Hansen Pole Buildings’ Designer Doug keeps me on my toes – he comes up with some of the most interesting questions, which I truly appreciate.
Today, he asked me about chain hoists for overhead doors. I told him we did not currently include them in our proprietary “Instant Pricing™” system, due to lack of interest from our clients. Doug told me his current client is going to construct a hay barn, which will not have any power run to it.
Off the top of my head, I suggested he solar power the opener…. Which opened (pun intended) a whole new can of worms!
Going “green” has quickly become the building wave of now (as opposed to the wave of the future). I’ve written about solar panels in the past, rear:
https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/blog/2012/02/solar-panels-2/
and
https://www.hansenpolebuildings.com/blog/2012/01/solar-panels/
Doug’s hay barn client is not the only person who is considering constructing a new pole (post frame) building garage, shop or barn, which will be located so it just is not feasible or cost effective to connect it to “the grid”.
Every fully enclosed building has a door, most of these being overhead doors, and in our world of convenience, even people with horse barns want openers on overhead doors. Our oldest daughter Bailey (who is a professional horse trainer) encourages potential horse barn owners to consider being able to ride up to their barns and press a door opener to get in!
Mix an overhead door opener with a pole building which is off the grid and the design solution becomes a solar powered opener. Of course solar panels can be sized to be able to power things beyond just the garage door openers – lighting, as well as all of the “tools and toys”.
Garage door openers operate on a system which consists of a storage battery for storing the energy to power the garage door opener, as well as storing the energy to power it on cloudy days or at night.
It does not take much electrical output to power solar powered garage door openers, only about 12 volts and a solar panel, which can be about the size of a piece of notebook paper.
The advantages to have solar powered garage door openers, is we can power those buildings which are detached and have no power source. There is no need to put it on the grid by running expensive wiring up to the building.
There are books and other sources of information which are readily available either for purchase or free (but you have to do some research), and these are relatively easy to follow and understand. This will allow a user to set up solar panels by themselves which can be used to operate a garage door quite effectively. However, some people may wish to call in a solar panel expert to make sure their solar panel(s) are optimally sized and positioned to take full advantage of the benefits of solar power.
