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Our Compehensive Review of Earth4Energy
Posted by adminUpdated 02/21/2010
Company Name: Earth4Energy
Product: Renewable Energy DIY Ebook - Claims to provide you with all the information that you need to build a solar panel, or wind turbine.
Year Established: 2006.
In our quest to find the best DIY Renewable Energy Guide we looked at several, then narrowed it down to what we felt were the best two; Earth4Energy and GreenDIYEnergy. We purchased copies of both guides so that we could give you a rare, unbiased review of the product.
As with their main competitor, GreenDIYEnergy, Earth4Energy is an “e-product” which means that the product is delivered to you electronically. When you purchase you also have the option of receiving the product on DVD. And just like GreenDIYEnergy, you have to pay for the cost of having the DVD shipped to you. The main difference here is that Earth4Energy charges $27, compared to their competitor charging $17.
When you purchase the product you will immediately be taken to a download page which looks like this;
You will then see 9 links to choose from as follows; a link to order the product on DVD (cost $27) , Special Earth4Energy discounts, which is basically a partnership with other sites offering you links to free and discounted materials, a link to download the solar and wind guides, which takes you to another page where you can download the 2 main ebooks plus a bonus book, a link to the instructional videos (there are 9 of them altogether), an online video library that contains links to around 34 videos published elsewhere on the web that relate to renewable energy projects (we found these very useful), a free ebook on how to recondition batteries at home, (might be useful if you are going to set up a battery bank), a free ebook on how to make bio-diesel at home, and a link to help you find parts, and tax forms to receive renewable energy tax credits.
The PDF Guides
The first thing we looked at were the PDF guides, which provide you with the step by step instructions for building a solar panel, or wind turbine. At over 5.0mb the solar PDF guide isn’t just a few pages of drawings thrown together like some of the others out there. Everything that you need to know to build a working solar panel is contained within this guide with plenty of illustrations. You will also receive a PDF guide for building a wind generator but it isn’t quite as comprehensive as the solar guide is.
Overall, the guides were well laid out and contain all the necessary information that you will need. Below you will see an excerpt from the solar guide.
Update 02/21/10 The solar guide was recently updated to include better diagrams and photos.
Our rating of the guides from 1-5 is 4.5.
Videos.
The real value in this guide is the video tutorials and these are decent quality videos that show the entire process step by step from start to finish. As mentioned before, there are 9 videos that range in size from 36MB up to 434MB. Most of them being well over 100MB. So these are not short, and it does take some time to download each one to your computer so you have to be patient! A couple of screenshots from the video series are shown below.
Our rating of video quality from 1-5 is 5.
Support.
We didn’t see a prominent link anywhere for technical support so we are going to assume it doesn’t exist.
Price.
Same price as their main competitor, GreenDIYEnergy. $49.97. And they also have the same exit offer where you can receive a discount upon closing the sales page. Our rating of the price of this product from 1-5 is 4.
To summarize our review of Earth4Energy.
All things considered, Earth4Energy delivers a quality product, and they are one of the original players in the DIY Renewable Energy marketplace. They have sold a lot of these guides with a very low overall refund rate so they must be doing something right. Also, they offer a lot of other little bonuses in the form of free guides and other useful tools which enhance the value of the package. Is it worth the price of $49.97? Considering the bonuses, and the HUGE variety of videos available in the package then yes it is. Do you have to be an engineer to understand the schematics and diagrams? No, but like the other guide, some expertise in basic electrical systems, with the ability to solder and work with smaller components is helpful.
What didn’t we like?
We thought $27 was a little pricey to get the whole thing sent to you on a DVD, but we do understand that there are costs involved in producing these. We would also like to see a more comprehensive PDF guide for building the wind turbine.
Other Information.
Refund allowed within 60 days of purchase. (HINT) Wait for the exit offer to get $10 off.