Wasted heat

[Industrial Toys]

My negative take on off grid living. First they make the decision and pull the trigger. A month after installation, they are buying twice as many solar panels and batteries as they had planned. Then the wife is outside cooking on the Propane BBQ and they buy a (screaming) generator to make life still work. Oh, yeah, living off the grid!

 

[the old grind]

So true, IT. :laughing:

Heh, if living 'off grid' doesn't begin with finding ways to reduce o'all consumption (a lot!), they never will. A guy with a flat roof of <1200 ft said he thought about covering his roof with solar panels and 'going off grid'. Yeah, after two pots of coffee/day he'd be back on it, not to mention the $20k+ cost of panels at the time .. plus storage cells & controls ..

 

[fruitcakesa]

Having lived "off grid"[read that as no electric at all] for years in the early days of our homesteading, we settled on investing in a community solar array miles from our "on grid" home.
No muss or fuss of dealing with solar panels on the roof etc, and we still get a net metered rate along with a bonus adder per kw and at least that small amount electric generation is sustainable.

 

[fitter1]

Was off-grid for forty years at my camp. At first, nice and quiet and quaint. Did the solar battery generator thing for years, but changing battery banks and going through 3 high speed air cooled generators plus the noise was getting old and annoying. Looked into a small 7-8kw water cooled diesel for power and using baseboard heat. Decided to go on grid for for close to $18.5k and build a small barn with slab. Spent way more than I wanted but is quiet. Heat reclaim is used all the time in large commercial building generators. Full time grid power was my choice. I had to put in 4 poles for power and would have gone that route if any longer lines were needed.