I'm got SKEERED !

Rabbit Talk  Forum

Help Support Rabbit Talk Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Tom in Kingman

Active member
Joined
Mar 26, 2011
Messages
27
Reaction score
3
Location
Kingman AZ
After I read about that lady that lost her entire rabbitry because a power failure shut her A/C off I was forced to look at my plans . Since I am in AZ and will have an indoor rabbitry a power failure in the summer would be fatal to all . I am currently working out the details for installing a battery/solar back up system that would take over in case of an outage . Outages are "kinda" common with 1-2 hours not being unusual and 7-8 hours have happened . Just a note to others looking at solar . Do your homework . There are many "snake oil salesman" out there . As a matter of fact it has already hit home . 2 guys I know have gotten jobs with the local big solar company . I would not trust either . One told me that if he places a full system he gets 5K . This tells me that there is a LOT of fat in there . In this months Mother Earth News there is a GREAT article on doing a lot of it yourself . I'm certainly looking at that angle . So in the meantime you can expect me back when all my ducks are in a row .
TOM
 
You can have an indoor rabbitry without ac. Iowa despite being north sees some hot weather. We hit 95F a month ago and then spent half of last week over 100F heat index. My rabbits are in a horse stable with no ac, no fans, and no windows. We just opened the big doors on the ends and basically crossed our fingers for a breeze. The colony rabbits have containers of water they can jump in but the caged rabbits do not. We put some water filled and frozen cheap coolers out there the days we checked on them but we don't go every day so some days they just had multiple water bottles on their cages and that was it. We haven't lost any and all except 1 doe always look unstressed even if they are less active. If you are there to take further steps to cool the rabbits they could survive high temps even better. Personally aside from animals in my home I would never use ac or heat to change the temp more than 10F from what it is outdoors. Doing so really impacts your ability to take your animals anywhere, survive extreme weather conditions, and sell animals to people who don't use heat or ac. I've seen people lose horses that they thought they were helping by keeping them under lamps and blanketed all winter until something went wrong with the system or we got a huge weather change and swung the temp more than 30F the other way. All those horses would have survived the normal conditions without those things and being forced to adjust then might have allowed them to survive the extremes with the help.
 
instead of spending a few grand on a solar installations (which in the long run with the tax credit COULD make you money...) and the BPU, you could look at installing cross draft ventilation, it's the old school way of keeping cool, but basically forgotten now.
 
High openings l;et heat out-- low openings draw in cooler air Use both for natural breezes caused by the rising hot air--- There is a reason so many old southern homes have wrap around porches and open attic windows!!!
 
I am looking at many alternatives . I wish to install solar for several reasons . I have a friend here that saves $200 a month by selling electricity back . He has $30K invested . He saves $200 a month . That's $2400 a year . Better than any CD rate in the country . My idea is a bit more complex . First I will purchase 16 batteries . I will keep them charged with the electric service I now recieve . If the power goes out then I will have quite a bit of power in reserve . Then I will purchase an array of solar panels that will allow me to also sell power back . I can do this AND also purchase 2 large stacked inverters that will handle the start up of my heat pump . That in itself will draw about 12,000 watts . My system needs to be a 6K array along with the 16 (R-16) batteries that will not only help me sell electricity but in the event of super rising power costs still have all the power I need if I need to wean myself from them completely.
 
Back
Top