here is something i have learned about living off grid

Everything comes with a price tag when living off grid and not really connected to the socalled grid .

Here is perfect exmaple of price of living off grid .

When i installed my solar set up i thought it would take care of all my needs up there but in the end i did have to buy four 5-gallon gas cans full of gas with a couple of bottles over the counter fuel stabilzer and qt's of oil for the generator unit to help recharge the battery bank this weekend when i was home before leaving to go back to Flagstaff for my rotating store job.

here is something else for every watt i use i have to replace it with two more watt's to make up the diff i'm needing right now and for the future

cooking off grid also is a diff than cooking on grid i have made my meal plans down the barest basic food prep in the place .from grilling the meat on a small propane powered grill to make the side dish are beening prepared in less than 5 mins total prep and cook time for them to keep down the socalled drain on the bank .

It no more wasteing the few seconds of letting the burner stay on as i move the pot of boiling water from the stove to the mix or letting the beeping of the mircowave oven alarm to alert me that the item is done .

it now stand right there and it goes off i remove the item from the mircowave and turn the power off to the item on the stovetop burner to make sure it not beening used to farther the drain on the bank

my basic prep time for all my meals beside the grilling of the meat item i using it now less than 5 mins start to finish or when baking bread it done with least amount of drain on the bank or when the gen set is running .

also the laundry is done the same way with the least amount of drain on the bank with a two hour wind up timer set to remind me to get up and go to the laundry area and wait for the load to finsh to get it out of the unit and hung up to dry if the weather is good or if the weather is bad then it set to get me ready for the load that been washed and dryed by the machine and ready to be pulled out of the machine once it done

then the machine is turned off at the power soucre to stop the drain on the battery

So habits we have from living in a grid tried world has to be gone in a off grid world

 

Hank, are you using Elec. to cook with and dry your clothes ?

 

yes i'm using the electrical units to cook with and wash & dry my cloths with

 

Hank, after all the posts here on this site about solar , how can you be still thinking that you can cook and heat with elec ? You need to switch your cooking and heating units to propane. Better the elec any day .

 

You have to remember i'm completely underground so electric was the only option i had at the time so propane was out of the question Bult i'm looking at a couple of diff items in the future with a little barter of my labor i'm going to pick something up and use it in the shed for cooking of my meals

Most of the time i do my laundry in town instead of there in the place i did a couple of trial runs to get the whole thing down to the basic steps i need to follow when it running off the bank instead of the grid .

 

Cooking with juice

I honestly didn't know you COULD cook with elec off grid....Heck, i was happy to know i could run a couple lights, a smaller new tv, and maybe a laptop once in a while.....Maybe i need to explore the options more? Only kidding.... Hank, if it works for you great, but it would scare me that the drain would over tax my batt bank....rsbhunter

 

i would have to agree that a gas stove,water heater,drier and frig is a must. even in a underground home it can be done. we are planning a berm home with everything but a small part of the front in the ground. gas will be used for everything it can be. i have been down looking a home tha amish do it and they live pretty simple with gas.

 

mrnobody and hank, the only concern I would have about using gas in an underground house would be to make very sure that you have good ventilation or it could get bad.

 

AAAhhhh... To have a Hobbit house.. I'am truly enviouse .. I get by with about 10 to 15 gal of gas a week. And I run the Gen. set about 5 times a week. all laundry and any power hungry tasks are scheduled for those times. I have a very modest system and a mistake can be very costly.. I had to replace 6 L-16 batteries that froze.. I only had the funds for 2.. Cost of batteries had shot way out of site compared to the original cost of the damaged ones.. Another expensive lesson learned.

 

As some of the people have said that you can run propane applicanes inside a place but as i knew once a full scale nuclear attack happen i could not trust the lines in the ground so that way i went with all electrical applicances inside the place . The holding & fresh water tank mounted on boxs that sit ontop of the springs units to hold them to allow them to sway with the shock wave as it pass through the ground a little with a lot of play of the hose & attchments unit to the bottom of the first floor area .

A earthquake would be a problem but the socalled rolling ground wave shock of a blast can and will do some major damage to the line and i could not or would not have that inside the place .

 

Hank, couldn't you use I think its called PEX flexible line ?

 

No sir, PEX is water piping.

If he was concerned about gas piping and breakage, there are a couple products that come to mind. 1st one is flexible corrugated stainless steel tubing and the next being MDPE or HDPE gas piping both made of polyethylene.

The corrugated tubing is an easier application for a home owner to install than the MDPE or HDPE tubing. A home owner can install the latter but you would need to buy a few special tools,

Flexible Corrugated Gas Piping from Gastite: Underground Gas Piping Products and Accessories

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