Electrician Help

[jgf86123]

Ok, so I've got a question for all of the electricians out there. How do you figure out power usage/consumption? We're looking at buying our own place and want to run solar/wind once we can afford to put it in and I would love to be able to figure out what kind of power usage/consumption I'm going to be looking at. I.e. What size solar/wind generator we're going to need. I've figured it up and I would like to be able to run roughly 200 amps or 20000 watts. Am I insane or????? LOL so if any of our local electrical experts could chime in thatd be awesome.

 

Thanks

[7Max-GTE]

All I know is watts / volts = amps so you can use that to calculate how many amps you need. Other than that its all greek to me.

[ReeFit]

a buddy of mine was looking into solar panels on his house, initial cost was in the $20k range before it made sense to use it.

[ToxicPoison]

Theres a few ways you can do this actually.

 

1) Go around your house, write down the power draw of every single device, and do the math noted above to figure out your consumption (Not easy, nor recommended)

 

2) If you are willing to wait until you move in to determine your power draw, you can install a device like this, which will record your total power consumption:

http://www.theenergydetective.com/store/

 

You can also get a rough idea with a cheaper device like this:

http://www.amazon.com/P3-International-P4400-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU

This would probably be better if you wanted to have a certain subset of your house powered by wind/solar (ie Just your aquarium stuff)

 

I'm not a professional electrician, so this is not professional advice

[coralreefer]

I looked into this once...setup/startup cost was SOOOO prohibitive that I didn't think it made any sense for a rational person, let alone myself...

 

DrMerle