jeudi 7 avril 2016

offgrid on 1-2KW/day

I was asked by PM to explain my useage, on the theory that if one person asks....

First let me talk about my background:
8 years in the Corps as a grunt, then living in a 224 Sqft Airstream (Part of the time off the grid)
-Oversimplification, but you get the gist.
My "Comfort levels' are different than most.

HOWEVER, my current standard of living isnot "that far off" where I want to be, which is very close to "normal" living.

Allow me to explain:

My house is close, but unfinished. I "Made it livable" for the winter, and now (Once I'm done with the garden) I'll finish it up.

House is a 40x40 metal building, with a 12x28 "Studio apartment" and a 12x10 bathroom (Bathroom is 1/2 the size of my Airstream) downstairs.
THis has been my "Primary living space" during the winter, and is BOTH AC and DC wired.
Edit:
Upstairs 13x40 is unfinished and AC only

Lights, cealing fan, plugs, even have a massage chair.
But there's also LED 12 V lighting, and (2) 12V (Think car) plugs
I have to FIND a wall charger for my cell phone when I go somewhere.
Charge my Cell, tablets, and I have a ~200W inverter like you use in your car to charge my Laptop.

I mostly read, rarely watch movies, but when I do i use the laptop.
I've got 29" flatscreen TV I keep in the Airstream usually, its in the bay in its box still. (Running it for the rare couple hours wouldn't have much impact.)

I have "Plugs with on/off switches" for things like my massage chair so they don't get left on for "Ghost useage"

Which brings me to my inverter.
Its a 2KW, which honestly I have a 2800 I'm going to swap out with it and keep it as a backup.
Reason why is the 2KW will "Mostly" run a circular saw etc.... sometimes if the Freezer is on etc... it'll kick off. And that's annoying. since I plan to build a guest cabin anyway.... (I got the 2KW as NOS for 1/2 price.)
Bonus the larger one has a MUCH more efficient battery charger.)

BOTH inverts have a "Rest mode" where they send out a "Pulse" which uses only ~1/5 Amp. it "rests" in this mode and "Kicks on" when the Chest freezer needs to come on for example.

the upstairs, bay, porch, and outside lights are all AC. I rarely use AC with the exception of the Freezer. I have a 12V floodlight I will install in the bay so I can "just turn on a light" in the bay without having the lights flicker until i can manually turn on the inverter.

Bathroom also has both AC and DC lights, Fan is AC.

What started this was my comment about using only about a KW/Day, so lets talk about where I am, and where I'm going to be by next winter"

I only have a chest freezer right now, and have been dropping frozen water bottles into a cooler for a "Fridge"
The reason is I wanted to bring one thing online at a time. Shortly I'll be getting a fridge. Freezer is still using less than the 800W/day yearly average., fridge should be about the same. (That'll be about 1.5 KW)

The ~28' LED light in my bedroom uses 1.8-1.9Amps on the meter.

With the exception of the freezer I use 2-3%/night of my 1100 AH battery bank.

I have (6) 190W solar pannels and (1) 150W pannel. I only have (4) of the 190's hooked up right now.
-I ran out of time to build my stand, so I just leaned 4 up against the building.

On sunny days, there's more than I can use, on cloudy days.... the additional pannels should make me Juuuust under being able to keep up with the freezer requirements (Just watching the meter for the last months...)

I'll be getting a washing machine here shortly, (Bay isn't insulated yet, so there was no point till it warmed up.)
I'll either run it 1x/month off the geny, or on sunny days, remains to be seen.
Hang clothes (Could get a propane dryer, but why....)

Cooling:
Everything else should be pretty easy, this one will be the thing:

My building is ontop a mtn, and "turned" to catch a nice breeze through the opposing 12x12 bay doors in spring and summer.
Being from Southern LA, last year there was less than a week when I wanted AC. (Yankees.... would not agree.)

I will be picking up a window unit for the 480Sqft downstairs. It's on the west side of the building, and stays pretty cool (Requires a little more heat in wither, but I have 80 acres of trees) and both the wallls and ceiling are R30 insulated.

I hypothesize that I can run a window unit for about 2 hours on the battery bank... and further that that will give me about 4 inside comfortably.
We shall see.

If not, my Honda EU2000i's (I have 2 and can hook them together for 4KW) run 6.5 hours on a gal of gas (Actual load, not manufacturers specs)
So if I spend say $3/day for 14 days out the year.... Meh

Last year I made the "Record heat" days my trips to town, or went down to the creek

Once everything is online:
-Lights, fans, Washer, Freezer, Fridge, massage chair, call, tablet, computer.... I expect the "About 1 KW" will max at closer to 2.5

It's not a "Normal life" but its not far off as far as "Comfortable living"

Oh, almost forgot:

My cistern has a 220AH 12V battery for the 12V pump and 80Gal pressure tank.
I have a small charge controller and several old solar pannels (20 years old, 55-65W) which will be MORE than enough to keep it topped off.
Another thing I haven't got finished. Right now I just hook up jumper cables about every 10 days (Popped the fust 1x, now i just leave it hooked up about 10 min.)
with the pressure tank, it runs so infrequently.... i havent even tried to estimate the useage.)

Sorry for the verbal vomit, I have to go, but wanted to get this down while i was on my laptop before I went running around with out a keypad...

Hope thsi answers the question. Takeaways:
This isnt where I "Want" to be, but to be honest, if necessary I could keep running without a fridge and it would be only a minor anoyance.
I can run the generator if necessary, but unless I'm running my Miter saw... I don't need to run it even a Gal/month.

My setup cost under $4K (And keep in mind I'm only using about 1/2 the solar panels....)

This is a 1 person setup, your teenage daughter would KILL you... unless everyone else had NO power!
But It'll handle "guests"... i wanted to be able to bring family and more importantly women over and NOT have them feel i was some strange hermit in the woods.... From reviews... I suceeded

Ill be happy to answer questions, or explain the jumbled information above when I have more time.)

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offgrid on 1-2KW/day

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