Moving into a yurt off grid

[Bjammin]

Howdy from central Virginia.
My wife, kid, and I are taking to the woods in a 30' yurt and we need some help figuring out our energy design.

My main question is what size solar system you think we can get away with on a budget, although here is the whole scenario:

We have good sun exposure from 10am until 2pm, roughly. More in the summer.
The sunny spot is 130' from our yurt site. Would you ideally run 24V DC line to house, then have all the gadgets and battery bank?

-I have a grasp on our water collection situation, but it requires some electricity for the pump from the below ground cistern. There is a hill behind us, but I'm planning on putting the cistern right near the yurt because that's our collection surface. So the pump will be 3 feet in the ground in the cistern and pumping water to a propane on-demand water heater, through some filters, and to a sink and low flow shower/bath. The rise is about 4 feet to yurt deck, plus some more to faucet height. The heater requires around 30 PSI. I'm thinking it will be a 3-4 gpm DC pump, but still researching and open to insight.

-The other big electric need is refrigeration. We are doing a chester freezer to DC fridge conversion for under 200 dollars (google it if interested, several sites with instructions). This little guy should only use about .2-.3 KWH per 24 hrs.

-A fan for circulation would be ideal. Any recommendations on efficient fans? The yurt is 700 sq ft and round. 14.5' in center, so heat gets lost up top and needs recirculation in winter and needs to be pumped out of the dome vent in summer. 2 computer fans enough?

-Charging/running 2 iphones, 3 headlamps, 1 macbook, occasional inkjet printing

-2 or 3 LED lights... if that is best option.

Would this system fit the bill?

http://www.bluepacificsolar.com/off-grid-solar/midnite-1560w-kit.html

Because it fits my budget!

Or would I have endless maintenance and be replacing parts in a few years?
Should I stay away from kits? I like the DIY aspect and the less 'figuring' part.
It would be great if the system was expandable, for in the future when we want MORE! However, if this effects overall cost too much, we may just keep it simple.

I'd say my budget is $5000, but I'd like to be under. Is this possible?
Thanks for any help! It's much appreciated.

Ben

[Wy_White_Wolf]

Can't comment on if that will be large enough to handle your load until you do a full load analysis, but since you'd need to add an inverter, batteries, and generator there is no way you'd stay under your $5k budget.

[Mike90250]

For very primitive, couple lights, you can use a 12V, 200W system. Adding more "stuff" gets much more expensive, very quickly.
The proper way to do this is to work up a load budget for daily usage, and then you start sizing the battery bank for 3-5 days of usage (foul weather). Then you use insolation charts to find how much sun you get, to size the PV panels to charge the batteries in the winter, The generator gets used on day 2 of your bad weather, so that on day 4, when it's ice storm, you have the option of NOT going outside to start the generator.

[Amy@altE]

I'm training a new guy this week, I'm going to use your description as a scenario, since it's very typical of what we deal with. Give me a little time, I'll get back to you soon.

[Mike90250]

Another thing is your water. I'd suggest you run some 3/4" pipe up the hill and get 20 or 40' of elevation, and install a 100 gallon (or 3000 gal) tank, and let the tank provide water pressure, and only pump water up to the tank on sunny days. Then you don't have to size the batteries and inverter to start up a pressure pump every time a 40 gallon pressure tank (20 gal water, 20 gal air in it) bleeds down in the middle of the night.

For power transmission, you set your panels for about 2x your battery voltage, and run that high voltage down skinny copper (cheap) wires to the battery/inverter shed. There, the charge controller converts the panel voltage to the battery charging voltage, and you have nice short runs from the controller to the battery and battery to the inverter. (maybe the panels shade the water tank ?)

Do you know what battery chemistry you are desiring ? I recommend the first set of batteries be cheap golf cart batteries, If it makes any kind of sense, go with the highest voltage battery bank (48V) even though the inverters cost a bit more, they generally are at the professional level and are a lot more robust.
And there are the overcurrent protection devices, fuses or preferably - DC Circuit Breakers rated for moderate DC voltages. Stuff from Car Quest or Boating World are not what you want, Midnight Solar has a good selection of DC breakers and boxes to house them in. When you start hooking up computers and phones, then someone wants the Dish TV and then a small microwave..........

[Bjammin]

Thanks everyone
I've been rethinking the water situation. Thanks Mike for getting me thinking about pumping up hill... you started a conversation with my friend and I that was productive. Over the last few days I have been rethinking the approach for everything after talking with a friend and getting responses from off grid and solar forums.
The hill right behind us is probably 15-20 feet up. I want to see what PSI I get with that and see if there is an on demand water heater that will operate with that PSI. If not, I want to build a 10' water tower on top of the hill and that should be enough.
For the pumping I could then just have a cistern at yurt level to catch water, then pump up the hill to big cistern when the sun is shining. This could also just be gas/diesel generator powered to cut costs.
I'm actually now considering the idea of no solar at first to save money, and just using a generator to pump water when the tank is emptied (1000 gals probably, so that will last awhile between pumpings).
I could then use a propane refrigerator instead of DC/solar.
For the lights, fan and misc. charging, couldn't I charge a battery or two with the generator every few days? No idea how long 1 battery would power those items, and I know it depends on what the usage is, but rough guess? I haven't researched generator with battery banks. Is that a thing? Seems like a good idea. Gas is cheap and I am in a bit dire situation. It would be really cool to get a generator that can later be used with an inverter in a solar system. Any thoughts with that? I'll go do some research.

I can then save $$ for a proper solar install...
Thank you for input!! Very helpful and exciting to hear back.

[Amy@altE]

20' up the hill + 10' water tower = 30' head. That equals 13 PSI pressure, not enough for your on demand heater. A Shurflo 2088 surface pump can provide the pressure you need from the cistern for about $100.

[Mike90250]

There are some efficient tankless water heaters that use a D battery for ignition and work with very low head, my work-traders use one. I'll try to find out what the model is in a week.

The brealdown on the propane vs solar power, using it more than 6 mo / year, for 3 or more years or so, you have bought enough propane and cleaning supplies (you have to clean the soot out, or risk CO poisoning) to have installed solar to run it.

[LETitROLL]

Thanks everyone
I've been rethinking the water situation. Thanks Mike for getting me thinking about pumping up hill... you started a conversation with my friend and I that was productive. Over the last few days I have been rethinking the approach for everything after talking with a friend and getting responses from off grid and solar forums.
The hill right behind us is probably 15-20 feet up. I want to see what PSI I get with that and see if there is an on demand water heater that will operate with that PSI. If not, I want to build a 10' water tower on top of the hill and that should be enough.
For the pumping I could then just have a cistern at yurt level to catch water, then pump up the hill to big cistern when the sun is shining. This could also just be gas/diesel generator powered to cut costs.
I'm actually now considering the idea of no solar at first to save money, and just using a generator to pump water when the tank is emptied (1000 gals probably, so that will last awhile between pumpings).
I could then use a propane refrigerator instead of DC/solar.
For the lights, fan and misc. charging, couldn't I charge a battery or two with the generator every few days? No idea how long 1 battery would power those items, and I know it depends on what the usage is, but rough guess? I haven't researched generator with battery banks. Is that a thing? Seems like a good idea. Gas is cheap and I am in a bit dire situation. It would be really cool to get a generator that can later be used with an inverter in a solar system. Any thoughts with that? I'll go do some research.

I can then save $$ for a proper solar install...
Thank you for input!! Very helpful and exciting to hear back.

So, i just wondered to save the hassle and expense of a water tower, and the expense of a good tankless water heater, have you run a cost/payback comparison on a smaller propane tank type water heater vs tankless, I believe that would do away with your minimum pressure problem (which might be significant), and if you are not going to be in a high usage category you may be able to get by fairly well for $10-15 per month on the tank type, that doesn't leave much room for real dollar savings on the tankless after factoring in all the other costs and hassles, it may take you a long time to realize any real savings from the tankless? Just a thought. Overall it sounds like you have a great adventure coming up, have fun.