# Suggestions for alternative power, please



## whisperingeagle (Mar 10, 2008)

Hello all,

This is my first time posting here and right off the bat I have a question that if you can answer will help me, but with a few things in mind.

We presently run off of a JD-TEK 3500, gas fueled. We are finding that it is costing too much for us to use it regularly. We are also both disabled veterans and cannot afford an expensive solar system or a wind system. 

We live on 15 acres in the country, and have no codes to mess with. The local electric company, wants $750.00 per pole, of which we will need 5-7 poles to get our electric hooked up; so we use a generator that helps with things like lights and the TV. We have a wood stove which helps to heat our mobile home. We also live on a hill above the rest of the people which there are very few of in our area. 

Please post any suggestions that you may feel is worthy and we will thank you. We would like to live off-grid if possible.

Debi Carter


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## fishhead (Jul 19, 2006)

I would first make sure my insulation was taken care of. Then if you are wanting heating I would look into some homemade solar collectors.


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## Windy in Kansas (Jun 16, 2002)

Welcome to the forums Debi. I hope that you will find all of the forums beneficial and that you won't be shy about posting to any or all of them. 

I would start with something that would keep you from running the generator so much. I would get as many batteries as I could afford and then couple them to an inverter to change the voltage from 12 to 110. Charge the batteries when you will be running the generator for large tasks like pumping water or running a washing machine. To the extent possible use stored battery power the rest of the time. 

I would suggest task lighting to illuminate your immediate work area and find that I get by nicely with 10 watt compact fluorescent bulbs in a reflector type of fixture. 

Think out the battery purchases carefully so that you won't deeply discharge them before recharge. This will allow longer live through shorter cycling. You may wish to get an Inter Library Loan of a book dealing with battery use for systems. Several here have posted titles of good books to use but I didn't save them.

While running the generator you might have the exhaust heat being utilized for something. I have always thought that preheating water in advance of a water heater would utilize it somewhat. 

While I haven't built one yet I think that a solar water heater of the batch design would be great to have. A batch unit heats a specific amount at a time. A book published by Rodale Press is excellent for home built units. Also they published one for hot air solar heating that shows excellent plans for an efficient unit. Rodale built and tested numerous models until they felt they had them perfected before publishing.


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## OntarioMan (Feb 11, 2007)

It may be that the $4500 or so to have your electric hooked up is the best value. Generators, fuel and any other non-grid devices cost money - and they're certainly not as convenient as grid-power. Unfortunately for most folks, there really is no affordable, dependable and convenient way to generate your own electricity.


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## WisJim (Jan 14, 2004)

First, get your electrical usage down to a minimum. It is the best thing going for lights, so don't bother with candles or kerosene lights for regular use. Get a modest battery, inverter, and charger setup so you don't have to run the generator all the time. What are you using electricity for? Do you have a freezer, refrigerator, well pump, furnace fan, etc?


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## wy_white_wolf (Oct 14, 2004)

As WisJim stated "get your electrical usage down to a minimum."

Then you have 2 options that I see.

1) You could work towards 1 large system to handle everything. The best way to start this would be to get the batteries and inverter needed and charge them with the jenny. Add solar and wind as you can afford them. Eventually the genny usage should drop to once in a blue moon or never if you add enough. You will still have to come up with a good sized chunk of change to get started, but how far you go is up to you.

2) Build smaller systems to handle individuale jobs. This really doesn't work if you have alot of different uses or areas. You would need to continue using the genny as you are but woull build (as you can afford) several small systems each powering 1 task or 1 room. Eventually, there would be very little or nothing left for the genny to power. This also would give you solar experience (at first) on a small scale without spending thousands of dollars and not know what to do. Harbor Frieght has a small lighting system available that would handle lighting in 2 rooms for about $200 plus shipping and battery (can be found cheaper on ebay). In the end this way usually costs more and requires more maintenace in the end.


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## MrPG (Oct 9, 2005)

If you are feeling adventurous, you can look into a gasifier system to serve as an alternate source of fuel. Essentially anything that can burn, including wood chips or wood of any kind, goes into a sort of barrel and is heated/burned. But instead of the gases being burned off, they go through a filter and pipe into your generator - where it is burned instead of gasoline. 

See utterpower.com: http://utterpower.com/gasification_plant.htm although there are many other places you can read up on this. You probably have plenty of wood or other things you can use as the fuel source.


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## greg273 (Aug 5, 2003)

For the price of the utility poles and service, you could afford a moderate sized photovoltaic system. Then you'll have no monthly power bill to look forward too, and it should be very reliable. There are state and federal grants and rebates available to encourage people to invest in renewable energy, and may bring the cost of such a system within your reach. Now thats a form of welfare, perhaps, but remember the oil and gas companies recieve welfare also, so I wouldnt feel too bad about it!


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## idahodave (Jan 20, 2005)

If you ever plan on selling, commercial power would probably pay for itself in the long run.


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## tamsam (May 12, 2006)

I posted this on another thread but will post here too. If you are using batteries you mat want to try what I am going to do. I am going to build a unit to charge our batteries using a 3 1/2 hp gas motor and a GM alternator. It is simple to hook the GM alternator up to charge the batteries as the older models had build in voltage regs. Good luck Sam


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## Old_Trapper (Mar 17, 2008)

They do make a pellet stove that does not use electricity. That would do for the heat, and maybe the cooking.

For power I would look into a Pell generator if you have a stream, or spring, you can funnel water out of. The basis is that you take a 12 inch entrance and squeeze it down to a 1/2 inch exit to run the generator.Your drop would need to be about 2- 6 inches to every foot to acquire enough pressure although it may be done with less if you are innovative.


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## Al. Countryboy (Oct 2, 2004)

Simular to what others have posted, we have been doing some trial runs with a small 1000 watt Honda generator and one marine battery that we already have. We bought a small frig./freezer which holds 75 lbs. of food which uses less that 100 watts while running and runs about a 1/4 of the time. The frig. runs off A.C. and D.C. so while cooking with a small hot plate, microwave and electric skellet we will charge our batteries to keep our frig going on D.C.. We are using 3 florescent D.C. bulbs (5, 13 and 24 watts). For three days our frig. has ran off of the one fully charged battery and we have been using three florescent lights for about 3 hours each night to see how long the battery will run the frig. without pulling the charge of the battery down very low. I am very pleased knowing that one one battery will run the frig. for this lenght of time without being charge by our generator which I feel will be ran at least an hour or so each night for cooking.


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## Explorer (Dec 2, 2003)

> They do make a pellet stove that does not use electricity.


Do you have some info on that as I am wondering how the auger is powered?


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## Old_Trapper (Mar 17, 2008)

Explorer said:


> Do you have some info on that as I am wondering how the auger is powered?


I believe it may either be tension spring powered, or battery.

Anyway, it is made by Draper.


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## PhilJohnson (Dec 24, 2006)

I didn't get solar panels until last may. I had been off the grid for over a year before that with no generator or windmill. What I did was buy a cheap (50 dollar) 800 watt power inverter and used the battery out of the car. I found a good car battery will power a couple of compact fluorescent bulbs all night along with powering a laptop or TV as well. Later I got a couple of extra batteries, one I would charge up by going to work or doing errands, the other I would charge up with a battery charger at work. It wasn't the easiest way to go, but it was the cheapest by far. It got my by until I got the solar panels.


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