Grid Down Preps
- Thread starter Caribou
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At our mountain house, we had frequent power outages. After loosing power on Christmas day, we had it wired so that we flipped off the main and plugged in the generator. The only things we couldn't run were the oven and the dryer. Also had 500 g. propane tank for hot water heater and had a splitter in the line so that whenever I needed a new stove, I could get that propane. We had wood for heat - forested area. I also cooked on the wood stove at times. Riverfront property so there was water there and from the well. Critters abound as well as garden area and mature fruit trees. (This place is currently for sale.) We are now close to town in a place that has everything electric. Scares me nearly to death, but it's not forever - just for now. We are planning our forever place and have experience in what we would like and don't like in the way of sustainability. (We don't want batteries.)
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LadtL, I would like a bucket well with a really easy pulley assembly on it. We have a well but it is pipe.
I have lead/acid batteries. In about 5 years I'll replace them with newer 20 year technology batteries. That will take me past my life expectancy.
So not sure if this should go here or a separate thread, but. . . do any of you have experience with hydro or even wind energy but direct currant. By that I mean something with a regulator on the line directly to the "appliance." I would be pretty much fine with alternate methods for most things, but we have a freezer. If it requires 1500 w. and there was live water that could spin a wheel? If so do they have the capability to cease when the freezer motor isn't running? Are there even such instruments, or do I need to invent one?
I'll wait for others to jump in here cause I might learn something.
I'll let you know how I'm doing, one month from now I'll be 77, I'm going out in the woods in a few days and cut firewood with my crosscut saw. I built our home to be energy efficient and only need around a cord of wood to heat it for the winter, unless we get minus temps that's all we generally need.
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My cousin takes regular lamps and cuts the plug off, changes the light bulb to an LED bulb (direct current). Strips the wire a bit where he cut the plug and connects it to a car battery. Does the same for house fans. Battery is solar charged when it runs out. Lasts a good week or so. Then it's charged.
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WATER!
Back in the mid-19890's I worked as a systems engineer for a photovoltaics house, Solavolt International, which was a joint venture between Motorola and Shell Oil. We did design and installation (and manufacturing) of PV and hybrid systems in the US and third world locations; it was this that got me really interested in off-grid/rural/remote locations. I believe that you don't really need electricity to survive (but it sure would make life easier); but if you don't have a reliable source of potable water, you and your family will probably die.Like most people where I live, we have a well. It pumps about 10-12 gal min at a total dynamic head of 148 feet which means a half-HP (~375 W) AC motor will work just fine ...
... until Idaho Power gets the hiccups. We have three options when that happens: (1) run our pump from a genset until we run out of fuel or the genset fails; (2) cut over to PV (either with a DC submersible pump or invest in a sine-wave inverter); (3) use a backup hand-pump.
The PV sounded great, until I pencil-whipped it. I'd have to plan on a big array and battery set, given the various (in)efficiencies of pumps, pipe gauges, etc. or use a lower power system, pump when the sun shines, and build an elevated 3000-gal water tank to provide gravity-feed pressure. Either way, it'd be about $5k with the modules and balance of systems.
The more I looked an hand-pumps, the more cost-effective it seemed. There's a local -- a retired engineer from the Idaho Nuclear Laboratory -- who has developed a piggy-back hand pump which costs about $300 (plus the cost of 1" PVC pipe) installed. The handle comes right out of the well head, and doesn't interfere with the other pump in the slightest. I tried before I bought and was able to pump between 3/4 and 1-1/4 gal min without working up much of a sweat, and I'm old and feeble!
But can you survive on a 1-gal/min pump system? Yes, although it wouldn't be easy. 7-8 gal/day/person would allow us to drink, cook and take a sponge-bath. There're just two of us, plus the dog and 20 layers (the goats and half the chickens would have to go). We have a good-size garden, but it is about as efficient as you can get, with 100 percent drip irrigation. We could, if necessary, cut over much of it to a greenhouse with better water recycling.
This is not a fun approach. But is is in place, didn't cost more than about 500 bux, and buys us some time until I can save up for a PV system that provides higher delivery and uses less sweat.
Just a thought
I converted my generator to LP gas, and store about 500 gallons of LP.
It stores forever.
That's my 1st plan for water, being on an 80 ft well.
Run the 1/2 hp pump at most 30 minutes a day max.
I'm good for about 3 - 4 years on the LP.
I am always keeping an eye out for more 100 gal LP tanks to increase my stock.
Everything else is on battery array and solar charge, with inverters.
If grid goes down permanently..I know I'll be ok.
Also have a 1/2 acre pond.
Your absolute correct in that water is #1 .
Jim
I converted my generator to LP gas, and store about 500 gallons of LP.
It stores forever.
That's my 1st plan for water, being on an 80 ft well.
Run the 1/2 hp pump at most 30 minutes a day max.
I'm good for about 3 - 4 years on the LP.
I am always keeping an eye out for more 100 gal LP tanks to increase my stock.
Everything else is on battery array and solar charge, with inverters.
If grid goes down permanently..I know I'll be ok.
Also have a 1/2 acre pond.
Your absolute correct in that water is #1 .
Jim
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I'm not sure I can answer all of your questions, but I'll give this one a try: If you have a load of 1500 Watts you can get that power from water turning a wheel, but it would be a lot of water falling a long way to run the generator which would provide the electricity. Remember, the amount of the water flowing (in meters per sec) and the speed that it flows (which is the same as how far it flows) are what you use to figure out how much power you can theoretically generate.
I don't know if you can do math, but here's a formula for figuring it out:
Pth = ρ q g h, where
Pth = power theoretically available (W)
ρ = density (kg/m3) (~ 1000 kg/m3 for water)
q = water flow (m3/s)
g = acceleration of gravity (9.81 m/s2)
h = falling height, head (m)
So, if you have a waterfall that's 10 meters high (abouit 33 feet) hitting your turbine a a rate of one meter per second, your theoretical power available would be:
1000 X 1 X 9.81 X 10 =98,100 Watts or 9.8 kW
That sounds like a lot of power, but we're talking a lot of water falling a long way, which is not all that easy to find. Also, that's the theoretical amount of water you can get, but in actuality, you'd be doing well to get a 10% efficiency, which would probably be more like 9000 watts. And building such a system would be pretty expensive.
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Hope my response isn't too late, but here's what (little) I know about growing potatoes.
I've found out (at least here in Idaho which is growing season 6b) that I get equally good results from growing Pontiac Reds, Yukon Golds, or Russet potatoes; indeed, I have all three of them in the same bed right now. I plant the starts about six inches deep and 6-8 inches apart.
Sweet potatoes are different. They're roots (potatoes are tubers) but most of them will grow similarly to the "Irish" potatoes except that they are primarily southern US cultivars and are a bit more susceptible to frosts. I have had mixed results with sweet potatoes; I think that Murasakis (purple skin, white flesh) seem to be the most resistant to cold weather.
For water we depend on our generator. While I do have a solar system, it only has a 120 volt inverter and for my pump I would need 240 volts. It's possible I might switch inverters at some later date.
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Good info.
That's the exact wattage I installed on our motorhome, it was a learning process for setting up the solar backup system for our home because of how well it worked, we have a 7500 watt generator but it's only for extreme emergency when there hasn't been enough sunny days to recharge the battery bank, so far that hasn't happened because the solar array is work better than I had planned and I really don't like to run a high RPM noisy generator if I don't have too.
We now have a 3000 watt system on the house for a couple of kitchen circuits.
When we got our solar the main intent was the well but then we just added to it so the whole house is covered.
I read of some folks (need to go back and figure out which book
) who had a small creek and very small turbine that charged their batteries as opposed to solar. Thank you for the formula! Hubby and I are both “mathy.” We are not to that point yet but like to know before getting into something rather than working from the back side.
Hydro has a huge advantage over solar. On average solar only works 1/3 or less of the time while hydro works 24/7. So if you thought you needed, say 9,000 watts of solar you could get by with only 3000 watts or less of hydro.I read of some folks (need to go back and figure out which book
That's great, if you have water.
Water to electricity requires one of two things or a good mix of both.
Low volume of FAST water or High volumes of slow water.
Water level tend to drop when solar is at its peak and wind just blows or sucks as it will.
Something rarely mentioned is a geothermal Stirling engine. They can run day and night, winter and summer. Anytime there is a difference in temperature they will run.
Low volume of FAST water or High volumes of slow water.
Water level tend to drop when solar is at its peak and wind just blows or sucks as it will.
Something rarely mentioned is a geothermal Stirling engine. They can run day and night, winter and summer. Anytime there is a difference in temperature they will run.
I will just add this here: do you know how many Kwh you use per day? At our place up the mountain, I had it down to 6-12 regularly. That was with 2 freezers and a fridge going. Here, I'll just choke, cough, and sputter instead of sharing the number. What I have figured out is heat & AC are MAJOR drains. It drives me crazy. I wish we had another heat option. I am working on a back-up or companion to existing. Grid down, it would certainly help. (We are only renting this place so limited as to what we can do.)
Renting is a bad limit! My wood burning stove heats, cooks, has saved the day (days) during power outages.
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Love ours, too.
I miss ours.
In the past, I would have asked if there is such a thing as a Grid Up prep. But then we had covid where just about the only thing you could count on getting was power....so I dunnno..
What are "20 year technology batteries"?
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Nickel Iron batteries will last 20 years - but their performance to weight ratio is about the worst of any battery.
LiFePO4 batteries last 15 years and are a very high performance battery in most other regards too (including light weight).
I take this scenario to an extreme level and prepare for the grid to go down and be down forever . From experience know what we miss the most is our water system as we have our own well , but the well runs off electricity . Without electricity gas pumps at stations are down , so fuel for vehicles to fetch anything including water is a no go . A few days without water and the population die off begins . Our solution is we have a spring that we can walk to pulling a solid rubber tire hand cart that I have ready for the scenario as well as water jugs that fit it . Overhead hooks above my bath tub to hang a rubber camping out shower bag for showers is ready . ---- I will try to keep this short , as on this subject I could write a long time on our preparations . But it includes wood cook stove , wood heater , two man wood cutting saws , propane lights hooked to a 250 gal. tank , a wood burning walk in smokehouse and a forever food supply .
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Just get an amish house and property. It's already set up that way. But the bathroom is nicer than what you described with a hanging shower bag. Many of them for sale.
