Author Topic: Off grid at last! (Read 3942 times)

Volvo farmer · « **on:** July 03, 2006, 03:58:40 PM »

Finally got my house built and we moved in last week. It was a fun and exciting project but I don't think I ever want to do it again.

Here's the view from the south side

Here's looking west with my power shed and neighbors house in view

I rebuilt an old 1952 Servel and a 1948 Okeefe and Merritt range to put in the kitchen.

We decided on a pretty open floorplan, the railings and ladder are all native aspen, to get up to the loft, we have to move the ladder over to the open spot up there. My floors are all concrete with pex tubing inside for in-floor heat. Upstairs is only 1.5" thick and it cracked in quite a few places. The wife whipped up a little grout and filled them in though and it looks pretty good.

Here's my power shed and panels, I haven't hooked the tracker up yet but that's on the list. There's four BP 170's up there.

I went with all Outback stuff, VFX3624, MX60, etc. So far it's all performed just fine.

Here's the battery bank, eight L16s, Rolls S530's. Wired for 24V, I should have gone 48V but bought the inverter before I decided that 48 would have been better.

Here's my meters. I had to run about 100' of 12 strand telco wire into the house to get these on the wall. The Mate takes four pair and the Trimetric takes two.

So far, we've been averaging about 50Ahr overnight out of the batteries, They're fully charged every day by about 1PM. I'm running a 120V 3/4HP pressure pump and that takes quite a bite, With everything off, I'm running about 1.7A on phantom loads, I think my on-demand water heater and hard-wired smoke detectors are a lot of that.

I've still got 600W of homebrew panels to install and a DanB 10' turbine that I need to build a tower for. Once those things are done, I think I'll have more power than I can use!

willib · « **Reply #1 on:** July 03, 2006, 10:23:03 AM »

beautiful house !

it looks like you will not need a large tower as i dont see many obstructions to wind , looks like you are on a hill?

about the refrigerator....

what does it use for power?

Titantornado · « **Reply #2 on:** July 03, 2006, 10:31:35 AM »

Servel's are propane powered.

What did you do for water?

Volvo farmer · « **Reply #3 on:** July 03, 2006, 11:03:02 AM »

Oh forgot to mention that. We have two 1800 gallon cisterns buried about 50 feet from the house. Hauling water is very common in these parts so I put a 425 gallon poly tank in my old Ford. There's a water station about three miles away and I think it takes about six or eight quarters to fill the tank.

The neighbors got water at less than 100ft so we're going to try for a well someday, just happened to run out of money for the time being.

WXYZCIENCE · « **Reply #4 on:** July 03, 2006, 11:08:30 AM »

Are the small square panels on the sides near the top air vents? How much propane does the fridge use? Joe

Countryboy · « **Reply #5 on:** July 03, 2006, 11:31:56 AM »

Congratulations.

If you're ambitious and have a stable geological structure, you may want to consider a qanat for a water source.

ghurd · « **Reply #6 on:** July 03, 2006, 12:19:50 PM »

It came out great!

I bet the smoke detectors could be changed over to DC.

More power than you can use?

I wondered how difficult it would be to add an electric element to a propane refrigerator.

Possibly as a pre-heater or the first dump load in a progressive controller?

I (obviously) don't know anything about them, except the tiny one in my camper has a continuous gas flame the size of a candle, and the large ones I saw have an intermittent flame nearly size of a gas clothes drier.

G-

craig110 · « **Reply #7 on:** July 03, 2006, 01:34:45 PM »

Congratulations!!

"Wired for 24V, I should have gone 48V but bought the inverter before I decided that 48 would have been better."

I hear you. I'm going 48 volts with my installation not so much for the wiring difference, but simply to cut down on future expansion costs by having the (or "each" eventually ;-) MX60 handle twice the total power.

With something as popular as the Outback Inverter, it might not cost you too much to upgrade. You could figure out the maximum amount that you're willing to spend on upgrading and then put your inverter up for sale on eBay. If you set the minimum opening bid to be the amount that you can buy a VFX3648 for minus the amount you're willing to pay to upgrade, either you get no bids (which means you'd have to spend more than you want to do an upgrade and so you're better off sticking with what you have) or else you get to move up at a price you're happy with.

Craig

p.s. If you do this, just make sure to put in your auction description that you won't be able to ship it for X number of days so that you have time to get the VFX3648 first to minimize electrical down-time. I know my wife wouldn't be too happy if I just got everything going and then tried to explain why we'd have no electricity for two weeks while waiting for a part to arrive to replace what I just sold on eBay...

richhagen · « **Reply #8 on:** July 03, 2006, 03:57:05 PM »

Volvo, it looks great. I am a bit envious. I guess that old address I had for you is no good anymore. That 1.7 amps on the phantom loads, is that on the AC end for 200 Watts or so, or is that on the DC end for 41 Watts or so. 41 Watts doesn't sound unreasonable, but 200 would make me wonder where it was all going. I suspect you will find a use for most of the power you make. Rich

jmk · « **Reply #9 on:** July 03, 2006, 04:49:29 PM »

congratulations! I bet a cold beer taste real good while sitting on the deck. I bet you can't wait to sit with a cold one while watching your mill spin. When are you going to build the tower?

zap · « **Reply #10 on:** July 03, 2006, 08:02:21 PM »

Very nice Volvo... glad you finally made it home!

I'm still amazed, when you start talking to people in the southern part of the state, at the number of people that still haul water.

Tom in NH · « **Reply #11 on:** July 03, 2006, 09:43:54 PM »

Way to go, Volvo! I envy your "lawn." No grass to mow. --tom

iFred · « **Reply #12 on:** July 04, 2006, 05:53:59 AM »

Looks great!!! at least you are going to have lots of space for more wind/solar and alt projects in the future and you won't have to worry about the nabours! lol.

Your power shed is the most professional ive seen so far.

I wish you guys the best! nice job!

Volvo farmer · « **Reply #13 on:** July 04, 2006, 11:25:55 AM »

They're just windows that hinge at the bottom, I suppose in a way they are air vents.

No idea how much the frig uses, it's hooked to a big tank along with the hot water heater and I've only got a weeks worth of use.

Volvo farmer · « **Reply #14 on:** July 04, 2006, 11:28:26 AM »

Yes, the smole detectors use .3A at 24V, I have battery powered ones but thats not much of a load.

I think it could be converted to electric but not nearly as efficiently as a compressor driven unit, I'd need several hundred watts of heat and a heat pump is more efficient by nature.

Volvo farmer · « **Reply #15 on:** July 04, 2006, 11:30:04 AM »

Good idea! Since I'm not planning on resizing my battery bank soon, it's actually OK at the moment, only two parallel strings. Someday I might end up upgrading though and I bet I could trade up for just a few hundred dollars.

Volvo farmer · « **Reply #16 on:** July 04, 2006, 11:31:59 AM »

It's DC. I've unplugged everything in the house and still can't account for 1.1A I think maybe the inverter is using that while idle, more experiments are necessary.

richhagen · « **Reply #17 on:** July 04, 2006, 11:57:41 PM »

If you've got breakers on the output, I suppose you could flip them and see what the amps are from the battery then, with nothing on the output of the inverter. I would guess that the mate and the other meter are consuming a few Watts as well. Rich

Murlin · « **Reply #18 on:** July 05, 2006, 02:03:32 PM »

Congrats.....very, very, nice....

Murlin teh turning 3 shades of green......

WXYZCIENCE · « **Reply #19 on:** July 05, 2006, 02:54:57 PM »

Yes closer view, I see the windows from the first picture. Congrats getting off grid. Joe.

twombo · « **Reply #20 on:** July 10, 2006, 11:23:11 AM »

Very nice , my friend!!!!

A 1952 Servel, I'm GREEN with envy. That kitchen stove is a gem too!! Being in the biz makes acquisition of good finds so much easier. Congrats!!

Damn nice set up. Love that house and the open layout. Great choice.

A nice 'cuppa' joe in the a.m. on that great deck is a great way to start the day, I'll bet?

Where are the Volvos, Farmer??

Mike

Shadow · « **Reply #21 on:** July 10, 2006, 01:51:21 PM »

Beautiful looking setup! We are moving a new house onto our acreage in Sept. and are also going off grid at that time. You mentioned possibly drilling for water, I have one of these http://www.deeprock.com/hydra%20drill%20main.htm I borrowed it from a neighbour so not sure of the cost but I drilled 12 holes most of them around 70-80 feet. I did go 155 feet on one hole.I found water in 5 holes at about 70 feet. But after pumping it for 3 days it just did not get any better and was not suitable to use .Now we dug a dugout and are making a seepage well about 20 feet from the dugout and will use a solar pump to fill a 550 gal tank in the basement from the seepage well. Good luck with everything.

Volvo farmer · « **Reply #22 on:** July 11, 2006, 06:32:57 AM »

Hmmm, that's an interesting idea. I've worried about paying for a dry hole but a person could keep poking around with one of those until he found water. Thanks for the information!

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Author Topic: Off grid at last! (Read 3942 times)