D Nikolls

Tommy Bolin wrote:

D Nikolls wrote:I will never buy a 'Unique' brand product again. My DC fridge and propane range have both been lousy, particularly the fridge........
.............. twin Victron inverters with higher idle consumption could be turned off probably 85% of the time.

I'd like to ask what was wrong with your fridge? I'd like to stock spare parts, if necessary.
We bought a set, 24V DC 16?c.f. fridge and 9 c.f. chest freezer, can also be run on 120AC. I was under the impression they were made in Canada, having never seen one in person. Fridge at least appears to have been shipped from Vietnam. Been very happy with them, although the chest freezer has seen very limited use. Soft, ramped startup to avoid large power draw and compressor wear, quiet. The fridge and freezer draw about 65-70w ea. running. My only complaint would be the fridge doesn't have enough insulation for a 24V DC off grid in my opinion, was hard to tell having never seen one.
We also have have about a decade of part time service from a Unique propane fridge at one of the other cabins, great unit.  
I doubled the usage I get from a 100lb propane cylinder to well over three months by taking our old, reliable, but small Consol propane fridge out of the loop, replacing with DC. Might take years to pay for the new fridge, which seems to just keep incrementally climbing in price, and we never would have had the option to upgrade to our current freezer capacity just on propane. Also, propane was unavailable locally for just a short time during Covid terror, lesson learned. I can now stock enough tanks for almost 2 years of service.  

I'm sure I've written this before, but I have done everything up here on microgrids. Every building and large task, (houses, garage, skid shack, domestic lake water pump, yard water, fire suppression) has it's own power. Allowed me to build over time with less expensive sourced equipment, no hugely expensive cabling, large arrays or inverters/controllers. Our needs are very modest, small house, no TV or large draw appliances. A 30 yr old Trace 4k 24V inverter runs the house. Rock solid, hand built in the U.S.A. I bought a pair of them, never used, at a great price from a solar dealers storage room. Much of our lighting is simple rechargables. As I build out my work and living spaces, I expect to upgrade.
The garage inverter grid runs a 6c.f.70W MagicChef AC chest freezer in a cool, insulated, back room, our primary storage freezer. Low power draw, on a timer set to run during daylight hours. Purchased cheap, used, 6 yrs. of great service.

I ran a dedicated 24V DC circuit for the new appliances. On the advice of my supplier I added a Victron 24-24V converter to avoid exposing the appliances to the high voltages of battery equalization as well as a steady, unvarying supply voltage. Seems like a formula for longer DC appliance life.
We live remote and leave home for extended periods of time. Having an inverter running when gone just seems like a short-sighted, unnecessary, layer of complexity, risk, wear and tear. We have gotten more than 35yrs of part time service from the 4024 Trace in the other cabin. By babying this one I expect to get a couple decades from it.
Only thing I would do differently from my current setup would be to bypass the cheap, Chinese junk inverters, controllers, small pumps I experimented with building here. Kindergarten, disposable, 12V is fine for a small RV or whatever, but anything that needs real, permanent power runs better on 24V and quality, modest sized 12V is not that much more expensive.

The fridge exceeded rated power consumption while still pretty new; it just ran the compressor more than I would expect. The insulation is pretty thin, and all the parts were on the flimsy side.. At that time it cooled ok, but the top freezer compartment iced up badly and often.

Over time the compressor ran an ever increasing portion of the time; when it was pulled from service it would no longer keep cool enough and ran constantly. Slow refrigerant leak?

By that time I'd gotten married and found that life with my wife required more fridge space, and I had no faith in the unit, so I didn't look into repairs. The AC convertible chest freezer was about 30% the cost, keeps food much longer, and generally feels better built. It's also very power efficient due to extra insulation and top opening..

I will never buy a 'Unique' brand product again. My DC fridge and propane range have both been lousy, particularly the fridge.

I replaced it with a convertible chest fridge/freezer. Ac powered. Cheap, locally available, efficient, bigger, keeps food fresh longer. Inverters stay on overnight now.

Doing it again, I might well plan for a dedicated lower capacity high efficiency inverter that would run fridge, small water pump, ac lighting, etc. Then just skip all household DC wiring, and the bigger twin Victron inverters with higher idle consumption could be turned off probably 85% of the time.

Kara Ann wrote:This is a timely topic, even though October is still a way out.
Currently here in Washington there is a state wide burn ban through Sept 30.
(Darn - I want to make Sepp Holzer's 'bone sauce to keep the deer out of my trees, but it will have to wait!)

In a class with Joel Salatin, he told us that the number 1 cause of barn fires was electricity within the structure (faulty wires or heating devices plugged in), so he is a big advocate of off grid barns and other outbuildings, relying on day time sun and night time headlamps as needed instead of being attached to the grid.
Something to consider in planning the farm buildings...

I can very much believe that. The old farm buildings here used to have power, and it was all just standard household wire stapled wherever.. easy to see how it could be damaged.

If I ever need power somewhere that I don't want to put it in a wall, I use armored cable or conduit.. the safety factor is worth it to me, and the cost encourages me to keep enjoying my headlamps..

No trench needed; as long as you have plenty of manure and/or other suitable stuff to cover the wood, it will work just fine as an entirely raised hugel. I've used less-rotten wood to build a frame for a raised bed around such hugels and been entirely happy with the results.

Probably you are already aware, but best to be very sure there are no persistent broad-leaf herbicides in that horse manure, they can pass right through the horse and fuck your plants up if the hay was sprayed!

Ned Harr wrote:I enjoyed this video (https://youtu.be/nV7G9_6hwF8?si=f5ChxPDTg4aFza4I) but it included a claim I fear is too good to be true, that raw land is frequently overpriced by 25%, 50%, even 70%.

Was that your experience? Did you ultimately pay less than the asking price for your land, and if so how much less?

For those who have watched the video, what else did you find resonated with you as true or as especially untrue?

I shopped for years, and found that in my region there was very little price movement on the part of sellers, and if something was overpriced relative to demand, most sellers were content to let it sit. Sometimes a property would be listed on and off for several years and then be pulled with no sale occurring. One property near me is listed nearly every spring for the last decade or so, hasn't sold yet..

The property I bought was one of a size and price matched set, all owned by one extremely wealthy man. They all sat on the market for years. He dropped the price by around 10%, and every one of these properties sold within a few months, I think all within 5% of the new asking price. This was the biggest drop I can recall seeing for empty acreages in all my search..

Most other properties I looked at moved quickly, near asking price. I was outbid on some; once I had a signed agreement but walked during the conditions stage.. seller had a backup offer in place already.

This assertion may be true other places, particularly more remote places, but it does not appear to be true here.

What type of metal roof is it? If it is a standing seam of any sort there may well be clamps that can fasten things to the ribs without more holes..

If not, you could possibly use a system of rails attached to the existing brackets, and then mount new panels on the rails.. assuming the brackets can handle the weight. It's not going to be easy to diy this without roof access, or cheap to have someone do it for you, though.

If it is through-fastened roofing, that won't work.. but there would be a lot of existing holes for screws that are generally supposed to be checked and tightened at regular intervals, as they will tend to loosen and leak over time; I wouldn't fret about a few more holes with this sort of roof!


I doubt there is a ready-built adapter meant to solve this issue, as panels have never standardized enough in size to make this look like a really compelling business opportunity, especially with all variety in installations..

Alder Burns wrote:The other critical thing to remember about this is that rural sites dependent on wells for water....the well pump won't run without power!  In California at least, the power company would preemptively shut the power off in any high wind event, since the likelihood of a fire start due to the power lines etc. and wind is a proven deadly likelihood....this was responsible for the disastrous Camp Fire which ate the town of Paradise.  So a generator or other backup system capable of running the well pump is practically essential in many such situations, especially if that water is being relied on for fire suppression practices.

Yep. And while having a generator able to run the well pump for a little while is no big deal, a generator or alternative pump that will run for days straight is a trickier problem.

Typical gas powered pumps only run a rather few hours on their integrated gas tank. A bigger tank, like for an outboard motor, is an option.. but we're still talking relatively modest runtime, plus that gas only keeps so long..

Propane is a nice option for generators, much harder to find for pumps.. but if you've got a powerful enough electric pump for sprinklers, this might be just the ticket. Simpler to get fired up than needing to prime a dedicated pump in a hurry.. A large propane tank or bank of tanks can be plumbed to a manifold to provide enough fuel to keep a generator running for days.. no fuel spoilage issues.. oil change interval is 100 hours on many small generators, so they won't be happy running indefinitely, but still much more straightforward to get extended runtime plus no issues with old fuel..


If any other folks have a wildfire suppression system, what's your pump of choice?

Excellent point.

Electrical infrastructure is generally pretty vulnerable especially in Canada, goven the scale involved. It can be hit by wildfires, it can light wildfires, transmission corridors can get severed, parts can end up shut down to reduce fire risks in extreme conditions..

To make matters worse, in the heavier smoke we had a few years ago, my solar was *heavily* impacted by said smoke. I was watching my battery level as if it was November... in the middle of summer, when I generally have zero need to warch consumption and when I use a lot more power for garden/animal related water pumping. If I ever need to run sprinklers for wildfire protection, I am clearly not going to be able to count on either solar *or* grid power.

Jay Angler wrote:D Nikolls list of options is excellent, but I'll add one I'd like to try:
We grow really big rocks, really easily. I'd move them and level them, then using a rock bit, drill a hole in them to secure either a homemade or commercial post holder - the type with the rod at the bottom with just the small amount of cement required. So long as they're dropped into a hole and tamp the dirt down thoroughly around the rock, and use enough of them, I can't imagine them being any worse than Sono-tube and concrete!

Thanks, that's a much better description of what I meant by using a rock.. they could be better than concrete in the right place with the right rock.. cheap, local, low carbon, and potentially more durable.

Gotchas that I can see are:
A) Not as resistant to frost heave vs a concrete pillar with a mushroomed base below the frost depth..
B) Only as durable as the rock you pick; some are excellent and some suck..

If you are drilling a hole in said rock for the post anchor, you might use that same hole for a lifting eye.. a lever and come-along attached to a vehicle can lift a surprisingly big rock..

I would strive to use concrete or stone footings if possible, redoing footings kind of sucks.

Cost saving thoughts:
Find some beefy scrap steel to cut into fittings instead of the overpriced Simpson stuff. Scrap bits of anything 3/8 thick and up will make nice solid mounts; I like to use vertical bar set into the cement with the post notched around it, bolts or big nails through post and bar.. or if going for fancier, I'll cut a piece of I-beam into an upside down T, using cast in place bolts or a anchors to secure the bottom to the cement, and then the post is notched and secured to the vertical leg with through-bolts.

Smallish pieces of heavy steel can sometimes be had for scrap value from welding shops, or craigslist/marketplace. I've even used scrap I found buried in the ground for anchoring posts. Cut to suit, and ideally derust/paint..

Mixing concrete from sand, sharp gravel, and Portland cement is cheaper than readymix bags..

Junky plywood/lumber makes perfectly fine forms, just takes some time.

If I wanted to save beyond what the above would do, I would do nice footings for the corner posts and half the poles; the alternating poles I would use a nice rock on a hole filled with compacted gravel. Ideally I would set these alternating posts onto a stake made from pipe or rebar to prevent lateral movement.