Well it’s 98 degrees F here in central NC today, and with humidity high weather.com claims it feels like well over 100 (I would certainly agree).  So, you might wonder how we are faring with no central AC?

After 10 years of living with no AC in our main residence, we’ve got some tips to share :

Here’s a quick summary:

Rebekah and I recently had the pleasure of helping the Abundance Foundation create their carbon-free office. We ran simultaneous workshops on installing an off-grid PV system (Rebekah) and constructing a solar air heater, detailed instructions of which can be found here:

sites/default/files/Abundance_Solar_Air_Heater.pdf

I'm an energy extremist, I admit it, so now that we are grid-tied I find myself daydreaming about ways to maximize the PV power we sell to the grid. So I found it annoying to turn the backup electric breaker for our solar hot water tank on and off depending on the weather.  On sunny stretches, I could leave it off and the solar thermal panels would be sufficient to heat our four person household's hot water supply. But when we got more than two cloudy days in a row, the water temp just wasn't cutting it, sinking below 80 degrees sometimes, making for a really unpleasant shower.

Thanks to YIKES, the Forest Foundation, and NC School of Science of Math - what a cool video!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl5stDoprhw

Here's a picture of a small solar air heater we installed last week: