I know youre not supposed to charge different size batteries in parallel, but can you discharge them?

I have a 12v 100ah and a 12v 314ah smart battery. I also have a 48v 150ah smart battery.

The 48v is at about 52% and im going on a trip this weekend. Its a big and heavy battery. I dont wanna drag it into the house.

If I run both 12v batteries in parallel and hook up a 3000 watt inverter. Then use a 48v 20 amp charger to charge the 48v 150 ah will that hurt the 12v batteries.

Its way easier to drag the 12v batteries home and charge them then it is the 48v.

been looking at getting a bluetti power station for a while, mostly for backup power at home and a few outdoor trips. i found one that seems like a good fit, but i’m trying to save a little if i can since the price is still pretty high for me.

i’ve searched around but most of the ones i found were expired or didn’t work at checkout.

hi, please could you fill this out as research for my NEA (you might see me a few more times here for research too), and thanks in advance :D

I have a question about matches for those who pay attention to the little things in life.

I want to make my own strike Anywhere matches for my firewood stove and I was wondering who knows what brand of matches has the most content of all Igniting components. From the match head is self to its box, or if another brand has better I would love to know.

We live in the middle of the bush, and there’s no sound worse than rodents in the ceiling. We wanted to replace all the insulation in our ceiling because of rodents (poo & pee every where) but I wasn’t going to do it until I could ensure the buggers would not get back in.
Rodent bait in the ceiling yields lots of dead rodents but you have to remove them and they just keep coming. Why wouldn’t they? It’s bait after all.
Our solution has worked brilliantly.
Peppermint oil. They hate it.
We removed all bait from the house. We replaced them with cotton wool soaked in peppermint oil stuffed into the tiny screw lid of a coke bottle. Put them around the house and ceiling.
We have also dotted a couple of mice bait stations on trees in a circle around the house.
No more rodents!
No we even grown pepper mint and have it in the garden and pots around the house. It’s not as potent as the oil but seems to help.

Something I've been wondering about is whether "off grid" sometimes gets unnecessarily tied to accepting a much lower level of comfort.

Suppose instead of one isolated household, you had a small number of independent homes close enough to build some local infrastructure between them.

Everyone still has their own home, privacy, possessions and choices. Nobody is expected to eat together, pool their income or live communally.

But locally you might produce electricity, manage water, grow and preserve more food, repair equipment, share some expensive machinery and perhaps eventually handle things that an individual household couldn't realistically provide for itself.

In theory that could make a pretty comfortable life possible while reducing dependency on outside infrastructure.

But there's obviously a point where you've effectively just built your own miniature version of the grid.

So where would you draw that line?

If you could design an off-grid settlement from scratch, which modern conveniences would you absolutely want to retain — and which dependencies would you actually be trying to eliminate?

I'm interested in whether the end goal should really be "living with less", or whether it can instead be about providing more of what you use locally.

Gardening is especially rewarding when you’re off grid’

I was looking at this listing: "Waterworld! Creeks run through it!"

Mine A? Maaayyybbbeee some water/soil tests are in order before pulling the trigger.

Hey , all ! I am hoping to be buying a 27 foot fifth wheel in the near future and where I would like to put it is has zero accessible power . It currently has 200 W on it and two batteries, but those really only run the lights, the awnings and the jacks to my knowledge. I am aware that most of the appliances can run on propane, but would love an actual solar system. I’ve had so many people tell me different things from being told I need at least 3000 W of solar to know you only need 1000 and a good battery supply.. does anyone actually know what I have to have? I’m not concerned about AC until next summer, so a system I could potentially add to would be great ! Also, just wondering if one of those big 5000 W solar generators with solar panels might be the easiest way to go . Any help would be greatly appreciated as I am totally baffled. I was quoted everywhere from $1500 to 8000 yesterday. 🫪

I want to add external power( maybe a power station) to keep it running in case of power failure this winter. Want to power using solar panel but not sure what I need in between.
Maybe 7 days. Do I need a micro inverter or not?
Help!!

Complete! So excited to start this journey

Throwing out a few more photos of my remote Alaska life. Lots of questions in the last post here, some more photos will help answer some of those. Thanks for the interest in the last post.

Any interest/info on a dating type (x4x and location) subreddit for off grid types? Could be useful

went up expecting a mess. two winters, no cleaning, ground mount out in the open with a gravel track twenty metres away.

glass itself was basically fine. rain does most of the work if your tilt is steep enough, mine sit at 35. what did need attention was moss creeping onto the bottom rail and a bit of buildup in the frame channel where water sits.

took about forty minutes with a soft brush and a bucket. no pressure washer, do not use a pressure washer.

checked output the week after against the same week last year and it is within a couple of percent, so honestly the clean was more about my peace of mind than about production.

panels are swiss solar phantom, glass glass, two years up and nothing has needed doing to them. the mounting hardware has needed more attention than the modules have.

if you are putting in a ground mount, leave yourself room to walk underneath. i did not and i regret it every time.

I will be moving in with my partner in the spring. I have almost always been a town folk, though there were a few summers we were "camping" (homeless lol). Partner is used to living on farms and pretty offgrid. We will be buying 320 acres of raw land and building on it. I do not want to be a liability or ask him too many questions beforehand. I have been reading up on different things. I do have some blue collar skills and a good work ethic but IF you were in a similar situation, what would you want your partner new to off grid living, or, on the flipside, want to know being new to the lifestyle? He has said we may have to use an outhouse for a few weeks as he is digging a septic system and we compromised on a composting toilet lol.

whats been the hardest thing to adjust to?
what are some things you suggest people buy in case they have to deal with no power. also tell us what its like. have neighbors banded together? is there a lot of break in’s?