holstein13 wrote:
Malakie wrote:
I am actually surprised at how nice things have been in here based one a lot of comments I got from many people around, not just here on the site. 80% of them were adamant this was not a good idea and we would have so many issues that it was going to be rough and cold.
I went back and read this entire thread and I think I see the confusion. In your original post, you mentioned an off-grid system with wind power and in later posts you mentioned that you were not really concerned about power draw and plugging in.
The majority of the posters on this forum actually supported your venture. I think that some were confused about whether you are trying to do all of this off-the-grid.
In any case, I'm one of your supporters and I'm enjoying reading about this so please keep the updates coming.
If that is the case sorry for the confusion.. Eventually the entire system will be off grid capable but I had no way to complete the entire thing in this amount of short time.
Right now the solar/wind system I put in can handle the entire DC load but it cannot handle the entire AC load. I only have 4 deep cells hooked in right now and the current wind/solar unit I put together produces about 150 watts of power.. enough to keep the deep cells charged even under standard load. If I am using everything then it cannot keep up but that is rare. What it has done though is lowered the cost of my electric however.
Initially we were running about $60 a month on shore power and was starting to increase with the cold coming in. Right are holding at about $60 per month thanks to the solar/wind because it is keeping the deep cells charged and is not pulling energy from the grid. I had intended on NOT plugging in but this system also utilizes the Onan 5500 generator as well. When the deep cells drop to 25%, especially on days of no wind/solar, the genset kicks in and charges them then shuts down. But since my current array is not able to produce enough power under full draw, yet, the genset was having to power up more than it should be needed. So I elected for this winter to go ahead and plug in since I will not have the means to add more panels nor buy 3 larger turbine generators until probably spring. (My system uses 3 mini generators each with its own 2 bladed prop)
Right now the only things using AC power are the furnace, two electric ceramic heaters, and the heated water hookups. I set the Frig to propane and everything else like the TV, computer, lighting etc is all running DC.
I am not sure if I mentioned this but I made a lot of other changes to help in this regard.. We replace every single light bulb with new LED light bulbs and seeing the difference in reduced electrical draw blew me away. It drop the amount of power draw but at least 2/3 yet kept the amount of light the same or a bit better in some areas.
Today it is cold. We are getting hit with that major winter blast you all have seen on the news. So far the system is working as intended. Wind is holding around 16-18 mph so I am getting a good draw from that.. although there is no sunlight to add to it.
There is one other area I am going to look into next year as well. The feasibility of using that expanding or the blow in kind of insulation in the walls to supplement insulation. That is one thing that could use some help. The walls are not freezing by any means but they are colder than I like especially on the windward side. I am thinking that blow in or expanding insulation might be an option but I have to do some research especially on the wiring and such to insure we do not cause a fire in the walls.
I am glad you like the updates.. Part of the reason I started the post was to kind of pass along this experience to everyone from a real time, real live doing it kind of perspective.
