[chimera]

How many deep-charging cycles do the batteries handle before they crap out? My cousin in Hawaii is looking at replacing his battery bank because it will no longer hold a reasonable charge. He may have to take out a second mortgage to fund it. They also have thermal solar for hot water heating but I can recall taking more than my share of cold showers when I was visiting them.

[Georgia Girl 2]

I don’t know about your cousin in HI but you have to size your system for the number of KW you plan to use every month. There are a lot of variables with batteries. It depends on what kind of battery you use and how low you bleed them down before you recharge. Usually you should not let your batteries get below 50%. If you have good batteries and a sufficiently sized bank for your needs they should last at least 5 years minimum.. That’s in constant use. The battery bank I’m planning buy is going to run about $2,500 . So 5 years would be $500 per year so less than $50 per month. Not such a bad electric bill.

Its also a good idea to put most of your appliances on propane and only use the solar for lights, TV, well pump, washing machine, computers, vacuum cleaner etc. That’s what we are going to do.