Spray foam is a terrible product especially for timber houses, it doesn't allow the wood to breath so traps in any moisture causing wood to decay at an accelerated rate. Banks in the UK won't even touch houses with sprayed PU be it insurance or a mortgage.
Your Ideal Offgrid New Construction Setup
- Thread starter mecdatlanta
- Start date
robbob2112
Doing more research, mosty harmless
if/when we build a house from scratch I plan on 8" outside walls or deeper with fiberglass filling the space - this figure is off the top of my head without researching it. The difference is to make sure the interior walls are air-tight and walk around with a flir camera to get leaks fixed.
My current house is 6" outside walls but is laughable when it comes to air-tight. SOOOO many leaks and heat plumes in winter it is funny. Will be fixing that this coming winter.
My current house is 6" outside walls but is laughable when it comes to air-tight. SOOOO many leaks and heat plumes in winter it is funny. Will be fixing that this coming winter.
We have 3 inch concrete block walls then 3 inches of fibreglass then 1 inch concrete board on the exterior this keeps the heat out of the house and the interior walls stay cool
Based on what I am seeing and OP's lack of knowledge on the solar front I would reach out to Ravolt for a Turnkey Ground Mount system with batteries and generator where it can be plopped down and one and done. Current connected also has a similar system design. Or reach out to Practical Preppers and have him come out and install. Quickest/Easiest unfortunately not the cheapest but should be well designed and built for your needs right out of the gate..
practicalpreppers.com
ravolt.us
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RaVolt - Home Power Plant Microgrid
The RaVolt Home Power Plant is a patented power generation and energy storage integration that allows for a completely grid-independent home. It arrives on-site fully integrated and pre-configured for
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robbob2112
Doing more research, mosty harmless
Why do you suppose it is people on a DIY solar website direct others to turn-key solution website/business?
I get it when they show themselves to be incompetent, which is rare if they made it this far. In the OPs case I assume he is learning how much he doesn't know and after that he can decide if he wants to persue DIY and the associated savings or if he needs to farm it out because there is a learning curve and a timing constraint.
I get it when they show themselves to be incompetent, which is rare if they made it this far. In the OPs case I assume he is learning how much he doesn't know and after that he can decide if he wants to persue DIY and the associated savings or if he needs to farm it out because there is a learning curve and a timing constraint.
Mkgough
Solar Dude
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2021
- Messages
- 220
I would seriously consider solar trackers to optimize your PV input, expandable, just add another tracker, no roof mount required, so way more solar with less panels, can mount them to a container and easy to maintain if ground mounted. I like the serviceable rack or wall mount batteries so you can replace bad cells as needed. Pick an AIO orrrrrr… consider a Solar Generator like Bluetti AC300 up to 12k of battery or 24k with 2 systems in parallel, or the AC500, EcoFlow or Anker… makes it easy and somewhat portable, and can be placed anywhere, no wall mounts required except for panel tie boxes.
Heck, I was worse. I suggested he go grid. No DIY solution there at all. But he did ask the question of what would you do if it was him after he had put down his list of where he wanted to be.
Now if he had asked what I would do if I was going to move to unimproved land and build an Off grid home my answer would have been different. However I am able to undergo privation, bad food, unsanitary conditions, horrendous physical labor, hours an hours of research and planning, plus I am willing to forgo modern amenities and entertainment, and have no wife and kids to deal with. If I did have a wife and kids they would also have to be willing to do all that I was willing to do or it would likely be a problem.
Given a Fall operation date just added to the need for grid power.
robbob2112
Doing more research, mosty harmless
Perhaps you missed the 2025 part of "fall" that he listed, or he added it. 12 months is probably optomistic on the home build, but solar is doable in that time
KITROBASKIN
Solar Enthusiast
Not sure of your winter heat days. We enjoy passive solar providing the majority of our winter heat. Having mass to hold heat is the way to go, as Thai Taffy mentioned.
Maybe the home you are planning to be built is prefabricated, it is going to take time; very possible there will be delays. DIY solar energy is wonderful but is an investment in time as well as money. Mistakes can happen, delays could arise.
Consider also resale value. Some home buyers are put off by solar energy, kind of like the ‘flush and forget’ mentality of septic systems. Solar needs vigilance and knowledge for DIY. Grid power is the practical choice.
Would we love it if you took the plunge with power from the sun? You bet.
Maybe the home you are planning to be built is prefabricated, it is going to take time; very possible there will be delays. DIY solar energy is wonderful but is an investment in time as well as money. Mistakes can happen, delays could arise.
Consider also resale value. Some home buyers are put off by solar energy, kind of like the ‘flush and forget’ mentality of septic systems. Solar needs vigilance and knowledge for DIY. Grid power is the practical choice.
Would we love it if you took the plunge with power from the sun? You bet.
I must have missed it. There is no edits to his OP so it could have not been added later. Given a years time does change the overall equation.
Hedges
I See Electromagnetic Fields!
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2020
- Messages
- 21,981
No tracker.
Just put up 2x as many panels, ground mount, two orientations.
How about staggered 2x4 studs with 2x6 sole and top plates?
With studs 16" on center, half the heat leaks through fiberglass insulation (14" wide) and half through wood (2" wide). With staggered studs you break the conduction through wood path.
Do something creative for corners/edges?
Or sheet of foam over the stud walls?
If you do eliminate air leaks, then you can sit back and inhale vapors from all the synthetic materials. My sister selected Linoleum (Marmolium) over vinyl. You could try for all natural materials. You could put in heat-exchanger ventilation.
I saw a video of two staged living rooms set on fire. The synthetic one flashed over to engulfed in flames within 5 minutes. The natural one burned, was still burning at 30 minutes, never flashed over. Wool basically doesn't burn at all (although moths love it), while petroleum & natural gas derived materials really do.
Just put up 2x as many panels, ground mount, two orientations.
How about staggered 2x4 studs with 2x6 sole and top plates?
With studs 16" on center, half the heat leaks through fiberglass insulation (14" wide) and half through wood (2" wide). With staggered studs you break the conduction through wood path.
Do something creative for corners/edges?
Or sheet of foam over the stud walls?
If you do eliminate air leaks, then you can sit back and inhale vapors from all the synthetic materials. My sister selected Linoleum (Marmolium) over vinyl. You could try for all natural materials. You could put in heat-exchanger ventilation.
I saw a video of two staged living rooms set on fire. The synthetic one flashed over to engulfed in flames within 5 minutes. The natural one burned, was still burning at 30 minutes, never flashed over. Wool basically doesn't burn at all (although moths love it), while petroleum & natural gas derived materials really do.
hwy17
Anti-Solar Enthusiast
I would pay the $30k to grid installed since Georgia's rates are low.
Bluedog225
Solar Wizard
Looking at a lower power service with a battery back/inverter might be an option.
mecdatlanta
New Member
Hi Matt, We are talking about Fall of 2025. Just to clarify.
mecdatlanta
New Member
I'll definitely be sharing (and looking for blessings) every step of the way! Thank you!
mecdatlanta
New Member
Those are some pretty scary numbers! But, if you take the interest rate down to 5% (I have to believe they will be coming down again at some point), that makes the loan repayment come out to $375/mo on the $70k. Also, if we further assume that inflation will take the $300/mo utility bill that I pay (electric + gas) to over $700/mo (assuming 3% inflation), I think the numbers can make more sense. And maybe I scale back on the solar/batteries and just be prepared to use propane a little more...
Hedges
I See Electromagnetic Fields!
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2020
- Messages
- 21,981
You look younger than me.
My mom's house had a 6% mortgage. I never got the chance until the financial crisis.
Don't consider 5% something you can count on. And rates could skyrocket.
Government borrows to spend money it doesn't have, and that drives inflation & interest rates.
They've been able to borrow for cheap so far, maybe not much longer.
Only thing that has made low rates since 2009 is "Quantitative Easing".
"Don't Fight the Fed", but they can't keep that up forever.
What will make your alternative energy investment make sense is inflation of utility rates, as you say.
And destruction of the dollar, including buying power of your savings and your income.
As the decades go by, you'll be glad you bought/built when you did.
At this time, PV panels are extremely cheap. Mounting hardware is expensive, see if you can DIY with salvage metal.
My mom's house had a 6% mortgage. I never got the chance until the financial crisis.
Don't consider 5% something you can count on. And rates could skyrocket.
Government borrows to spend money it doesn't have, and that drives inflation & interest rates.
They've been able to borrow for cheap so far, maybe not much longer.
Only thing that has made low rates since 2009 is "Quantitative Easing".
"Don't Fight the Fed", but they can't keep that up forever.
What will make your alternative energy investment make sense is inflation of utility rates, as you say.
And destruction of the dollar, including buying power of your savings and your income.
As the decades go by, you'll be glad you bought/built when you did.
At this time, PV panels are extremely cheap. Mounting hardware is expensive, see if you can DIY with salvage metal.
robbob2112
Doing more research, mosty harmless
Now - $46k in batteries for the EG4 ones you mention (they are $3600 each)- but for the same capacity of DIY batteries you built yourself the cost is $19k -- 11 batteries total
$27k savings if you invest many hours of your time learning to do it properly and building them. Plus you have to check on them once in a while, say monthly walkthrough with a thermal camera
And many hours installing racking and panels - forget sleep for a while
Only you know how handy you are and if you are out or something happens the investment will still have to be checked on periodically.
If the house sells it limits the market to people that want that sort of setup - and the short answer is nobody unless you have documented every wire, every connection, every piece of gear
For that I would bet the turn-key cost would be higher than figured but easier to sell in the long run.
Of course we will all have portable fusion units in the basement by then
$27k savings if you invest many hours of your time learning to do it properly and building them. Plus you have to check on them once in a while, say monthly walkthrough with a thermal camera
And many hours installing racking and panels - forget sleep for a while
Only you know how handy you are and if you are out or something happens the investment will still have to be checked on periodically.
If the house sells it limits the market to people that want that sort of setup - and the short answer is nobody unless you have documented every wire, every connection, every piece of gear
For that I would bet the turn-key cost would be higher than figured but easier to sell in the long run.
Of course we will all have portable fusion units in the basement by then
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mecdatlanta
New Member
Here is our usage over the past year. This includes using one electric car that we drive approx 50 miles per day, averaging around 33 kW-hr/100 miles;
DIYrich
Solar Wizard
$3.00/watt is for contractor installed. If you do it yourself, maybe half that.
Mkgough
Solar Dude
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2021
- Messages
- 220
I went through 25 gal in 24 hrs with my 12k DuroMax, so more like $3+/hr
Khabra
New Member
What I would do I would buy 12 kilowatt 120V/240V split phase inverter CSA certified that operates on 48Volt Battery. I will buy 6 batteries of 48V 100Ah capacity, Now we have 48V 600AH capacity for 6 batteries that is 30 Kilowatt Hour capacity more than enough you need. The solar array could be 20 panels of 400 watts 5 circuits by wiring three in series. So you need 5 circuit combiner box( each circuit is 105 V DC and 10 Ampere) You wil get 50-60 Ampere charging rate with this solar array. To fully charge your 600 AH bank it need 10 hour to charge to full capacity. It will cover 2-3 cloudy days in a week too. Please feel free to ask more questionsGreetings All,
This site is amazing and I am learning a ton. But I feel like I know enough to get my family into some potentially hot - or worse yet - cold (due to insufficient energy planning!) water.
Here is our situation, as best I can describe it. Nothing is carved in stone, although we do have the house plan, the lot, and the need to start building in the next few weeks/months so our kids can be in school next Fall (2025), so I need to figure out the energy side of things pretty quickly:
What we think we want:
- Location: North Georgia Mountains
- Family size: 5; 2 adults and 3 kids
- Lot size: 10 acres, sloping lot
- Home size/type: ~4k square ft / modern mountain design
- We have one EV and use it the most, but also have a gas-powered vehicle
- Electricity from the utility company is an option, but it would cost $30k just to run the line to our house. Hence my push to go completely off-grid (among other reasons),
What we don't know enough about:
- Solar array + battery system to cover most, if not all of our energy needs
- Build a ground-based solar rack system (as opposed to adding panels to our roof)
- Propane-powered generator for when the sun doesn't shine enough
- Heat pumps to heat/cool house
- A hot tub (I know, not great to have on a solar system, but we'd be willing to not use it during low energy periods, if that helps!)
If you were us, what would you do? We're just trying to figure out the major pieces before we reach out to vendors. If you would change any (or all of) what we think we want, please say so. My wife will kill me if she has to sweat it out in the hot GA summers!
- Heat pumps
- Do we use an air-to-air or air-to-water system?
- Do we go with dual fuel, or stick with electric and use the propane generator to charge the batteries to power the heat pumps when solar is insufficient?
- Hot water
- Do we go with a standard hot water tank (KISS), and focus more on the solar + battery side of things, or do we do something a little more creative like:
- heat pump hot water tank
- using the water side of an air-to-water heat pump to help heat the water we use
- use a solar water heating system on our roof
- Do we go with a tankless system?
- Solar Panels
- How many do you think we need?
- Batteries
- Given the fact that we will likely need two heat pumps, do we need a high surge type battery like the Power Wall 3?
- What total capacity do you think we need?
Don
Last edited:
Spartan
New Member
Greetings All,
This site is amazing and I am learning a ton. But I feel like I know enough to get my family into some potentially hot - or worse yet - cold (due to insufficient energy planning!) water.
Here is our situation, as best I can describe it. Nothing is carved in stone, although we do have the house plan, the lot, and the need to start building in the next few weeks/months so our kids can be in school next Fall (2025), so I need to figure out the energy side of things pretty quickly:
What we think we want:
- Location: North Georgia Mountains
- Family size: 5; 2 adults and 3 kids
- Lot size: 10 acres, sloping lot
- Home size/type: ~4k square ft / modern mountain design
- We have one EV and use it the most, but also have a gas-powered vehicle
- Electricity from the utility company is an option, but it would cost $30k just to run the line to our house. Hence my push to go completely off-grid (among other reasons),
What we don't know enough about:
- Solar array + battery system to cover most, if not all of our energy needs
- Build a ground-based solar rack system (as opposed to adding panels to our roof)
- Propane-powered generator for when the sun doesn't shine enough
- Heat pumps to heat/cool house
- A hot tub (I know, not great to have on a solar system, but we'd be willing to not use it during low energy periods, if that helps!)
If you were us, what would you do? We're just trying to figure out the major pieces before we reach out to vendors. If you would change any (or all of) what we think we want, please say so. My wife will kill me if she has to sweat it out in the hot GA summers!
- Heat pumps
- Do we use an air-to-air or air-to-water system?
- Do we go with dual fuel, or stick with electric and use the propane generator to charge the batteries to power the heat pumps when solar is insufficient?
- Hot water
- Do we go with a standard hot water tank (KISS), and focus more on the solar + battery side of things, or do we do something a little more creative like:
- heat pump hot water tank
- using the water side of an air-to-water heat pump to help heat the water we use
- use a solar water heating system on our roof
- Do we go with a tankless system?
- Solar Panels
- How many do you think we need?
- Batteries
- Given the fact that we will likely need two heat pumps, do we need a high surge type battery like the Power Wall 3?
- What total capacity do you think we need?
Don
redalertdt
New Member
- Joined
- Feb 17, 2021
- Messages
- 59
I did the same thing as you are planning just north of you in Nashville. Same situation. Currently have 100kwh of battery diy cells, about 20kw of panels about to be 40kw of panels. 3 minisplits (about 4 tons total) and 20kw of inverter power. I am using 2 40 gallon heat pump hot water heaters, and just a small gas generator. I used it a lot this winter, that's why I decided to add some more panels this summer.
The biggest load by far is during the winter when the sun is minimal. So really you are just designing for January and then the rest of the year you'll have a lot of extra power.
Here is a link to a solar tracker near me. They have 30kw of panels installed and you can see generation for each month. Pretty simple to figure out about what your system would need to be. https://www.sunnyportal.com/Templat...43dd-b291-4aea-b3f4-b066e9855bb9&splang=en-US
My house is extra tight/efficient. I hope this gives you some direction/inspiration.
What I would do today for your house....?
1. Build a separate shed for battery and inverters.
2. 100-150kwh of battery + good bms I would diy it, otherwise maybe find cheapest option from signature solar. https://www.18650batterystore.com/products/eve-lf304-grade-a-cells-3-2v-lifepo4-304ah-battery
3. about 20kw of inverters. either the 6000xp or 18k from signaturesolar.com
4. 30kw of bifacial panels from signature solar.
5. racking from sinclair.
I would run the house with minisplits if it works with the design, and pellet stove for supplemental heat.
The biggest load by far is during the winter when the sun is minimal. So really you are just designing for January and then the rest of the year you'll have a lot of extra power.
Here is a link to a solar tracker near me. They have 30kw of panels installed and you can see generation for each month. Pretty simple to figure out about what your system would need to be. https://www.sunnyportal.com/Templat...43dd-b291-4aea-b3f4-b066e9855bb9&splang=en-US
My house is extra tight/efficient. I hope this gives you some direction/inspiration.
What I would do today for your house....?
1. Build a separate shed for battery and inverters.
2. 100-150kwh of battery + good bms I would diy it, otherwise maybe find cheapest option from signature solar. https://www.18650batterystore.com/products/eve-lf304-grade-a-cells-3-2v-lifepo4-304ah-battery
3. about 20kw of inverters. either the 6000xp or 18k from signaturesolar.com
4. 30kw of bifacial panels from signature solar.
5. racking from sinclair.
I would run the house with minisplits if it works with the design, and pellet stove for supplemental heat.
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