Homebrewed Electricity > Temporary power
When the power goes out
SparWeb:
The simplest systems are often the best.
I spend several days per year without power. Various reasons, but mostly local lightning strikes and trees falling on lines. So over the years I've invested a bit every year and now can power the essentials of my house, even in winter, for a few days from the batteries. The batteries themselves were free - this wouldn't have happened without that lucky break.
Bruce S:
JW;
Good starting post!
We just for home camping kicks, shut down the incoming mains over a long weekend just because we can :).
We have 3 1/2 hybrid marine batteries. (the 1/2 is hooked to a different solar panel)
We also now have the cool Biolite 2.1 setup so we can charge our USB power anythings.
Lights are LED each string has it's own 18650 and a solar charge controller.
Fridge is a re-configured solid state unit. It's turned like a chest freezer. The cooling has been redone using some of those large computer cooling fins with small very noisy high-speed 12Vdc fans. & we insulated the heck out of it by adding an inch of the blue foam around everything but the door.
It doesn't need the startup power the mini-fridge did . The phase change ice packs will keep meat safe for hours at a time. Since we've redone the electronics, by separating the chip from the fans and split up the fans it's now a much better setup than it was when new, not just very "pretty".
Our setup for the 3 batteries is 12Vdc our old HF 100watt panels keep the batteries from dying, we do have several inverters sized anywhere from the little 100w up to the 900w MSW for using our 700w microwave.
I'm seriously looking at building/buying a boost converter to take the 5Vdc coming off the Biolite system up to 14Vdc just to see if it'll work for keeping an emergency charge on a battery.
We don't typically watch TV when outside, we're usually looking through the telescope or watching the glowworms(fireflies) flutter about.
Ungrounded Lightning Rod:
For the townhouse I have a 650-watt gasoline generator - enough to run the fridge, freezers, a few lamps (with LED lights) the TV or a radio (to find out when the power is expected to come back) and the pellet stove (with the automatic igniter switched off so it's just a fan and a computer and gets lit manually).
Also: The self-contained travel trailer - which doubles as disaster-housing, has a propane fridge, furnace, stove, and water heater, along with white, grey, and black water tankage for a couple days with shower for me and the wife or a week without, and a couple kWhr of battery (that's kept charged and equalized off the line when it's available). If things are expected to go longer I have some solar panels in a box in the garage, the truck's feed-while-towing, or borrow-that-650-watt generator, that I could hook up to bring the batteries back up. TV is 120V but we have a 300W inverter that can run it while nearly idling. (AC and microwave oven are dead without line power - as they would be on a camping trip.)
For the ranch I have a several kW gasoline emergency generator - mostly so I can run the 240V well pump in a long outage. The propane "fireplace" stove has a milliwatt thermostat, so it gets enough power to run the flame valve from the pilot light. It's located in a corner of the "great room" so convection and infrared are enough to distribute the heat if the power, and thus the blower, are out. (This is a "don't freeze the house" backup for the propane main furnace - set to 50F and the main set to 55F when we're not present). Stove and water heater are propane, too, and we have several candle lanterns and lots of batteries for a big flashlight stashed in a known spot.
All this because I've been to over-employed to have the time to actually SET UP an R.E. system for either house, yet. B-b
ghurd:
Running car, a 2500w tripplite inverter, and a 100' extension cord.
I never needed it, knock on wood.
Brother in law did. His home was in a hilly Pittsburgh suburb. Power poles in back yards, 75(?) years ago. Trees grow a lot in that time. Ice storm, lines down.
Crews couldn't get to the lines, because of the hills and trees.
Little 4-banger cavalier. It would usually take a couple tries to get the inverter to deal with the fridge, then could add the tv, game boy and cell chargers, etc.
A couple times, he even ran the furnace, though I'm not sure how he managed that because he's not very "electrical".
He did it twice a day. It was enough, with common sense the rest of the day.
IIRC, it was out over 2 weeks, almost 3, but it was a long time ago.
JW:
Hi Ghurd happy to see you posting
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version