luvinlife offthegrid- will winter ever arrive?

[luvinlife offthegrid]

Hubby exterminated the 4th raccoon in a month last night. We went for years without raccoons and suddenly they are coming out of the woodwork. Last week two were sitting on top of the chicken coop discussing their strategy to rip open the heavy duty wire or work on the carabiner clip on the door.

 

[hillfarm]

Our possums will sit on our back steps and I swear they are there to discuss our plans for the new coop. We were trapping up to 4 possums a week for a while. Now we have a dog, its cut their visits way down. But not completely.

 

[Icu4dzs]

Welcome to our community.

Being off the grid is a supreme joy and I applaud your courage and "pluck" as we say. I've been off grid since NOV 2010!

I counted 19 panels and if you are getting 1650 watts from the 10 panel tracker you are using 165 watt panels (duh!) Are the other 9 panels 165 or are they greater wattage? My best guess is that if they are at least 165 watt panels, you are putting out just over 3135 watts. This means you are able to charge those batteries easily and can power a lot more than you describe using.

How many amp/hours are your batteries? I have 24 AGM batteries which are 305 amp/hour batteries. They are wired in parallel to make 48 volts and in series to give 3 banks of 48 volts yielding 915 AMP/HOURs day. The out put therefore (according to Ohms Law) is a shade under 44,000 watts. This powers all my LED and CF light bulbs, my geothermal heating system and when needed my corn stove along with the refridgerator and an old freezer (which probably ought to be replaced) and my washing machine. Seven rooms in the house run off the power system but I don't really use but about 5 of them. The other two are spare bedrooms and they don't get used except at holiday time if I get company.

I have 16 PV panels (170 watt) and a 3kW wind turbine (which is currently out for repairs) So I am capable of producing at max performance almost 6kW to charge my battery bank. I have a Xantrex power distibution system and a 6 kW inverter so there is more than enough capability to keep my home safe from a) inflation b) harsh winter temperatures and c) hot, hot summer nights (it airconditions too!)

So far, I have not seen my monitor tell me that the batteries have ever come even close to a significant re-charge except for the time I ran a 1600 watt Sun Heat floor heater for 24 hours. That bled the power down quite a bit and I never did that again. It even blew the fuse in the heater when the power came back up...

I had a geothermal system put in and told the installer that the geothermal system MUST be capable of running off the power system or I didn't want it. He said it would and so far he has been right. The geothermal (hot air system which had to replace the use of baseboard heaters) takes about 3500 watts to start and runs for less than 10 minutes at about 2250 watts. This is VERY efficient and keeps my usage within parameters for my power system. I am finding that I can't use all the power I am making. I end up selling quite a bit in excess to the power company (because while I am off their system, I can still feed into it). If they go down, I DON"T!!!!

If you are making that much power (assuming the snow doesn't cover your panels and block your production, you are able to make some serious electricity. The lead-acid batteries are more "maintenance intensive" so I imagine you have a good number of chores each day which includes checking them. Does your system have a monitoring system so you know where things stand at any moment?

Upstate NY is no stranger to cold weather so I imagine that Camry with the trailer hitch has fun going through the snow in winter and mud in spring.

Let's start a string for "off grid folks" and see what we can learn from and help each other with livng.

Your allergy to critters is an interesting dilemma. It does keep you from some of the great joys of living out away from "the maddening crowds" but does NOT detract from it.

Tell your chicken pusher she'd be welcome in my area!
//BT//
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[sunsaver]

Icu, do you get a check from the power company? In Louisiana they are only required to give you a credit on your bill. I've never heard of anyone in this state actually getting a check. Just curious. It sounds like you have a nice rig. Those zantex inverters aren't cheap! I'm using a 2,000 watt inverter that i bought for $200 from a truck stop. So far it has worked great, but my total use any any time is never more than 100watts. Small tv, fan, LED and cfl lights.

 

[Icu4dzs]

Icu, do you get a check from the power company? In Louisiana they are only required to give you a credit on your bill. I've never heard of anyone in this state actually getting a check. Just curious. It sounds like you have a nice rig. Those zantex inverters aren't cheap! I'm using a 2,000 watt inverter that i bought for $200 from a truck stop. So far it has worked great, but my total use any any time is never more than 100watts. Small tv, fan, LED and cfl lights.

Naw, they only allow me a $.02 credit for each kW/h I make for them. They charge me $.0899 for each one I use, but no check. My electric bill was $124 this month but that is because of my welder, and some other "plugged-in" stuff on the farm.

Yes, that Xantrex inverter was VERY SPENDY, but it works well. I have a back-up 1100 watt inverter for my mini solar system that I built when I first had a few bucks and it was winter up here. I got the solar panel (12 watt) and a box from a solar powered electric fence rig and added a (I think) Sunsaver charge controller from that company you patronize to keep a deep cycle Marine battery as an emergency system. It will operate my corn stove if I have a major failure of my other system.

It works really well and I can put oodles of LED bulbs which are set up for 12 VDC on it because most of them only use 0.1 watts. I also have a bunch of 12 VDC compact flourescent bulbs the largest of which burns 24 watts and is HUGE. I have one LED 40 watt flood light I use for special field lighting and with all of them on there at one time, it still doesn't even dent that battery.

I lit the entire house with it one night when the power went out before I got my wind turbine and PV's hooked up. I keep it now for emergencies or if I have to make a "house call" in the bad weather out here on the high prairie. (It CAN happen out here in the winter). It also powers my HAM radio which in certain "situations" that "could happen" will allow me to communicate with the outside world, regardless of whether the POTS works or not.

//BT//
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[JRmom]

Icu, do you get a check from the power company? In Louisiana they are only required to give you a credit on your bill. I've never heard of anyone in this state actually getting a check. Just curious. It sounds like you have a nice rig. Those zantex inverters aren't cheap! I'm using a 2,000 watt inverter that i bought for $200 from a truck stop. So far it has worked great, but my total use any any time is never more than 100watts. Small tv, fan, LED and cfl lights.

Naw, they only allow me a $.02 credit for each kW/h I make for them. They charge me $.0899 for each one I use, but no check. My electric bill was $124 this month but that is because of my welder, and some other "plugged-in" stuff on the farm.

Yes, that Xantrex inverter was VERY SPENDY, but it works well. I have a back-up 1100 watt inverter for my mini solar system that I built when I first had a few bucks and it was winter up here. I got the solar panel (12 watt) and a box from a solar powered electric fence rig and added a (I think) Sunsaver charge controller from that company you patronize to keep a deep cycle Marine battery as an emergency system. It will operate my corn stove if I have a major failure of my other system.

It works really well and I can put oodles of LED bulbs which are set up for 12 VDC on it because most of them only use 0.1 watts. I also have a bunch of 12 VDC compact flourescent bulbs the largest of which burns 24 watts and is HUGE. I have one LED 40 watt flood light I use for special field lighting and with all of them on there at one time, it still doesn't even dent that battery.

I lit the entire house with it one night when the power went out before I got my wind turbine and PV's hooked up. I keep it now for emergencies or if I have to make a "house call" in the bad weather out here on the high prairie. (It CAN happen out here in the winter). It also powers my HAM radio which in certain "situations" that "could happen" will allow me to communicate with the outside world, regardless of whether the POTS works or not.

//BT//
Trim sends

Okay, just so I understand... you produce electricity that you sell to your electric company for a credit of $.02 for each kW/h, then the electric company sells it back to you for $.0899 per kW/h? That's robbery.

 

[Icu4dzs]

Icu, do you get a check from the power company? In Louisiana they are only required to give you a credit on your bill. I've never heard of anyone in this state actually getting a check. Just curious. It sounds like you have a nice rig. Those zantex inverters aren't cheap! I'm using a 2,000 watt inverter that i bought for $200 from a truck stop. So far it has worked great, but my total use any any time is never more than 100watts. Small tv, fan, LED and cfl lights.

Naw, they only allow me a $.02 credit for each kW/h I make for them. They charge me $.0899 for each one I use, but no check. My electric bill was $124 this month but that is because of my welder, and some other "plugged-in" stuff on the farm.

Yes, that Xantrex inverter was VERY SPENDY, but it works well. I have a back-up 1100 watt inverter for my mini solar system that I built when I first had a few bucks and it was winter up here. I got the solar panel (12 watt) and a box from a solar powered electric fence rig and added a (I think) Sunsaver charge controller from that company you patronize to keep a deep cycle Marine battery as an emergency system. It will operate my corn stove if I have a major failure of my other system.

It works really well and I can put oodles of LED bulbs which are set up for 12 VDC on it because most of them only use 0.1 watts. I also have a bunch of 12 VDC compact flourescent bulbs the largest of which burns 24 watts and is HUGE. I have one LED 40 watt flood light I use for special field lighting and with all of them on there at one time, it still doesn't even dent that battery.

I lit the entire house with it one night when the power went out before I got my wind turbine and PV's hooked up. I keep it now for emergencies or if I have to make a "house call" in the bad weather out here on the high prairie. (It CAN happen out here in the winter). It also powers my HAM radio which in certain "situations" that "could happen" will allow me to communicate with the outside world, regardless of whether the POTS works or not.

//BT//
Trim sends

Okay, just so I understand... you produce electricity that you sell to your electric company for a credit of $.02 for each kW/h, then the electric company sells it back to you for $.0899 per kW/h? That's robbery.

yup

 

[sunsaver]

Be careful what you say about the energy industry. I got deleted from a couple of forums because i was incouraging other people to go completely off-grid like me. They didn't delete all of my posts, just the ones that were offensive to the coal or natural gas industry. These days, i just talk about my life, and try to stay away from talking about the crooks that be.

 

[Icu4dzs]

One of my colleagues was flying overseas and he was radioed by the Iranians who said he was in Iranian air space and that if he didn't identify himself and leave right away, they would send up interceptor aircraft to deal with him.
His answer was" This is a United States Marine Corps F/A 18. I am in Iraqi air space. Go ahead and send 'em up...I'll wait".

There was no response from the Iranians. It was the last radio transmission for the day.

That is MY attitude toward anyone who thinks they have the right to curb my freedom of expression; regardless of who they might be or for whatever reason.

What are they going to do, take away my birthday? By the way, I have flown the F/A 18 and landed it on solid ground but never on the boat. That is reserved for PROFESSIONALS.
//BT//
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[sunsaver]

That's the right attitude!