bill, this is a timely question. The modern refrigerators which include a heating element that defrost automatically use approximately 10 times the electrical power that an efficient one does. The space age Sun Frost refrigerators have approximately eight times more insulating in the sides and door than the regular domestic ones do. If you will feel the outside of your home refrigerator you will discover that the box is cold. This means that you are wasting a lot of electrical energy cooling the room as well as your box. Another major difference between the regular ones and the energy efficient ones is that they have their compressor installed on top so that the excess heat from the plates and motor will go into the room rather than heat up your box.
The Sun Frost refrigerators are very expensive, but they actually pay for themselves in reduced power consumption. They use only about 10 kilowatts of power per month compared with the normal refrigerator which uses 110 kilowatts per month. This is the reason that we have sold so many here in southern Utah where people are needing a dependable refrigerator for their home or cabin. If they were to use solar electric panels to run the normal refrigerator then they would need an excessive amount of panels and therefore wasting money.
Bill, you also now have another choice. You can convert your old refrigerator with a kit to an energy efficient one. We recently helped install such a kit and now the customer tells us that they are using 80% less power to cool their box. They will enjoy more power savings when they install additional insolation on their box.
So you see you can now purchase a beautiful space age refrigerator starting at about
$1600.00 or
you can convert an old one for less than $800.00 with a kit.