Ask an Expert

Q:Can solar energy be used to cool a home in the caribbean?

A:

Home solar panels can definitely be used to cool your home. There are several approaches to cool or heat your home with solar panels. You can install solar panels to power your ac or heating system directly with an inverter or have the solar panels connected to the grid whereby the energy produced offsets your energy consumption. You can also buy a solar attic fan or solar gable fan that helps vent hot air out of your home sustaining a more comfortable temperature in your home. You can find a selection of solar attic fans in our solar ventilation section of the store. Hot water can be heated with solar water collectors compared to the conventional methods of heating water. For locations where power is not readily available, you also have users setup small off-grid systems consisting of solar batteries, inverter, solar panel and charge controllers, to power small devices or appliances. Feel free to contact SolarTown to explore energy solutions for your project.

09-09-2012 by fitz Category: Heating and Cooling

Q:I have a sundanzer sdr 225 fridge it is out of refrigerant what is the gas charge for it as it is not printed on the fridge

A:

The SunDanzer solar refrigerators and freezers refrigerant can be easily refilled with standard supplies. The refrigerant is R134a just like in your car and traditional home appliances. It can be recharged through the service port, which is a standard refrigeration Schrader valve.

05-26-2012 by Kevin Y Category: Heating and Cooling

Q:can one solar panel of 240 watts power a large window air conditioning unit through the day? i want to power my major energy appliances through the day hoping to reduce cost. what do you recommend? thankyou

A:

Window air conditioning units consume a lot of energy. A 5,000BTU unit will use about 600 watts per hour. In order to meet this demand, you would need three solar modules such as the Canadian Solar 230 watt panels as well as a sine wave solar inverter with an outlet to convert from DC to AC to make the power immediately useable. How were you planning on powering the A/C at night? If you wanted to use solar power energy you would need to incorporate a battery bank into the solar energy system as well. We would be happy to help guide you through this process so please feel free to contact us.

05-02-2010 by eli g Category: Heating and Cooling

Q:I was thinking of putting together a simple system involving a solar panel wired to a fan and a heating element to provide supplemental heat to my pole barn. Do you sell all of the components I would need? I don't need a thermostat since it is unlikely to generate too much heat!

A:

The best approach to this solar-wise would be to setup a standalone system such that you are charging a battery with solar energy and running the heater off the battery, as this will give you space heating when you want it and charge the battery when you're not around. In this scenario, you'd need a panel to generate electricity, a charge controller to regulate the charge into the battery, a battery, an inverter to convert the battery's DC current to AC, and finally your heater.

10-27-2009 by RodW Category: Heating and Cooling