Need some advice (add to safe vs add to sustain)

[1krr]

I've been planning out a system but buying the individual componants peice by peice. I did however pickup a clamp meter and do a little testing on the well. Found it was running at about 6 amps which would put me about about 1320 watts. Started feeling good until I logged peak current which came in at a nasty 23.6 amps to start. That puts the start up draw at almost 5700 watts or over 4x the sustained current! So while the watthour usage for a good amount of water might be in the 200wh range if pumped all at once into a holding tank of some kind, that start up current is a killer. That's well north of 400 amps to start on a 12v pack but a pretty reasonable 100ish amps at 48v. That Samlex or similar unit should run and I think jrusling, you've got the watt hours to do it. If you jumped your bank voltage up to 24v and swapped in the bigger inverter, I think your system would handle it fine. It's something how these little projects start off as a 500 dollar rifle and go to a couple of grand in a solar build!

Lurker, what was the trouble on the turbine? Tower seems like it would be a PITA.

 

[jrusling]

I run a 2KW inverter with a 250 A fuse. I was ripping some treated lumber with a 20" table saw and hit a knot. The saw went into a lock rotor condition and I blew that 250 A fuse. Sometimes I do with I had gone a little larger and either a 24 or 48 volt system. Our main goal was power for the shop and to be able to keep one freezer running in case of a prolonged power outage. What I have will work for that.

 

[1krr]

Well I bought the bday present. It's not as sexy as a permanent clean water source but it's emp proof..

*-not my pic, have to wait till it gets here.

 

[Hump66]

I got my system from here http://www.wholesalesolar.com/products.folder/systems-folder/OffGridPackages.html.

I have 4 140 w 12v panels, a Morningstar MPPT 45 am charge controller, 2 390 AH 6 V AGM batteries in series, and a 2000 watt sine wave inverter. I have seen a maximum of 535 watts, but not very often. About noon on a sunny day I will get 480 to 500 watts fairly regularly. With the angle of my panels, I actually get higher wattage during the fall or spring. I could have gotten the parts cheaper that Whole Sale Solar, but I did not know what I was doing and they were very helpful in helping be select the components and with answering my questions. Their knowledge and willingness to help was one reason I bought from them. I have had my system installed for about 1 1/2 years now and am very happy with it. As always, I do wish I had gone a little bigger on the panels and batteries. If in doubt be sure and get a larger charge controller than you think you will need.

I'll have to bookmark that site. Good prices. I would need 85 panels to go 100% solar with my current house. Ouch.

 

[jrusling]

I'll have to bookmark that site. Good prices. I would need 85 panels to go 100% solar with my current house. Ouch.

You can spend as much as the panels on batteries and inverters, or more.

 

[Hump66]

Yep, priced total system through them and it was around $45k.

 

[1krr]

It's much cheaper to invest in using less energy that trying to replace it if going off grid. We did a made in Oklahoma thing when we built our house and used Buildblock ICF for the walls, and Climate Master for the geothermal unit. We're all electric and eat between 800-1000kwh a month. Now if I could get my loving wife not to let the energy sucking DLP tv run all day, that would cut another 15% off the bill..

 

[Hump66]

I don't want to have to downgrade my lifestyle. I like me some A/C.

 

[1krr]

That's kind of how we came at it. We didn't want to give up too much in lifestyle but really it's become a hobby all in it's own.

If I were wanting to build a solar system on an existing home, I would first go through the house and figure out where the wallet suckers were. Like in our living room, we have two fans with 4 lights each but we use a single 23 watt cfl in one of those tulip lamps (what whatever they are called, the tall skinny ones that point up). It floods the room with indirect light and uses 7% of the power versus the original set of 40 watt incandescent bulbs did. We run that light a couple hours a night in the summer and for several hours in the winter every day. With incandescents on average, we would be comfortably over 1kwh everyday or about 30-35kwhs every month. I don't live in the city so I don't know about smart hours and such but just for simplicity, that could be 2-3 dollars a month off your bill. Repeat that 10 times through out the house and you've got real money. In terms of solar panels, that would be the difference of basically having a large panel and a healthy chunk of battery pack and inverter expense dedicated just to running those lights as much as we do. At today's prices for solar, that change in the living room would account for about $500-$700 worth of gear I don't have to buy/support just in the living room lighting. That's basically a new midrange rifle/pistol every couple of years with some left over for break in ammo for doing really nothing.

There are other things too. Most stick frame homes are basically swiss cheese with lots of air moving in and out that has to be conditioned. Caulking holes and windows, filling the backs of your electrical sockets with insulation, making sure your doors are sealed, making sure your insulation in the attic is good, even installing some solar attic vents to help move the air more quickly than convection can make a difference. Great Stuff is, well great stuff. If you can stick the straw in a place between the inside and out, fill it! It sounds like a PITA but gets to feel more like a challenge to see month to month how much you can cut the consumption.

The little stuff adds up and can just be projects rather than lifestyle changers. Life style changes like shorter showers, air dried clothes, turning off the lights, etc usually provide good savings. If you think about it, most of the lifestyle compromises that would save some jack/use less now are going to be basically required living in a real disaster. You won't be giving up as much when it happens so the impact to your lives and ability to adapt and survive is going to be bolstered.

If I were a maker type (I am and I think most the preppers forum folks are too), I'd make up a set of solar water heating panels and stand them up. If you have an electric water heater, that could be 30-50 bucks a month or more of your bill. Most commercial versions of the solar water heating panels are little more efficient than the DIY ones and are stupid expensive. Here is a site with lots of info (http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/WaterHeating/water_heating.htm) but I stumbled across this instructable with a panel design I'm going to test out ( http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-your-own-flat-panel-solar-thermal-collector/ ). I think in this design, the construction quality could be increased and help the efficiency a lot but the idea of using clear corrugated plastic sheets is great. Water absorbs almost every wavelength of light except visible light so exposing it directly to the light in addition to the larger surface area in the panel would do very well vs the more traditional black tube and fin styles most make. However longevity would be a concern. Cool thing is that hot water will go a LONG way in the shtf scenario so if you were bugging in and trying to run of limited self-generation, this system eats very little power but a warm shower would be awesome.

I could ramble on about this stuff forever.