Lights

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Lights - Gas OR DC?

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Lights - Gas OR DC?
© Copyright 1992 By Charlie Collins From "Ask Mr. Solar" Column Published 6/22/92 Daily Spectrum

Question:We are building a summer home at Kolob. Do we have to install smelly, noisy and dangerous gas lights, or can we really depend on solar electricity for lights?

Betty C. St George, UT

Mr. Solar: Betty, You can have your home wired for both AC and DC electrical power and use your AC power through your invertor for AC toys such as your Microwave, color TV, kitchen mixers and your husband will enjoy having the use of his power tools without the noisy generator. Our home here on Smith's mesa is double wired and I can only tell you of our experience using gas and the DC electric lights. We did install gas lights and found that they were to smelly, hot, polluting and dangerous. Therefore we only used them one evening and have not turned then on for approximately 14 years. We realized that they were not what we wanted for a clean quite living area. We now us use our DC power for lights.

You need to realize that when you double wire your home for both AC and DC you will need to have your electrician follow special precautions in the DC part of your system, which he may not be formular with. Your solar professional salesman whom you purchase your equipment from can easily explain to you or them how this can be done to avoid problems as well as pitfalls now and in the future.

You will find that using DC lights that it is just like living in the city. We have never been without lights for one minute since we have installed this type of lights. At times they have been a little dim due to low battery charge, however that presents no problem as we use ni-cad batteries and not lead acid ones. You see you will always have lights even if there is a problem with your AC invertor.

Betty, we see no reason for you to go to the expense of installing gas lines in all your walls to use gas lights. You will find with this savings you can spend your moneys on DC lights which will bring you years of enjoyment.

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