Power4Home Review

Type of Product: Home Energy Kit
Reviewer: Andrew D. Rogers
Rating:
Visit the Power4Home Website

Part of my everyday job involves working in the alternative energy sector. I was therefore quite interested when it came to the task of writing a Power4Home review and comparing it to more established products like Earth4Energy. 

But did this particular product live up to expectation?

Power4Home is another in a suite of products that claims to show you everything about building home solar and wind power projects to supplement (or even replace) your electricity - if you so choose.

According to product designer electrician John Russel, Power4Home has taken years to develop. Although it's only relatively new it's already received media attention from publications such as Treehugger, Popular Mechanics, Home Energy,

Click here for the Power4Home Guide

Popular Science and Smart Home Owner. Power4Home has apparently already sold several thousand units of their product.

You might be interested to know that part of my task in writing this review was to examine it under a variety of criteria and to make fair and appropriate comment on it's positive and negative aspects. So I charged right ahead by gathering materials (and a friend) to try and build two of the included projects.

Sam (my sidekick for a few days) and I found that Power4Home did indeed have the capacity to teach us the fundamentals of wind and solar power generation.  Happily, it showed us how to build functional projects covering off-grid and grid intertied scenarios. Together we managed to work steadily through the course material and over the course of three days built a nice, basic wind generator as well as a single solar panel.

As the product overview states, Power4Home includes plans to build a home solar power system with parts costing around $97. This basic system is portable and can be taken with you camping, fishing or anywhere else you may care to venture.

Click here for the Power4Home Guide

The guide is written in a non-technical, no-fuss way and we found it easy to follow. Sam did complain a little about the copious diagrams but personally I'm always happy to see lots of photo's and annotations in an information product; it just helps to tie everything together. Anyway, make your own mind up about this.

As it happens, a higher capacity, more "professional" system can be built for around $200.  Plans are included to build a wind power system for a parts cost of a little over $100. Once you've built your system, according to Power4Home you can soon be saving up to 80% of your energy costs. Not too bad really - it seems consistent with claims made by similar packages, so nothing new in that regard.

Almost three hours of video is a a terrific addition to the written guide too. And in my opinion this is what made the package shine. Bear in mind that most competing packages usually feature only an hour or so of video, some don't bother including any at all. As expected, this made things easier for us to follow and it sure made writing up our analysis of the product a pleasant task.

Eventually, as part of your project you're probably going to want to install a battery bank to store your electricity for later use.  Mr. Russel has this covered too as he shows you how to acquire what are basically free batteries rather than spending the hundreds of dollars it would possibly cost to purchase new batteries. But it's up to you if you want to spent extra and invest in deep cycle batteries.

Various bonuses are included as well, namely:

• A Guide showing ways of helping you to save energy 
• A guide to "Advanced Power Savings Technologies" 
• IRS-Tax Rebate Forms 
• Lifetime support 

So, after my brief but informative experience with this system, how does it stack up against competing products? Well, it appears to hold it's own very well. In my opinion it seems to be a thorough and comprehensive package whose popularity will assuredly continue to grow. I think that Power4Home has the capacity to compliment such products as Earth4Energy very well too. On this basis of my experiences with the product I'm recommending it to anyone with a basic interest in wanting to build their own efficient energy generating systems - and who wants to save money by doing so.

Well, I sincerely hope that my Power4Home review has been helpful in some way, I really do wish you all the best in your endeavors in building your own money saving home renewable energy projects. No matter which kit or resource you choose to help guide you, always remember to choose a good, solid product that suit's your lifestyle and budget.

Click here to save money using the Power4Home system!