Tommy Bolin

David Nightingale wrote:
Great advice.  Anymore?  I’m in the middle of below grade room build for this exact purpose, as well as increased insulation to zero degree, regular freezer, fridge that will reside in that room.  Brands and models any advice greatly appreciated.  I like the buy in person with voltmeter and testing.  We did that at a moderately upscale appliance dealer and found a few probs, higher load draws, shorts, all kinds.
As well is Sol-Ark 15K worth $$$ vs MyGrid $$ 10K givin likelihood of solid state battery tech coming in next 10 years? Thanks, Cheers the micro grids.

I've got not much to add, sorry. But, if you can, concentrate on using less rather than buying more capacity. I know that is not an option for a lot of people.
We love our small bush home dim, warm, and quiet. Especially in the stillness and solitude of a heavy winter. No neighbors, no noise, period. We are usually shocked when we go home to Nevada and the brightness and noise.
I marvel at the (huge) cost, complexity, and capability of current solar tech. Like everything, it seems to be a cult of have/have not. I built the mini-grids to allow me to piece build from scratch and put power where it needs to go at lowest cost.
The original (70's) owner of this house lived with hand pumped cistern, wood heat, Coleman lights, propane and a battery system comprised of used 6V? large telephone batteries he would place in the bed of his pickup and charge from the alternator on a run into town. Although the house in now upgraded for AC and indoor plumbing, we still have no running water. We heat our house and water with a Fisher woodstove. Water is taken from the lake or melted from snow in the yard, battery lighting mostly, some DC fluorescent, and one very pretty old Rayo kerosene lamp. Lincoln Ranger for welding/power and generators for heavy tool loads/battery charging.
I bargain sourced quality parts, Morningstar, Victron, BlueSky, AIMS, Trace, Renogy, US Battery, Trojan. Bought cable 200ft at a time on sale, did all my own work. Bought most of a crate of leftover 325W Canadian Solar panels from an installer, cash. I also have no grid here to tie to, solves that complexity layer, although my 4000W Trace would do so.
I'm not sure the tech is ready or proven for me, lithium batteries mainly. Anything that needs a brain and heater to run, sounds like two extra failure paths in a tech not field proven for more than the last decade, really. IF battery tech changes, I'm sure with what I have now and the spares, I'll be able to just change solar charge controllers if necessary.
Good luck.

Coolers-towels.
Coolers are often for travel. I did a lot of it for work, oilfield/construction. I found that clean towels, slightly damp, always in short supply living out of my truck.
Bonus: In really hot weather, that big, cool, damp bath towel is great for a short bit of heat relief.
Good luck.

[quote=D Nikolls
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  

The ice on the freezer walls is a function of the cooling system, the evaporator coils are in the walls, and there is no fan to circulate air like a conventional freezer. My backroom AC chest freezer does the same, but does not get opened few times a day, so no humidity to freeze. My Unique chest freezer has an interior clear partition under the lid, I suppose to create dead cold air space for insulation and to allow you to check contents without letting heat in. Also works to limit humidity, therefore frost on the walls. I throw a towel over the contents of my backroom freezer, and in fact all my ice chest/coolers for the same reason, helps create a dead air space over the contents.
I have proven it to myself. I was structural superintendent and carpenter's foreman in Death Valley when Furnace Creek was renovated in 2018, built the new 'Oasis'. I have a Grizzly 100L, the original 'super insulated' cooler. Left out all day at 120+ degrees F. I sat on it at the end of the day to have a cold beer and burned my butt. Okay. Got the heat gun out, 162 deg surface temp. 72 degrees surface inside. 38 at the wall just under the towel. Towel keeps the ice from having to chill air above the ice line.

Poor cooling is a different deal. I'm no fridge tech but seems like weak compressor or refrigerant loss. Have to look into that. Thank you.

"I'm still not clear from this pump or my other gas-powere model if there is any harm done to the impeller or seals if it's trying to pump against a closed hose...."

I have overheated the water in my centrifugal fire pump almost to the point of boiling by running it against closed valve. It is a Honda, so very well built, but I was assuming trashed seals when went truck to shut it off, figured out what I had done. However, no problems.
I was 200ft away doing mop up on a forest fire, trying to conserve the 275 gallon tote on my truck, firehose closed 'for just a minute' and not fully paying attention. Next morning I added a 3/4 garden hose fitting to both allow me to use a much smaller, lighter, lower flowing canvas hose instead of the big 1.5in and a T to allow constant cooling recycle of pressurized pump water to the tank even when all hoses are closed.
Cavitation in a closed pump will wear an impeller, believe it or not, very, very slowly, but still. Centrifugal pumps rely on inertia to move water, why they are not self priming. Also the reason a person never wants to 'deadhead' or close in a running pump. All that moving mass needs to instantly stop. Stop pump, then close valve. Open a valve then close a valve for branched system.

We use a well pump in the lake to fill two, linked, 275gal totes for all of our domestic and garden water. Move water via buckets. To pressurize a garden hose around the yard, I have a solar microgrid with a nice little 12V RV pump. I have an additional steel tank I link to the others to make a greenhouse drip system for when we leave.
Gravity does not seem to be enough pressure to run drip emitters, but I just use old vinyl garden hose I pierce with push pins for a constant tiny drip. If I over do it, patch with tape and re-pierce until I get the flow I want. I decided eventually that was the best setup anyhow. Make the hole in the hose too big, then make a smaller hole in the tape because some hoses are soft enough that the hole 'heals' itself. Sounds dorky, but two greenhouses will drain 600gal of water in less than a week.
Automated shutoff or automated fill is the next project.

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 Unique 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, even though propane 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.

Those rolling Perry scaffolds are quite useful, consider having a parallel/replacement deck for when it's original purpose is needed.
The bolt holes drilled through the uprights look like a great way to attach any kind of roof or other structure.

Kara Ann wrote:Tommy - your work is beautiful and inspiring!!
................. I have just gotten a delivery of 100 used pallets, so there is plenty to work with!
Thanks again for the inspiration.

Just an example, of kind thoughts, from everyone here, I really appreciate it.
Pallets, maybe not in WA, are often made of oak, maybe not of the best quality hardwood, but useful and beautiful. Keep an eye out, I've made a couple things over the years out of oak salvaged from what I found at work.

Maxeem Konrardy wrote:Thanks for all the discussion here. Interesting topic.

This may be nuts but does anyone do open air insulation? That is, just install a standalone metal roof over the house? Or is that going to cause too many wind-tunneling effects (unless built like a beast)?

I lived in a rental trailer off of Russell in Missoula, down by the river, early 80's. This was the exact solution to added roof insulation, particularly effective in the summer, when the sun was never allowed to touch the house (roof). It was somewhat common in Montana at the time to build a 'polebarn' with a metal roof over a trailer. Some folks insulated directly over the trailer roof. My trailer was so built. Although hail was uncommon, rain was a non-event for noise this way, (to me), the one or two hail storms I lived through were also nothing.

Pole barns can be cheap to build, more than sturdy enough for any wind. The only downside I can see would be living with pack rats and squirrels.

As an aside, my neighbor was a lovely woman whose name I have forgotten. At the age of 78, ( in 1983) she said she was the oldest surviving insulin dependent diabetic, having been on it pretty much since it's inception. I shoveled her walk, helped with anything the old boy who ran the trailer park didn't do,

I would never have guessed that a panel with that much damage to the glass would have enough of the fragile little foil circuits intact to produce much of anything.
Yes, the panel producing the lowest voltage will tend to drag the output of the entire system down, lowest common denominator, it seems.
The pourable catalyzed acrylic, like that used to seal bar tops and referenced by Mr. Rubino, is easily the choice that makes the most sense. Waterproof, available reasonably in quantity large enough to do the job, would stabilize the entire panel.
Sounds like a fun project, good learning experience, good luck.