Hi
Many years ago in my distant past, to keep me off street corners I had hobbies. One of which was caving and cave diving, I also did some climbing but preferred that in the winter as ice climbing. anyway caving is the best way to get covered in mud I know. To store the gear and clean up we hired an old barn, it had nothing. Lighting was with the power left in your cap lamps or a pump up paraffin lamp that doubled as a heater. Entertainment was down to seeing who could break wind the loudest, don't believe women when they say they don't, or occasionally a portable radio for weather reports.
Shortly after I joined the group I showed them what could be done with a pair of wires clipped on the car battery, we were on a steep hill so starting was never an issue. Next I ran a hose from a stream further up the hill and into a tank on the roof, painted the corrugated sheets black and we had hot showers. Someone came up with a spare car battery, and I acquired an old dynamo and regulator, and made a crude blade. spent one rainy afternoon wiring the place for 12V and scrounged a 12V TV from a skip (dumpster) a local camp site. pure luxury.
Then in the late 70s my parents had solar hot water installed on the house and a swimming pool, I was impressed with how good it was. I then bought my own house, changed jobs with a bit of a push, no place in this company for renegades and loners, "I am not a sheep" was not the answer they wanted. It did me a favour I finished up in the R&D dept of an air con firm, I learned all about COP factors. Armed with a couple of surplus AC pumps I had the only house in the road with AC, heat recovery and a ground source heat pump. I was hooked
Several disasters, cuts, burns, and bruises, add a couple of divorces, with other houses. I finished up here, started with a home made wind turbine, another disaster and more bruises. Then solar PV became affordable so over time I bought several 20 W panels acquired 3 110Ah batteries and a Pure sine wave inverter and routed power into the house with a change over system for the lighting. Then bought a commercially made turbine package.
I found this web site, had several successful attempts at making a fool of myself, but above all I listened to the more experienced on here, and learned. I now have a small working solar PV system, a turbine which for my location was a waste of time, apart from academic value, and a shed full of bits that may come in useful one day, and enough knowledge to be a pain in the butt when I hear salesmen banging on about unattainable performance figures for their products, add "That's not new we were doing that back in the 60s and 70s" and they look very relieved when you leave. More importantly it has got to be the way to go there is only so much you can remove from this planet without the whole system collapsing on itself.
Brian