No Grid Makes Appliances Not Work

Hi Fellow Permies,
So I started with my off grid house and I got a realllllllllllllly good tankless water heater. The damned thing kept closing the outlet valve and shutting off the hot water even though the pipes were empty and there were hot water valves open. I eventually replaced the thing with an RV style hot water heater that was 1/10th as good but it actually works so it is 10000x better.

I've had this constant issue with the washing machine. I have 50 PSI at the water line I can fill a bucket in no time. But... the speed queen keeps refusing to fill. I have cleaned out the inlets and honestly there isn't anything wrong with anything except the washer.

Has anyone figured a work around? There has to be some grid based capacity communication that is limiting these beaugy appliances. I can run saws, air compressors, weld... I have water, and I don't have any issues there. Gas runs through the pipes no problem...  my dryer works just fine.

Is there another box I can put on my grid that tells these appliances they have 100% capacity?

Hi Joe;
I'm having trouble figuring out your question.
I've been off-grid for over 40 years.

Let's start with your on-demand water heater.
I would say you got the wrong one for off-grid.
If it needs electricity you got the wrong one.
I've used Paloma on-demand water heaters for over 40 years, 50 psi is plenty to run one.
There is no power at all hooked to a Paloma heater just water and propane.
If you got water and propane you have hot water.

Your Speed Queen washer.
I own/and love a speed Queen washer and dryer.  They work just fine with my off-gid power.

I have to ask what style of power system you are trying to use?
Do you use a pure sine wave inverter?
Many electronic appliances do not work well if at all with a cheap Square wave inverter.
Give us some information on how you make your power.

My thoughts are what kind of water pump are you using?

Is it large enough to handle the water flow needed?

I've got a victron setup, plenty of pure sine power.

1st my on demand hot water heater did use a plug and I had enough power for it, it was  propane and it had everything it needed. I gave it to a buddy who is on grid we hooked it up and he hasn't had a problem.

2nd, we weren't able to get the old style speed queen unfortunately.

3rd, yes the pump has plenty of flow. I can fill the washer in a matter of minutes from the same tap just you know... if I disconnect and run the old fashioned way. Plus we have enough pressure tank capacity to run like 10 loads...

For what its worth, my friends got a super efficient heater for their house. It wont run on a generator because the power "isn't clean enough".

Dan - It sounds like your friend doesn't have the right kind of generator. I have very large standby generators. They produce very clean power. Smaller generators that are used for power tools and things like that are likely to produce dirty energy or at least so says the rental place. The work around for that is a spider that cleans up the power. We had to do that for the band at my kids wedding.

Its an interesting topic, because it shows how going off-grid is not just a matter of putting in a different source of power.

I cannot believe you are using driers, when a clothes line surely would be more suited anyway?

John, too many kids to make that work in the winter. I have a huge one for the warmer months.

Outside clothes driers can be any size and cost nothing to run!

He has a dryer.  It's ok.

Joe Wamsley wrote:Hi Fellow Permies,
So I started with my off grid house and I got a realllllllllllllly good tankless water heater. The damned thing kept closing the outlet valve and shutting off the hot water even though the pipes were empty and there were hot water valves open. I eventually replaced the thing with an RV style hot water heater that was 1/10th as good but it actually works so it is 10000x better.

I've had this constant issue with the washing machine. I have 50 PSI at the water line I can fill a bucket in no time. But... the speed queen keeps refusing to fill. I have cleaned out the inlets and honestly there isn't anything wrong with anything except the washer.

Has anyone figured a work around? There has to be some grid based capacity communication that is limiting these beaugy appliances. I can run saws, air compressors, weld... I have water, and I don't have any issues there. Gas runs through the pipes no problem...  my dryer works just fine.

Is there another box I can put on my grid that tells these appliances they have 100% capacity?

hmm if I had to guess based on past experiences I would check that your sleep mode function was disabled on the inverter. I have seen many appliances with control board driven crazy by the continuous search pulse the inverters put out. What model of victron inverter is it anyways?
Cheers, David

I agree with David.  The standby /sleep mode in your inverter is messing with you.
If your water heater worked perfectly at your buddy's house with grid power then your inverter was the issue.
I suspect it's the issue with your speed queen as well.

It is a multi plus. I have 6 kW with 18 kW of surge capacity. The sleep function was the first thing I confirmed was off. I've never had a good experience with those.

I'm an electrical engineer... trust me... power isn't the issue here...

Didn't anyone see the Australian government talking about how great their program to turn people's hot water heater off at night went? Hasn't anyone noticed anything with some smarts to it won't work unless you are plugged into the grid?

Let's talk about that hot water heater some more. It had a shut off valve to literally shut off the outlet. At some point I had the idea to remove the grommet so it could not actually fully shut off. So it stopped firing because... the shut off valve had failed. I literally just put everything right and plugged it into the grid at someone else's house. The electricity was way dirtier there and it worked without a hitch.

Are all you commenting on power hooked up to the grid for backup? Can you run an experiment where you remove that for a month and see how many appliances work?

Joe Wamsley wrote:It is a multi plus. I have 6 kW with 18 kW of surge capacity. The sleep function was the first thing I confirmed was off. I've never had a good experience with those.

I'm an electrical engineer... trust me... power isn't the issue here...

Didn't anyone see the Australian government talking about how great their program to turn people's hot water heater off at night went? Hasn't anyone noticed anything with some smarts to it won't work unless you are plugged into the grid?

Let's talk about that hot water heater some more. It had a shut off valve to literally shut off the outlet. At some point I had the idea to remove the grommet so it could not actually fully shut off. So it stopped firing because... the shut off valve had failed. I literally just put everything right and plugged it into the grid at someone else's house. The electricity was way dirtier there and it worked without a hitch.

Are all you commenting on power hooked up to the grid for backup? Can you run an experiment where you remove that for a month and see how many appliances work?

Hi Joe, I've worked on about 40 off grid homes at this point and trouble shot a lot more. There can be ghosts in the machine. As an engineer you can dive deeper hen most. I can give you a few more things to check. So the victrons I'm familiar with have 3 power modes an always on, a power save and a search function.both the search and power save mode will affect electronics. If your inverter is in the always on configuration your next step would be to check your lines to make sure they are correctly balanced. I have seen too many loads or intermittent loads installed on one leg causing issues before. Next I would want to check frequency which can screw up board driven appliances. All else fails talk to tech support maybe a hard reset or hidden diagnostics they can access...
Cheers, David

Thanks David, I know about the ghosted and cob webs. According to my power supply studies we aren't varying at the plug by more than +/- 1V pretty good. The frequency is stable within 0.1Hz according to my calibrated fluke.

I can literally hear the machine dithering solenoids to reduce flow rates.

I'd love a scope trace and a frequency plot.

I'd bet there's some high frequency rubbish going on there. All would take is some leakage of the switching to the output. Even a ferrite on the output might solve it.