Using only DC appliances

[J.P.M.]

When I was shopping for land to homestead here in Maine, many of the properties do not have ready access to grid power. It is common that you might need to get a power easement and run poles 10 to 20 miles to reach a given homestead site. With every wind storm, trees blow down. Trees blowing down are rough on power lines. A private 10-mile power line can be expensive to maintain when trees keep pulling it down. I ended up buying land that already had grid access, but our grid goes down frequently.

Which leads to either using a generator and paying up to $150 a month for fuel, or solar / wind power.

Either way it is still cheaper than living in a city.

Well, all in all, that certainly sounds like a real paradise to me, especially when the generator noise impinges on pristine quiet.

But cheaper in what ways ?

Maybe not with respect to the hours and sweat necessary to maintain a lifestyle above 3d world levels.

Pay the costs - financial and otherwise - and take the lifestyle of your choice.

[GeorgeF]

....

Maybe not with respect to the hours and sweat necessary to maintain a lifestyle above 3d world levels.

Pay the costs - financial and otherwise - and take the lifestyle of your choice.

Can you please define 3d world level lifestyle?

Is such a house with 9 bedrooms and 12 aircons 3d world level? Its the house of a brother of mine in a tropical country. Ofcourse he is not so foolish to install solar system, also not gridtie, and use only a generator as backup power.

[organic farmer]

Well, all in all, that certainly sounds like a real paradise to me, especially when the generator noise impinges on pristine quiet.

But cheaper in what ways ?

Maybe not with respect to the hours and sweat necessary to maintain a lifestyle above 3d world levels.

Pay the costs - financial and otherwise - and take the lifestyle of your choice.

My property taxes are $1.05 per acre for river frontage forest land. We have 150-acres and a fairly large house, our tax bill is around $857 a year.

We grow most of our own food, and we barter for what else we need.

Our Cost-of-living is very low. We have lived in various cities when I was working, it was always much more expensive for us to live in a city.

[SunEagle]

My property taxes are $1.05 per acre for river frontage forest land. We have 150-acres and a fairly large house, our tax bill is around $857 a year.

We grow most of our own food, and we barter for what else we need.

Our Cost-of-living is very low. We have lived in various cities when I was working, it was always much more expensive for us to live in a city.

Again it sounds like you found a great place to live and a cheap way to power it.

I would like to hear from Mike who is also off grid and living in Northern CA. He seems to be happy with his way of living and powering his electrical loads.

Yet for most, both your and Mikes lifestyle would not work because living off grid is too restrictive or limiting to what they feel is comfortable.

[J.P.M.]

My property taxes are $1.05 per acre for river frontage forest land. We have 150-acres and a fairly large house, our tax bill is around $857 a year.

We grow most of our own food, and we barter for what else we need.

Our Cost-of-living is very low. We have lived in various cities when I was working, it was always much more expensive for us to live in a city.

And I'm not only happy for you but vigorously support our freedom to choose a lifestyle.

My point (perhaps poorly made) was that costs involve things besides those that revolve around a dollar sign.
Example: I have a lot of free time because I buy food rather than take the time and effort to grow it as I once did.
The cost of what I consider my free time in retirement and the choices I make as to how to spend it are paid for with my financial assets accrued when I grew most my own stuff, bought fewer groceries and lived more frugally - not always by choice.
At this juncture in my life, I'd consider a lifestyle such as yours - while having what sounds like many desirable attributes - too costly for me in terms of my free time, commitment, health and well being.

[Sunking]

Looks like what everyone has overlooked is efficiency. Figure it out. Once you do will figure out why we live in a high voltage world, not 3rd world wasting precious resources using 12 volt battery systems. Throw in some high power demand and 12 volts is toast.

[GeorgeF]

....
Throw in some high power demand and 12 volts is toast.

Thats why you ONLY use low wattage DC appliances with a 12v system, restricted also in distance.

No matter the system voltage offgrid sistem is per definition inefficient.

IMO, if you persé want to be offgrid, for whatever reason, choose low wattage appliances that suits you.

When you want to have heavy loads stay with the grid. Simple as that.

[Mike90250]

Ok, I'm back from a short trip. Everybodys situation is different. I need to pump 1500 gallons of water a day in the summer. That requires a AC pump. An AC pump requires a big inverter. A big inverter requires a big battery bank. But I need to pump the water to keep the trees alive, and the wife requires her morning toast. And it's nice to run a washing machine and dryer at home, and not have to haul laundry into town and feed coins into someone elses machine.

What so many folks don't understand, is the big professional gear, saves money, over the long term. That truck stop inverter will burn out 2 fridges in it's lifetime and consume 4x the power, because it's a cheap mod sine inverter. I can buy an energy star fridge from any store, and have 24cf of cold storage for 1kwh a day. Or you can get the little dc fridge and have 8cf of storage and scrape the ice off 2x a year. your choice. But so many people hear only the 12v mantra and never get the 240VAC normal living story.

Last year, I may have burned thru 40 gallons of diesel to keep things going, but I also had hot showers and lived as usual, when a lot of northern California was blacked out for 6 days, because the entire power grid was shut down because it was windy. Big grocery chain stores, restaurants and everybody's home fridge, lost power and all the food spoiled because PG&E spent the power line maintenance $ on bonuses.

I'm not going to tell you what you can and cant do, but I will tell you if you want to keep a wife and a farm, you have to have reasonable power to run things. Some folks can live with 120w of PV for their whole life. Good for them . I can't.

[GeorgeF]

Ok, I'm back from a short trip. Everybodys situation is different. I need to pump 1500 gallons of water a day in the summer. That requires a AC pump. An AC pump requires a big inverter. A big inverter requires a big battery bank...

Ok, the more power you need the more it costs


And it's nice to run a washing machine and dryer at home, and not have to haul laundry into town and feed coins into someone elses machine.
....
The 3rd word lifestyle , the laundy pickup and bring your clothes nice and clean
....

About msw,
they can use psw also if they want

I can buy an energy star fridge from any store, and have 24cf of cold storage for 1kwh a day. Or you can get the little dc fridge and have 8cf of storage and scrape the ice off 2x a year. your choice.

But so many people hear only the 12v mantra and never get the 240VAC normal living story.

....
your standard of AC living is yours , not mine now. My own choice.
....

[Bala]

Let me ask you experts a question:
If you want to use batteries concentrate your load as low as possible. This can be achieved if you ONLY have DC-powered loads. For those "suckers" who use DC-AC inverters with huge capacity batteries, better follow the advice of Sunking (see attached screenprint ) and use only grid with genset as backup otherwise your wallet will get more holes, right??


If you want to discuss "standard of living and comfort" in combination with solar, you are wasting your time and mine. Just use the grid and no solar solar system (with batteties) at all.


Just want to share my solar experience and thoughts as an amateur in the living off-the-grid world with solar.

So I am a sucker with a 24V system and 600ah bank. Many people seem to think that off grid is about cost only. For me it is about lifestyle.

Our system is not large compared to some but it does what we need it to and I have a 10kva generator to weld with etc. We live in the tropics so dont need heating and dont have Aircon, but could if I wanted to.
I do have 30acres and our house backs onto world heritage listed rainforest. I leave my keys in the cars and house is not locked when we are home and no curtains on the windows.
I could live in a normal? suburban house and save a lot of money and work but then I would lose my privacy and need to lock myself in and listen to my neighbors.

If life was all about ROI for expenditure I wouldnt have 7 motorbikes and race, have boats, kayaks etc etc, life is about living.

My wallet has many holes but the one that is for off grid expenses is tiny compared to the one that bleeds money on hobbies.

[GeorgeF]

Bala, I totally agree that living offgrid is a lifestyle you choose, especially when living in a big city in a housing complex with 24 hours security like me.

It is just a challenge for me to minimize my energy use without loosing any of the basic needs I had before ( when grid connected) and as cost-effective as possible but ofcourse with less quality appliances.

About quality for example:
The cheap brushless pump of unknown quality posted above I bought 6 of them for total only +/- 50 USD. The one i still use i bought it more than three years ago, 1-2 hours daily pumping. So i am assured of at least 18 years "cheap" pumping.

I just see it like this: you can travel by plane first class or business class and I buy a regular ticket and we will arrive at the same airport at the same time.

It is up to you how you spend your money.

I think for the USA people in the AC-modern-world who are going to be disconnected from the grid a small cheap offgrid sistem with dc-appliances would be most welcome, also in case a hurricane strucks them : https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/27/mill...ext-month.html

In the 3d world country im living right now no one is allowed to be disconnected due to this covid mess.