Re: Re: Midterms
  By: Rob Mccart to MARK HOFMANN on Fri Aug 19 2022 01:16 am

 > AA> I envy people who can live off-grid. But the cost of entry
 > AA> seems high.
 > 
 > MH>So do I.  I have watched videos of people that have done it, and still ar
 >   > it.  Lots of work to get there and I would imagine is well worth it in t
 > 
 > If you build from scratch to be off the grid it's not so bad if you make
 > certain allowances. A friend of mine built a big ($1 million?) cottage on a
 > lake with no road access. He was told by the power company that it would cos
 > him $100,000 to have a line run to his place, even though he was within 500
 > feet of power lines on the ground, but they insisted on feeding him power
 > under water instead of burying lines or putting in a couple of poles..
 > 
 > It was more the principle of the thing than that he couldn't afford it but h
 > decided to tell them to stuff it stay off of the grid instead.
 > 
 > He has some solar cells and he should have a wind generator up by now and he
 > doing pretty well. Lighting is by combination gas and 12v electric, lots of
 > LED stuff, and the fridge and stove, are propane rather than electric.
 > He has a bank of 20 acid batteries which cost him about $2000 to store some
 > power and a small gas powered generator when he really needs 'normal' power
 > for things, but I was there a whole weekend and the only time the generator
 > was used was when his wife vacuumed the place. His water system is gravity
 > feed from a large storage tank on a hill behind the cottage which is filled
 > from the lake using a gasoline powered water pump a couple of times a day.
 > Heating is mostly burning wood but there's also some propane heat.
 > It's primarily a summer place so heating is less of an issue, although they
 > have stayed weekends there in winter as well.
 > 
 > ---
 >  * SLMR Rob  * They made us eat porridge...it was a grueling experience.
 >  * Origin: capitolcityonline.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/HTTP (618:250/1)

I'd think that if you are running on solar mostly, your heating would not be
electric. Using electric power for heating is very expensive and inefficient
unless you happen to work on the thiiiin marging that alows for heat pumps to
be reasonable.

If I was really off-grid I'd use wood. THe advantage of wood for heating is
that you can use it for coocking at the same time you heat the house.

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