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Anyone considering fitting solar power to their shed should be aware that a whole new world of possibilities awaits them. Time was that most garden sheds served as essentially a place in which to dump garden toys, tools, garden furniture and anything else that needed to be hidden away. But times have moved on.
Today the shed is no longer simply a storage space for garden machinery and other odds and sods. It can be whatever you want it to be: a personal gymnasium, workshop, small office or quiet retreat. With sheltered space at a premium who would pass on the extra one hundred square feet that even a tiny ten by ten shed offers?
Needless to say though, these more exotic uses for your shed bring with them the need for power for lighting and running various devices. Your options basically boil down to two, namely run an electric cable out to your shed or fit it with a solar panel or several.
The first of these involves at the least running a protected cable from an existing power supply out to the shed. The easiest way to do this is using a transformer to step down normal mains voltage to a much safer low voltage (usually 12 volts). Main voltage electricity and wooden garden buildings are never a good mix.
Your second option is to attach one (or as many as you need) solar panels to your shed roof and connect them up to a battery to store the electricity. The amount of power you want to generate will determine how big and how many panels/batteries you will need. Then it is just a matter of connecting lighting (usually low energy high brightness LED lights) to the battery and voila: solar shed lighting.
Another option for those who prefer the absolute least amount of effort is to simply purchase a solar shed lighting kit which contains all the necessary components and is designed for super easy installation. In fact, solar shed lighting is becoming so popular that many new sheds include an integral system already pre-installed.
But there's no reason to stop at solar shed lighting - why not consider solar CCTV. Designed to be installed in otherwise awkward and thus potentially exposed areas these use very little power and transmit images wirelessly, so no cabling issues. The images can be uploaded via a standard wireless router and sent to a hard drive, the web, email or even your phone.
One of the big advantages of a CCTV camera being wireless and having a solar power supply is that you can site it just about anywhere, and even if it gets spotted it's already too late for the intruder since the pictures would already be uploaded. Having already been identified they would be foolish if they stuck around.
Today the shed is no longer simply a storage space for garden machinery and other odds and sods. It can be whatever you want it to be: a personal gymnasium, workshop, small office or quiet retreat. With sheltered space at a premium who would pass on the extra one hundred square feet that even a tiny ten by ten shed offers?
Needless to say though, these more exotic uses for your shed bring with them the need for power for lighting and running various devices. Your options basically boil down to two, namely run an electric cable out to your shed or fit it with a solar panel or several.
The first of these involves at the least running a protected cable from an existing power supply out to the shed. The easiest way to do this is using a transformer to step down normal mains voltage to a much safer low voltage (usually 12 volts). Main voltage electricity and wooden garden buildings are never a good mix.
Your second option is to attach one (or as many as you need) solar panels to your shed roof and connect them up to a battery to store the electricity. The amount of power you want to generate will determine how big and how many panels/batteries you will need. Then it is just a matter of connecting lighting (usually low energy high brightness LED lights) to the battery and voila: solar shed lighting.
Another option for those who prefer the absolute least amount of effort is to simply purchase a solar shed lighting kit which contains all the necessary components and is designed for super easy installation. In fact, solar shed lighting is becoming so popular that many new sheds include an integral system already pre-installed.
But there's no reason to stop at solar shed lighting - why not consider solar CCTV. Designed to be installed in otherwise awkward and thus potentially exposed areas these use very little power and transmit images wirelessly, so no cabling issues. The images can be uploaded via a standard wireless router and sent to a hard drive, the web, email or even your phone.
One of the big advantages of a CCTV camera being wireless and having a solar power supply is that you can site it just about anywhere, and even if it gets spotted it's already too late for the intruder since the pictures would already be uploaded. Having already been identified they would be foolish if they stuck around.
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If you are interested in finding out more then this great article looks at solar shed light in much greater detail.
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