Living in a tiny self-reliant home means that every aspect of building the home is carefully executed, including the electricity. If you are constantly on the move or in a location without any electricity, then you need other options.
Living off-grid means not being tied to any of the country’s electricity supply and a good way to do that is to use solar power.
The sun is so powerful that it will fully power your home. With solar power, you can have electricity all day and store more in batteries which you can use at night or when needed.
During survival periods, solar power is the best way to go and when used with batteries for backup, you can get power through the day and also forget about the noise from using generators and those horrible fumes.
It is also a great way to have power in your tiny house. Solar panels for tiny homes are a great way to live off-grid and get your much-needed electricity.
But before you go on installing solar power into your home, there are a number of things to consider.
Planning to have a Solar Panel for your Tiny Home? Know this first:
Know your specific needed load
Having a load analysis done at first will help measure the amount of electricity every one of your devices consumes.
Having this analysis done will show you how you can use less power to get the results you need and also how to spread the power to all your devices while reducing any waste power.
Have a Budget
You need a budget which will help you determine what you can afford to buy and you should also keep your installation within your limit, so do not go too crazy with your purchases.
The weight of your solar panel
The solar panels, inverters, and batteries are usually quite heavy, so you need to have the weight in consideration if your house is going to be on the move. If you are going to be parked then you should install your system at a point where there is maximum exposure to the sun, aware of blockages like trees.
Most people like to place the solar panels on the roof but it takes up a lot of space so it will not fit on the roof of a tiny home. You might like to think of having a spot a few feet away from your house even though having it some yards away from home might be a bit pricey.
Some people prefer to buy their solar panels while others like to build their own. It depends on what you feel is most comfortable for your needs but to have that solar system set up for your tiny house, you will need, solar panels, inverters, batteries, and racking. You have to purchase closed gel cell types and have them installed in an area where they won’t freeze.
If you have decided to build your own solar panel, there are step by step actions to take.
Tab the Solar Cells
You can buy solar cells that have already been tabbed, which means that they have soldered lead wires, or you do your tabbing yourself which is a lot of work.
First coat the tabbing wire in solder. Then solder the tabbing wire to the cell using a rosin flux.
String the tabbed cells
Once you have tabbed all the cells, connect them all together. Once you decide how many cells should be put in a row and the number of rows to be on a panel. Glue the cells to your panel and leave about 1/8 inch of space between each cell.
Remember to place a backing board made either of plastic or wood to your panel before gluing your cells to them. Once you are done with the installation then you need to have all your panels connected and then have them connected to a charge controller to use for battery backup, you can then run the output got from the batteries through an inverter which is connected to your home and there you have it, power.
The charge controller is an automatic way to adjust the amount of power that runs into the battery.
Solar power is a great way to go as it is green energy. You should always keep your solar panel cleaned and regularly maintained, especially when you have it set up outside your house.
If you don’t, all the elements from nature like dust, twigs and other things will clog up the panel and you may just end up with no electricity.
This is a great way to live your dream of being off the grid, not using the town’s electricity or polluting the air and environment with a diesel generator.
With solar panels for tiny homes, you can have your power through the day and store more in the batteries for when you need them at night.
