Living without electricity - Small Cabin Forum (1)

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adamclay Member	# Posted: 19 Dec 2010 04:22pm Reply I am currently in the planning stages of a cabin which we are planning to build far up in northern BC (around Prince George area). The lot we have purchased is a very remote lot, it is accessible only by seasoning logging roads. Access in the winter is by snowmobile only. My wife and I will be retiring there full-time, it has been a dream of ours for 20 years. One of the problems we have run into is that solar isn't an option because the area is heavily treed, but also because in the winter the area gets hardly any sun, and we would need a lot of solar panels and they would not be reliable on cloudy days. I was wondering if anyone on here lives in a cabin without electricity and how is it? Our main goal is having a reliable cabin that we can live in for 8-9 months without any contact to civilization. We don't need internet or TV or phone. Our well has already been drilled on site and is only 162 feet deep so we can use a manual well pump to pressurize our main tank from what I understand. Lights can be provided by propane. We want to go with a wood stove. We'll have a bosch on demand propane heater and propane appliances. I guess what I am asking is, can anyone see any reason we may be forgetting that we would need a propane generator, or should we just go for it and be "electricity free". We would still use D batteries to charge our small things (like kindle, ipod, flashlights, ignition, fridge lights) but we would love to be able to avoid a generator. Does anyone live like this and if so, how do you find it?

hattie Member	# Posted: 19 Dec 2010 07:17pm - Edited by: hattie Reply Quoting: adamclay My wife and I will be retiring there full-time, it has been a dream of ours for 20 years. I don't have the smarts to address your power concerns, but I want to ask if you have ever tried to live in isolation for any lengthy period of time? You say that you want to retire on your property and want to live 8-9 months without contact to civilization. So many of us have this dream, but in reality the lifestyle can be totally different then we expect. Living without a telephone and contact with people can have its problems when you are of retirement age. As my husband likes to say, "my brain is writing cheques my body can't cash." S Sometimes we forget we are getting older and think we are capable of doing things which are quite difficult as we get older. While you have an exciting dream, you should also think realistically about what would happen if either you or your spouse became injured and needed medical care. Even the most experienced outdoorsperson can find themself facing death if they are so isolated that help is too far away. I don't want to sound like a scrouge, I just want to make sure you have really thought this out carefully. Our area is full of people who had that dream. Some are dead because the dream became a nightmare and others have had to move into town as they aged because their health no longer allowed them to live a remote and very demanding life.

larryh Member	# Posted: 19 Dec 2010 07:27pm Reply You pose some interesting questions and ones that I have tried various efforts at off and on all my life. I would say upfront that it certainly is possible to live without electric. The vast amish communities have done it for their existence. My attempts have given me a lot of various ways to get around the power grid if I wished too. The trouble with my self is I always seem to have just enough uses for electric to give it up completely. As time goes by the things in my life that use electrical power seem to be increasing rather than decreasing. This computer is a prime example of things that operate on it that very few now days appear to be ready to abandon once they have it. I love music for instance and for most of my life I was very happy with mechanical record players which needed no power other than to wind the spring. And I had player pianos which I found very entertaining and spent may hours pumping. But when it broke down and my new location made getting it fixed very expensive I ended up compromising and getting Yamaha that plays it self, but with electrical power. Probably those are the major things that my electrical bill goes too. Its not really high but I still wish I could cut the ties. I do have a honda generator that will operate all those things, maybe not all at once. But when you figure the cost of gasoline and how long it would run you quickly see that the power company is cheaper and much less trouble. When I barely used any I had all oil lamps or gasoline table lamps made by coleman or the amish. I also have some propane lamps as well. I had either kerosene or gas refrigerators. I still use an ice box made by Coolerator in the late 30's with a great deco styled cabinet. But so far the only way around here to make ice is if you have a freezer. So I run the freezer to make ice! For laundry I still have a James hand operated washer with hand wringer. I used it faithfully for nearly 35 years. Now my mom is next door and has automatic everything which as I get older I have tended to do. I cook either with a wood range or oil cooking stoves or ranges. For some time I heated with oil pot burner type heaters that required no power and you could fix it your self, but oil has become so expensive that I had to resort to burning wood for heat. Granted its warmer and a lot cheaper but not as convenient. For a water system I had a cistern and a hand operated force pump that would push water to a tank in the attic an then gravity fed the system I installed. But again when city water came though, the cistern being in very poor shape, I switched to that. But I know you can have a very simple water system that works. Currently all the old drains and septic this farm house had when I bought it 24 years ago have quit working properly so I now have only water at a spigot in the kitchen and use an outhouse or sawdust potty and dry sink in the kitchen which I just built this fall. I had hand operated grinders, beaters, graters. fruit presses, peelers, you name it in kitchen gadgets. Recently I came across some good quality older battery operated radios, one is a GE Super II radio which has wonderful sensitivity and range and plays am and fm with great sound. I also have a smaller but good sounding am by Channel Master. Either could satisfy my music and entertainment for the most part. Another installation I made was a 12 v line system connected to a couple RV batteries and I have a tape/radio player of very high quality that will run on that. I also had 12 v vcrs and televisions at one point. I used gasoline or sad irons for my ironing. So many things I really can't even think of many of them at this point. But I would say that if I really wanted to I could pull the plug, the question becomes do I want to?

larryh Member	# Posted: 19 Dec 2010 07:31pm Reply Hattie, Yes I just read your report, that is another thing that I am concerned about as well. As someone who has had major medical issues the past 10 years and find that even though I work to stay in good shape, I am not able to do the things or lift the things that used to be easy. I too worry about getting too far off the path of civilization should something go wrong. My mom likes to point out that a relative of ours when I was young lived with out power all his life and was a bachelor as well. They found him frozen soild next to his bed evidently having had a heart attack which had he had a phone or power he might have lived though. Just a thought as well.

hebegbz Member	# Posted: 19 Dec 2010 08:58pm Reply My wife and have lived off the grid for over two years now. Living out of town is much easier if you have a freezer and a refrigerator. We have a relatively small, 10K diesel generator out in a shed that uses about 2 gallons of fuel for 5 hours of use. 5 hours a day is enough to keep all our stuff cold/frozen. We use our computer, tv, vaccuum cleaner etc. , and 5 battery chargers on 5 deep cycle batteries, while the genset is running. The rest of the time, the deep cycles run the 12v lights, water pump, and an inverter so we can still watch tv, or listen to the radio when the genset is off. We still use propane for cooking, heating, on demand hot water, and the gas clothes dryer out in the generator shed. We also use a 12,500 BTU air conditioner in the summer and electric heaters in the winter. (FYI: it costs about the same to make a BTU of heat with an electric heater using my generator as it does to make one with my 22K vented wall heater. I considered both wind and solar. No way I could afford enough stuff to have frozen food. Part of convincing my wife to move out to the perimeter with me was that she wouldn't have to camp. I have found that a good genset properly maintained, can make your life much nicer. If you think about it, you will probably want some kind of generator for back up anyway. One last note, the diesel that you use for your genset is red diesel, a bit cheaper than your gas station stuff. And it is usually delivered to your tank for no extra charge.

dhsturm	# Posted: 20 Dec 2010 02:08am Reply I use to live electricity free in Ak. I was younger then... age and health does dictate how far away you live. Also remember to have some sorta battery radio for emergency contact. ... would love to hear how you two are doing. David

nativeLand LOL	# Posted: 20 Dec 2010 08:08am Reply O: wow im native and i live in the middle of nowhere... i want to live in city LOL tired of getting wood for fire XD n the water.... all hard work and can pump my heart xP im not old but do not have the heart power for it. <.< my grandpa had 3 heart attacks but we look after him :D need a family to survive out there <.<

nativeLand LOL	# Posted: 20 Dec 2010 08:09am Reply amish has a family.

adamclay Member	# Posted: 20 Dec 2010 12:15pm - Edited by: adamclay Reply I was not expecting so many replies, this is great and some very good thoughts. First I wanted to address the age issue. My post made it sound like we are quite old. I am only 48 and my wife is 43. We have one child who is 18 and is going to college next year. We are able to retire so young due to being very fortunate with our careers and also inheritances, as well as an early pension from my work (I can retire at 50 with an early pension). Although we are approaching the age when medical problems can start, I think we should be ok. Although we plan to live rustic, we won't be chopping wood and doing things like that... we plan to buy pre-chopped wood and stock the wood shed up with enough wood to last us for years, and we plan to tow a big 1000 gallon propane tank up there on a trailer for long term propane use and bulk discounts. Someone mentioned a fridge and freezer, we were looking at the propane powered ones. One thing I did notice is how inefficient the propane fridges are. Most of them use about 1/3 of a gallon of propane a day, which is approximately 30,500 BTU's. A normal electric fridge only uses about 1,500 BTU's a day. That would be our main source of propane draw. We have also considered just getting a chest freezer, and an ice-box fridge. We could use the propane freezer to make large blocks of ice, which we could then use in the fridge to keep food cold. Since we are going to be up there for months at a time, we won't really have much of a need for a fridge anyways, most of our food will either be frozen or preservatives. The last thing I didn't mention was the size of the cabin. For cost purposes, we want to get the cabin (which will be made of logs or brick), pre-built and shipped to the site, like a modular home, so the house will be limited in size. We want a small cabin, 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. It will likely be about 14x50, with a loft upstairs, so roughly 700-750 square feet. The companies that do these log cabins are abundant in BC and make some very good products quite cheap since it is built as a modular unit. The only problem would be getting it there on the big semi over the rough logging roads. Also, reading above, there was a comment about computers and other electronics. We plan to bring up anything which we can run off of batteries. We have a little USB D battery charger which can charge anything with a USB port. So we would bring up our IPOD with music and kindle with lots of books. We don't really use the computer that much. My wife especially only uses it for e-mail occasionally but lately we find it never gets turned on. Our TV also rarely gets turned on. We find ourselves often just sitting and listening to music, while reading a book, exercising, cleaning, playing the guitar, cooking, playing with our dog, doing chores. It seems like we keep ourselves pretty busy. We do have a backup plan though. If we find that we did not enjoy it up there then we will get a condo somewhere, and only spend a few months a year in the cabin, instead of living in it full-time. We would like to try this first though. Well thanks for the thoughts. We will keep up to date on our plans.

larryh Member	# Posted: 20 Dec 2010 02:00pm Reply In the hey day of gas refrigerators or oil the cost of the fuel was actually considerably cheaper than the electric versions. But due to EPA and other factors the price of it has outpaced electric units by quite a bit. At one point I had Siber Kerosene box which would have been a perfect smaller unit for your purposes perhaps, it had a half sized aladdin burner. It only burned a gallon and a half of oil a week which at the 90 cent price it was cost about 1.30 a week. Now the same burner would cost about 6.50 a week. Most larger oil ones use two gallons in hotter weather for sure. Propane is somewhat cheaper but keeps climbing in price. If your going to be as far from civilization as your thinking I would look for a discount in fuel due to the expense of transit.

hattie Member	# Posted: 20 Dec 2010 02:09pm - Edited by: hattie Reply Quoting: adamclay we plan to tow a big 1000 gallon propane tank up there on a trailer for long term propane use and bulk discounts. That's about 10,000 lbs when it is full...How are you going to get this in there? If you are taking it in empty, who would be able to come in to fill it? Unless you are going to put in a proper road, it probably won't be possible to get a prefab in there with a truck. We hauled a camper on Hubby's boss's truck into our placer claim. It took weeks of clearing the already existing logging road to make it passible for a regular pickup truck to bring it in. No way could we have brought anything larger in. The pickup had trouble on our "prepared road". What will you do about mail? You will probably have to have a PO box in the nearest town. Also, be forewarned that many companies charge ridiculous prices to deliver to remote areas and some outright refuse to do so at any cost. Just something you may want to consider. You can still be "isolated" but have a passable road to your place. I would suggest investing in putting in a proper road. Our friend who lived up the mountain from us had a 5 km logging road into his place. A regular car couldn't make it there in the winter even though he ploughed it with his own commercial sized grader (heaven knows where he ever got the monstrous piece of equipment) and cleared the snow on a regular basis. He had 4 wheel drive and many times was stuck in there. When his vehicle broke down once, he had to walk the 5 km into our town (which has no stores or gas station) and find a local who could help him out. Not wanting to sound so depressing, but this past October this same friend died because the emergency vehicles couldn't find his place. He wasn't living that far out of town, but even so, the ambulance just couldn't find him in time. Another local who lived even further up the mountain and on the main logging road, was found frozen to death in his cabin years ago. No one knows what actually killed him, but he wasn't found until the spring. He had no electricity, phone, or running water and lived a totally self-sufficient lifestyle. Make sure you have LOTS of food, a really well-equipped medical kit and BOTH OF YOU take a first aid course. You should also have multiple vehicles (trucks, quads, snowmobiles, etc.) and LOTS of gas always on hand. Make sure your wife knows how to drive all of the vehicles in case you aren't able to. You will also want guns and amunition in case bears or cougars decide they want to come for a "visit" and make sure your wife knows how to use the weapons as well. What you are planning could be very exciting but it could also be very tragic. We live in BC too, and while we can have some bad winters here, they are nothing compared to what you face in Prince George. Just think it out very carefully before you do anything. The idea of using the place for a few months at a time and having a condo for the bad weather, is probably a REALLY GOOD idea.

elkdiebymybow Member	# Posted: 20 Dec 2010 02:19pm Reply I've got a cabin I built by hand in Idaho. No running water no electricity. I've spent a maximum of 9 days there at one time and have gotten along just fine. We use parrifin oil lamps for light and a wood stove for heat and cooking. I also have a couple of propane stoves I use to boil water/snow and to cook with. My wife and I have adjusted well to not having water or electricity. We spend weekends and an occassional week off up there but love the simplicity if offers. Hat's off to you guys for going back in time so to speak, I think it offers so much that we miss in our technologically advancing world.

PlicketyCat Member	# Posted: 20 Dec 2010 05:13pm - Edited by: PlicketyCat Reply My husband and I are currently living in a 16x20 wall tent in the forest in the Interior of Alaska. We're about a mile off the road by trail, 30 minutes from the nearest village and 4 hours from the nearest town/city. Our first few months were power-free. I really don't recommend it. We don't have a phone or grid power and we can't get it out here anyway. No one delivers propane or heating oil (or even firewood!) this far out, so we have to haul everything in down the trail and then get it out of the truck ourselves without heavy equipment. We heat primarily with wood, and haul our water from the village well; but we found that hauling gasoline and propane back was easier done in small containers... nothing heavier than the weakest of you can lift full by themselves. That means we're limited to 7 gallons of gas/water and a 50# propane bottle (70# full). We have several, which is good because we have spares in case one leaks and there is always one at home while the others are being filled. We found out during our first sub-zero mechanical crisis that we absolutely needed some sort of outside communication since we couldn't rely on getting access out to "the World" on foot or by vehicle. Satellite Internet was the answer... we can bank online, watch streaming movies, listen to the radio, contact friends & family, stay on top of weather and wildfires all from our laptops for very little power. We run our laptops, the dish and modem, , our Sundanzer chest freezer a couple lights and our battery chargers off a small 2k portable generator and 4 AGM batteries (about 800 amp hours). We stay charged on about 2 gallons of gas a week. The 16x24 cabin we're building will have a water storage tank, and we will be getting a small transfer pump to get water from our truck tank up into the loft. Yes, we could do this manually, but pumping water uphill even 20 ft by hand takes a long time and really tires you out. We found during the spring floods that it is really worth the fuel to run an electric pump for 30 minutes (about a cup of gas) than bail ice cold muddy water all day. Figure the same holds true for getting our drinking water upstairs for our gravity plumping system. I do recommend propane for supplemental heat, hot water and cooking. I'm currently investigating whether it is as efficient and cost effective for power generation as gasoline (diesel is out since our winter temps make diesel gel even with additives). We also have no sun in the winter, so solar isn't a good option for winter. However, we don't need a freezer in the winter and that is our biggest power draw. The SunDanzer freezer can run on a single 75w panel with a regular 12v golf cart SLA battery for back-up... we can mount this on a pole above treeline if necessary. However, we do get wind in the winter, at least enough to charge the batteries to power lights and the computers. So, you could live completely electricity free... but, having lived in the boonies without it, I don't recommend it. However, you don't need a huge amount of power or a big system with a lot of heavy equipment either. A 2-3k generator (solar/wind/generator hybrid) and about 800 ah worth of battery storage should be plenty to power a comfortable, conservative cabin without breaking the bank or being too complicated.

larryh Member	# Posted: 20 Dec 2010 09:20pm Reply Picketycat So I am trying to picture your power set up. You are running a generator in order to charge 4 batteries which provides power for the weeK. All that on two gallons a week? That seems pretty thrifty. How much would you say you use your computer? Just curious, but what are you doing way out there? What is the draw for it if you don't mind my asking?

adamclay Member	# Posted: 20 Dec 2010 09:50pm Reply So many helpful replies so I am just going to reply to each of them one by one. I really appreciate the caring comments. Quoting: larryh In the hey day of gas refrigerators or oil the cost of the fuel was actually considerably cheaper than the electric versions. But due to EPA and other factors the price of it has outpaced electric units by quite a bit. At one point I had Siber Kerosene box which would have been a perfect smaller unit for your purposes perhaps, it had a half sized aladdin burner. It only burned a gallon and a half of oil a week which at the 90 cent price it was cost about 1.30 a week. Now the same burner would cost about 6.50 a week. Most larger oil ones use two gallons in hotter weather for sure. Propane is somewhat cheaper but keeps climbing in price. If your going to be as far from civilization as your thinking I would look for a discount in fuel due to the expense of transit. Propane fridges are definitely inefficient. The majority of the propane fridges we've looked at consume around 1/3rd of a gallon a day, which is around 30,000 BTU's. Where as, an electric refrigerator consumes around 500 watts or 1,500 BTU's a day at most. However, generators are very inefficient at creating electricity (I think around 10-15%?) and solar panels aren't an option. We aren't overly worried about the cost though. The fridge will be the main consumption. The only other things running off propane will be lights, on demand hot water, stove and oven. Quoting: hattie That's about 10,000 lbs when it is full...How are you going to get this in there? If you are taking it in empty, who would be able to come in to fill it? Unless you are going to put in a proper road, it probably won't be possible to get a prefab in there with a truck. We hauled a camper on Hubby's boss's truck into our placer claim. It took weeks of clearing the already existing logging road to make it passible for a regular pickup truck to bring it in. No way could we have brought anything larger in. The pickup had trouble on our "prepared road". What will you do about mail? You will probably have to have a PO box in the nearest town. Also, be forewarned that many companies charge ridiculous prices to deliver to remote areas and some outright refuse to do so at any cost. Just something you may want to consider. You can still be "isolated" but have a passable road to your place. I would suggest investing in putting in a proper road. Our friend who lived up the mountain from us had a 5 km logging road into his place. A regular car couldn't make it there in the winter even though he ploughed it with his own commercial sized grader (heaven knows where he ever got the monstrous piece of equipment) and cleared the snow on a regular basis. He had 4 wheel drive and many times was stuck in there. When his vehicle broke down once, he had to walk the 5 km into our town (which has no stores or gas station) and find a local who could help him out. Not wanting to sound so depressing, but this past October this same friend died because the emergency vehicles couldn't find his place. He wasn't living that far out of town, but even so, the ambulance just couldn't find him in time. Another local who lived even further up the mountain and on the main logging road, was found frozen to death in his cabin years ago. No one knows what actually killed him, but he wasn't found until the spring. He had no electricity, phone, or running water and lived a totally self-sufficient lifestyle. Make sure you have LOTS of food, a really well-equipped medical kit and BOTH OF YOU take a first aid course. You should also have multiple vehicles (trucks, quads, snowmobiles, etc.) and LOTS of gas always on hand. Make sure your wife knows how to drive all of the vehicles in case you aren't able to. You will also want guns and amunition in case bears or cougars decide they want to come for a "visit" and make sure your wife knows how to use the weapons as well. What you are planning could be very exciting but it could also be very tragic. We live in BC too, and while we can have some bad winters here, they are nothing compared to what you face in Prince George. Just think it out very carefully before you do anything. The idea of using the place for a few months at a time and having a condo for the bad weather, is probably a REALLY GOOD idea. Some very good advice about the medical equipment. I am actually a paramedic and my wife was a nurse several years ago so we are well equipped that way. We will take multiple precautions safety wise. The 1000 gallon propane tank I looked at didn't weight that much. I think the empty weight was 1600lbs, and then 800 gallons of propane (which is what it holds), weighs 3384lbs, so that is about 5000 pounds. I haven't figured out how I plan to get it there yet... since I figure the 1000 gallon tank will last us easily for 2-3 years, re-filling isn't a huge issue. The two ideas I had were 1) Put it on a high clearance trailer, with off-road tires, that can clear the big ruts in the road or branches 2) Go with a 500 gallon tank (only 2500lbs) and permanelty bolt it to my truck, leaving it on there at all times. Then I could just park my truck and hook the hoses up to it. The trailer is the best idea I think because it would allow us to carry more propane. My truck can easily haul 10,000lbs it is a diesel. Also, this would allow me to shop around for the best diesel price, I could go into prince george and buy big time bulk directly from the loading station, and tow it to the cabin. The trailer would need to be custom made with offroad tires and special axles I assume. Here is a good picture of a 1000 gallon tank on a trailer, it actually looks like it has a lot of offroad clearance too. http://usedpropanetankstrucksandtransports.com/wp-content/uploads/wpsc/product_images /IMG_3222%20%5B1024x768%5D.JPG The other advice you have given is all very good as well. We plan to stock up a years worth of preservable food. Those are very tragic stories about the people you knew. Of course we can never plan for emergencies. Being in BC you know how bad prince george weather can get it, it gets awfully cold there. Quoting: elkdiebymybow ve got a cabin I built by hand in Idaho. No running water no electricity. I've spent a maximum of 9 days there at one time and have gotten along just fine. We use parrifin oil lamps for light and a wood stove for heat and cooking. I also have a couple of propane stoves I use to boil water/snow and to cook with. My wife and I have adjusted well to not having water or electricity. We spend weekends and an occassional week off up there but love the simplicity if offers. Hat's off to you guys for going back in time so to speak, I think it offers so much that we miss in our technologically advancing world. Thank you for the kind words. I don't know if I could do what you are doing, we are going to have running water and hot showers and all that good stuff. Maybe 20 years ago! Not so tough anymore, but then again, this is better than living in the city!

PlicketyCat Member	# Posted: 21 Dec 2010 01:16am Reply Quoting: larryh Picketycat So I am trying to picture your power set up. You are running a generator in order to charge 4 batteries which provides power for the weeK. All that on two gallons a week? That seems pretty thrifty. How much would you say you use your computer? Just curious, but what are you doing way out there? What is the draw for it if you don't mind my asking? Once the batteries are fully charged, which takes about 24 hrs/2 gallons in the little Honda 2000eu portable generator, we can keep them topped off running the generator an hour or two a day or 12 hrs twice a week. We probably run 3 gallons a week in the summer when the freezer is on (until we get it a dedicated solar panel). We really don't use a lot of power. The satellite dish, modem, wi-fi router and our two laptops are pretty much always on except when we're sleeping -- that's 65-100w total. We do have to kick off the generator when we want to use the printer, though, since it's a laser and draws a ton of power... but a dot or bubble wouldn't draw as much. The batteries are wired 24v to our inverter and then to an electrical panel to supply 120v AC for the lights and stuff, only the freezer is DC wired direct to the batteries. Our interior lights are CFL and LED depending on task, but our porch lights are halogen spots since it's too cold for CFLs to light in the winter. We could probably spare enough power to run a small microwave or a water pump as long as it wasn't running continuously (like a water heater or space heater). Now, if we include all the power tools for construction of the cabin, that's closer to 5-7 gallons a week because they really suck the juice down and we run them direct from the Kipor IG3000e (3kW) generator and not off the batteries because they draw just a little too many starting amps and pop the breakers on the 2000w generator and inverter.

larryh Member	# Posted: 21 Dec 2010 07:58am Reply Plickeycat That is pretty interesting. I have a Honda generator like yours and used it to charge the battery I have a couple times. I thought it did it fairly quickly. My trouble with cutting the power off from the grid is that I just always seem to have something thats not going to work on limited power. Probably this computer which is not a laptop and then I enjoy music and have a turntable and amp and speakers going quite a bit. I do have a 12 v bose that would do if you didn't want to play things it won't. But at the moment my Coolerator needs the large electric freezer to produce the ice. I don't think it would work on a cycled freezing period and still maintain the large blocks I am making. I used to always use gas or oil refrigerators which needed no power from electric but its another thing I gave up at least for a while. Probably if I switched my refrigerator out I could do as your doing at least as a test. One reason I have never done it where I am is that even with the high cost of a monthly minimum charge the power company tacks on, replacing that power with something else never seemed to be cheaper. I love the idea however, but until I break down and get some solar back up to my generator and rethink some things I am using, I am pretty much stuck enjoying the off grid things and still paying the utilities as well. I will say your story has sparked a renewed interest in looking at what is possible though. good luck with your cabin.

PlicketyCat Member	# Posted: 21 Dec 2010 05:54pm Reply If you're lucky enough to have access to grid power and are already hooked up, then getting a grid-tied system and slowly adding to it as you cam is a great idea. Desktop computers, old CRT monitors and televisions, and any serious speakers are certainly going to draw more power than is prudent. We have tiny booster speakers for our digital music players, but if we want to listen to anything loud or clean, we stick to high-end headphones. We had a massive surround home theater system in the old house, and it pained my husband to get rid of it... but at least we traded it for off-grid power equipment. He also gave up his 50w Marshall amp and is using his little 15w Peavy practice amp for his guitar. Turntables shouldn't really use too much power, but I'm sure you could dig around and find a wind-up or one of the old portable battery-operated ones from the 60's. When we decided we were going to head out into the boonies, the first thing we did was put ourselves on an energy diet in our city house. We started swapping out high power items for their lower power equivalents, getting the most efficient stuff we could afford, and retraining ourselves to think before flipping the switch. In a year we'd dropped our energy consumption from 12kw down to only 3kw, which is well within an affordable off-grid system's capabilities. But since that was a city house, with central heat and all the trappings, we knew that we'd be using even less power than that once we got here.

larryh Member	# Posted: 21 Dec 2010 07:06pm Reply Actually I had a rather nice GE Trimline fold down portable stereo that had a total watts of 45. It had pretty good sound for a small low power unit, and Magnavox and some others made very nice ones as well. Funny about the mechanical machines because its something I have had all my life. But over the years the records have come and gone depending on my interest. I still have lots of 78's in both standard pre 1930 types as well as a large collection of Edison Disc and Edison machines. They produce some of the best acoustic sound. The orthophonic era recording from the early electric period can produce some nearly up to date sound of many instruments and I have used them often for my sole music source, its only been the past few years I got back into vinyl and later recorded 78 sets. Even when I was young the power use was so small that the electric company would send out men to check my meter thinking I was cheating on the power company. Where I am now I have sometimes gone several months before having to register a reading that cost money. But as I mentioned earlier, that has given way to more things electrical. In reality even with all the things I enjoy on electric my real bill after the "membership charge" is from 10 to 15 dollars a month. I more than likely use about half to one third what most around me do.

PlicketyCat Member	# Posted: 21 Dec 2010 07:39pm Reply When we went on our energy diet, the electric company sent someone to check our meter as well! Very "Men in Black" as they were sure we were cheating. LOL! 1/3 of most people's electric is spent on heating/cooling the house, 1/3 on refrigerator & freezer, and 1/3 for everything else. If you can reduce the first two down to almost nothing with high-quality and high-efficiency alternatives, the last one is super easy to get lower. The biggest thing I found in all our experiments is that, besides the microwave for quick reheats, making heat with electricity is BAD BAD BAD and horribly inefficient. Making cold with electricity is more efficient than other fuels, but you really need a high-efficiency and super-insulated unit to get down to off-grid levels... the extra cost of the unit is so worth the reduction of in power generation needed! Light is another thing I learned a lot about. You can really save a lot of money and a whole lot of power by just getting the right bulbs for the application. We use oil lamps and candles a lot, but nothing beats the beautiful white light of electric lamps in the dark days of winter or when something big goes bump in the night. LEDs are the most energy-efficient, but the ones made to look like regular lamp bulbs are still pretty expensive and they don't give very good ambient light. LEDs produce uni-directional light, so they're better for spots or task lighting (like under cabinets or stair safety lights). They are very affordable if you just get the diodes and wire them to a board yourself or get them in ropes/strips. LEDs are also a little hard to read under (letters are "fuzzy") and aren't very good for color correctness, so don't use them for a reading lamp or hobby task lamps where color matters. CFLs and tube fluorescents are the most energy efficient ambient light source, but they don't work for squat in the cold, sometimes hum and flicker, and the color can be really off. They're the best for indoor overhead lights. Incandescent and halogen bulbs suck too much power to use for general ambient light indoors, but they are the best for reading and color-correct task lights that won't be on for long periods and for outdoor spots & floods if you live in a cold climate. I generally get the lowest wattage that is bright enough to read or work by, and have a separate higher wattage/lumen lamp next to it if I need a little more light for a few minutes.

larryh Member	# Posted: 21 Dec 2010 08:10pm Reply I have a kerosene stove group on yahoo which I linked too on one of these post. I use it for cooking and I used to use it for almost all lighting. A round lamp like Rayo will give off a pretty good light without the danger of the smoke and soot the aladdin's will produce a soon as you quit watching them. Also some coleman lamps were produced to work on kerosene. They will make a very bright light but I find them finicky to keep going due to the generators clogging. All and all kerosene has got so expensive its not very practical any longer. (probably just what the EPA wants). And I wondered if you found that your lamps no longer burn without cleaning the wick for more than a night or two without forming a terrible crust they used to never make. I am told its the reformulated fuel that the cause. Our government at work! Do you have the same issues there?

PlicketyCat Member	# Posted: 21 Dec 2010 08:25pm Reply Yes, clear K-1 kerosene needed for wicked lamps and heaters is horribly expensive now $10/gal. You can get the red crap cheaper, but you can't use those with a wick at all since the dye gums it up. But even the K-1 needs much more wick cleaning and trimming thann it used to, our Dietz lanterns need cleaning and trimming after only one night and they never used to. I've been looking at olive/veggie oil lamps and they do put out some good light (with no smoking, minimal odor, and self-extinguishing), but I can't find a distributor for lamp grade (lampante) veg oils in the US and you really don't need to be spending the fortune on culinary grade oil which is almost as expensive as kerosene even if you get the huge barrels at the discount bulk stores. I truly can't afford to have a barrel of olive lampante shipped to me in Alaska from Italy!!!

Kithera Member	# Posted: 26 Dec 2010 02:53pm Reply Quoting: PlicketyCat The biggest thing I found in all our experiments is that, besides the microwave for quick reheats, making heat with electricity is BAD BAD BAD and horribly inefficient... Light is another thing I learned a lot about. You can really save a lot of money and a whole lot of power by just getting the right bulbs for the application. A very astute observation, the first one. The truth those isn't that electric heat isn't less efficient, it's more costly (electric heating is one of the few 100% efficient processes in physics, wood burning is only about 50%). I know it's splitting hairs, but heating with electricity while attempting to be off grid is a nightmare. The other one is that LEDs and CFLs are equally efficent, that is per unit of electrical energy, they product the same amount of light. LEDs are just far dimmer that a CFL. Pick which is best for your application.

adamclay Member	# Posted: 26 Dec 2010 03:09pm Reply Quoting: Kithera A very astute observation, the first one. The truth those isn't that electric heat isn't less efficient, it's more costly (electric heating is one of the few 100% efficient processes in physics, wood burning is only about 50%). I know it's splitting hairs, but heating with electricity while attempting to be off grid is a nightmare. The other one is that LEDs and CFLs are equally efficent, that is per unit of electrical energy, they product the same amount of light. LEDs are just far dimmer that a CFL. Pick which is best for your application. I know a couple that does heat with electricity while off the grid. They installed a underground geothermal system. Even so, their geothermal system, furnace and solar system/batteries, cost them something like $25,000. It just makes far more sense to put a wood furnace in and buy some wood, unless you have money to blow. Their system is very nice though. The geothermal system uses earth's heat, so it is very efficient.

nbc	# Posted: 28 Dec 2010 03:39am Reply PlicketyCat, Do you think that you could get by with a Honda eu1000i generator instead of your eu2000? Asking because the fuel consumption and noise is so much better with the 1000.

PlicketyCat Member	# Posted: 28 Dec 2010 07:33pm - Edited by: PlicketyCat Reply Well, you have to burn something to make electricity (unless it's solar, wind or hydro), so from that perspective it's inefficient. You have power loss on the initial burn, loss in the generation, loss in the distribution... even if heat from an electrical element is "100% efficient". The end-to-end system (solar, wind, hydro excepted) is more inefficient than just burning wood or other mass/liquid fuel for heat. And, if you want to charge a battery bank, 1000 is not big enough. It's also probably not big enough to run any sort of large power tool off either. But if all you want is a couple of lights and a laptop, it would probably be sufficient. The 2000 is pretty quiet (compared to a 5000 diesel for sure!) and it can run about 12 hours on a gallon which usually enough to top off the battery bank.

MtnDon Member	# Posted: 28 Dec 2010 08:14pm Reply nbc, the answer to the question about whether or not the EU1000 is sufficient to charge batteries is, it depends. It depends on the size of the battery bank. If you were thinking about charging batteries off the DC output of the EU1000 that's a bad idea, in my opinion, as the EU1000 only puts out 8 amps at 12 VDC. However, if you use the EU1000 to power a stand alone battery charger you could run a charger that could provide much higher 12 VDC output. For example, Iota Engineering has a charger with a 30 amp 12 VDC output (360 watts) that the EU1000 could power. There are many folks running small PV systems with 300 - 400 watts of PV panels so that would be comparable. But you might have to run it for 4 to 6 hours a day, again depending on battery bank capacity and how much the batteries are depleted. As PlicketyCat pointed out, many people conveniently forget about the inefficiencies in some electrical generation, when considering that electrical resistance heating is 100%.

nbc	# Posted: 28 Dec 2010 08:22pm Reply PlicketyCat, Thanks for the response. Sounds like I'll have to give thought to whether I want to incorporate batteries into my system. By the way, I came across these Honda generators converted for triple fuel options (LP gas, natural gas, gasoline): http://www.generatorsales.com/triple-fuel-generators.asp but couldn't see if there was great potential for cost/convenience benefit from them. Any thoughts?

PlicketyCat Member	# Posted: 28 Dec 2010 08:52pm Reply The benefit of multi-fuel generators (or any equipment really) comes from the ability to use whatever fuel you can get your hands on the cheapest at the time; as well as having a backup fuel source in case you run out of one, it gets tainted, or it's too hot/cold for that fuel to work at the given time. Gas-NG-LPG is a good option for colder climates since they run at much lower temps than diesel or kerosene; and the NG-LPG option gives you a buffer against water in your gas or your gas going sour since NG-LPG keeps "forever". You can get more than one generator, one for each fuel type, which makes a slightly less complicated and easier to maintain machine... or you can save some space and possibly money getting a two-fer. Depending on where you live, propane may be less expensive by BTU than gasoline, and you'd sure save money on Stabil and Heet in the long run if you plan to store bulk gasoline for any amount of time in humid or cold climates. If you do decide to get a multi-fuel... make sure that it can be tweaked to also run ethanol and bio-gas in addition to gasoline and NG-LPG. That way you know that you'll have the option to run it on home brew if petroleum prices go (more) sky-high. Those of you who live in a warm-temperate climate with abundant oil-seed crops... feel free to go with a diesel/bio-diesel option :) If you live somewhere freakin' hot --- step away from the gasoline and LPG!!

nbc	# Posted: 29 Dec 2010 12:33am Reply MtnDon and PlicketyCat You're both (as are others on this forum) a wealth of knowledge and, I can only assume, experience! I look forward to picking your brains further as I get closer to heading up north.

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