Replies

Having individual electrical power is easy with this equation: E=M

E (electricity) = M (Me or Marcella, take your pick)

I do it with D and AA high capacity rechargeable batteries and a 22 watt solar panel with smart charger attached.

I know you guys talk 12 volt and deep cycle batteries, etc., all too expensive for me, but I'm going back to my grandmother's time with no power at all and updating that with high capacity batteries, rather than just her oil lamps and nothing else in her house working with any kind of power, not even regular batteries. I can do better than she did due to products we have now.

I can have light and cooling myself with my batteries for years but I can't reproduce today's power for freezer/fridge.

So, the one thing I can't do is keep something cold. I've put off dealing with that, but I need to find the info. again on how it is done in third world countries - something about using several pottery pots in graduated order and it keeps things cool/cold. I must look that up and reproduce that method.

I find it easier to kill people and break things until I have what is required to keep the lights on and freezer on.

But that's just me. I can build the stuff from scratch. I'd rather not.

/johnny

Now that sounds interesting. So what are all the things you are running on batteries? Is this only for power outages, or are you using it all the time now to keep electric bills down?

Do you have a well? If not, what are your plans for replacing water supplies.

I was just thinking the other day about ice, and how we used to have an ice house in town. Never knew where those blocks came from, and wondering if the grid went down long term ,if stuff like that would make a comeback.

I just remembered a short term trick to keep things cool.

Back when my grandparents had a small dairy herd, and hand milked the cows. The milk was put into a metal milk can. Gramps would then take burlap bags dripping wet with well water and wrap them around the cans covering all the sides and top.

It cooled the milk and kept it good till the dairy came by to pick up the cans later on.

I have actually used this for milk and juices when we didn’t have a cooler. Just used a hand towel sopped it in water and wrapped it around the bottle to keep it overnight when ice wasn’t available. The evaporation of the water is what makes it cool.