Paul's Gas & Electric

Stanley may have been a great math teacher, but it didn't seem that he was much of an engineer.  The utilities consisted of:

Basically the problems were:

Water:  The walk down to the pump house with a gallon of gas is okay, but when it's raining, it is really slippery.  And wet.  Really wet.  It rains hard when it rains.  We average about two times as much rain as the Peninsula.  Fill the pump with gas, start it up, and walk away.  We had no idea how much water is in the water tower, but no matter, we never ran it dry.  Bacteria tests on the water were perfect, but the system is open, so we should test it every year. We also have to light the water heater Friday night so we'll have hot water Saturday. 

Electricity:  The electrical system worked like this:  We get there Friday night, the house is cold.  We hop in bed and go to sleep.  Saturday morning we fill the genny with a tank of gas, and run it dry to half-charge the batteries.  We turn on the house, build a fire, and start warming things up.  Refill the genny, and the batteries are finally charged.  That evening we run the genny for one more tank, and we're done.  Sunday we use batteries, genny again before we leave.  That's not so good. 

The solar array was almost useless.  Stanley put those Amps on the far side of 100 feet of 14-2 romex.  The losses were terrible, at about 40%, with less than 10 amps actually charging, which is less than a trickle for those batteries.  There was a current booster in the line, but he couldn't defeat the law of electromagnetism (and the black box warmed up a little too, wasting even more of the precious power he started with).  Lame.

We did this from Summer of '97 and until Summer '98.

So what did we do?

This lasted from late 1998 until 1999.  The system was now automated, and ran the house AC "24/7".  If the batteries ran low, the inverter would start the generator and charge the bank, which took about 4 hours; Every day when we were there, and every fourth day when we were gone.  A propane delivery truck came up every couple months and delivered propane.

What's left?

We still had an issue--the generator was running a lot (as mentioned above) which wears it out, makes noise, and burns gas.  So, we installed an extra 65 amp solar array, running down 4 stands of 4/0.  We had to remove 26 trees shading the arrays, which delayed the whole project.  Problem is:  If we just cut them down, that would be fine.  But 26 redwood, fir, and pine trees would be a lot to waste (we only burn about a cord each winter, so we would have 80 years worth), so we wanted to sell them.  For that, we need a permit.  For that, we need a harvest plan.  For that, we need a logger.  For that, we need a dry season.  The new millennium rolls in...

In the summer of 2000 we added the array and a second 4KW inverter/charger so we would have 240V, and can charge the batteries at their maximum rate, further lessening the generator demand (a full charge takes about 3 hours now, instead of 4).  We also replaced the water heater with a tankless model.  It's always on, so we have endless hot water, and it uses only the pilot when there's no hot water demand.  Plus, no tank to rust out (and leak when we're not there) either.  But now we're just fooling around...

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The Generator does not run for power from April through October, running a few minutes each week to keep it oiled and ready to go.  In the 4 months of Winter it runs 3 hours about every third day, more when we are here a lot.  Over the entire year it averages about 41 minutes per day.

Gas usage is so low the propane guy only needs to visit twice a year (we have a 500 gallon tank).  Our energy bill has dropped by 80%, we only burn gas in the winter, and then only when we are there.  The sale of the lumber offset the cost of the utility system, and since we only dropped the trees because of the arrays, it seems fair to cancel them out.  Note: The California Tax Credit for solar installations does NOT apply to homes that are off the grid.  Just so's 'ya know...

Updates:

The Frolic

24-hour system data:

Inverter 1:
Generator watts: http://lookoutranch.com/Inverters/ChannelG.txt
Battery volts: http://lookoutranch.com/Inverters/ChannelH.txt
Inverter Amps: http://lookoutranch.com/Inverters/ChannelI.txt

Inverter 2:
Generator watts: http://lookoutranch.com/Inverters/ChannelJ.txt
Battery temp: http://lookoutranch.com/Inverters/ChannelK.txt
Inverter Amps: http://lookoutranch.com/Inverters/ChannelL.txt