Posted: 12/28/2012 9:07:56 AM EDT
| Im in the planning stage of building a cabin in the woods,off the grid. The name will be "Little Rascals Hideout" (no girls allowed) It will have to be solar powered. Enough energy to power tv,stereo,lights,coffee pot,fans & window a/c unit,small fridge. Any ideas on solar kit. What brand is the best? Pics will follow progress |
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Im in the planning stage of building a cabin in the woods,off the grid. The name will be "Little Rascals Hideout" (no girls allowed) It will have to be solar powered. Enough energy to power tv,stereo,lights,coffee pot,fans & window a/c unit,small fridge. Any ideas on solar kit. What brand is the best? Pics will follow progress fag. 
 C'mon man, how can you get some cabin nookie if there's no girls!
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beat me to it |
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Run your fridge and heat off of propane. That'll help cut down on the needs of the solar system. Use a manual well pump. Get yourself a workout! Get a hand grinder and a french press. Make coffee on top of your wood fired stove, which also throws off heat. You have to much energy,hand well pump,fuck with a stove fire every morning, are you nuts
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Check out the Owner Builder projects
http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?action=forum |
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To run all that stuff at the same time you would need around 6,000 watts. Of course the panels don't work during the night, so you would have to double or even triple that during the winter to get enough charge in the batteries.
Home Depot has a 6,000 watt solar kit for $13,500. http://www.homedepot.com/buy/grape-solar-6-000-watt-monocrystalline-pv-grid-tied-solar-power-kit-gs-6000-kit.html You will have to spent $40,500 on solar panels to be sure you have enough power. Then you need the batteries to store all that power. |
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Ditto on the needing lots of $$ invested in solar. Producing heat (coffee pot), A/C, fridge, and well pump and the 4 biggest users of electricity I can think of. If this is an occasional use place use propane where you can (fridge, stove) and carry water in or use a generator, and use a generator to charge up a small bank of batteries to power 12V devices. If you are serious about this you have to change your mindset completely. There is a reason why everyone is on the grid -- it is cheap. Replicating it is either very expensive or you have to make adjustments to your lifestyle.
FWIW I actually live in an offgrid cabin powered by solar. PM with questions. |
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Run your fridge and heat off of propane. That'll help cut down on the needs of the solar system. Use a manual well pump. Get yourself a workout! Get a hand grinder and a french press. Make coffee on top of your wood fired stove, which also throws off heat. ^^^^^^ THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED TO DO solar ok for lights and fans but not stoves or AC |
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There is some better info about off grid and solar in this forum (under "Off Grid living"). http://www.small-cabin.com/forum/ OP, the goal here is to minimize the electric usage as much as possible. Propane heater, stove, water heater, and fridge is a good start, but ideally, you want to keep as much on 12v as possible. You can buy buy 12v LED lights right from Home Depot nowadays, 12v water pumps are pretty common as are fans for RVs. I would look more at propane w/ 12v everything, then simply place a regular 12v socket somewhere and plug an inverter into that when you need it for a laptop, TV, etc... ETA: OP, you need to rethink running an AC unit off of solar/battery bank That's going to be stupid expensive and bulky. You'd be better off buying a nice quiet inverter generator and using that to power a window shaker Speed |
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Im in the planning stage of building a cabin in the woods,off the grid. The name will be "Little Rascals Hideout" (no girls allowed) It will have to be solar powered. Enough energy to power tv,stereo,lights,coffee pot,fans & window a/c unit,small fridge. Any ideas on solar kit. What brand is the best? Pics will follow progress In the long run it will be cheaper and less of a pain in the ass to have a contractor build you a kit home. The only way it will be cheaper for you to build is if you have a ton of free time, a bunch free labor, and already have the right tools. Also a contractor will be able to point out things you either need or do not need which will save you a huge headache in the long run. |
| Read Cabinology by Dale Mulfinger first. His discussions on design will help you make you cabin a great place to be rather than just a box for your sleeping bag and cooler. |
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Why in hell would you want to go to a cabin to do all that shit? You go to camp to get away from all that garbage.
And if you're going to half that much trouble to make the place comfortable, why not allow women? Concur with the PP who suggested 'get on the grid'. I realize everyone wants to 'disappear' right now, depending on what nonsense our Maximum Leader comes up with, but 'on the grid' still makes sense most of the time. Having fallback stuff for light and heat is prudent, but using it all the time is not. If you don't mind living a little hard, offgrid can be done. A local old fella (85) lived off the grid the last 20 years of his life, and did it quite successfully. But no one claimed he was living at the Ritz. Moon |
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Quoted: Why in hell would you want to go to a cabin to do all that shit? You go to camp to get away from all that garbage. And if you're going to half that much trouble to make the place comfortable, why not allow women? Concur with the PP who suggested 'get on the grid'. I realize everyone wants to 'disappear' right now, depending on what nonsense our Maximum Leader comes up with, but 'on the grid' still makes sense most of the time. Having fallback stuff for light and heat is prudent, but using it all the time is not. If you don't mind living a little hard, offgrid can be done. A local old fella (85) lived off the grid the last 20 years of his life, and did it quite successfully. But no one claimed he was living at the Ritz. Moon I agree. Lots of camps here have no power, running water, or sewage and I'm fine with that. However, OP is in Texas I would buy a genny and AC unit for a camp down there if it was me Speed |
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Check out my thread.
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_5/1233275_Bought_land_in_Alaska__building_a_cabin____NEW_video_12_Oct_page_17____.html If you want to be comfortable, and run some modern electronics, I would go with a Inverter/charge controller combo like the ones magnum energy sells that are 1,500 watt. 12V will become quite a pain in the ass. Aviator |
No women allowed, what are you 8 years old....girls are yucky ? Maybe you should call it the "Sausagefest shack" instead?  Sounds sort of ghay to me.....I like the idea of a hot naked blonde on a bearskin rug while the woodstove is cranking. You can have fun with your blow up susie doll. 
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| Solar is great when you need to have electricity, will use it at a relatively constant rate, and would have to run wires a good distance(relative to the amount of juice used) to get on the grid. It becomes even more cost prohibitive if you need to produce a lot of electricity for only a few days of the month. Finally, it is not a one time investment as batteries will go bad at a regular rate, and even panels will die on occasion. |
| One thing about living off the grid is that every local is going to know and talk about "that guy with the cabin". We had one who lived outside my small home town. Would walk in once a week to get his mail and groceries. Didn't talk to anyone and had everything written down. I think the locals knew more about him than any of the people who lived normally around him. If you're going to try and hide, people are going to notice. |
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beat me to it lol....thats great.....say hello to Theodore for me..... |
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To run all that stuff at the same time you would need around 6,000 watts. Of course the panels don't work during the night, so you would have to double or even triple that during the winter to get enough charge in the batteries. Home Depot has a 6,000 watt solar kit for $13,500. http://www.homedepot.com/buy/grape-solar-6-000-watt-monocrystalline-pv-grid-tied-solar-power-kit-gs-6000-kit.html You will have to spent $40,500 on solar panels to be sure you have enough power. Then you need the batteries to store all that power. Um, no. Nobody should ever buy a solar system from Home Depot or Lowes. 
7kw system Or pick a smaller one. Other sizes Poke around and build your own system OP, or hire someone that knows what they are doing if you don't. You can kill yourself with this stuff believe it or not. 
http://www.sunelec.com/ |
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Quoted: Is there a creek with elevation change? They have some very cool mini-hydro elec power setups out there. Can be seen on Youtube. I fabbed up a complete 12 volt hydro power system when I built my cabin. I had a creek that ran all year, which had 100' of head pressure running through my irrigation system pipe, that I necked down to a 1/2 nozzle to run a water wheel. All my lights were 12 volt, and I had a car stereo cassette deck for tunes. Cooked and heated with a Majestic wood cook stove. Had a KeroSun heater for extra cold nights. Cut all the logs, skidded them in with my horses, 2 sided the logs on a chainsaw mill, and laid up the logs using a tripod and block & tackle.....all by myself. |