in our house, the electric power has nothing to do with the heat, since we have wood heat only. unfortunately ours is definitely not a passive house, not even energy-efficient, as we needed a shelter quickly when we moved to our "empty" land and have just been adding on slowly. what we found with lead-acid batteries is that we definitely have to top them up with the generator at least once a week in the deep of winter. we already wrecked a whole set by not paying attention to that (even though with our new ones, the manufacturer expressly says to do that often enough). we can go for two cloudy days, but then in order to maintain our batteries in good shape, we have to run the generator. i am now saving up for more panels so that we can catch more of the sometimes elusive winter sun.
it certainly is a learning curve, and in my opinion very much also a matter of lifestyle choices. which may not be a bad idea to consider anyway if one is interested in a smaller footprint on this earth. which brings me to the NYT article. i always wondered about those tiny houses and how they would work in a less than ideal situation. seems that for some people they really do not. but then, being stuck in a small apartment in a big city cannot be much fun either. even if you can or don't feel the need to store lots of toilet paper (what IS with that, anyway???). from the article i got the impression that the tiny house owners relied heavily on external systems that ultimately they had no control of (gyms, campgrounds etc.) i feel that a certain amount of self-reliance helps a lot with my good sleep - and i am nowhere near the mindset of a "prepper"...
as a new reader here i am certainly looking forward to more tales from beyond the grid :)
Thank you for reading, Petra, and for your comments. I'm going to be posting at some point about the care of the batteries. It's a bit trickier than most people realize...at first, but not so hard once you understand them. Again, I didn't think the Tiny House story was the best. Yes, many people choose to have theirs on wheels so they can move around, but just as many settle in place on large plots of land, which helps offset the size of their place. I know we keep our place well stocked with canned food, pasta, other staples, and, yes, toilet paper (although we're talking a couple of packages, not shelves and shelves of it). Not so much because the pandemic, but rather there are days when we can't get out to the main road, so it's better to be prepared.
yes, there's nothing wrong with a little independence and preparation. i remember well one of the TWO occasions so far where there was a power outage in our area in late winter, which caused everything in my neighbour's house to quit: furnace, stove, phone, water pumps for the house and, more importantly, for her well over 100 head of cows, lights obviously, including the heat lights for her just arrived day-old chicks. luckily a neighbour brought a generator, and then we all moved over to our warm, brightly lit house for potato pancakes from the wood cookstove. no chicks were lost!
Thanks for reading as always, Cynthia. We found from personal experience that even though we have 3,000 watts of power from a stand-alone array of 12 solar panels and eight lead-acid batteries capable of storing two days of power that during the shortest days of winter combined with excessive cloud cover we still had to run a gas generator once a week for a number of weeks to power the system. We did this after conferring with our solar provider, Green Lizard. The answer may or may not be more panels and batteries, but that's not something we currently have the budget for. And of course the further north you go, the more problematic it is to use solar because of the excessively short days.
I would imagine this is due to not being passive, (meaning having a passive house).
Upon speaking with the Solar Nova Scotia Discussion group on FB, a professional installer has just said to me recently that they just did an installation of solar panels on a passive house & he was amazed at the envelope & that there was not alot of need for many panels at all.
Our house isn't completely passive, but it has a number of passive attributes and holds heat extremely well, and during the summer maintains a cool temperature. I know a number of other off-gridders who also have to from time to time rely on a boost from a generator. I imagine in the not-too-distant future for new builds that will no longer be necessary as the technology improves and the cost of panels and batteries continue to decline.
that is often overlooked when people skip passive designers, trying to capture the sun's energy part of the year and avoiding it part. We were more concerned about overheating than catching every BTU of solar
" I particularly love this quote because it’s the real deal about being off-grid in regions, like Nova Scotia, that don’t receive enough sunlight 24-7: “Solar panels collect energy daily for the beachfront home, and backup power is provided by a propane generator and batteries. "It’s tough to fully survive on solar in Canada," explains supervising architect Christine Lolley. "When people say off-grid, they really mean off the hydro grid. You’re pretty much always on the fossil-fuel grid in this country."
Please check with Solar Nova Scotia Discussion group on FB about this statement.
in our house, the electric power has nothing to do with the heat, since we have wood heat only. unfortunately ours is definitely not a passive house, not even energy-efficient, as we needed a shelter quickly when we moved to our "empty" land and have just been adding on slowly. what we found with lead-acid batteries is that we definitely have to top them up with the generator at least once a week in the deep of winter. we already wrecked a whole set by not paying attention to that (even though with our new ones, the manufacturer expressly says to do that often enough). we can go for two cloudy days, but then in order to maintain our batteries in good shape, we have to run the generator. i am now saving up for more panels so that we can catch more of the sometimes elusive winter sun.
it certainly is a learning curve, and in my opinion very much also a matter of lifestyle choices. which may not be a bad idea to consider anyway if one is interested in a smaller footprint on this earth. which brings me to the NYT article. i always wondered about those tiny houses and how they would work in a less than ideal situation. seems that for some people they really do not. but then, being stuck in a small apartment in a big city cannot be much fun either. even if you can or don't feel the need to store lots of toilet paper (what IS with that, anyway???). from the article i got the impression that the tiny house owners relied heavily on external systems that ultimately they had no control of (gyms, campgrounds etc.) i feel that a certain amount of self-reliance helps a lot with my good sleep - and i am nowhere near the mindset of a "prepper"...
as a new reader here i am certainly looking forward to more tales from beyond the grid :)
Thank you for reading, Petra, and for your comments. I'm going to be posting at some point about the care of the batteries. It's a bit trickier than most people realize...at first, but not so hard once you understand them. Again, I didn't think the Tiny House story was the best. Yes, many people choose to have theirs on wheels so they can move around, but just as many settle in place on large plots of land, which helps offset the size of their place. I know we keep our place well stocked with canned food, pasta, other staples, and, yes, toilet paper (although we're talking a couple of packages, not shelves and shelves of it). Not so much because the pandemic, but rather there are days when we can't get out to the main road, so it's better to be prepared.
yes, there's nothing wrong with a little independence and preparation. i remember well one of the TWO occasions so far where there was a power outage in our area in late winter, which caused everything in my neighbour's house to quit: furnace, stove, phone, water pumps for the house and, more importantly, for her well over 100 head of cows, lights obviously, including the heat lights for her just arrived day-old chicks. luckily a neighbour brought a generator, and then we all moved over to our warm, brightly lit house for potato pancakes from the wood cookstove. no chicks were lost!
Thanks for reading as always, Cynthia. We found from personal experience that even though we have 3,000 watts of power from a stand-alone array of 12 solar panels and eight lead-acid batteries capable of storing two days of power that during the shortest days of winter combined with excessive cloud cover we still had to run a gas generator once a week for a number of weeks to power the system. We did this after conferring with our solar provider, Green Lizard. The answer may or may not be more panels and batteries, but that's not something we currently have the budget for. And of course the further north you go, the more problematic it is to use solar because of the excessively short days.
I would imagine this is due to not being passive, (meaning having a passive house).
Upon speaking with the Solar Nova Scotia Discussion group on FB, a professional installer has just said to me recently that they just did an installation of solar panels on a passive house & he was amazed at the envelope & that there was not alot of need for many panels at all.
Our house isn't completely passive, but it has a number of passive attributes and holds heat extremely well, and during the summer maintains a cool temperature. I know a number of other off-gridders who also have to from time to time rely on a boost from a generator. I imagine in the not-too-distant future for new builds that will no longer be necessary as the technology improves and the cost of panels and batteries continue to decline.
that is often overlooked when people skip passive designers, trying to capture the sun's energy part of the year and avoiding it part. We were more concerned about overheating than catching every BTU of solar
Not sure about this :
" I particularly love this quote because it’s the real deal about being off-grid in regions, like Nova Scotia, that don’t receive enough sunlight 24-7: “Solar panels collect energy daily for the beachfront home, and backup power is provided by a propane generator and batteries. "It’s tough to fully survive on solar in Canada," explains supervising architect Christine Lolley. "When people say off-grid, they really mean off the hydro grid. You’re pretty much always on the fossil-fuel grid in this country."
Please check with Solar Nova Scotia Discussion group on FB about this statement.