GreenDIYenergy Is Our Choice As The Best Overall Guide For 2010 |
Green DIY Energy Review Home Made Energy
At A Glance: Price: $ 47 Company: HomeMadeEnergy.org |
Susan Karan Editor
The Home Made Energy package is about using free and environmentally friendly renewable energy resources to produce electricity to reduce the amount of power we need to purchase from the big power concerns. The primary methods of producing electricity in this book are from home built wind and solar powered generators.
First impressionsHome Made Energy Review
Ben Ford, the author, obviously wanted to appeal to the masses when he wrote this guide. It was super simple to understand, and although the diagrams could be a little confusing at times, it was almost impossible not to end up with a solar panel after following the instructions.
Home made Energy includes more videos than any other package available, over 6 hours of video.
The ComponentsHome Made Energy Review
Home Made Energy is an instant download, 68 page eBook that you can read directly from a computer monitor or print out for more traditional reading.
The Homemade Energy ebook is very comprehensive and includes chapters on:
- Reducing Your Energy Needs
- How to Build Your Own Solar Panel
- Maintaining Your Panels
- Build Your Own Wind Turbine
- Wiring Your Battery System
- The Alternative Energy Home
- Workshops and Resources
The ebook covers a lot of material and includes plenty of pictures and diagrams. It goes through all the tools and parts you’ll need, where to find them (including links to online sources) and how to get them at a discount.
There is also an Excel spreadsheet with worksheets to help you figure out how much electricity your appliances use, how many solar panels you’ll need, and sizing batteries and power inverter. Honestly, the ebooks from all the different how to guides are pretty similar. They are all pretty comprehensive and give you all the info you need to build a solar panel. It’s the videos where you’ll find the biggest difference so let’s talk about the videos.
Homemade Energy includes the most video. There are 15 videos with over 6 hours of content in this package. The videos cover topics like:
- System Components and Types
- System Design and Sizing
- Tools Needed
- Layout, Calculations and Measurement
- Building the Panel
- Wiring
- Finishing the Panel
- Batteries
Overall impressions Home Made Energy Review
Our solar panel was built in about 6 hours and cost approximately $170. Now you may not have the same results because we had done several tests by this time and had experience on our side. However, that being said, I am confident you will be able to do it in a reasonable amount of time on a similar budget.
We were looking at ease of use for a non-experienced person as a determining factor on our ranking.
According to this instructional manual, one of the biggest advantages of making your own electricity generators is that they cost only about $200 USD to construct. They pay for themselves in only a few weeks. In contrast, buying and professionally installing a commercial grade system can cost over $20,000 and require 8 to 15 years to recoup the investment.
At only around 68 pages long, this guide lacks that extra information and detail. Perhaps you could argue that it is to the point, however, when compared to Green DIY Energy.
The diagrams did not quite flow with the instructions and we had to contact support numerous times for assistance when building the solar panels. Although they were very helpful, they never decided to pass on that knowledge to everyone by updating their guide with the additional solar panel information.
Some Concerns. Does it work?Home Made Energy Review
A video, literally, show a guy in his garage building a solar panel from start to finish. He does everything from get the tools and parts together to doing the calculations, to laying everything out, building the panel, wiring the cells, finishing, everything. You can follow along with him while you build your solar panel. He even accidentally makes a mistake while wiring the solar cells together, notices the mistake and then shows you how he fixes it!
The technology is similar to GreenDIYEnergy and Earth4Energy. Sure, it works.
Score SheetHome Made Energy Review
Ease Of Building:
This is the third best rated homemade solar guide to build solar panels. The instructions are easy to follow, but not quite as detailed as other guides.
Time to Build :
Experienced people will be able to create and install the device in 6 hours. For people with average skills they may finish in a weekend.
Value for money :
The price of the guide and videos is $ 47. Cheaper than other guides and with more videos.
Customer Service:
The instructions included with this guide are in-depth and easy to follow even for the non-technical people. Customer service is good if someone were to have problems, questions were answered in a reasonable amount of time. But there is no forum.
Overall Score:
The Homemade energy package is really comprehensive, although the diagrams could be a little confusing at times.
Video
Home Made Energy Review
Conclusion. ResourcesHome Made Energy Review
Our solar panel was built in about 6 hours. Now you may not have the same results because we had done several tests by this time and had experience on our side. However, it is possible to be able to do it in a reasonable amount of time.
It was super simple to understand, and although the diagrams could be a little confusing at times, it was almost impossible not to end up with a solar panel after following the instructions.
Go to Green DIY Energy website.