Knowledge Weighs Nothing

Preserve/Store Eggs For UpTo 2 Years ** Without Refrigeration **

How to Preserve Eggs with Lime

Many people think that once you have some chickens, you then have a constant and predictable supply of eggs. Once you have had some chickens for a while, you soon realise this is not always the case. Well not in our experience anyway…

Chickens can be temperamental creatures and many things such as stress, the weather, age and hormones can all put a temporary stop on egg production. We often have periods of a month or so when egg production drops right off. There’s nothing worse than having to buy eggs when you have your own chickens! Conversely, when conditions are right, you can end up with more eggs than you know what to do with! It is not dissimilar to growing seasons when we end up with a glute of fruit and vegetables during the summer and fall, but very little during the winter and spring.

Similar to how we preserve fruit and vegetables during the summer months in preparation for the winter months, we can also preserve our eggs (without freezing or refrigeration) when they are coming thick and fast. Pioneers and homesteaders have been preserving eggs in this manner for well over 100 years. This and similar methods have probably been used much longer in other traditions.

The method for preserving the eggs requires the eggs to be stored in a container filled with lime water (a mixture of calcium hydroxide, hydrated lime, slaked lime or pickling lime and water). Rather than me detailing the method step by step, I decided to share this excellent video tutorial from the amazing YouTube channel PREPSTEADERS, which is just too good not to feature for the purpose of demonstrating this egg preserving method. Be sure to check out the video which is down below.

If you are interested in learning how to store and preserve eggs for up to two years or so, this twenty-minute video tutorial will be twenty minutes extremely well spent!

The US Election: One Important Thing You Should Know Right Now — 2 Min Read

2020 US Election

With the coronavirus pandemic and the US Election, there is a lot to be stressed and concerned about. There is so much information and disinformation, it is becoming increasingly difficult for individuals to make informed decisions. I don’t wish to add too much to the information overload, but there is an issue relating to the US election that I feel is vitally important for people to know about, and factor in with their decision making.

Facebook Political Microtargeting

There are over 190 million active US Facebook accounts. Both political parties and their supporter groups (and possibly hacking groups) pay millions of dollars to display political ads on Facebook. Many of these political Facebook ads are specifically targeted and tailored for you. This is known as microtargeting. The political ads you are seeing on Facebook are not the same, generic ads everyone is seeing, like on the TV, they are just for you.

You might be being specifically targeted due to your online history and Facebook data – the years of posts you have read/liked/shared/commented on, and the people and organisations you follow (or have unfollowed) on Facebook. You can read more on microtargeting here and more about social media use in politics here.

Now if you are a 100% diehard Republican or Democrat, you will likely see less targetted ads, as what’s the point, they already have your vote. The people targetted the most are those undecided, on-the-fence voters. If you are undecided, but your Facebook data suggested you can possibly be swayed one way or another, you will likely be targeted with some highly effective, highly biased advertising designed to sway you.

This Is A Problem…

I have two main issues with this Facebook microtargeting – firstly, most people are unaware that they are being lead-down-the-path via these individualised, highly biased advertising campaigns that are cleverly designed to sway them to vote one way or another. Secondly, these microtargeted ad campaigns don’t even have to be truthful or factual. They can, in effect be lies. You may be seeing ads which are highly biased stating outright lies, day after day… Facebook ads are not fact-checked by Facebook.

The bottom line is – don’t be swayed by the political Facebook ads you are seeing. They are not fact-checked. They are highly biased and cleverly designed to push you to vote one way or another. You are basically being cleverly deceived. Most people don’t know this.

If you are interested in seeing some of the different ads that are used to target people on Facebook, check out the ProPublica Facebook Political Ad Collector where they compile a user-submitted database of the political ads currently doing the rounds on Facebook. Seeing all the different ads that are being shown to different people is eye-opening, to say the least.

UPDATE – New Sources

Almost all news sources have some political bias. If you always read the same news websites or newspapers, it is easy to get caught up with their biased reporting and mistake their political opinion as fact. Even if you use a news aggregator such as Google News it can be biased even though it includes all news sources. Google News was recently found to slightly favour leftish news reporting.

There is a great website called allsides.com where they attempt to provide a balanced 360 view of the news by including news from left, center and right news sources. No matter whether you consider yourself left – center or right, it is great to be able to view the news issues from all angles. It is really interesting to see how different news sources report the same issues, but with different biases. Check out the allsides.com US Election portal here.

A final note for the 2020 US Election – however you do it, postal or in person, please be sure to vote!

Homemade Bushcraft/Frontier Knife Made From A File/Rasp — No Forge Required – Simple Tools Only

Homemade Knife

Mora Knives aside, it can be difficult to find an affordable, quality bushcraft type survival knife. Mora knives are very cheap and very highly regarded, but they are not full-tang knives, which means the blade steel does not travel through to the end of the handle. A full-tang knife is always preferable as it is much stronger, and even if the handle breaks, the remaining steel shaft can be wound with paracord or replaced. If the knife is not full-tang and the handle breaks, the knife is all but useless.

So what’s the answer? Well, you can try your luck with cheap full-tang knives, or you can easily make your own bespoke full-tang bushcraft knife from a metal file. The excellent video tutorial below from Outdoor Boys YouTube channel (I highly recommend subscribing! They put out some amazing video tutorials) shows how to make a homemade full-tang, high-quality knife from an old file/rasp. The best thing about this knife making tutorial is the minimum tools/equipment required — literally all you need is a bench vice, a hand grinder, a drill, and a belt-sander. You can even do away with the belt-sander if you don’t have one! There are a couple of clamps used to fit the handle, but at a push, you could easily just use the bench vice for this.

Tools aside, the other great thing about this knife/tutorial is that you do not need a forge to make this knife! That’s right, no forge, you heard me right. If you do a bit of DIY, you likely have everything you need already! This would make an awesome weekend project, check out the tutorial below. The tutorial also covers making the sheath.

One thing that came to mind when watching this tutorial – you could easily skip making the beautiful, but the time-consuming wood handle. Instead, you could make a simple paracord-wrap handle. This would save time and also allow you to always carry a length of paracord with you.

Start Preparing Now – Expert Advice – How To Stock Up & Be Prepared For Winter Lockdowns & Quarantines

How To Stock Up & Be Prepared For Winter Lockdowns & Quarantines

It doesn’t matter whether you actually identify with being a prepper and the emergency preparedness lifestyle, or whether you are simply someone who wants to be better prepared for an uncertain future. The fact remains — if you are going to responsibly stock-up and stockpile goods, you want to be sure that you are buying and storing the right things…

To help you compile your own list of items to be better prepared, I have created this round-up post. This post features 5 expert preppers with large followings on YouTube. Each of these expert preppers shares their list of must-buy items to stockpile. There is obviously a lot of overlap between experts, but this only goes to confirm the value and importance of those specific items.

To be clear, I am not advocating that you should rush out and panic buy and stockpile all of these goods in one go, as this is the behaviour that leads to food shortages at the store, which then leads to further panic buying by others. Panic buying becomes viral – when people see shortages they panic buy themselves in response.  Personally, I think it is more considerate and responsible to steadily stock up over a number of weeks. An additional thing you can do is to spread your purchases over different retailers. We spread our shopping between small local stores, supermarkets and Amazon and eBay etc.

***Personally — right now we are stocking up a little each week, mostly on non-perishable foods (tinned and dry foods like tinned tomatoes and lots of different tinned beans, wholewheat flour, dried yeast, wholewheat pasta, brown rice and lots of tinned fish), frozen foods (mostly vegetables and some meat), pet food, pain/temperature meds, soap, bleach/disinfectants, hand sanitizer and toilet roll. Oh yeah, and coffee! Lots of coffee!

Check out the videos below for each expert’s list of items to consider stocking up, together with their thoughts and opinions on what and why you should consider stocking up and hoarding these items.

15 Items Every Prepper Should Horde for SHTF

Sensible Prepper – 600k+ subscribers to their YouTube channel

25 Items Every Prepper Should Stockpile / Hoard

DropForgedSurvival – almost 300k subscribers to their YouTube channel

13 Items to Hoard Before Societal Collapse

Canadian Prepper – almost 400k subscribers to their YouTube channel

18 Inexpensive Items You Should Stockpile Now

Iridium242 – almost 70k subscribers to their YouTube channel

Top TEN Cheap Items Every Prepper Should Stockpile or Hoard

Prepper University – almost 50k subscribers to their YouTube channel

How To Buy Ex-Military & Government Equipment & Vehicles At Very Low Prices

Are you interested in some ex-government and ex-military vehicles and equipment? If so, you’ve come to the right place, as below, I will tell you how you can get hold of some high-quality ex-government and military equipment and vehicles. Firstly though, I should state that there are no ex-military weapons available for sale here. There is pretty much everything else though, including trucks, jeeps, boats, parts, medical supplies, audio/visual and computer equipment, plus ALL the usual military surplus gear, so stick around…

Weapons apart, the two websites below equal a prepper’s paradise! You can literally purchase everything needed to bug-in, or bug-out. You can purchase the entire contents for a bug out bag (including the bag itself), or your mobile base camp – tents, sleeping bags, cold/warm weather clothing and boots. These websites are also a goldmine for folks interested in hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, and a whole load more.

The first website is – GovPlanet.  GovPlanet is an auction website selling ex-government and military equipment and vehicles. Besides ex-military vehicles, they also sell a whole range of technical gear (audio/visual/computers etc) and field gear and other military equipment. As it’s an auction website, the range of items for sale varies. For example, sometimes there will be a lot of military jeeps for sale, other times, not so much. Just like eBay, you really need to check regularly, if you are on the lookout for something specific. Bookmark GovePlanet and check back regularly.

One of the downsides of GovPlanet is that they sell some smaller military surplus items in bulk, in job-lots. This is where the second website Uncle Sam’s Retail Outlet shines. Uncle Sam’s Retail Outlet is more of a traditional military surplus website selling individual items. It is not an auction. What they have listed on the website, they have in stock, at a set price. Uncle Sam’s Retail Outlet has the widest range of military surplus gear and equipment you will find anywhere.

Sidenote: many people forget to look on Amazon for military gear and equipment. The fact is lots of army surplus retail stores now sell via Amazon at great prices. If you find something on Uncle Sam’s or another store, it’s well worth just checking if the item is available on Amazon at a better price.

I highly recommend you check out and bookmark both of the above websites. To summarise – Gov Liquidation is great for vehicles, larger items and job-lots. Uncle Sam’s Retail Outlet is the place to go for the surplus kit and gear and individual items.

Some Equipment and Vehicles Sold on CovPlanet

Head over to CovPlanet and check out what they have available now. If nothing else, it’s fun to browse what you could buy!

Truck
2001 Stewart & Stevenson M1079A1 LMTV 4×4 Van Truck
Humvee
2002 AM General M1045A2 HMMWV 4 Door Hard Top w/Slant Back
Shipping container
40′ Storage Container w/4 Side Doors
Humvee Truck
2003 AM General M1123 HMMWV 2 Door Soft Top w/Truck Body
Generator trailer
2010 Fermont MEP-803A 10kW Generator Set
Mule Truck
2014 Kawasaki Mule 4000 Utility Vehicle

The Ultimate Tomato Growing Post — A Round-Up Of Experts’ Growing Tips

The Ultimate Tomato Growing Tips

This post is a round-up of smaller posts that were previously featured on Knowledge Weighs Nothing. (I am slowly going back through KWN and tidying things up and removing lots of old/dead posts etc). I have compiled several older tomato growing/preserving posts here in one place to make it simpler to find these excellent tomato growing and preserving tips and tricks. Take your tomato growing to the next level!

DIY Self Watering Alaska Grow Buckets

The Alaska Grow Bucket is the easiest self-watering container system that anyone can use to grow their own food. Alaska Grow Buckets use capillary action of a soil-less grow-medium to draw water from below up to the plant roots. The good thing about this design is there is no pumps, no electricity and best of all, you grow your own food. Become more self-reliant and build one this summer. Find out more here.

How To Grow 50-80 lbs Of Tomatoes Per Plant

That’s right – 50 – 80 pounds of tomatoes PER PLANT! That’s amazing, you could grow a huge amount of tomatoes in a really small space. This is useful for everyone regardless of how much space they have for growing food, but it is especially useful for people with limited growing space. Watch the video above and see how it’s done.

One Man’s Genius Idea For Growing A Huge Tomato Crop

tomatoesbumper

James over at hometalk.com has come up with an awesome way of growing bumper crops of tomatoes with very little effort. James came up with an innovative way to water and feed the tomatoes using a garbage bin. Not only does it result in huge tomato crops, but it is also a much easier way to grow tomatoes as you only have to water them every 2-3 days.

You could use this method to grow tomatoes outdoors or in a greenhouse (if you plant into the ground in your greenhouse). This method is genius in its simplicity, so head over to Home Talk on the link below and find out more… You could probably grow cucumbers and peppers using the same method too! Read James’s post here.

Combat Tomato Blight With Copper Coins

tomato blight

I refuse to use pesticide, insecticide and anti-fungal spray on my fruit and vegetables. If I want to eat foods containing these, I’ll just get them from the supermarket…

The problem is – my reluctance to use chemicals has cost me my entire tomato crop for the last two years! I also lost most of my potatoes last year as well. I lost both crops due to blight.  Most people don’t realize, but potato blight and tomato blight are exactly the same. The blight is the same fungus called: Phytophthora infestans.

Many people think that the coin/blight trick is a myth; I can tell you it is not. It works, but only if you use coins produced before 1982 as these have more copper in them and it is the copper that stops the blight. The copper/coin tip might not completely stop the blight, but it may slow it down long enough for your affected tomatoes to ripen. Read the post in full here.

Homemade Monster Tomato Fertilizer Recipe

Do you want to use natural fertilizer on your plants and vegetables? I know I do. I found a great article showing you the recipe for “monster tomato fertilizer” I know I will be trying this. It’s really simple to make and all-natural.I’m thinking about using this recipe on my flowers too, see if I can win any competitions. Find out more here.

How To Correctly Plant Tomato Plants To Get 8 Foot Plants

tomatoplant

I think it is fair to say that if you garden and grow your own food, you grow tomatoes. Problem is – if you’re like me, your tomatoes don’t always do as well as expected. Some years we have amazing crops of tomatoes and don’t know what to do with them all but last year, for example, we got hit badly by tomato/potato blight and we lost 90% of our crop.

Now whilst there isn’t a great deal you can do if it is a bad year for blight, there are things you can do when planting your tomato plants which will all but guarantee huge healthy plants with an abundance of fruit. Also, if you follow this method of planting, your tomato plants will be so much stronger and healthier, they may be able to resist the tomato blight fungus that little bit longer that could enable you to harvest the crop before it fails. Check out this link for this awesome tomato planting tutorial from ‘Love Apple Farms’.

How To Build The Ultimate Tomato Or Pepper Cage For Under $2….The Stake-A-Cage

The support of a 4′ long wooden stake – attached to an open-faced wire mesh grid. Strong and durable and cheap! It combines the durability of staking tomatoes with the ease of a cage.

 Better yet, by keeping the wire grid flat and not making a true cage – you can tie your tomatoes easily to the grid – and when it comes time to pick – you won’t have to reach through the cages to get to the goods. Click here to see the full article and see how you can make your own ” Stake A Cage”

Very Quick & Easy Way To Make Homemade Sun-Dried Tomatoes

Sun-dried tomatoes are delicious and they really do bring dishes and snacks alive. I am sure more of us would eat more sun-dried tomatoes if it wasn’t for the fact they cost a fortune at the store. Sure, some of you live in climates where you can actually sundry your tomatoes outdoors in the traditional way, but this method takes quite a bit of effort and takes days to completely dry out the tomatoes.

There is an easier way! You can make sun-dried tomatoes in a food dehydrator or an oven. Wait I hear several people shouting that these aren’t sun-dried tomatoes… Interestingly around 90% of sun-dried tomatoes from the store are not actually dried in the sun! I guarantee you that if you follow this tutorial, you’ll end up with the most delicious sun-dried tomatoes you have ever tried, AND you’ll save an absolute fortune over buying them from the store.

Dehydrating Tomatoes 101

tomatos
Dehydrated tomatoes taste amazing!  The problem is when you grow your own tomatoes the year usually goes like this – nothing, nothing, nothing and then loads of tomatoes in one go!

Tomatoes are so healthy, tasty and versatile it is a crime to ever waste them. Sure you can make sauces etc but I think one of the best ways to preserve tomatoes is to dehydrate them. If you don’t have a dehydrator because you think they are too expensive, then get one of these at just $35. For the price it has amazing reviews…

Here is an awesome tutorial on how to dehydrate tomatoes from Bev Cooks, check it out and the next time you have a glut of tomatoes or they are on offer at the store, get dehydrating!

(Original Images –Bev Cooks, Wikipedia, Love Apple Farms, Muffet, TheWalden Effect, Home Talk, LDSPrepper, oldworldgardenfarms.com, chateau-listeur.blogspot.ca)

If You Can’t Buy Hand Sanitizer? You Can Make Your Own…

Homemade Hand Sanitizer

If you haven’t already stocked up on hand sanitizer, you are likely too late. People have been panic buying hand sanitizer ever since coronavirus started making headlines. Most stores sold out ages ago. Some stores that still have hand sanitizer in stock are selling at 10x the list price.

Not to worry, though. It is cheap and easy to make your own hand sanitizer at home. Any hand sanitizer with a total alcohol content of 60% or above is considered effective. See here for CDC advice on handwashing and hand sanitizers.

Note — If you CAN buy regular hand sanitizer, it is probably best to buy and use this in the first instance as it is made for the purpose and it does what it’s supposed to. Homemade hand sanitizer may not be as effective due to human error measuring ingredients etc.

If you are looking for regular soap/hand wash, but it’s also sold out in the shops, check out our dish soap DIY foaming hand wash post. Also, be sure to check out our – how to make homemade germ and virus-killing disinfectant spray and homemade disinfectant wipe posts.

You only require two ingredients to make an effective hand sanitizer – rubbing alcohol and aloe vera gel. At the time of writing, you can still purchase both rubbing alcohol and aloe vera on Amazon

Basic DIY Hand Sanitizer Recipe

  • 2/3 cup Rubbing Alcohol (90-99% alcohol)
  • 1/4 cup Aloe Vera Gel

Many homemade hand sanitizer recipes suggest a ratio of 2/3 cup t0 1/3 cup ratio alcohol to aloe vera. Using 90% rubbing alcohol and this ratio would result in a hand sanitizer with 60% alcohol.  To be extra safe I suggest 2/3 cup rubbing alcohol to 1/4 cup of aloe vera to ensure a higher alcohol content.

Add the rubbing alcohol and aloe vera to a bowl and mix them together. Be sure the mixture is thoroughly mixed. Once mixed, decant into some small plastic bottles that you can carry with you.

Use liberally and keep rubbing the sanitizer around your hands until it has entirely dried.

The hand sanitizer we buy often has added emollients and moisturisers to counteract the drying effect of the alcohol. This basic recipe does not. With this in mind, I highly recommend using a hand moisturising cream daily when using this DIY hand sanitizer.

Watch the video below for more advice. It also shows how to make this simple hand sanitizer.

How To Make Your Own Disinfectant Wipes — Quick, Easy & Cheap!

Homemade Disposable Disinfectant Wipes

Since it has become difficult to buy disinfectant spray and disinfectant wipes in some countries many people are looking online for homemade disinfectant solutions. The problem is many websites and blogs are touting a whole range of homemade, natural, alternative and holistic disinfectant recipes that are simply ineffective. This is bad enough during normal times but during this coronavirus pandemic, it is dangerous.

To be clear – as far as coronavirus is concerned, I would not be relying upon any disinfectant recipes that rely on essential oils (including tea tree), vinegar, lemon juice, vodka, bicarbonate of soda or witch hazel as the main germ/virus killing agent. Stick with bleach, hydrogen peroxide or alcohol, at the correct mixing ratios recommended for killing germs and viruses.

From my own research on the CDC website (see here, here and here), I have found the following products and ratios to be effective for killing germs and viruses, including coronavirus.

  • Bleach — a bleach solution with bleach to water ratio of 1:10 will kill all germs and virus within ten minutes. The CDC state that a ratio 1:48 is effective for coronavirus (4 teaspoons per quart) so using a 1:10 ratio is more than adequate.
  • Hydrogen peroxide — 3% hydrogen peroxide – will kill germs and viruses within ten minutes. The CDC state that commercially available 3% hydrogen peroxide is a stable and effective disinfectant when used on inanimate surfaces.
  • Alcohol — alcohol solutions with at least 70% alcohol – will kill germs and viruses within a minute. The CDC state that 70% alcohol is effective for disinfecting and sanitizing.

Check out my two previous posts: How To Make A Disinfectant Spray From Bleach and How To Make Your Own Hand Emergency Sanitizer

Simple Homemade Disposable Disinfectant Wipes

You will need

  • Kitchen towel/paper towel (try not to use cheap/thin kitchen towel as it will tear easily). To make more durable wipes, try using Jay cloths or other similar semi-disposable cleaning cloths. These could also possibly be cleaned and reused.
  • Bleach
  • Water
  • Kitchen gloves/rubber gloves
  • Mixing jug
  • Baking tray or similar flat-bottomed container
  • A Ziploc or sealable bag

Method

When bleach is diluted with water it starts to break down after 48 hours or so. With this in mind, I recommend making a small batch of disinfectant wipes every few days.

  • Take the kitchen towel and carefully tear off 20-30 sheets. Stack them tidily one on top of the other in a stack. Place the stack of paper towel in the baking tray.
  • Put on your kitchen gloves.
  • Mix some bleach/water solution at 1:10 ratio in the mixing jug. Around 100ml of water and 10ml of bleach should be sufficient depending on the size/quantity of paper towel.
  • Carefully pour some of the mixed bleach solution over the stack of paper towels (in the baking tray!). You just want enough solution to saturate the paper towel completely, nothing more.
  • Leave to sit for a few minutes to be sure the paper towel is fully saturated.
  • Now place your hand on top of the stack of paper towel and gently press down to squeeze out excess bleach solution into the baking tray. This bit is down to your own judgement. You don’t want the paper towel wipes to be dripping wet, but they obviously need to be wet enough to wipe down surfaces. You can fine-tune this over your first few batches until you find the consistency/moisture level that works best for you.
  • Carefully place your new disinfectant wipes in a Ziploc or similar sealable bag. Keep sealed and use as necessary and dispose of in the bin.

Note — you could also adapt this to use 3% hydrogen peroxide instead of bleach. Hydrogen peroxide breaks down when exposed to light so you will need to store your wipes in a dark-coloured or opaque airtight container.

It’s recommended that you wear kitchen gloves when using these wipes as they are bleach-based. At the very least make sure you rinse your hands after using them…

Grow Over 300 lbs Potatoes WITHOUT Digging, Watering Or Any Real Effort…

No dig potatoes

No matter whether you grow some vegetables in your back garden as a hobby or you grow vegetables on a larger-scale on your homestead, you will almost definitely grow some potatoes…

Growing potatoes in your garden on a small-scale is simple enough and fun. However, if you harbour any aims of being more self-sufficient you need to grow potatoes on a much larger scale and this can quickly become a whole load of effort and hard work. First, you must dig and prepare the soil and then plant all the seed potatoes, all of which is back-breaking work if you are planting lots of potatoes. This is only half of the work though… When the potatoes are ready, you have to then dig them all up!!!

Thankfully, there is an easier way. Much, much easier…  And the news gets even better as the good folks at Back To Reality have created an excellent video detailing how to this. I have included the video down below, so give it a watch.

They managed to grow over 300 lbs of potatoes with minimum effort. No digging/planting, no watering, and no digging/harvesting. All that is required is some hay. Tip –– you can often get hold of old or spoilt hay from local farmers for zero charges. They will likely just be happy for you to take it away. Additionally, if you ask and you are lucky, they might also be happy to provide a ready supply of manure or soiled animal bedding as well.

My recommendation – if you are not convinced by this method of growing potatoes — set aside an area to try it out this year. Grow your main crop of potatoes in the usual manner but try this no-dig, hay method on a smaller test crop. The results should speak for themselves.

BTW – after you have watched the video below, I highly recommend subscribing to Back to Reality’s YouTube channel. They produce some great homesteading, gardening and DIY videos.

How To Get Used/Working Solar Panels For FREE

SOLAR PANELS For FREE

That’s right, there is a way you can get solar panels for free! I know someone who did it and so can you. Here’s how it’s done…

Solar panels are used everywhere these days. They are often used by construction crews and traffic systems (signs, cameras & emergency signal lighting etc) and these are where we are going to focus because they quite often have contracts with the solar panel providers. Whenever a solar panel becomes cracked or damaged, they are replaced under contract, even when they are still serviceable.

The solar panel provider ends up with a whole load of damaged but working solar panels. They can’t sell them so they usually have to pay to have them disposed of. What you need to do is find the contact details for the solar panel providers and give them a call to see if they have any damaged but functioning solar panels you can take off their hands.

The person I know who did this got around $800 of working solar panels for free, just for a bit of detective work. He saw a solar panel on a road sign and noticed the sign had a sticker with a phone number on it to report a problem. He simply phoned the number and asked for the solar panel provider’s details and gave them a call. A few phone calls later and a trip to their facility and he had a load of free solar panels.

UPDATE: We have several solar farms locally, that generate and sell electricity as a business. I reached out to two of them. Both had old, in some cases slightly damaged solar panels, which still functioned. Both said I could have some of these panels for zero cost. In fact, one of the solar farms offered to deliver some for a small fee.

I enquired about the efficiency of these panels. It was explained that these old or slightly damaged panels were not as efficient as new solar panels (hence why they were replaced). With a solar farm, everything is about efficiency at generating electricity. They are a business. That said, for home use (and at zero cost) these panels have years of life left in them. Additionally, if you have space you can simply have more panels, to make up for any lower efficiency with these older solar panels. 

I guess you could also try researching and directly contacting solar panel manufacturers too. They must get loads of panels that are damaged or defective that still work but can’t be sold. Even solar panel stores must get loads of damaged but working solar panels returned, or have panels that get damaged in storage etc. No one wants to pay to have to dispose of damaged goods.  Take advantage of this and you could get free or heavily discounted stuff that works just fine.

Just a little thinking outside the box can save you a huge amount of money. Give it a try, all you have to waste is a little time and a phone call.