the problem is we sometimes we don't have enough sunlight to charge the batteries. the solution is to have more then enough solar panels another words over sizing your solar array. too much is never enough when it comes to solar panels because we never know when we'll have several days without sunshine.
Just starting my adventure, heard better to go big on panels before batterys. I'm finding generator a must. To charge on rainy week lol rains allot here. Next I'm going to run panels in series? Heard better for cloudy days. Bare minimum system so far. 48v 100AH eg4300 propane for heat till panel up and batts then mini split this summer. But as I learn things change. Any advice be appreciated and good fortunes in your adventure and God bless
@@sleepingbear6116 I agree on the over size your solar array before the batteries. Because of this, you want your batteries to be charging while still providing enough amps to power your device without stealing power from the batteries. The idea of larger solar array is to preserve battery power until there's no sunlight. I run all my panels in parallel. I choose this setup because wiring your panels in parallel boost the over all amps. The higher the amps the faster your batteries gets charge. In series is a totally different animal. In series your voltage adds up but amps STAYS the same. In series this may cost you more money in the long run because you'll have to add more and more panels to achieve the desirable amps to charge your batteries while running your device at the same time. This is why I wire all my panels in parallel but in your situation might be different then mines. It all depends.
That's the crux right? Your system depends on how much battery capacity you can afford and that line of how much charging you can afford. The home work has to be done to size your system. For me a single guy building a not small but not sized for a family, type cabin . I have it priced out at 10k at my current use r rate my system would basically pay for itself in five years. Factor in 1k for maintaining everything. And that's your system. Budget what you think you spend in power bills for 10 years. Cut that in half and build your system accodingly.
@@iceyaj3167 series is better as you have less power loss in your wiring. Your charge controller converts voltage to amps and you will actually get more amps using series. Only drawback for series is, if one panel gets shaded the power of all panels are reduced.
Wow that’s a pretty large system. We’ve been living off grid for many year and I’ve been designing and installing off grid solar for almost 15 years. Most of the off grid homes we did have 3.5-6kW of solar with AGM batteries. Total battery bank size is usually between 19.2kWh and double that. Customers very happy with their systems. They always have propane for cook stove and on-demand hot water. Building heat is typically a wood stove with maybe a propane backup wall heater. Fridge is a regular make and model but efficient. Typically 350kWh per year consumption translating to 960Wh per day. They also only use 200-300Watts when running. You mentioned yours uses 1200W! One suggestion is that the solar array should always be ground mounted on a tiltable mount unless you live in a lower latitude. If your at a latitude where the sun in the summer is 60-70 degrees above the horizon and in the winter it’s 15-30 degrees above the horizon you would benefit tremendously from tilting the array. Also a steep tilt helps shed the snow and also helps with picking up reflection off the snow. Where we live in Nova Scotia the peak sun hours in the summer are around 6 where as in December it’s down to 1 PSH. A generator is required from November thru to March typically running several hours a few times a week. Generator not used in the late spring, summer and early fall at all. Blessings.
Great topic and don't dispute anything you've shared. However, we've been running a 48panel (15kw) system for 6 years now I have hard data. I have a 2019 4-ton Lennox whole-house (2600 sq ft) forced-air heat-pump with SEER 23. Winter (Nov,Dec,Jan,Feb) in Southern Oregon requires a lot more kwhs than summer cool. This depends on you're lows and specific heat-pump but ours starts loosing peek efficiency
We're also in southern Oregon too, and your're right about the panel count! We have 52x320W panels, but in winter, we need four times this, 200 panels also. One day last winter (December 10th, 2023) we only got 1.28 kWh in a day! During December we average about 9 kWh per day. However the self consumption of the inverters runs about 3 kWh per day, and efficiency is around 85%, so 0.85 * 9 -3 = 4.65 kWh of power actually available to use! If we had 200 panels, that would be 36 kWh per day. 0.85 * 36 - 3 = 27.6 kWh per day which would be enough if we were careful.
I calculated that we would need a half a megawatt of solar panels to produce the power that we need when it's raining hard or during a thunderstorm when it gets so dark out that the outdoor lighting goes on. Rather than do that I just got a diesel generator which is still cheaper to run than to use grid power. The generator rapid charges the battery Bank and then it shuts down.
you can cut your battery cost in 1/2 if you purchase the raw prismatic cells and BMS for it seperately. Then put the battery together. Also, a DIY battery will not be that "black box" that cannot be repaired if something electronic breaks or become "obsolete" for parts even if you can repair it years from now.
Have you considered installing wind turbines to supplement your solar power? During the winter the days are short and the nights long, its usually cloudy but it is also windy.
Great video and you’re correct about the difference between winter and summer power. I have a system that is about a quarter the size of yours but I tied to the grid. I noticed that we are about 80 percent less power on a cloudy week than in the summer. On a sunny week we may hit only 60 percent but we have another month of less sun before it turns around. I built the system this summer and I thought I had the best location for the panels but now that late fall is here some of my neighbors trees are shading some of the panels in late afternoon. Not much I can do about that but I did add to more panels that will not be affected by the trees. I built my own batteries using individual lithium phosphate cells. The two that I built are 48 volts that store over 15 kWh each at a cost of about $2,250 each. The last one was cheaper because I built the battery box instead of purchasing it.
You are correct, few talk about dirty powered generators, nor single N-G bonding. Inverter manuals do have sections on the N-G bonding and on requirements for a generator to the inverter charger. Most request inverter type generators and 1.5 times the inverter output. for the 18kPV, that would be a 18kw generator - too much money. there is another way, as many mention in other comments I have two Schneider XW Pro 6.8kw inverters, for 13.8kw power. I never use the built in charger (an inverter in reverse) of the inverter with grid nor generator. My inverter is a whole house inverter using my DIY battery. I only charge the battery by solar, or by 2 chargeverters. The chargeverters are powered by GRID or by small dirty powered generator. By doing this all my loads get CLEAN sine wave AC power and I am acting like I am totally off grid. Grid nor generator touches my loads. Either solar charge or chargeverter power through the battery My SINGLE Neutral Ground bond is located in my grid service disconnect box.
Great that you use/give real world numbers! Have an over paneled system myself but when those clouds are heavy laden with light scattering moisture you produce almost no watts, but like in your video the wind usually blows during those times. Unless you have access to good hydropower capable water on your property you need to add some wind power (one good sized or a few smaller turbines), the missing part to run on and bring batteries back up (or slow the loss) until you have good soar again. You will rarely need your generator...
A mini aplit or heat pump will use roughly the same amount of energy making heat as it does cooling. Per minute of run time. . the difference is the wood heater and the difference between loss of heat in your house in the winter and heat gain in the summer time
It took a year to figure out the solar power, I have 11.6kw, full overcast 6 to 9kw a day, only works good with snow and vertical panels. I would be better off with that 18kw. Today was snowing 1400w high noon. I was getting 11kw before the snow, tomorrow I get sun snow combo, I may have to shade other arrays. Nov 5 no snow 39.5kw lowest day was 6.2kw on a very dark snowy day, I have the inverter I just took out would only make .7kw a day in the same conditions.
His is a large refrigerator. Mine is a typical Whirlpool 2 door, 2 drawer refrigerator and its right inline with yours, if not a bit lower. It does jump up to 700 to 800w during rhe defrost cycle. During the day I have a constant 300 to 400w draw running the fridge, wifi router, 2 nvr's, 6 wifi cameras, several bridges for smart home devices, along with the various z wave switches and outlets, and 2 or 3 ceiling fans. All of that stuff barely uses any power at all.
Yea, I should have been more specific. On startup that is about the max it draws from room temperature. Running we are looking at 600 watts max. This is a larger unit. Thanks.
That's a huge fridge.. house too. Wish i was blessed with your resources 👍👍💪💪 getting better Power than me:( by far. Generater 2hra a Day, propane heat. Enjoy the Day God gave ys thanks for sharing information.. God bless
@hisnaturefarm that's fine, be awhile before I make that jump. Going with a 120 clothes dryer. Just me and my girl. Cloudy during winter so researching.. thinking more solor panels before batterys. Really liking the eg4 got off Greg's list 500! Was a blessing big time. Made 48v 100Ah out of 4 power queens 600 for 4 bats.. 2 axis tractor 350 6 175w Bio solor panels 120 a piece. Eyes put for deal for second string. Charging with Generator. System last me two days.. good day for Shure. Two pushing it. Dyi guy since birth.. before lost my daughters they would say dad can fix anything... Miss them.. anyways thanks for responding 💪👍🙏 I'll sub
I'm almost positive that Mini Splits use more energy generating heat than they do air conditioning. Also the colder it is the less efficient. Your hot water heater will be refrigerating the room that it's in, as it sucks the heat out of your house, not so good in winter.
You are correct, a heat pump uses more energy in the winter to heat a space than it does to cool. The only exception would be if you’re heating the space but it’s not very cold out, like say 60°F. But if it’s that warm then you probably don’t have the system running
The big thing is that you are going to be over paneled for the summer time any place that has cloudy winters. And most places that have cloudy winters have longer stretches of cloudy weather in the winter than in the summer. Finally, you are right, the colder it gets the less efficient a Mini Split is in the winter, and at some point they might not be able to generated their nameplate heat output.
It's definitely heat, not AC. It really depends on the temperature swings though. But heat pumps heat in Norway and Finland just fine. Going from 40C to 20C when you have tons of energy is pretty easy. Going from -20C to 20C is a much bigger swing and you produce far less energy in the winter the further away from the equator you get. Heat pumps get less efficient the larger the temperature difference they need to overcome. Heat pump water heaters are better in places where you cool your house most of the year as they extract heat from the air and put it in the water. If you are heating your house any heat you extract and put in the water would then need to be replaced by your heating system. In places that run heaters lots of the year, like most of Canada, a better option is a ventless heat pump dryer. The main thing a regular tumble dryer does is heat up air it gets from inside your house and blasts it outside. Tbis means if it's -20C outside you are throwing heat away and replacing it with cold volumes of air. A ventless heat pump dryer solves that problem by basically running the air across a dehumidifier and draining the water like a washing machine drains. They use mich less energy to run directly, but alsodoesn't waste the energy out of the house. So TL;DR: Heat pump water heaters for texas, heat pump dryers for Canada.
Nice set up! , what about your all in one GE washer/dryer is still running good and any problem over the time owning it? I been thinking getting one, thank you so so much!
I added a second inverter that i already had to charge the batterys so it doubles the amps going into my batteries and cuts the charge time drastically, i currently run a 6000xp and a 6500ex the 6500 only charges batteries. I have 2 strings of 450 lg panels hooked to 6000xp and 10 panels of 450 watt panels hooked to the 6500. So far it's working good, i have 22.5kwh of batteries.
Good video. I would be surprised that AC is more of a load than heat in those ductless minisplits. In most cases in the past electric heat costs more than electric cooling or AC. Interesting results on the 150W in the winter. I know that is a low and there was a 9kw measurement also. Again good discussion on your video. The best thing about TH-cam is you can talk and then show. All the best from north Texas.
before I set up solar, I had a power outage, at the time I had one marine deep cycle and a 1200W cheap ass inverter (not pure sign wave at the time), I was able to run my standard icebox without recharging the battery for 6 hours before it dropped to 11v cutoff, I was able to run a ton of other stuff on the other 1200W inverter all day and night, lights and computers and had Four 100W panels that could bring it all back up through the day, I had added 4 more batteries in (P) I am in Upstate New York where sun shine is a joke but it still all works!
Adding to this. My Rheem 50 gallon heat pump water heater averages about 1 kWh per day in usage. That's with 4 adults in the house. My non-heat pump LG dryer pulls about 5.5 kW when actively running, totally about 10 kWh per week for our average usage. The matching washer pulls about 1.2 kWh per week, average. Not sure what's wrong with your refrigerator, but when all is cold and the door is closed, mine only draws 68 W. With the compressor kicking on it'll spike, but my whole fridge/freezer (large LG side-by-side) draws about 1 kWh per day total. My Mr. Cool DIY 18K single-zone with the 18K ceiling cassette draws between 1.2 - 1.5 kW when running. I haven't had it thru a whole season, yet, but it looks to draw 10-20 kWh per day, if we leave it on all day and set to 69 degrees F. All my measurements are thru a Leviton panel with smart breakers, giving me real time updates.
That does help I have 65 kwh of batteries eg4 I'm also off grid that does help. In the summer I can get around 65kwh in a day, the other day was very much overcast I got 3.5kwh pitiful. Need to use a generator with a charge verter to supplement the power a diesel heater and wood burner for heat.
@hisnaturefarm nice, I recently picked up a Westinghouse 10.5kw with 13k surge, its okay, but it kind of chugs when I fire up the 6 ton AC even with soft start. Just have a manual transfer switch. The more I look at that eg4 18k the more I like it, 200amp pass through, 20ms transfer switch, generator hookup, things really impressive for 5 grand.
You have a great set up..... That being said, why didnt you deversify your apliances and shift the major dryer, heater and water heaters over to gas. The gas out of a tank will always run and with a gen can always be fired up You are putting a lot of dependabce into one system, and the expense is ultimately going to wash out in the end Heating and cooling will always cost something, solar isnt free especially when it goes down
Am shocked, how is that refrigerator consuming so much current, you need a recent one buddy, mine is the same size if not bigger and it takes just very little
Not being mean, just trying to get the information corrected here: (kW is the energy available or power) (kWh is the electricity used over time) Also I might mention; the term "battery" needs to be expanded in most people's minds. YES; you have chemical batteries that store electrons for later use. But your homes interior mass is also a "battery". Building design lends itself to store solar energy also with south facing windows designed to block summer sun angles and open to winter sun angles. Your water storage can be used also! Pumped hydro even on a micro scale can be very lucrative. Also the liquid mass... Anyhow, my apologize if this message came off rude. Energy needs to be thought of further than solar(dc)~inverter(ac or dc losses)~battery(dc).....
So we have a 5000g tank. We have not gone without even though we have been in a drought. However, it is close and I have all low use fixtures. We actually use less than I thought, but we do watch our use.
@@hisnaturefarmhow much power does the pump/filtration system use? Do you get the same pressure at the faucet as if you were on city water? I'm thinking about going off grid on water as well.
Collecting rain water from the Roof gives you practically no chance of enough gravity feed pressure for the home . Installing a header tank on a suitable height platform ( rise with sufficient head pressure ) or on a high enough ,up hill ,rise can over come having to install a perment electric house pump . So you have twice the water storage , no electric pump bieng used through times of low power and you only pump from roof tank to header rise tank , when power is favourable .. Yes its a bit more to set up , though thats fun of being off grid and self sufficient 😊.
With solar its a good idea to have a backup .Weather its a ton of batteries or a Generator .In my case i stil relay on the Grid since i dont have my own home im limited how i go off Grid.
Why not heat with wood? Free/or cheap and save your juice for lights and other stuff. For drying clothes we use clothes lines, outdoor and indoor, depending on the weather.
I have been running solar for 5 years now. In the beginning the system provided 100% of electricity for 9 months of the year. I have 15kw in panels using a Sol-Ark 8k and a Fronius 3.8kw inverter. We think to truly be off grid including winter months we need to have at 42kw in panels and 100kw in battery storage minimum. Good luck...
When you say your system makes 9,000 watts or 2,500 watts in winter, I think you need to state the accumulative solar in a day. I like the EG4 batteries which you say, is 45 kilowatts of power (15 kw each). I think your power statements can be be misleading to someone who knows nothing about solar. Someone could think, how could 9,000 watts charge up 45,000 watts of storage capacity. But if you add, our system can make 45 kilowatts a day, that better explains your solar system. For example, my 50 panel -16kw solar system makes 117 kw on a sunny day and 20 kilowatts on a cloudy day in June. In late November a sunny day produces 50 kw, a rainy cloudy day produces 8 kw. Good video, you explain your various loads in great detail.
When it 🌧 its tough to keep everything running. I'm living off grid on grid, but have only turned on AC bypass twice in the last month. I was doing all right on 10 kwh of batts before the last few days. I use up 4-5 kwh heating up my 600sq ft room 25-35 degrees above the outside temp using my 9k btu mini. I think heat uses more power but since you are supplimenting with other heat sources it looks the reverse to you.
there is a solution to that but it also comes with it's own small problem ..... over paneling with the problem being space for the array .... intrerupt surplus array when unnecesary ..... i have a 35 kw array in multiple mppt controlers with there own swich and in a clowdy day i get about 2.5 kw/h and i intend yo make it biger the location is Romania - Europe ....... sory for bad english - not an english speaker
So what I have learned, in my experience you start out very young in off grid living. And it may pay off. 🥴 Other than that you just live on what you have already spent. It’s like borrowing money to live off of. 😅
Great message in this video. To be off grid with larger than a tiny house you need a BIG solar system. The washer/dryer gets the heat from the air. You pay for the heat when the room heater heats the air the dryer uses. The “efficiency” is false in the winter, but it helps cool the house in the summer so it is efficient in summer. Physical science was my favorite high school class.
Exactly, he should be cooking and drying clothes with propane, my propane bill doing this is $ 300 a year , our wood boiler covers all our heat , he mentioned elsewhere they are to expensive, used ones are very affordable
People need to read more. As almost every appliance today offers an, Inverter version. Microwaves, Coffee makers, AC Units, etc... These cut your Wattage use in half. As they only use the amount of power required to run at a given temperature. And turn off the Automatic Defroster on the Fridge. This eats up Watts for no gain. Unless you're just lazy. A syou only need to run it once a week, Not all day long..
The inverters i think to big high frequency not good run low frequency inverters 99% idle consumption Phoenix works great on refrigerator TV lights buy a fireplace that works good i like you video thanks but finish house if you can i know how it is
You've got a heat pump water heater. My calculations say that you need to insulated around your crawl space and fill it up with water buckets. Run PEX tubes around them and pack in sand. When the sun shines in the winter you want to run your Mini Splits to heat up your house and your water heater to move that heat into your sand/water battery. At night and during cold spells, pull the heat out of sand/water battery rather than running your Mini Split by having radiant floor, wall or ceiling heating. For use in space heating, a recuperative system is probably a fifth the cost of LiFePo batteries. And it should last 25 years instead of 7 years.
@@hisnaturefarm I'm planning on building an off grid house in an area that has cloudy cold snaps in the winter. Even with a very well insulated house, I was getting estimated battery costs of $60K running straight off of Mini Splits just to get through the worst of winter. But there are lots of techniques to avoid needing to oversize the system for those periods.
Rofl. "All our power comes from the Lord" But for the moments that the Lord does not deliver "we use the generator". Anyway, don't talk about watts that not interesting for the PV Talk about watthours or kwh.
I don’t understand how people seem to have forgotten what clothes are for. Your body generates enough of its own power to keep you warm, you only need to stop it all escaping. Worrying about heating a house is trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
@ it’s common sense and what we learnt to do when we still Neanderthal. You don’t heat the entire kitchen to cook the soup, you only heat the pot. Our use of power is so wasteful, for zero actual benefit.
I didn't watch a 12 min video because its the truth about solar does not need 12 min. With that said, you cannot convince me to go solar. I will run my generator before going solar.
@@hisnaturefarm I got 2 co-workers that took the bait on the solar. $60k and $80k systems with a $400/m and a $550/m payment. One has no battery back up so when power is out, so is he. The other has the Tesla powerwall battery back up (4 walls) which lasted him 24 hrs on the last hurricane and he was out for 5 days because a tree limb came down and damaged some of the panels and it took the solar company 5 days to come out for the repair .... So i told them you spent $80k on a solar system and you had no power for 5 days because the panels were damged and they made you wait 5 days ..... Screw that, i have my $1500 10kW generator that i just crank up and power my house and not spend $60k or $400+ per month on it. Plus there are too many electronics involved in those systems to trouble shoot when they go down. My generator is simple and can be replaced the next day.
@ ahh no .. i dont care how "new" your tech is let alone how you think your "new" tech is vs stone age tech. All electronic components are built with components from the stone age, nothing has changed in components. When your fancy new electronics go down, you now have to hunt down the issue and fix. Can it be fixed? Can it be fixed by you? Does it have to be fixed by an authorized tech? How long do you have to wait for an authorized tech to show up to then say, we dont have that part, its going to take a week to get ... Lastly, im NOT putting 60kW worth of batteries in my home let alone all that fancy electronics to monitor and charge the batteries until a battery fails or catches on fire or the electronics fail ... Screw that, my 10kW generator is standing by to do that same job and will keep running so as long as i have fuel for it, unlike the batteires that WILL drain eventually and leave you without power. Nothing about your setup is even logically worth it imo other than bragging rights that you have solar with 60kW worth of batteries. But to each his own i guess, everyone thinks differently 🤷🏽
I'm a believer in multiple redundancy. Poco takes care of 99% of the time. I have a little battery and solar to carry me thru up to about 24hr outages and multiple generators for longer events. At 9c/kwh I can't afford to go off grid, it makes no fiscal sense. Wood heating can keep me warm using less than 150w. Keeping my fridges and freezers running is the priority
the problem is we sometimes we don't have enough sunlight to charge the batteries. the solution is to have more then enough solar panels another words over sizing your solar array. too much is never enough when it comes to solar panels because we never know when we'll have several days without sunshine.
Just starting my adventure, heard better to go big on panels before batterys. I'm finding generator a must. To charge on rainy week lol rains allot here. Next I'm going to run panels in series? Heard better for cloudy days. Bare minimum system so far. 48v 100AH eg4300 propane for heat till panel up and batts then mini split this summer. But as I learn things change. Any advice be appreciated and good fortunes in your adventure and God bless
@@sleepingbear6116 I agree on the over size your solar array before the batteries. Because of this, you want your batteries to be charging while still providing enough amps to power your device without stealing power from the batteries. The idea of larger solar array is to preserve battery power until there's no sunlight. I run all my panels in parallel. I choose this setup because wiring your panels in parallel boost the over all amps. The higher the amps the faster your batteries gets charge. In series is a totally different animal. In series your voltage adds up but amps STAYS the same. In series this may cost you more money in the long run because you'll have to add more and more panels to achieve the desirable amps to charge your batteries while running your device at the same time. This is why I wire all my panels in parallel but in your situation might be different then mines. It all depends.
@@iceyaj3167 big Thanks 💪💪👍👍 God bless the teacher's..
That's the crux right?
Your system depends on how much battery capacity you can afford and that line of how much charging you can afford.
The home work has to be done to size your system.
For me a single guy building a not small but not sized for a family, type cabin . I have it priced out at 10k at my current use r rate my system would basically pay for itself in five years. Factor in 1k for maintaining everything. And that's your system. Budget what you think you spend in power bills for 10 years. Cut that in half and build your system accodingly.
@@iceyaj3167 series is better as you have less power loss in your wiring. Your charge controller converts voltage to amps and you will actually get more amps using series. Only drawback for series is, if one panel gets shaded the power of all panels are reduced.
Wow that’s a pretty large system. We’ve been living off grid for many year and I’ve been designing and installing off grid solar for almost 15 years. Most of the off grid homes we did have 3.5-6kW of solar with AGM batteries. Total battery bank size is usually between 19.2kWh and double that. Customers very happy with their systems. They always have propane for cook stove and on-demand hot water. Building heat is typically a wood stove with maybe a propane backup wall heater. Fridge is a regular make and model but efficient. Typically 350kWh per year consumption translating to 960Wh per day. They also only use 200-300Watts when running. You mentioned yours uses 1200W!
One suggestion is that the solar array should always be ground mounted on a tiltable mount unless you live in a lower latitude. If your at a latitude where the sun in the summer is 60-70 degrees above the horizon and in the winter it’s 15-30 degrees above the horizon you would benefit tremendously from tilting the array. Also a steep tilt helps shed the snow and also helps with picking up reflection off the snow. Where we live in Nova Scotia the peak sun hours in the summer are around 6 where as in December it’s down to 1 PSH. A generator is required from November thru to March typically running several hours a few times a week. Generator not used in the late spring, summer and early fall at all.
Blessings.
Great info thanks!
Great topic and don't dispute anything you've shared. However, we've been running a 48panel (15kw) system for 6 years now I have hard data. I have a 2019 4-ton Lennox whole-house (2600 sq ft) forced-air heat-pump with SEER 23. Winter (Nov,Dec,Jan,Feb) in Southern Oregon requires a lot more kwhs than summer cool. This depends on you're lows and specific heat-pump but ours starts loosing peek efficiency
We're also in southern Oregon too, and your're right about the panel count! We have 52x320W panels, but in winter, we need four times this, 200 panels also.
One day last winter (December 10th, 2023) we only got 1.28 kWh in a day! During December we average about 9 kWh per day. However the self consumption of the inverters runs about 3 kWh per day, and efficiency is around 85%, so 0.85 * 9 -3 = 4.65 kWh of power actually available to use! If we had 200 panels, that would be 36 kWh per day. 0.85 * 36 - 3 = 27.6 kWh per day which would be enough if we were careful.
Look at a low ambient temp rated heat pump that Lennox is old tech. Gree makes some very low temp models
And this is why we layer our power systems. Wood fire for heat, electric chain saw and electric splitter.... Much more cheap and efficient
I calculated that we would need a half a megawatt of solar panels to produce the power that we need when it's raining hard or during a thunderstorm when it gets so dark out that the outdoor lighting goes on. Rather than do that I just got a diesel generator which is still cheaper to run than to use grid power. The generator rapid charges the battery Bank and then it shuts down.
Wouldn't a ground source heat pump, deep holes in ground, make more sense in your situation, other than cost that is.
you can cut your battery cost in 1/2 if you purchase the raw prismatic cells and BMS for it seperately. Then put the battery together. Also, a DIY battery will not be that "black box" that cannot be repaired if something electronic breaks or become "obsolete" for parts even if you can repair it years from now.
Awesome information. I am considering solar, and this helped me greatly. Honest, current information. Thank you.
Have you considered installing wind turbines to supplement your solar power? During the winter the days are short and the nights long, its usually cloudy but it is also windy.
Great video and you’re correct about the difference between winter and summer power. I have a system that is about a quarter the size of yours but I tied to the grid. I noticed that we are about 80 percent less power on a cloudy week than in the summer. On a sunny week we may hit only 60 percent but we have another month of less sun before it turns around. I built the system this summer and I thought I had the best location for the panels but now that late fall is here some of my neighbors trees are shading some of the panels in late afternoon. Not much I can do about that but I did add to more panels that will not be affected by the trees. I built my own batteries using individual lithium phosphate cells. The two that I built are 48 volts that store over 15 kWh each at a cost of about $2,250 each. The last one was cheaper because I built the battery box instead of purchasing it.
Thanks for the information, I appreciate you sharing your experience! I did not have the knowledge to build my own batteries, that is awesome.
This is a great video. Thanks for all the straightforward knowledge.
Those mini splits man. Those are monster splits as far as solar goes.
You are correct, few talk about dirty powered generators, nor single N-G bonding. Inverter manuals do have sections on the N-G bonding and on requirements for a generator to the inverter charger. Most request inverter type generators and 1.5 times the inverter output. for the 18kPV, that would be a 18kw generator - too much money. there is another way, as many mention in other comments
I have two Schneider XW Pro 6.8kw inverters, for 13.8kw power. I never use the built in charger (an inverter in reverse) of the inverter with grid nor generator. My inverter is a whole house inverter using my DIY battery. I only charge the battery by solar, or by 2 chargeverters. The chargeverters are powered by GRID or by small dirty powered generator.
By doing this all my loads get CLEAN sine wave AC power and I am acting like I am totally off grid. Grid nor generator touches my loads. Either solar charge or chargeverter power through the battery
My SINGLE Neutral Ground bond is located in my grid service disconnect box.
Great that you use/give real world numbers! Have an over paneled system myself but when those clouds are heavy laden with light scattering moisture you produce almost no watts, but like in your video the wind usually blows during those times. Unless you have access to good hydropower capable water on your property you need to add some wind power (one good sized or a few smaller turbines), the missing part to run on and bring batteries back up (or slow the loss) until you have good soar again. You will rarely need your generator...
A mini aplit or heat pump will use roughly the same amount of energy making heat as it does cooling. Per minute of run time. . the difference is the wood heater and the difference between loss of heat in your house in the winter and heat gain in the summer time
It took a year to figure out the solar power, I have 11.6kw, full overcast 6 to 9kw a day, only works good with snow and vertical panels. I would be better off with that 18kw.
Today was snowing 1400w high noon. I was getting 11kw before the snow, tomorrow I get sun snow combo, I may have to shade other arrays. Nov 5 no snow 39.5kw lowest day was 6.2kw on a very dark snowy day, I have the inverter I just took out would only make .7kw a day in the same conditions.
1200 W on a refrigerator. Mine has never pulled more than 150 W, unless it was a surge for startup?
His is a large refrigerator. Mine is a typical Whirlpool 2 door, 2 drawer refrigerator and its right inline with yours, if not a bit lower. It does jump up to 700 to 800w during rhe defrost cycle. During the day I have a constant 300 to 400w draw running the fridge, wifi router, 2 nvr's, 6 wifi cameras, several bridges for smart home devices, along with the various z wave switches and outlets, and 2 or 3 ceiling fans. All of that stuff barely uses any power at all.
Yea, I should have been more specific. On startup that is about the max it draws from room temperature. Running we are looking at 600 watts max. This is a larger unit. Thanks.
Or if it's defrosting then it might pull over 1KW
Omg my off grid system is one tenth of that , but I don't run all that much appliances .
I have wood heat . Lights and fans , refrigerator.
That's a huge fridge.. house too. Wish i was blessed with your resources 👍👍💪💪 getting better Power than me:( by far. Generater 2hra a Day, propane heat. Enjoy the Day God gave ys thanks for sharing information.. God bless
Yeah, it is but sit tight. I’m gonna do a video on how we got that kitchen. It’s a lot less than what you might think.
@hisnaturefarm that's fine, be awhile before I make that jump. Going with a 120 clothes dryer. Just me and my girl. Cloudy during winter so researching.. thinking more solor panels before batterys. Really liking the eg4 got off Greg's list 500! Was a blessing big time. Made 48v 100Ah out of 4 power queens 600 for 4 bats.. 2 axis tractor 350 6 175w Bio solor panels 120 a piece. Eyes put for deal for second string. Charging with Generator. System last me two days.. good day for Shure. Two pushing it. Dyi guy since birth.. before lost my daughters they would say dad can fix anything... Miss them.. anyways thanks for responding 💪👍🙏 I'll sub
I'm almost positive that Mini Splits use more energy generating heat than they do air conditioning. Also the colder it is the less efficient. Your hot water heater will be refrigerating the room that it's in, as it sucks the heat out of your house, not so good in winter.
You are correct, a heat pump uses more energy in the winter to heat a space than it does to cool. The only exception would be if you’re heating the space but it’s not very cold out, like say 60°F. But if it’s that warm then you probably don’t have the system running
The big thing is that you are going to be over paneled for the summer time any place that has cloudy winters. And most places that have cloudy winters have longer stretches of cloudy weather in the winter than in the summer. Finally, you are right, the colder it gets the less efficient a Mini Split is in the winter, and at some point they might not be able to generated their nameplate heat output.
It's definitely heat, not AC. It really depends on the temperature swings though. But heat pumps heat in Norway and Finland just fine.
Going from 40C to 20C when you have tons of energy is pretty easy.
Going from -20C to 20C is a much bigger swing and you produce far less energy in the winter the further away from the equator you get.
Heat pumps get less efficient the larger the temperature difference they need to overcome.
Heat pump water heaters are better in places where you cool your house most of the year as they extract heat from the air and put it in the water.
If you are heating your house any heat you extract and put in the water would then need to be replaced by your heating system.
In places that run heaters lots of the year, like most of Canada, a better option is a ventless heat pump dryer. The main thing a regular tumble dryer does is heat up air it gets from inside your house and blasts it outside. Tbis means if it's -20C outside you are throwing heat away and replacing it with cold volumes of air. A ventless heat pump dryer solves that problem by basically running the air across a dehumidifier and draining the water like a washing machine drains. They use mich less energy to run directly, but alsodoesn't waste the energy out of the house.
So TL;DR: Heat pump water heaters for texas, heat pump dryers for Canada.
I think that's a great point about heat pumps!
Nice set up! , what about your all in one GE washer/dryer is still running good and any problem over the time owning it?
I been thinking getting one, thank you so so much!
Been working great, here is the most recent video on it.
th-cam.com/video/bOLojjNH59M/w-d-xo.htmlsi=4vfFS3rsqOg0JKXl
@hisnaturefarm awesome! , thank you!!!
I added a second inverter that i already had to charge the batterys so it doubles the amps going into my batteries and cuts the charge time drastically, i currently run a 6000xp and a 6500ex the 6500 only charges batteries. I have 2 strings of 450 lg panels hooked to 6000xp and 10 panels of 450 watt panels hooked to the 6500. So far it's working good, i have 22.5kwh of batteries.
Thats a good angle too... Charge faster.. God bless
Do you use a pressure tank to pressure your house water? Or do straight pump it into the house plumbing?
20g pressure tank. Works good, not great pressure, I plumbed in 1/2” through house, should have been 3/4.
Good video. I would be surprised that AC is more of a load than heat in those ductless minisplits. In most cases in the past electric heat costs more than electric cooling or AC. Interesting results on the 150W in the winter. I know that is a low and there was a 9kw measurement also.
Again good discussion on your video. The best thing about TH-cam is you can talk and then show. All the best from north Texas.
I saw the title and had to know, WATTS going on here? LOL
before I set up solar, I had a power outage, at the time I had one marine deep cycle and a 1200W cheap ass inverter (not pure sign wave at the time), I was able to run my standard icebox without recharging the battery for 6 hours before it dropped to 11v cutoff, I was able to run a ton of other stuff on the other 1200W inverter all day and night, lights and computers and had Four 100W panels that could bring it all back up through the day, I had added 4 more batteries in (P) I am in Upstate New York where sun shine is a joke but it still all works!
Adding to this. My Rheem 50 gallon heat pump water heater averages about 1 kWh per day in usage. That's with 4 adults in the house. My non-heat pump LG dryer pulls about 5.5 kW when actively running, totally about 10 kWh per week for our average usage. The matching washer pulls about 1.2 kWh per week, average. Not sure what's wrong with your refrigerator, but when all is cold and the door is closed, mine only draws 68 W. With the compressor kicking on it'll spike, but my whole fridge/freezer (large LG side-by-side) draws about 1 kWh per day total.
My Mr. Cool DIY 18K single-zone with the 18K ceiling cassette draws between 1.2 - 1.5 kW when running. I haven't had it thru a whole season, yet, but it looks to draw 10-20 kWh per day, if we leave it on all day and set to 69 degrees F.
All my measurements are thru a Leviton panel with smart breakers, giving me real time updates.
I do get overpaneling, but in the end of all things, need a generator if you have no grid.
Much more going on than that video goes out into.
I have had cloudy days do as well as some sunny days.
You need 6 more batteries with that much demand to be sure you don’t run out of power after 2 rainy days back to back.
That does help I have 65 kwh of batteries eg4 I'm also off grid that does help. In the summer I can get around 65kwh in a day, the other day was very much overcast I got 3.5kwh pitiful. Need to use a generator with a charge verter to supplement the power a diesel heater and wood burner for heat.
24kw inverter
60kw batteries
18kw in panels
For a regular house that’s where you want to be.
What kind of generator are you using? and did you wire it into the 18kv? Does it automatically fire up when the batteries are at a certain threshold?
It is a Westinghouse 9.5k. It is directly wired into 18k. It is not wired in so it directly starts. At least not yet.
@hisnaturefarm nice, I recently picked up a Westinghouse 10.5kw with 13k surge, its okay, but it kind of chugs when I fire up the 6 ton AC even with soft start. Just have a manual transfer switch. The more I look at that eg4 18k the more I like it, 200amp pass through, 20ms transfer switch, generator hookup, things really impressive for 5 grand.
You have a great set up..... That being said, why didnt you deversify your apliances and shift the major dryer, heater and water heaters over to gas. The gas out of a tank will always run and with a gen can always be fired up
You are putting a lot of dependabce into one system, and the expense is ultimately going to wash out in the end
Heating and cooling will always cost something, solar isnt free especially when it goes down
Am shocked, how is that refrigerator consuming so much current, you need a recent one buddy, mine is the same size if not bigger and it takes just very little
Not being mean, just trying to get the information corrected here:
(kW is the energy available or power)
(kWh is the electricity used over time)
Also I might mention; the term "battery" needs to be expanded in most people's minds.
YES; you have chemical batteries that store electrons for later use. But your homes interior mass is also a "battery". Building design lends itself to store solar energy also with south facing windows designed to block summer sun angles and open to winter sun angles.
Your water storage can be used also! Pumped hydro even on a micro scale can be very lucrative. Also the liquid mass...
Anyhow, my apologize if this message came off rude. Energy needs to be thought of further than solar(dc)~inverter(ac or dc losses)~battery(dc).....
I think that’s a great point! No worries all learning here.
I thought it was great info to take in. I’m considering the exact same setup from EG4 with 40-60 panels.
Great… Signature Solar is a good place, need to be a bit patient on tech support, but they do stand by their products.
How much does your water pump use? I'm going to do what you are doing soon with a 2,500 gallon tank.
So we have a 5000g tank. We have not gone without even though we have been in a drought. However, it is close and I have all low use fixtures. We actually use less than I thought, but we do watch our use.
@@hisnaturefarmhow much power does the pump/filtration system use? Do you get the same pressure at the faucet as if you were on city water? I'm thinking about going off grid on water as well.
Collecting rain water from the Roof gives you practically no chance of enough gravity feed pressure for the home .
Installing a header tank on a suitable height platform ( rise with sufficient head pressure ) or on a high enough ,up hill ,rise can over come having to install a perment electric house pump .
So you have twice the water storage , no electric pump bieng used through times of low power and you only pump from roof tank to header rise tank , when power is favourable ..
Yes its a bit more to set up , though thats fun of being off grid and self sufficient 😊.
@@Nerkumsized I don't mind spending a few kwh to run the pump per day. Water here is $100/mo fixed +few $ for usage.
You lost me when you tried to showcase your cat in a solar vid 😂
With solar its a good idea to have a backup .Weather its a ton of batteries or a Generator .In my case i stil relay on the Grid since i dont have my own home im limited how i go off Grid.
Why not heat with wood? Free/or cheap and save your juice for lights and other stuff. For drying clothes we use clothes lines, outdoor and indoor, depending on the weather.
Wood takes much attention, plus those wood boilers are real expensive.
I have been running solar for 5 years now. In the beginning the system provided 100% of electricity for 9 months of the year. I have 15kw in panels using a Sol-Ark 8k and a Fronius 3.8kw inverter. We think to truly be off grid including winter months we need to have at 42kw in panels and 100kw in battery storage minimum. Good luck...
When you say your system makes 9,000 watts or 2,500 watts in winter, I think you need to state the accumulative solar in a day. I like the EG4 batteries which you say, is 45 kilowatts of power (15 kw each). I think your power statements can be be misleading to someone who knows nothing about solar. Someone could think, how could 9,000 watts charge up 45,000 watts of storage capacity. But if you add, our system can make 45 kilowatts a day, that better explains your solar system. For example, my 50 panel -16kw solar system makes 117 kw on a sunny day and 20 kilowatts on a cloudy day in June. In late November a sunny day produces 50 kw, a rainy cloudy day produces 8 kw. Good video, you explain your various loads in great detail.
When it 🌧 its tough to keep everything running. I'm living off grid on grid, but have only turned on AC bypass twice in the last month. I was doing all right on 10 kwh of batts before the last few days. I use up 4-5 kwh heating up my 600sq ft room 25-35 degrees above the outside temp using my 9k btu mini. I think heat uses more power but since you are supplimenting with other heat sources it looks the reverse to you.
Yea I think so, but we will see when it hits 32 out. It is good that you have that backup. Thanks for the comment.
You are NOT off the grid while on your phone connected to the internet ...
true off the grid people dont connect to the internet
@@ACommenterOnTH-cam 🤣.
@@Gary-ee3kq aww whats the matter? Still think you are off grid while commenting TO THE GRID on the grid 🤣
there is a solution to that but it also comes with it's own small problem ..... over paneling with the problem being space for the array .... intrerupt surplus array when unnecesary ..... i have a 35 kw array in multiple mppt controlers with there own swich and in a clowdy day i get about 2.5 kw/h and i intend yo make it biger the location is Romania - Europe ....... sory for bad english - not an english speaker
DUDE, GET THE SIDING ON THE HOUSE!
So what I have learned, in my experience you start out very young in off grid living. And it may pay off. 🥴 Other than that you just live on what you have already spent. It’s like borrowing money to live off of. 😅
Great message in this video. To be off grid with larger than a tiny house you need a BIG solar system. The washer/dryer gets the heat from the air. You pay for the heat when the room heater heats the air the dryer uses. The “efficiency” is false in the winter, but it helps cool the house in the summer so it is efficient in summer. Physical science was my favorite high school class.
So these would be great to use in Florida?
Just use wood under 40f. Curtail your wasteful usage.
Exactly, he should be cooking and drying clothes with propane, my propane bill doing this is $ 300 a year , our wood boiler covers all our heat , he mentioned elsewhere they are to expensive, used ones are very affordable
People need to read more. As almost every appliance today offers an, Inverter version. Microwaves, Coffee makers, AC Units, etc... These cut your Wattage use in half. As they only use the amount of power required to run at a given temperature. And turn off the Automatic Defroster on the Fridge. This eats up Watts for no gain. Unless you're just lazy. A syou only need to run it once a week, Not all day long..
Yes, that is a great point and a huge help!
The inverters i think to big high frequency not good run low frequency inverters 99% idle consumption Phoenix works great on refrigerator TV lights buy a fireplace that works good i like you video thanks but finish house if you can i know how it is
👍
Living way above your means ,
a wind turbine helps
You've got a heat pump water heater. My calculations say that you need to insulated around your crawl space and fill it up with water buckets. Run PEX tubes around them and pack in sand. When the sun shines in the winter you want to run your Mini Splits to heat up your house and your water heater to move that heat into your sand/water battery. At night and during cold spells, pull the heat out of sand/water battery rather than running your Mini Split by having radiant floor, wall or ceiling heating. For use in space heating, a recuperative system is probably a fifth the cost of LiFePo batteries. And it should last 25 years instead of 7 years.
That’s a very interesting idea. I’ve never heard that before.
@@hisnaturefarm I'm planning on building an off grid house in an area that has cloudy cold snaps in the winter. Even with a very well insulated house, I was getting estimated battery costs of $60K running straight off of Mini Splits just to get through the worst of winter. But there are lots of techniques to avoid needing to oversize the system for those periods.
Rofl.
"All our power comes from the Lord"
But for the moments that the Lord does not deliver "we use the generator".
Anyway, don't talk about watts that not interesting for the PV
Talk about watthours or kwh.
I don’t understand how people seem to have forgotten what clothes are for. Your body generates enough of its own power to keep you warm, you only need to stop it all escaping.
Worrying about heating a house is trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
We dont use heat, we put on more clothes ...
@ it’s common sense and what we learnt to do when we still Neanderthal. You don’t heat the entire kitchen to cook the soup, you only heat the pot. Our use of power is so wasteful, for zero actual benefit.
The TRUTH about Solar that NO ONE tells You
Not worth a 12 min video ...
I didn't watch a 12 min video because its the truth about solar does not need 12 min. With that said, you cannot convince me to go solar. I will run my generator before going solar.
Well, it is awesome, many days I just forget it. It works perfectly with a little bit of attention. I have almost no monthly expense. Just say in.
@@hisnaturefarm I got 2 co-workers that took the bait on the solar.
$60k and $80k systems with a $400/m and a $550/m payment.
One has no battery back up so when power is out, so is he.
The other has the Tesla powerwall battery back up (4 walls) which lasted him 24 hrs on the last hurricane and he was out for 5 days because a tree limb came down and damaged some of the panels and it took the solar company 5 days to come out for the repair ....
So i told them you spent $80k on a solar system and you had no power for 5 days because the panels were damged and they made you wait 5 days .....
Screw that, i have my $1500 10kW generator that i just crank up and power my house and not spend $60k or $400+ per month on it. Plus there are too many electronics involved in those systems to trouble shoot when they go down.
My generator is simple and can be replaced the next day.
Back to superiority of new technology or coal Stone Age lol. We use what we can afford or fix. Sir I agree with your logic nature farm
@ ahh no .. i dont care how "new" your tech is let alone how you think your "new" tech is vs stone age tech.
All electronic components are built with components from the stone age, nothing has changed in components.
When your fancy new electronics go down, you now have to hunt down the issue and fix.
Can it be fixed?
Can it be fixed by you?
Does it have to be fixed by an authorized tech?
How long do you have to wait for an authorized tech to show up to then say, we dont have that part, its going to take a week to get ...
Lastly, im NOT putting 60kW worth of batteries in my home let alone all that fancy electronics to monitor and charge the batteries until a battery fails or catches on fire or the electronics fail ...
Screw that, my 10kW generator is standing by to do that same job and will keep running so as long as i have fuel for it, unlike the batteires that WILL drain eventually and leave you without power.
Nothing about your setup is even logically worth it imo other than bragging rights that you have solar with 60kW worth of batteries.
But to each his own i guess, everyone thinks differently 🤷🏽
I'm a believer in multiple redundancy. Poco takes care of 99% of the time. I have a little battery and solar to carry me thru up to about 24hr outages and multiple generators for longer events. At 9c/kwh I can't afford to go off grid, it makes no fiscal sense. Wood heating can keep me warm using less than 150w. Keeping my fridges and freezers running is the priority