Finding a good work space at home isn’t a trivial task, especially when you’ve got a wife and kid. A lot of us use a spare bedroom, basement, or garage as a space to work on our hobbies (or jobs). But, the lack of true separation from the home can make getting real work done difficult. For many of us, we need to have the mental distance between our living space and our working space in order to actually get stuff done.
This is the problem [Syonyk] had — he needed a quiet place to work that was separated from the rest of his house. To accomplish this, he used a Tuff Shed and set it up to run off-grid. The reason for going off-grid wasn’t purely environmental, it was actually more practical than trying to run power lines from the house. Because of the geology where he lives, burying power lines wasn’t financially feasible.
So, he poured a foundation, brought in a pre-assembled shed (a demo unit at a big discount), and got to work outfitting it for use as on office. The first step (and arguably a very important one), was to heavily insulate it. And, we do mean “heavily” — he used 3.5″ of rock wool (5.5″ on the ceiling) in addition to 2″ of foam board.
The insulation was essential, as the entire office is powered by solar panels (with a battery bank); keeping cooling and heating energy use down was paramount. Even with 2kW of panels, heating and cooling are still a huge portion of the energy usage, and he needed power to spare for his computer and other electronics. With the shed so well insulated, [Syonyk] has been able to keep the temperature inside at about 70ºF while the outside temperature is above 100ºF.
The rest of the build was straightforward, with sensible plywood walls and a desk taking up most of the space to hold his multiple computers. Of course, for the Hackaday crowd, a space like this would be best used for efficient hacking.
Filed under: green hacks, solar hacks
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