Install a mobile, solar powered toilet
By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM
Issue #79 • January/February, 2003
When our solar business started to really increase, I found myself spending more and more time in my truck traveling down the highway to very remote...
Solar-powered chicken coop
By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM
Issue #132 • November/December, 2011
Pre-manufactured chicken coop with roof-mounted solar module
I am sure many of you have raised large flocks of chickens for years as a normal part of rural...
Solar system codes — Build it right!
By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM
Issue #154 • July/August, 2015
Here, multiple homemade solar modules have caught fire and burned.
The further you go into the mountains or rural countryside, the more some people think building codes...
Grid-tie solar-powered farm
By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM
Issue #94 • July/August, 2005
Photo 1: One of two Fronius 3-kW grid-tie inverters. Note the DC-rated safety disconnect and all high voltage wiring installed in metal conduit.
Most of my past...
Job site solar power
By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM
Issue #144 • November/December, 2013
Regardless of your favorite brand, standardize all
battery-powered tools to use the same battery pack.
If you are planning to live off-grid or are building something in a...
Solar Building Design
By Steven Heckeroth
Issue #63 • May/June, 2000
Solar building design has been used since ancient times. In the more recent past, it has been more or less ignored as impractical, complicated, or too expensive. Incorporating...
You could furnish an entire homestead at Lehman’s ‘Non-electric’ Hardware Store
By Don Fallick
Issue #47 • September/October, 1997
Let me state my bias right at the beginning: Lehmans Hardware has been advertising in Backwoods Home Magazine for a long time, but I made my first purchase...
Water pumping windmills
By Dorothy Ainsworth
Issue #90 • November/December, 2004
Standing tall like a giant sunflower in a sea of undulating prairie grasses, or in any rural setting, a windmill is a thing of beauty. Not only are...
Build Your Own Car Wash
By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM
Issue #133 • January/February, 2012
Completed car wash in operation
If someone told me a year ago that I would have a commercial car wash behind my garage, I would have laughed....
Energy class: Part 3
By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM
Issue #113 • November/December, 2008
In Part I of this series of articles, we reviewed how home utility costs will be the next energy source expected to have major cost increases...
Build your own battery charging station
By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM
Issue #142 • July/August, 2013
Completed charging station after sanding and painting
Let me guess the reason many of you do not use rechargeable batteries is that every time you need...
A solar primer — How it works, how it’s made, what it costs
By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM
Issue #72 • November/December, 2001
Buying a solar power system is not like buying a kitchen appliance or power tool. These, unlike a solar system, have published capacity and performance data...
Emergency solar power for $950
By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM
Issue #73 • January/February, 2002
For less than the price of a desktop computer you can have the piece of mind that your lights and small appliances can operate for months...
Solar Power 101: Inverters
By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM
Issue #89 • September/October, 2004
This article is the third in a series of our beginner's course in solar electricity. Simultaneously we have instituted a Home Energy Information (www.homeenergy.info) section on...
Water: a safe supply when you’re off the grid
By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM
Issue #71 • September/October, 2001
That remote mountain property seemed like a steal until you found out you could not drill a well. Four years ago we were approached by a...
Hydronic woodstoves
By Jeffrey Yago, P.E., CEM
Issue #105 • May/June, 2007
Do you realize there is an entire field of woodstoves that the general public rarely hears about, even though there are specialty woodstove stores in every...
