Posted on 03/30/2014 1:10:10 PM PDT by Kaslin
We are buying a plug and play off grid system from Wholesale Solar. For now we are just going to set it up and keep as back up for when the grid goes down. We are moving to our mountain retreat and putting all appliances on propane and then 2 one thousand gallon propane tanks. We figure we can go two years eithout a refill. Woodstove for heat. Hopefully that will be good enough. :-)
Oh, yeah, 2,000 gallons will work real good. ;-) A thousand could go for nearly 20 years if used for cooking only.
stove, refrigerator, water heater, dryer, and backup generator.
That’ll probably work really well for more than a couple of years. There are less expensive ways over time, but they’re also more labor-intensive, sometimes more costly to build and less convenient over time (PV solar refrigeration, clothes drying shelters, various mass heaters like masonry heaters or rocket mass heaters, wood-fired or solar water heating and so on). Many of the less expensive solutions can also be problematic in regards to codes and insurance in some areas.
Looks like your plan is a great one. Here, we have different conditions—a climate sometimes too cold for propane to produce enough gas pressure for a generator (pressure too low even from big tanks in winter) but dry and sunny enough to make a few other things work a little better.
Heating is a tough problem here. Saw a low of -39, F, one night in the winter of 2012-2013. A small house here can gobble a thousand gallons of propane for heaters within six months, and without any powerlines nearby (PV solar electricity needed), furnace blowers aren’t feasible. So you chose a great place.
Yes in the GA mountains you get 4 nice seasons. Summer not too hot, winter not too cold, fall and spring delightful. With raised bed gardens you can get two crops if you time it right.
We are going to use a woodstove for heat if the grid goes down so as not to use up the propane. If you sit one of those eco fans on it and leave the bedroom doors open it will push the heat all over the house.
Solar for lights, a small freezer, well pump, washing maschine, vacuumn that kind of stuff.
Mr. GG2 has made a rocket stove for every memeber of our family and also put together a ceramic water filtration system for everyone. We have a Berkey and then we kept one of the homemade filtration systems for a back up for us.
It definitely pays to prepare. :-)
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