Advice needed on generator etc for isolated house

[mountainlady]

Hi folks ,

I have been offered a house for rent way up in the mountains where I want to go to escape all the devolpment in the countryside.

Problem is:

a) No Electricity...............will have to use a generator.

b) No Running Water..............but a well.

c) No telephone line................will use mobile.......but hope I can get internet through sattelite dish.

Now my MAIN problem is generation of power.
I need to:

Be able to run my PC, TV, Sattelite dish, washing machine and fridge.

Do I need a generator that will go 24/7 for the fridge or could someone advise be how to get around that problem?

What generator do I need?............and I cant afford one that costs a bomb! I mean I could say switch everything off while I use the washing machine or hoover and try not to use too many electric things at the same time.

And how do I protect my PC/TV from spikes?

But minimum I should be able to use lights, pc, TV and a 250w growlamp at the same time.


How could I use my washing machine without running water?

Maybe some of you are in the same situation? Love to hear from you.

[Wombat]

G'Day Mountain lady,

You need to add up the wattage all of the appliances that you will use at one time and get a generator to cover 125% of that figure, generators run best at 75 to 80% capacity. Having said that you also need to allow for the fact that the starting wattage of inductive loads (such as electric motors) is 5 times the running load, so you only start one motor at a time!

Refridgeration is problematic, because you neet to run it 24 hours a day, you may want to consider alternative power sources such as LPG or Kerosene (paraffin). Or maybe a 12 volt system.

There are inexpensive filters that plug into a power socket to protect against spikes, but talk to the generator salesman to see if this is needed for the type of generator that you buy.

To use your washing machine, just bucket the water in to the correct level! Obviously you need to keep an ear on the machine to listen for the end of each cycle. Otherwise a water pump powered by the generator or a 12 volt system.

If you want to have a more in depth "talk" about this send me a private message and I will give you my email.

Nev

[Guest]

Hi Nev,

Thanks for your reply. Yep, I have to get an estimate of my appliance wattage use.

So I'll add up my sattelite system, pc and tv and electric lightbulbs which I use simultainusly.

I think I'll have to ditch my fridge, actually being a veggie I mainly use it just to keep stuff fresh and store milk and bread. But I could get used to powdered milk and as I have a cold stream nearby and a well I could keep stuff in bags.

I can make a cuppa on the range or use a little calor camping stove in the summer if I light the range late in the day

I suppose my 250w 18 hour at a stretch growlights would have to go as well?

The washing machine scares the hell out of me. But perhaps I could switch everything else off when using it. Same with the hoover.

[Wombat]

G'Day Mountain lady,

depending on where you arem you may want to try evaporative cooling using a coolgardie safe type or a pot-in-pot system, both us a porous substance filled with water that evaporates. otherwise the coolstram sounds good, or maybe an American style root cellar?

Yeah, the grow lights are difficult, assuming they are to grow veggies and not proscribed substances, they cost more in energy that what you get back from the food. If they are being used to grow proscribed substances (which is entirely your own affair ) that is another matter. If you have a running stream nearby you may wish to consider small scale hydroelectricity perhaps?

There are hand powered washing machines, but I believe that they are a lot of work....I suppose it depends on how many you have to wash for, but if you have young kids - that's difficult!

Lots of luck

Nev

[judyofthewoods]

Hi Mountain Lady, I'm a hill lady living off the grid in Pembrokeshire. To get a better idea about your situation, can you say where you live? How many of you are there? Your first priorities will have to be reducing your consumption, and my main advice is not to rely on one energy source but have a hybrid system. I have started to put together some info on my website about off-grid living, a fair bit on the hydro, but there is more to come on the rest of the system. If you do opt for a fuel generator on a permanent basis, I would recomend you go for gas or diesel, more expensive to start with, but cheaper and more convenient to run in the long run. You can't transport or store much petrol, and a generator will use a lot. I'll write a bit more about ways I get by, but (this will give you a taste of off-grid living) my batteries are low at the moment, not much sun or rain lately (but rain at last today), so I will have to keep it brief. One last thing - off-gridding is a way of life, but I wouldn't have it any other way

[mountaingirl]

Thanks girls,

well I have still not got up to see the owner of the house yet!

TV: 70w

PC: 240w to start but transfers down to 12v

Washing machine electrical supply: 240v ac50hz
motor: 600w
pump: 34w

Sattelite: 240w 750v

hi-fi: AC230v 50hz

I have a bedroom radiator :240w 750v
could I use that at night when all ese is switched off?

I have deceided that given my use of electricals I will need a windmill generator 700w or more. do you think that is enough to have 24/7?

Any advice on that?

[Wombat]

G'DAy Mountain Girl,

( by the way...don't let the avatar fool you, I am a very butch bloke! )

If you are going to use wind, you should do your homework and talk to your local bureau of meteorology or post office (where they usually take the readings). You need to find out the average wind speed in your area and the distribution through the year, then come up with a plan to get your through the still parts.

You also have to have a site for it that is well above any obstructions (trees, houses, hills etc.) so that it is out of the turbulence. This makes it fun for repairs and maintenance!

I agree with judy, diesel is the way to go and I should have mentioned that myself, although most of my experience is with petrol gennies.

If you are using a generator, an electric heater is (maybe) feasible, but for alternative power sources, except hydro, it is a horrible waste of power!

Nev

[Guest]

Hi Wombat,

Thanks.
You see I thought that windmill would provide 'free' power (at least if you take out maintainence costs) The price of oil is roaring up and will never drop again. And a fuel gen is very noisy, expensive and can be only used for a short time a day, I can site the windmill further from the house.

Also a windi would give me 24hour, it is windy here and yes, I need to get solar panels later.

But given the consuption figures I gave above what size windmill genny would I need?

[Wombat]

G'DAy Mountain Girl (I assume)

The power out of a wind system is "free" but the more power you need, the more the system will cost, hence my comment that to run a heater is a waste of power where, say, wood heating would do the job better, particularly if you can supply wood from you're property.

It is very difficult to give a definitive recommendation for the size of the generator without knowing more about your site, so all I will say is - get the biggest that you can afford .

Also, the size of the generator needs to fit in with your system - you will need batteries to store the power and an inverter to convert the output of the generator (12 or 24 volts DC) to a form useable by your current appliances (240 volts AC), unless your wish to use the 12vdc direct, which you can't do with most of your appliances unmodified . There is also the wiring, which needs to be sized correctly according to how much power it is to carry (volts and amps) and how far. Yes you can site the wind generator futher from the house, but the longer the run, the thicker the wiring needs to be to reduce line losses.

It is possible to build your own wind generator based on a car alternator, and I do have some info on that process, but it depends on your facilities and skill level. It is possible to recondition dud (and cheap) car batteries, but deep cycle are better and last longer, the inverter you gotta buy, although prices seem to have come down in recent years .

If wind is going to be your primary source of power, you should find out just what wind speeds you get in your area, you can then calculate, for a given wind generator, how much power you will get, on average.

Does that all make sense? Unfortunately, in my experience, with alternative power sources you need to know a lot more and do a lot more work at the setup stage to get it right.

Let me know what you think

Nev

[mountaingirl]

Im learning superfast wombat because all i know is how to change a plug or lightbulb.

But there is a man in the mountains who sells carparts from a field beside his house. I wll ask him to make me a wind genny.

I have a mountain stream as well and could look into that, someone suggested a mower engine, I will pay him when and what I can to do various work.

Someone else said thats the price, discomfort to begin with, you want the rat race or you want to get back to nature?

I have an offer of a very comfortable house with all mod cons lower down but I really would prefer an old stone house in the mountains, with good air, water, and away from roads, hyperstores and endless new homebuilding.

Its like I am to get married. Everyone wants me to marry the settled banker down below with the central heating, but I want the wild place, but can it afford to keep me? Will the generator be enough.

[Guest]

One final point wombat and judy of the woods. I am going up the mountains to see the house on Saturday and will just have to go with whatever genny the owner offers, but as he is a contractor I think I could argue for a better one?

Giving up the idea of a windmill for the mo, from all the research I have done the answers looks like I need a 2500 to 3000 watt fuel genny. Am I right?

[judyofthewoods]

Its like I am to get married. Everyone wants me to marry the settled banker down below with the central heating, but I want the wild place, but can it afford to keep me? Will the generator be enough.

Oooohhh, you like a bit of rough, eh?
Sorry I have not got back before, but I wanted to write to you at length, and my batteries are very low at present. This gives you a taste of things to come, but although there are times when things are very tight power wise, there are also times of glut. You just have to be flexible with your time and make hey whilst the sun shines. Any fuel generator should only be considered as a standby or to tie you over until your system is up and running. And if Peak Oil is anything to go by, oil is the last thing you want to rely on. Any degree of self reliance can only be to your advantage. The centrally heated house will probably put you into slavery of another form. If you go down the route of off-gridding, I would definatly recomend a hybrid system, and include some solar. Spread your load, reduce your requirement. If you don't have young children, doing without a washing machine is no hardship. You might have to redefine your expectations, how important in the scheeme of things is sparkling laundry? A soak will halve the work, and rubbing is only 'necessary' on a few spots here and there. I use an old mangle, but if you have an exposed site putting dripping stuff out will dry almost as quickly as mangled. Excess water soon dripps out.
No one is born with knowledge, not even electricians. Get a load of books, including books on basic electricity, you'll soon learn. Don't believe the general DIY books who err on the side of caution when they say leave wireing to the experts. Make yourself a bit of an expert, learn the stuff relevant to your needs plus the basics. If you off-grid, knowing your system is really important, unless you have loads of spare cash, and the interest will come with the need. When I renovated my first house all I could do was wire a plug, I am not trained in any way other than self taught, and now do all my electrical work plus a few simple electronic projects.
If you have a stream you may have a good power source. Plenty of head is better than the flow of an average flat river. Run of river needs a fair bit of engineering, a high head only needs a run of pipe and a few minor engineering jobs. Any idea how much head you can get? Roughly how many gallons per minute? Can you construct a rough temporary dam with stone and mud (if its a small stream) and count the gallons into a bucket with a stop watch? I have a few springs which don't even show running water on the surface until you remove the earth, and see a trickle. But I have about 100+ feet head, and I can run my laptop and other bits from it for much of the time in the winter, and get loads from the 4 panels in the summer.
I'll go into a bit more detain shortly, the rain we had the last few days will raise the groundwater level very shortly, and I'll have plenty of power.

[Wombat]

G'DAy Mountain Girl,

(I agree with, and echo, Judy's advice)

It soundslike you are committed to the Genny in the short term at least. I assume that you want a 2.5 - 3 Kva to allow for the starting of the washing machine, this unfortunately means bags of unused electricity at other times, which means inefficient running of the gennie which means higher fuel consumption .

My suggestion would be to get a 1 Kva (1000watt) gennie, as this will be much easier to load up to the 75 - 80% and should be more economical to run. If you can do without the washing machine, so much the better, if you can't see if the washing machine will work on the smaller gennie. If it is good quality it may put up with the initally high starting load of the motor. My brother used to run his washing machine off their 1 kva gennie and it worked OK, but I don't know what size motor it had - they were living off the grid in Tamworth, northern NSW.

I have a vague memory that there are electrical modifications that you can make to a motor to reduce the startup current draw, but it is not really my area. Do you have access to any electrical or electronics persons?

If your man has difficulty building a wind generator let me know and I will send you some details.

Hope that this helps

Nev

[Guest]

Its like I am to get married. Everyone wants me to marry the settled banker down below with the central heating, but I want the wild place, but can it afford to keep me? Will the generator be enough.

Oooohhh, you like a bit of rough, eh?
Sorry I have not got back before, but I wanted to write to you at length, and my batteries are very low at present. This gives you a taste of things to come, but although there are times when things are very tight power wise, there are also times of glut. You just have to be flexible with your time and make hey whilst the sun shines. Any fuel generator should only be considered as a standby or to tie you over until your system is up and running. And if Peak Oil is anything to go by, oil is the last thing you want to rely on. Any degree of self reliance can only be to your advantage. The centrally heated house will probably put you into slavery of another form. If you go down the route of off-gridding, I would definatly recomend a hybrid system, and include some solar. Spread your load, reduce your requirement. If you don't have young children, doing without a washing machine is no hardship. You might have to redefine your expectations, how important in the scheeme of things is sparkling laundry? A soak will halve the work, and rubbing is only 'necessary' on a few spots here and there. I use an old mangle, but if you have an exposed site putting dripping stuff out will dry almost as quickly as mangled. Excess water soon dripps out.
No one is born with knowledge, not even electricians. Get a load of books, including books on basic electricity, you'll soon learn. Don't believe the general DIY books who err on the side of caution when they say leave wireing to the experts. Make yourself a bit of an expert, learn the stuff relevant to your needs plus the basics. If you off-grid, knowing your system is really important, unless you have loads of spare cash, and the interest will come with the need. When I renovated my first house all I could do was wire a plug, I am not trained in any way other than self taught, and now do all my electrical work plus a few simple electronic projects.
If you have a stream you may have a good power source. Plenty of head is better than the flow of an average flat river. Run of river needs a fair bit of engineering, a high head only needs a run of pipe and a few minor engineering jobs. Any idea how much head you can get? Roughly how many gallons per minute? Can you construct a rough temporary dam with stone and mud (if its a small stream) and count the gallons into a bucket with a stop watch? I have a few springs which don't even show running water on the surface until you remove the earth, and see a trickle. But I have about 100+ feet head, and I can run my laptop and other bits from it for much of the time in the winter, and get loads from the 4 panels in the summer.
I'll go into a bit more detain shortly, the rain we had the last few days will raise the groundwater level very shortly, and I'll have plenty of power.

Hi Judy in the woods,
Yep ALL suggestions take on board.

Someone suggested an old lawnmower for a stream generator, the stream runs downhill if I remember, though I have only passed it by on my scooter, last time 3 years ago, you have to cross a bridge to enter the yard of the house so the genny could be set up hidden under the bridge (acting as silencer) with paddles replacing mower blades.

Its just a no-brainer, I have got to escape the development widespread where I live, I shall step into a time-machine and go back to the past, bake own bread, sleep and rise with the light and gradually build myself a little self-sufficiency system. As Tom and Barbara would say; "We refuse to submit to the grid!"

I'll change from growbulb to flourescents.
I'll buy some parrafin house lamps, a storm lantern for outside in the dark.

I dont need my fridge but I could make some sort of fridge box to maximise cooling in a cold place outside the house.

But I'll try the fridge and wash machine, see if they can work out and if not sell them and put the money towards a lower energy washtub.

regards.............mountaingirl.
hope theres a neighbour to take me shopping twice a month in the town as I have only a scooter.

[Guest]

G'DAy Mountain Girl,

(I agree with, and echo, Judy's advice)

It soundslike you are committed to the Genny in the short term at least. I assume that you want a 2.5 - 3 Kva to allow for the starting of the washing machine, this unfortunately means bags of unused electricity at other times, which means inefficient running of the gennie which means higher fuel consumption .

My suggestion would be to get a 1 Kva (1000watt) gennie, as this will be much easier to load up to the 75 - 80% and should be more economical to run. If you can do without the washing machine, so much the better, if you can't see if the washing machine will work on the smaller gennie. If it is good quality it may put up with the initally high starting load of the motor. My brother used to run his washing machine off their 1 kva gennie and it worked OK, but I don't know what size motor it had - they were living off the grid in Tamworth, northern NSW.

I have a vague memory that there are electrical modifications that you can make to a motor to reduce the startup current draw, but it is not really my area. Do you have access to any electrical or electronics persons?

If your man has difficulty building a wind generator let me know and I will send you some details.

Hope that this helps

Nev

Sound fairly sensible. I mean I'm hardly likely to exceet 1000w even if I use the 70wTV and 250wPC at the same time. I'll just shut everthing else down when I run the washer..........which is about once or twice a month on average.

Thanks for advice 'bout the windmill gosh yes.

'My man' is a car mechanic who will now be called to higher things. Should it be made from tractor, lorry or carparts? would a really good car engine be superior to a cheap car engine? Could I buy my blades as spareparts from a windmill manafacturer?

Well, I shall know everything on Saturday morning when my friends drive me up to the house where we shall meet the owner. I hope it will be a long-term proposition and I dont end up in the conveniently situated 'nice' house' with central heating but in an area where development could blight life.