Solar Hot Water in the Adirondacks (and some windpower for good measure)
On February 24, 2008 in water heating
The girlfriend and I made a trip over to Burlington, VT on Tuesday, and then crossed back over the lake into NY to stay at her sister’s house for the night.
On the drive over to Burlington I got some pictures out the window of the car of some of the huge wind turbines they have been putting up along Rt 11, but only one came out very well. It was a pretty foggy/snowy day. You can see one of the other turbines in the background, though:
After taking these pictures I decided I should take pictures of the smaller turbine that they have setup at the Vermont Welcome Center just across the border from Rouses Point, NY
As you can see, it is actually pretty close to some power lines:
After this the trip was rather uneventful as far as alternative energy stuff goes, so I won’t bother boring you with the details. Let’s just skip ahead to the part where we left my girlfriend’s sister’s house and were heading up through the Adirondacks back home to Potsdam.
We took a route that we never take, because we really didn’t have anything better to do. This turned out to be a good idea. Here is a Google Map of the area. Ordinarily we would have come from Westport on 9N to Elizabethtown, then to Keene, and up to Lake Placid on Rt. 73. This time we decided to go north on 22 by the lake, up through Willsboro, Long Pond, and bunches of other little places we’d never been through.
When we hit Willsboro, we were looking for a gas station as there aren’t many out in the mountains. I happened to see this pharmacy, instead:
The thing that caught my eye was this part:
The girlfriend thought I was crazy when I started screaming about solar hot water on a pharmacy in the Adirondacks and pulled the car over. I do have higher res pics if you want them, but here are the rest:
Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to stop and talk to anyone there, but hopefully we will be back in the area soon.. If anyone else gets a chance please stop by and have a chat with them, they can’t be all bad if they are heating water with the sun 
Hey man,
I found another link, and figure this is the fastest way to get to you.
http://www.wvu.edu/~exten/infores/pubs/ageng/epp13.pdf
Know your not much into hydro-elec, but this is good reading for stating the issues with it aswell.
Peace
I was browsing for some solar for some solar heating projects for my pool back home in the 802. I stumbled upon your site and noticed that you’re at SUNY (Tech) Canton. I’m just a quick jaunt to SLU and was wondering if I could get your email for some correspondence regarding renewable energy–primarily solar power. Nice site, by the way.
Thanks,
Joe
Thanks for the link, Travis!
It isn’t that I don’t like hydropower, in fact it is very appealing to me and I have a couple of books on microhydro setups..
Really my setback in that regard is a lack of land with good year round flowing water, except maybe down behind Dad’s house, and that certainly freezes up in the winter time.. Not sure if it even flows under the ice when everything is frozen up.
Another problem is that I haven’t researched permits and stuff like that. I’m sure since you are modifying a natural waterway the NYSDEC will want you to have all your P’s and Q’s in order
Joe,
I haven’t done much research with solar pool heating, but it can’t be much different than heating any other kind of fluid with the sun, and I’ve certainly done a lot of research on that (although I haven’t implemented much of it yet).
You can email me at operose (at) gmail (dot) com and I would be glad to hear from you!
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