Howdy Folks!
My wife and I owned a cabin up Maine that was off grid.. I was very skeptical about it, until we started staying there. Spent two winters in that cabin, and I LOVED IT!!!!! We had a dryer, 220 well pump, etc etc... 8 280=300 watt panels and four big deep cycle batteries. We learned to live within the means and it was great! On those CLOUDY SNOWY weeks, we would start the generator when the batts got low, let it run about 4 hours, and we were good to go for a few more days... NOW, I moved back to the midwest, and we are paying 300 to 500 dollars a month for electricity. Not a LOT more stuff in our house than we had in that cabin, an extra freezer, and electric heat pump/AC that we did not have there....
However.. I started asking for estimates to get off grid... one estimate was 140,000.00 dollars Others were not far behind it... and I am just stunned.... so my question is this;
I can run my entire house, through a 60 watt breaker with my 8000 watt Generac generator with 10K surge, so WHY do i need TWO 12000 watt inverters? WHY are they telling me to stay away from wind and go all solar? We CONSTANTLY have wind. I have a windmill air pump for my pond that is hard to turn, and it is ALWAYS turning, so why is wind a bad idea?
I intended to do this myself after the ungodly estimates.. ONE 12k inverter, with 24 400 watt solar panels, two 5k wind generators, and the necessary batteries, as well as going 48 volt... etc.. I was told it wouldnt work, but they don't seem to want to tell me WHY it will not work... So I came to where those with more experience than I Might shed some light on my situation! Sorry for the long text, and THANK YOU for any help!
My wife and I owned a cabin up Maine that was off grid.. I was very skeptical about it, until we started staying there. Spent two winters in that cabin, and I LOVED IT!!!!! We had a dryer, 220 well pump, etc etc... 8 280=300 watt panels and four big deep cycle batteries. We learned to live within the means and it was great! On those CLOUDY SNOWY weeks, we would start the generator when the batts got low, let it run about 4 hours, and we were good to go for a few more days... NOW, I moved back to the midwest, and we are paying 300 to 500 dollars a month for electricity. Not a LOT more stuff in our house than we had in that cabin, an extra freezer, and electric heat pump/AC that we did not have there....
However.. I started asking for estimates to get off grid... one estimate was 140,000.00 dollars Others were not far behind it... and I am just stunned.... so my question is this;
I can run my entire house, through a 60 watt breaker with my 8000 watt Generac generator with 10K surge, so WHY do i need TWO 12000 watt inverters? WHY are they telling me to stay away from wind and go all solar? We CONSTANTLY have wind. I have a windmill air pump for my pond that is hard to turn, and it is ALWAYS turning, so why is wind a bad idea?
I intended to do this myself after the ungodly estimates.. ONE 12k inverter, with 24 400 watt solar panels, two 5k wind generators, and the necessary batteries, as well as going 48 volt... etc.. I was told it wouldnt work, but they don't seem to want to tell me WHY it will not work... So I came to where those with more experience than I Might shed some light on my situation! Sorry for the long text, and THANK YOU for any help!