A very good video from Les of getting off the grid.

http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=l1uaxqjgsg

Damn it, videos don't work well on a slower than dialup aircard!!!

The first five minutes looks interesting -- I'll look forward to watching the whole video this weekend when I have more time.

So what's the black band that Les is wearing on his right elbow?

Jim

"Off the Grid with Les Stroud" a pretty good video. However, unfortunately it's all about the build-up to going off-grid and not much regarding the outcome.

Don't get me wrong, I love following the family as they turn an old house and a chunk of land into an off-grid home, but I would like to have seen more after everything had been completed with some commentary on whether it was everything they wanted, where they could have done better and so on.

I thought this was a really good video, they did some really interesting things. I can't say Iwould go as far as they did but the solar panels are definately something I am going to look into.

Living off-grid sounds great, but it takes probably $100.000 or more to make it a reality and then an ongoing expense of batteries and other item that ware out and other items that the power company pays for when you are on-grid, that you now have to fix and replace immediately when they break, if you want your power back on. The power company has these in stock to get power back on right away, to do the same you should lay in a stock of spare parts. Or be prepared to spend weeks without power as you wait for parts or be ready to feed a generator for several weeks or more.

For most people it’s a dream more then a reality.

A Jacobs’s home wind generator system cost start at $50.000; add to that solar electric panels, solar water heaters, and solar air heaters. And control circuits, monitoring equipment, wiring (expensive in itself as it needs to handle lots of DC amperage) and a battery bank. And on top of all that you should be a jack-of-all-trades to install it and understand how it works and how diagnose a problem and then fix it. Plus I would imagine you need ins coverage for those spinning blades if they ever came off in a high wind and took out part of your neighbors house.

It all takes a lot of money.


Grid systems can start to look pretty good after you sit down and understand the commitment of time, money and knowledge needed to live off-grid.


A more practical (and realistic for most of us) is a backup power source for when the grid is down.

And maybe a supplemental solar / wind system to offset some of the grid power.

I was looking at the cost of total solar for where I will be living. $80,000 (US). That is more than the house!!! Even with the state rebate it runs half that. Still a ton of cash.

The problem in some areas is that you cannot do all the work yourself. You to hire the extortionists because apparently a union guy is the only one that is "smart enough" to read the directions.

GGRRR!

I would think you would be able to install most of the stuff yourself and have it inspected to make sure it’s up to code.


But with the way government works it would not surprise me that you may need parts of it done by others.

yea I was wondering the same thing... anyone know?? pleeze!!

We recently installed a grid tied system that is off-grid capable should we encounter an extended power outage. After our rebate the system cost us about $40K installed. We have about zero'd out our electric bill and could easlisy survive days with out power or sunlight to refresh the batteries - we have the ability to run our portable generator through the system to charge the batteries.

With some conservation, and a few peak hours of sun light a day, we could function in our home with no forseen problems. I don't know about the complexities of wind turbines, but the solar system is fairly maintenance free. We went with AGM batteries that do not require checking fluid levels (etc) and should last us about 10 years if we don't let them run down below 50%.

I am still waiting to see if our County Assessor's office will decide that our 'improvement' requires them to up our tax basis - this would wipe out the cash savings on our utility bill and the system will never pay for itself.

There is a comfort level though, and in some respects we installed this system as a hedge against where energy rates are going.