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The Origins of the Solar Shed

It is a well documented fact of history that everything of any significance has been invented, developed and otherwise cooked up in a shed (or garage or similar outbuilding – the word “shed” is used here to cover the full range of such structures).

The television, more novels than anyone will ever read, HP and Apple computers, the sports bra (apparently), Ikea (yes, really), the solar powered fridge (we’ll come back to this last one, for reasons that will soon become clear) and no less than three (and arguably four) of the Seven Wonders of the World. All have their origins in someone’s shed.

Are you, or someone you know, a bit of a shed head? Click here…

The typical shed (I’m going to stop adding “or garage or similar outbuilding” from here on, I’m sure you’ve got the idea already) has a number of defining characteristics. Chief amongst these is that a shed is a garden building that is not a primary residence.

Most dictionaries incorporate something along these lines “A shed is generally a modest, single-storey structure, usually constructed of wood in a back garden or on an allotment, used for storage and as a workshop and very often as a retreat in which to relax and pursue hobbies, especially gardening and light engineering.” to define a shed.

The sharp eyed will note in the above definition for the humble shed the expression “pursue hobbies” and therein lies the clue to the power of the shed.

It is an infinitely flexible shelter for all manner of human endeavors, and so we have the regular wooden garden shed, the storage shed, the tool shed, the potting shed, the bike shed, the writing shed, the summer shed (or summerhouse as those who own one rather snobbily insist), the swimming pool shed, the Roman Temple shed, the cow shed (for those who keep cows), the milking shed (for milking said cows), the pub shed and so the list goes on with a recent entrant in these times of concern about CO2 footprints and renewable energy – the solar shed.

So what’s a Solar Shed you ask? Well, for the purpose of this article it’s whatever type of garden shed you had before but with power, or more precisely, free solar power.

Not to be confused with a glorified potting shed that has glass sides and/or roof (basically a wooden greenhouse) which is sometimes also termed a “solar shed” on the grounds that it admits more in the way of solar energy than the regular wood paneled variety. Anyway, let’s take a look at some of the many benefits of a solar shed…

 

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