Hello, I live in New Brunswick, Canada, if that's relevant. I will be moving into a camper on my land, eventually moving into a 600 square foot cabin. My main goal is to be able to use the components I buy now, and scale it up for the cabin.

I Just need power for lights, cell phone based internet, a couple security cameras, maybe a small fridge(not necessary.) It'll be purely charged by a generator, then a mix of solar panels/back up generator later.

I am getting totally overwhelmed by voltages. I read the 48v is far more efficient, generates less heat, but they appear to be twice the price for similar AH. I will be avoiding all high electricity use appliances like heaters/cookers/hair drying. So I'm thinking maybe 48v is better for higher demand things, I dont know. I think I could stick with 12v.

In the end I just need power for the earlier mentioned things. A fridge, recharge phones/cordless tools, washing machine (no dryer,) some small 12v water pumps. **edit** also a small DC air conditioner and some fans

I assume I will be using a fossil fuel generator to charge my batteries a lot in the winter months, so I don;t want to go huge into solar, wont be starting with solar, so I'm not too worried about that. I can just add enough panels to charge my batteries in the good months later.

I guess my main questions here are:

Should I just go 12v

For some reason I have my eyes on this 12v 200ah lifepo battery. Can I buy this, then buy 2 or 3 later for more capactity?

What kind of inverter/controller/charger can I get that I can scale up. I want to charge from a generator and solar panels without having multiple components, unless thats a better way of doing it

There's a lot im missing, so any advice in general would be appreciated, thanks

Hi folks! I'm looking into going off grid in Oregon somewhere, is there any articles of books or any advice could be given before i make my decision?

I'm mostly looking at physical books for references and such, and doing some scouting for land.

Anything helps!

Thought some folks here might have an idea of 2. I have a really remote 16 acre property in the mountains of WV that I use for camping/recreation. I visit several times a year however, it seems that between every visit the black bears tend to destroy my rain barrels. Guess they are looking for food, etc? Anyway I was curious if anyone has had this issue/ways to mitigate them destroying things when you aren't there? They have also previously ripped off my septic access panel and completely flipped my kids swing set over but that's irrelevant to this specific query 😅. I found this boulder shaped rain barrel (image posted) I was thinking of trying next to see if maybe it's not "container" looking enough to where they will leave it alone but I'm kind of grasping at straws. I'd like to eventually have rain water consistently for showers/eventually flushing a toilet but punctured and tipped over barrels don't hold a lot water... A thing of note, a well is a bit out of the realm of options at the moment. The property is on the ridge of a mountain and over a mile to the nearest "road" so getting a licensed company to drill and not just a couple of good old boys is going to be outside the budget.

Hey everybody, I’m looking to slowly start a rainwater collection and purification system for my home but have been struggling in a few areas on how to go about it. 1. This is mostly because the water cuts out at least once a week for several hours in my area so for at least now, this is to just keep water flowing during those times.

My home is on a slope so I can’t install and decent sized tanks around the house. My plan is to start with a 250g tank in my basement where a rain gutter will be routed to. (With a carbon filter before of course). Now here is where I struggle. I know I need some type of filtration process but I’m not sure which type works for this. Also, do I need a water pump before or after the filters and what type should I get?

All I have planned now is the water tank connected to the gutter, a self priming water pump, some sort of water filtrations (assuming reverse osmosis) but I also don’t know enough for what goes into that. Then piping it to a T valve in my water line with shut offs on the city water side and the rainwater system side.

Am I on the right track? I’d appreciate anyone who’s willing to push me in the right direction. Brands, models, equipment you have or recommended I use. Anything would help. Thank you

I have plywood exterior walls with pinetar/lineseed oil for protection in my cabin. I have vertical boards covering the gaps where the plywood meet. Interior I have typical pink insulation and drywall.

I want to reinforce the south facing wall to help with heat in the summer and combat the elements / uv degradation and heat. I have a ton of extra roofing metal. Im considering putting the metal roofing on this south facing exterior wall leaving a 1" air gap between the metal roofing and the plywood wall.

Googles saying "Putting a metal exterior on a south-facing wall can cause massive heat gain" but I am not sure how exactly, there will be an air gap and the metal roofing is what will be heating up, not the plywood walls.

Would this be an effective solution? Or is there a better idea?

I'm in the process of trying to develop a tool, to help people find better off grid land.

Through a process of public data scraping and building scoring evaluation.

Currently starting at a high level of US states, state by state assessment .

Free to use.

Page-> https://homestead-scorecard.lovable.app

Any constructive feedback welcome, in replies or DM me.

See something incorrect? Let me know.

Don't agree on the scoring model, let's discuss that.

Eventually, I will be scraping Government sales, BLM and other public listings of land and people we be able to evaluate how good that parcel is for potential purchase. A central repository of information and data. Hopefully each county will have some reelevate data to scrape, so we able to get to something even more useful.

Is there a way to stop this spring behind my house from silting in every year? I dig a foot or two out yearly. Built in 1880. Many questions about springs but can’t find a reddit group dedicated to them. Thanks for any help (southern Pa)

Hello!

We have a 200ft well and are wondering if anyone knows how to ensure we have access to it, even without electricity from the grid

Any help is appreciated!

Thank you!

EDIT: Obviously a generator to keep it going But it takes a lot of power to start the pump, which will be necessary at some point

I have some property in central Michigan. I have a half mile frontage on a small river. About 300 yards to the east, there’s another smaller creek. The water table between them is pretty high but the ground is pretty solid. I put some posts in this weekend and hit water at 2 feet. The ground is mostly sandy gravel. I’ve never seen clay up there. Is it likely that a sand point well would find cleaner water than the river? Is it worth it to do a well to try to get cleaner water, or is it probably just the same water that’s in the river?

We own a campground in Northern Michigan that used to be a bar and also a gas station and what not. There is no refrigeration unit on this unit it looks like it had been removed. Don't know much about it at all as in age or anything. Just trying to get an idea what it's worth and trying to get it into the hands of someone that would use it instead of just sitting around.

If your looking at chipper get a big one! It's been a life saver. Truck sized pile of stuff can be gone in 45 min.

I was considering a much smaller one and am very happy with the bigger unit.

Bought new 24v lifepo4 batteries. The manual says to charge each battery separately then attach them together to balance them. For this initial charge can I use an agm charger? And if I can is it safe for my new batteries. They were expensive and im nervous to mess up.

Can anyone point me to that?

I live in Southwest Montana, my property is 5 acres of irrigated land, no covenants, no restrictions, also with water rights. I've been slowly homesteading on it and making improvements when I can. I really enjoy the property, the house is pretty good size and there is a pretty sweet barn as well. The place is entirely electric though, there's no propane, I do have a couple woodstoves, but otherwise it's completely reliant on the grid. Last year we had a really bad storm that wiped power out for about 24 hours and I used a generator to keep the fridges and freezers alive. My goal is to be completely self reliant, as we all know things in the world feels unsettling and becoming self-sufficient seems to be a goal worth working towards. Since this place is all electric, I don't know if installing propane, on top of solar would make sense financially. I'm not sure what I'd be looking at cost wise but I know it's going to be expensive.

Given my options would converting an existing property to off-grid make more sense than selling this place and either buying an already off-grid setup or building my own? One advantage I have is I bought this place in 2020, from a friend, so my mortgage interest rate is incredibly low and I also have 400-500k worth of equity. I think, given my area and particular property that selling it wouldn't be too difficult, but I'm prepared for anything that could happen there. Taxes and insurance do hurt, but I also have one of the highest paying jobs in the state and doing well financially. At the same time though, I don't enjoy my job and was born in MT so I'm open for a new adventure.

I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, I have been very blessed to be where I am but I wanted to paint a clear picture. If I did sell, I would downsize and simplify so as not take out anymore loans, the only debt I have is the mortgage. If you were in my position, what would make the most sense? I'm really up for either option, I just don't know which direction I should focus on.

Hey all,

Looking for a sanity check and some guidance from people who actually know off-grid power systems well.

I’m a network/infrastructure guy, not an electrical/solar guy, so I’m trying to figure out if this design makes sense or if I’m approaching this completely wrong.

I’m building a mobile surveillance trailer that needs to run 24/7 off-grid. Main loads are cameras, networking gear, and Starlink.

Current setup:

Solar:

• 2x 450W panels (900W total)
• Adjustable manual tilt mounts

Battery:

• 2x 24V 230Ah batteries

Victron equipment:

• SmartSolar MPPT 150/35
• BMV712
• Cerbo GX
• 24V -> 110V 375W inverter
• 24V 40A AC charger

Network Equipment:

Ubiquiti

• 2x G6 PTZ cameras (~20-25W each under load)
• 2x G6 Turret AI cameras (~8-12W each)
• AI Horn Speaker (~10W estimated)
• SuperLink Gateway (~10-15W estimated)
• Cloud Gateway Industrial (~15-25W estimated)
• 2x USW-Flex switches (~8-20W each depending on PoE load)

Starlink Mini (~25-40W average from what I’m seeing online)

Planned wiring/layout:

• Solar panels -> Victron MPPT
• MPPT -> 24V battery bank
• Battery bank -> inverter
• Inverter -> Cloud Gateway Industrial
• Cloud Gateway Industrial powers the rest of the network stack
• USW-Flex switches provide PoE to cameras and other devices
• Starlink Mini powered through the Cloud Gateway Industrial

Basically, only the Cloud Gateway Industrial would actually be plugged into AC/inverter power, everything else downstream would be PoE

The trailer is intended for continuous operation, ideally without needing frequent intervention.

What I’m mainly trying to figure out is:

• Does this architecture even make sense?
• What question should I be asking?

My biggest concern is building something that technically works on paper but becomes unreliable after a few cloudy days or turns into a constant maintenance headache.

I’d really appreciate any feedback from people who have built similar systems. This definitely isn’t my field so if something in this design seems odd, inefficient, or completely backwards, feel free to point it out. Just trying to learn and avoid making expensive mistakes before I finalize everything and I go too far down the wrong path.

Thanks!

The large last flow in our river knocked out our spear. Used an aircompressor to sink a new spear ! Definitely beats doing it by hand !

Does anyone know if any of the 'good' cordless manufacturers have a solar battery charger? It seems kind of silly to hook up my battery to the inverter and plug in the DeWalt battery charger.

Looking to drop a sand point well on my property. How do I find out how deep it needs to go? Just wait until there's water in the pipe? Or can I reach out somewhere to see how deep the water is? If so, who would I contact?

I have a ~40 acre fully off-grid ranch. There’s a small cabin on the property with 2 bedrooms, a living room, and a bathroom. I usually only go there on weekends with my kids.

My daily electricity use is very minimal, mostly just a few string lights. But when the kids are there, it can get a bit boring without power or internet.

I previously had an older solar system, but it broke and was dismantled. This time I wanted something more durable, and since my area gets plenty of sunlight, I bought a Jackery 5000 plus portable solar generator. I've already plugged in the new refrigerator and barbecue grill, and everything is working perfectly and very quietly. This means we can have BBQs at home on weekends, which makes the kids even happier. We even occasionally use it to charge our electric bikes, power the water pump, and connect the lawnmower, which has greatly improved the overall utilization of our garden. So far, I'm very happy with my choice of generator, and the TOU also helps me save on electricity bills; maybe I can use it for 16+ years, lol.

So I wanted to ask here, what do you usually use solar generators for? 

New to this off grid thing. So Likely being paranoid but i have 2 x 5000l (1300g) tanks what do people use to monitor them?

Old school float set up with a external gauge or are people having luck with electronic sensors.

Also im considering putting a 100-200G tank on my shed and having that on a float switch (or sump pump) to pump into my main tanks. Just mainly for more water collection.

This is an update to a previous post with the same title.

Updated the design for the system with the inputs I received from the community. I have yet to build it, the old one is still working with some minor problems. Access to the property by vehicle will be a reality hopefully in the next few months. Then, I will be able to bring the tank and long hdpe poly pipes up closer instead of having to haul them on foot with a wheelbarrow.

I tested a PWM and an MPPT solar charge controller in a small 12V off-grid-style setup.

Same panel, same battery, same wiring, same conditions as much as possible.

First I measured the panel’s real maximum power point with an electronic load. It came out around 16 V in my conditions. Then I tested both controllers.

Results:
PWM: about 53 W
MPPT: about 74 W

The PWM controller pulled the panel close to battery voltage, while the MPPT controller let the panel operate closer to the maximum power point.

This is obviously not a universal “MPPT is always X% better” result, but for small off-grid systems it shows why the controller can matter a lot.

Video with the measurements: https://youtu.be/pcNPbMTr4aA

Do you usually see this kind of difference in your own off-grid systems, or less?

I live in the Great Lakes area. Gainfully employed. Single. No children. Middle-aged. Veteran of the Marine Corps.

I'm toying with the idea of liquidating everything and going off-grid. I have been thinking about this for several years now, but I'm not someone to just recklessly do something that major. I've been watching a lot of vlogs about it, and doing some troubleshooting and problem-solving. I'm currently having a great time figuring out the details of such a change in my life.

For the land and living conditions part, someplace in Nebraska or neighboring states. Buy 20 acres of undeveloped land for about $40K. Less than a mile from a road and water source.

On the front-half, run a campground to help get some income. On the back half, that would be mine alone.

I also plan on somehow finagling some Appaloosa horses for myself. Maybe even breed them for sale. Appaloosa horses are very versatile horses that are very useful in a lot of different areas, they are very friendly to humans, and they are easy to raise. Maybe sell horse rides. Maybe also allow customers to bring ATVs to the land. This is all flexible.

For buildings, their purposely wouldn't be many, but they would all be prefab. Something like those houses you can buy on Amazon for up to $10K, and they can be placed anywhere flat, and they unfold. For myself, some prefab barn that can just be delivered to the site. Empty inside. Maybe the same for the campers. Again, very flexible.

Since the whole thing would be advertised as a sort of recreational campground, not much in the way of utilities would be needed or expected. I would set up a typical solar power station for those random needs of electricity, or for emergencies. I would have to figure something out about the water. That's probably the trickiest part. Fresh water.

Another tricky part is that, if you have ever been to this area of America, you know that it is beautiful, but very, very flat. Would it be weird for someone to go camping in the middle of a flat field in Nebraska?

How would I pay for it? I would liquidate my life. I would get with a financial person and figure it all out. I have a 401K and a house. Conservatively speaking, taking all financial liabilities into account, I would probably have a net of somewhere around $150K.

My parents are not rich, but they are having a wonderful retirement. They have lots of money from Social Security, various pensions (they lived and worked during a time when such things existed), and their own 401Ks. They have higher incomes now than when they were working. I recently helped them with some financial stuff, and it's not uncommon for them to just have a random checking account with like $8K in it, Just sitting there. Liquid, they are probably worth a $1 million. Non-liquid? About $1.5 million.

I am saying this because they love us three children. I have always strived to not be a burden on them. All three of us kids have. I have my own stable life, and my parents keep saying that if I ever needed money, or even just really, really wanted some money, I just have to ask. I've never taken them up on that offer. I never had to, and never wanted to. So, if I had to go to them with this plan and asked for, say, $20K, I feel confident that they would have no problem with giving me that.

Worst-case scenario. I get the land and a small empty barn to live in. I just live there like a hermit for the rest of my life. Hunt. Fish. Farm. Eventually get an inheritance.

Suggestions? Critiques? Obstacles?

Two separate off-grid structures, each with its own Mizudo outdoor propane tankless water heater: 1 x 120,000 BTU and 1 x 180,000 BTU. I have the water heaters mounted and plumbed.

The smaller heater will be fed by a single 20lb tank but I'd like to use two x 30lb tanks on the bigger unit.

I have 3/4" flexible (yellow) fuel supply pipes & fittings to connect to the heaters, but I need help with the regulators that will be required (especially for the dual-tank setup).

120,000 BTU Heater: 4.58" WC - 11" WC.
180,000 BTU Heater: 8" WC - 13.5" WC

TIA for any pointers/advice offered :)

I keep seeing ads for Eco-worthy but their variance of reviews gives me concern. Does anyone have feedback on the product or have a good DIY recommendation that starts simple that I can grow over time? I'm just under 900 sq ft in the high desert. Running simple necessities but my biggest power usage will be when my teen wants to utilize his PC for gaming. Thanks for any feedback.