Sunlight and Sawdust
In 2006 or 7 my dearest and I stumbled upon an image on the internet of a happy looking old couple harvesting lightening in a field. The woman holds up a rod to guide the power from the sky and the man stores the foraged bolts of energy in large jars which rest in a wheel barrow. It’s still out there if you want to search for it. Something about it struck a cord with us and we vowed to live our lives with this sentiment as a goal.
It is many years since then and we have realised a tangible part of that dream. Now, we have not been running around the fields on stormy nights with a lightening conductor and a barrow load of empty kilner jars. However, for over a year now we have been harvesting sufficient sunlight to power 70% of our needs in the house and the workshop.
Sunrise over our solar panels
That is the raw number the app on my phone tells me but the reality of living with the solar system we invested in is actually a bit better than that. There are times for a lot of the summer months where our panels collect more power than we can use. To hedge our bets a bit we also got a battery so that gets charged when we have spare power. But after that is full the excess electricity goes back into the grid and our energy supplier pays us in return.
In short, in the winter time when I’m running the table saw on a dingy day, the power I buy in to run it is done with the money I earnt selling power in the summer. What does all this really mean? Well for starters it helps to keep my business running efficiently which is great news for you if you have a project in mind.
It also means I get to drastically reduce my carbon footprint. Wait, I know. I also make things out of trees but other than making sure the timber I use that is sourced responsibly did you know that I also plant trees? With help from some very excellent people we have planted ash, several varieties of oak including ilex, beach, apple, walnut, yew, field maple, horse chestnut, pear and more. Perhaps that could be the subject of another blog?
Striving to live in balance is important to me and producing furniture that will last a family through generations is one thing I can do in a culture brought up on throw away products. It could be said that my efforts are but a drop in the ocean but to quote a movie I very much enjoy I reply “What is an ocean but a multitude drops?”.