Is anyone here off the electrical grid?

I am asking this cause a good friend of mine has an older brother that bought many acres in Idaho several years ago. And....This land is a mile or so from the power poles and this guy was going to just have a generator, with battery backup for some stuff. He did eventually get the power ran back to his cabin which cost him over $10k.
I was just wondering if anyone here doesnt have power hooked up to their house and just runs a generator when needed. I would guess the fridge/freezer would have to be ran 3 hours per day.

There's a few people around here off the grid due to cost to run power. They put in mostly propane like fridge stove dryer freezer etc and florescent lights. No a/c needed here. Wood or oil heat is already the norm.

Biggest load is the pump which isn't bad with the right pumps, can do on solar. Not techy people that have these things. They still use hair dryer, table saw etc.

Not entirely off the grid, but do have back up power from a battery bank and solar panels. The equipment installed will run the entire house, minus the big ticket electrical items, central A/C, Stove, Dryer. Well it would run those, not all at once, but given the battery bank size, only 3 panels right now, problem is with those items is I think it would more rapidly discharge the battery bank, more than it may recharge from panels alone.

In essence, aside from those items, it will run a hot water boiler/furnace, 220 well pump, 2 refrigerators, 1 chest freezer, a window unit A/C, for several days, though I am a bit skeptical, not having seen that, but 5-6 hours on back up, at night, not turning any of those off, the battery bank only dropped down to 51 volts, max charge it reads 54 volts, was told I can go down to low 40's on voltage, its a 48 volt system. I am assuming that during the course of being on back up, when sunny the solar panels would bulk or trickle charge the battery bank enough to where there is no concern about breaching the threshold of being discharged too much. That is alleged to be the enemy of these batteries, discharging too much too many times, also alleged that acceptable cycling from full charge to a certain point of discharge is fine, won't hurt the longevity. In addition, the only maintenance I am aware of and its more so for those with straight up solar panels and battery banks that those batteries need to be balanced more often, not so much when used strictly as back up power, obviously as straight up solar power cycles them daily.

There is a responsibility to manage the power during an outage, to retain as much reserve as you can, so you can go to the panel and shut things down, but you have plenty and I mean plenty of time to do that, say you want to shut off the 2nd fridge, move some stuff out of it or similar, while on extended outage.

The other plus is, and I have not installed it yet, is that you can tie in another AC source, besides the grid, a generator, so that when necessary, if there is not enough sun, solar power etc., you can easily fully bulk charge or trickle charge the battery bank right back to a full charge. So say the power is off, no sun, inclement weather, its going to be off, and the read out shows the charge getting low, just kick on that genset, mine would be my miller NT 251 welder, 8500 watt peak, 8000 watt continous, say early evening likely an hour or so, your now good for a couple of days, all dependent on your power usage. Will say this, a much smaller home, cabin or similar, with minimal useage, I would have to believe a system like this would be ample power for quite awhile, top off with the solar panels or genset and I believe with a decent size battery bank, power would never be an issue, unless I am missing something here.

Cost installed was 15K, don't have a break down on equipment, material, and labor, including profit, but half of that was reimbursed, total out of pocket was around 7K, well worth it, only consideration is battery service life and when those would have to be replaced.

I have a remote cabin with no electric.

Have him do lots of reading and internet searches tons of great info out there.

Also with the new LED and CFL"s there are some 12 and 24 volt options. If not a full time place but more of a weekend/hunt week place then solor to fill a battery bank while away is a good option.

For fridges you can get propane units.

I do run a window AC unit with a 3.5 KW gas generator.

My advice. Read read read. Learn all the different systems and options then decide what to put in.

Jeff

I have a nice cabin. But it wouldn't be suitable for constant use.

I have a propane cook stove, and propane cabin lights. I have a 12V RV pump that pumps water to the sink. It has a resevoir that we carry water to. The 12V pump runs off of a Marine battery that is charged with a solar charger.

Then we have lots of battery operated things. Radios, etc.

I ghave a generator and plan to put a small AC window unit in.

I was in some "old hippies" house a few years ago. Earth contact. They had a bank of fork lift batteries and a solar panel array. They had a propane refrigerator as well.

It can be done, but it would get old.

Gene

Hello Wile E,
If you would run the fridge and the freezer for that short time, you would lose everything.
Modern refrigeration unit have just onces of refrigerant, and run 50 to 75% of the time.
Guido.

When I said 3 hours per day I meant that it would be 3 hours total, 20 minutes every 3 or 4 hours totaling 3 hours.
I bought a new Frididaire freezer a month ago, If the lid was only raised 1 time per day then I think it would only run 3 hrs per day. (have it cycle down to -10f)

After the storm this summer our power was off 5 days, first time in living here 40 years it's been off more than a few hours. Fortunately I'd bought a generator a year ago. Not until running the frost free refrigerator with the generator did I notice how much it runs, it ran for hours and never shut off. If our country is efficiency minded why do they make such things? I know...so you don't have to defrost the freezer part. I think there's room for improvement.

Yes, I've got a place off-grid. Refrigeration is no problem. I've got a Sundanzer super-efficient fridge made for off-grid. Runs on 12-24 volts DC (or 120 VAC). 5.8 cubic foot storage. Draws 77 watt-hours per day at 70 degrees F, 168 watt-hours at 90 degrees F, etc. So - at 70 degrees F it draws an average of less then one amp per hour (actually 1/4 amp per hour at 12 volts). At 90 degrees F it draws 1/2 amp per hour at 12 volts. An el-cheapo Walmart 12 volt marine-RV battery rated at 110 amp-hours could run the fridge for a week at 70 degrees F before needing a recharge. My point being it takes very little power to run a good fridge made for off-grid. One 100 watt solar panel hooked to a battery would easily power the fridge with the battery never reaching discharge- even with half the days dark and cloudy. A 100 watt panel on a sunny day will produce over 800 watts-hours on a summer day and 500 watt-hours on a bright and short winter day.

I think they are improved, if you look at the cost to run per year it way down. When we bought our last new one I think it was $56 per year, I did a kilowatt test on the old one and it was almost $300! We moved it to the garage and left it unplugged and water ran out of the insulation for days, no wonder it cost so much! When I plugged it in later it would not start, guess we got full life out of it. 1977-2002

We're about 50% off the grid. Our biggest expense comes from appliances with electronics failing.
Our latest attempt to minimize damage was to buy a generator with a better sine wave to stabilize voltage better.

JD, have not seen you in here in awhile, hope all is well your way, now that I have the system up and running since march 21st 2012, I see that the 3 panels installed provides 690 watts, I still can't distinguish the difference, between the electrical load (useage) and what the panels produce, to see how much solar is produced, compared to the load say at peak sun hours, meaning you are using solar vs grid. There are 2 numbers on the control read out, that sometimes read about 100 watts or so apart sometimes greater than that, being one is less, it would seem you are off the grid while producing, but the inverter shows nothing being inverted, going to have to read the manuals, ask the installer, but I have to say so far it seems like a great system.

Can't beat the grid when it comes to costs short or long term.
i only have a generator for backup.
Can cook on the wood stove if needed.