Solar/generator/batteries options

[HuntandFish]

The family and I are moving into a 42’ park model RV while we build our house this year. We live in a cold climate so heat will be on near constant this winter. Our dilemma is we put in all the power infrastructure and we’re suppose to get everything lite up this week, than the power company told us they ran out of transformer’s and we now are committed to moving out on the property…so now I have to figure out how to power everything for what may be months they are telling me….

Being that it is a park model, it has a house fridge, full size microwave, electric fireplace, TV (x3), well pump, on demand water heater (propane) and furnace (propane) along with all the led lights, etc.

Ideally I want to be able to buy 5-10 deep cycle batteries and an inverter, and hopefully run the generator for a few hours every couple days?

I would love input on how to do this, or comments from those that have? Number of batteries, hook up a couple solar panels to trickle charge? Probably don’t need a huge generator to charge the batteries?

Solar I don’t think will work great as we are in NW Montana…

Thanks all!
H&F

[Zardoz]

There are several, "Off Grid and Solar" sites with load calculators on line. it will take some time to crunch the numbers, every situation is different, NO one stop shopping here, you won't be happy with the results. 

If you have the dollars available, hire a LOCAL (experienced, 5+ years in business) Solar company to work it out for you. You trade dollars for headaches..

[lewy]

Out of transformers? I don’t buy that

[Iveexcaped3]

H&F where about?  we were looking at kalispell but unsure due to home school curriculum. Lived in Thompson falls for a year.

As far as transformers go I call BS. Go cut down a power pole and see how fast one comes available 

Zardoz hit it on the head though call a local company to spec out what you need and maybe talking to them about just specing out the house so you don’t even have to deal with the power company again

[NRA4LIFE]

Me neither.  They could get one if they were out of them.  That seems almost ridiculous to me.

However, just my novice opinion here.  If you need to buy 10 quality Deep Cycles, all the connecting hardware and wiring and inverter, you'll be in for $2K or very close.  What type of generator do you have?  I can run my 2400W Yamaha 24/7 for probably $10-$12 a day.  6 months puts you at $2K or very close.  You could run everything on that generator (not all at the same time obviously).

Solar, I don't know squat.

[HuntandFish]

H&F where about?  we were looking at kalispell but unsure due to home school curriculum. Lived in Thompson falls for a year.

As far as transformers go I call BS. Go cut down a power pole and see how fast one comes available 

Zardoz hit it on the head though call a local company to spec out what you need and maybe talking to them about just specing out the house so you don’t even have to deal with the power company again

Our property is in west valley off Farm to Market, backed up to forest service on one side and state land on the other. Just West of Whitefish in the county.

My wife homeschools our kidS…

H&F

[HuntandFish]

Me neither.  They could get one if they were out of them.  That seems almost ridiculous to me.

However, just my novice opinion here.  If you need to buy 10 quality Deep Cycles, all the connecting hardware and wiring and inverter, you'll be in for $2K or very close.  What type of generator do you have?  I can run my 2400W Yamaha 24/7 for probably $10-$12 a day.  6 months puts you at $2K or very close.  You could run everything on that generator (not all at the same time obviously).

Ya I am having a hard time believing it myself…I build homes for a living and have two other houses they are telling me I have to wait to get lite up because they have no transformers…neighboring power companies yard is full of them…not sure what’s going on, but not good!

And yes this was the type of input I am looking for. Maybe a few batteries that charge during the day, run the generator most of the day for normal use stuff, than let the batteries run the furnace all night and kill the fridge at night? Kinda a pain for a few months….

I am hopefully talking to the operations manager tomorrow and get to the bottom of this! Gotta keep the wife happy…

H&F

Solar, I don't know squat.

[Iveexcaped3]

H&F where about?  we were looking at kalispell but unsure due to home school curriculum. Lived in Thompson falls for a year.

As far as transformers go I call BS. Go cut down a power pole and see how fast one comes available 

Zardoz hit it on the head though call a local company to spec out what you need and maybe talking to them about just specing out the house so you don’t even have to deal with the power company again

Our property is in west valley off Farm to Market, backed up to forest service on one side and state land on the other. Just West of Whitefish in the county.

My wife homeschools our kidS…

H&F

I looked around whitefish, but figured there’s more clientele in kalispell. Remodel contractor tough to buy over there right now though. We might end up in Idaho due to the requirements for homeschooling. MT vs ID Idaho has more relaxed requirements, the way WA is going we need to get out quickly.

[CP]

Running the generator a couple hours every few days probably isn’t going to cut it.  You have to put back into the batteries at least what you take out.

Calculate how much power you need, the maximum to run everything that will be on at the same time.  The inverter that you pick will have to handle that power load.

Calculate the energy that you will need over a given time period between charging.  That will size your battery needs. 

Your generator has to be at least powerful enough to run the battery charger.  I wouldn’t bother with solar.

There are lot of products out there that will handle your needs.  For example:


https://www.bluettipower.com/products/ac200max-power-station 

[Iveexcaped3]

What about a whole house emergency generator ran to a temp power pole?

[MR5x5]

It's ultimately a math problem.  You need to calculate out your loads/times in terms of amp hours required and size the various systems from there. Generally solar is not going to cut it unless you plan on putting in quite the spread ($$) of panels and very large stack of batteries.  In the end, for the period of time without services, a diesel generator is probably going to be the best option.  You can eventually size your battery system to compliment the diesel and/or solar systems.  If allowed where you are at you could look to sell solar back to the pwr co in the summer to augment elec cost in the winter.

[andersonjk4]

What HP is your well pump?  Do you already have a pressure tank/storage tank setup for it or just a hydrant?  That is likely your biggest amp draw.  How you plan to use your well for water will probably influence your power setup.  If you are using your well pump for water pressure you will likely need a larger power system as they well pump would need to run concurrent to other loads.  If you are just using the well to fill a storage tank manually then you can be strategic when you run the well pump.  Maybe even have a dedicated generator that you fire up when you need to run the well pump.  I am in a similar situation, but on a larger scale.  I am trying to decide whether to go fully off-grid or pay $80k-$90k to bring power to my new property.  The one thing I have decided for sure is that you want redundancy.  Its a good idea to have a backup plan in the event a generator or inverter goes haywire. 

Getting a pair of generators with a paralleling kit is likely the quickest and easiest solution and would offer some redundancy.  The generators would also likely have pretty good re-sale value in a few months when you get power, or keep to use as back-up power.     

[lee]

Hi,

My only input ... Which is a little off topic but still important is.... Which ever route you take, don't try and recharge a battery bank while 2 charge sources are connected.

Meaning, say you have a solar system set up and operational and then decide to charge the batteries with a generator using either a stand alone charger or the on board charger in the RV..... when you apply power to either of these, they will see the charge from the solar system's voltage and incorrectly think the batteries are charged and go into float mode this not charging the batteries. Disconnect the solar before charging with onboard or external charger with generator.

[NRA4LIFE]

Another option since you have propane would be 1 or 2 propane generators.  You could run them directly from your main tank.  I do not know how much propane they consume though.

[baldopepper]

Friend in the business tells me transformers are in fact very hard to come by right now. Those nasty storms back east have caused a shortage in all all types of electrical supplies he tells me. Power companies all over are being very stingy with their inventories for fear they might get hit with the same type of huge damages that have happened back east.  Don't know if that's true or not, but seems like it could be after seeing the aftermath of some of those disasters on the news.