my furnace back up

[David in nh]

oh sure now that winter is over the power goes out , on a 50 degree sunny but very windy day

6 hrs so lets see 1000 build divided by 6 hrs so it cost me 166 dollars a hour lol so it looks like i used 20ah of 12v power according to my bms

 

[David in nh]

Update
well the 2022 season for power outages is almost donever , i did loose it for about a hour yesterday maybe less then 20 hrs for the year
i did add a 440 watt solar to keep it all charged as you can see i have not built a rack yet i also have another panel
fresh pic of bms and panel my internet is also hooked into this so i can monitor it from work with a camera

 

[wheisenburg]

Some more testing .now that I have the furnace all set I thought I would test out the fridge.
I have manually plug that in to the inverter but was surprised to see it pulling 138 wats when running , I expected more than that .
It looks like Could run the furnace and the fridge at the same time but with 200ah battery and no Solar I do not plan to do that , but if the power goes out during a non heating time , could stretch the run time on the fridge

The newer "Inverter" refrigerators don't require a lot of running watts, but they may consume power most of the time. Essentially they control the temperature by throttling the power up and down rather than cycling on and off. They do have a defrost cycle that will come on and run a heating element for a time to melt ice on the coils. This could suck your battery down quickly, so be aware that.

 

[David in nh]

The newer "Inverter" refrigerators don't require a lot of running watts, but they may consume power most of the time. Essentially they control the temperature by throttling the power up and down rather than cycling on and off. They do have a defrost cycle that will come on and run a heating element for a time to melt ice on the coils. This could suck your battery down quickly, so be aware that.

yes good point , this why i do not have the refrigerator normally hooked into the backup system , if its cold out i just put the stuff some cold outside in a cooler , but it is nice to know i could run if needed for a short time , now if the power went out on a sunny day lol i would be all set

currently the only things that are on the automatic backup is the furnace , the internet . a camera to monitor the brms , and the tablet the bms is shown on

i also have 12v led set up in my basement for emergency or if i want to go down to pull out the generator ect

should the battery go dead the 12v lights can be switch over and use a ryobi 18v battery

 

[Vigilant24]

David,
Thanks for the update, your system looks very nice.

In your boots, I think the next thing I'd consider is water. I'm on a well, too, and being without water during a power outage is a bummer.
If you've got room for an approx 40 gallon barrel of water in that basement, you could use a small 12VDC RV diaphragm pump to take water from that barrel and pressurize your home water system. Presto: Hot water for (short) showers, water at the kitchen sink, flushable toilets, the whole shebang.

Water barrel: 44 Gallon Brute container ($52). Approved by NSF for food contact. I'm not sure about possible PFAS contamination during fabrication, so I wouldn't drink from it without running the water through a carbon filter, but it should be fine for showers, toilets, etc. Every 6 months I'd pump out the water, add fresh water, and put in a few capfulls of fresh bleach.

Water Pump: This SeaFlo 33 series pump costs about $50, gets good reviews, puts out about 1.6 GPM at 35 PSI, turns on at 35 PSI, turns off at 45 PSI. Tech specs here. It draws about 6A at 12VDC, and you could hook it straight to your battery (so no inverter standby or conversion losses. You can flush your toilets without making a trip to the basement to turn on the inverter). A 1.3 GPM shower ain't a firehose, but it works and lots of RVers get by with less.

For a "hook it up when I need it" case, I'd just rig up 1/2" tubing from the pump to a convenient hose outlet in the basement. Your existing well pressure tank serves as a pressure reservoir. That should be okay as long as your water flow at a tap/shower doesn't exceed your pump capacity for very long. You'll hardly notice the electrical draw on your battery (you'll drain the entire water barrel in about 30 minutes of pumping = 3 AH (36WH)).

Barrel, pump, fittings, etc: It would probably cost about $130 in parts, and might get you by for a day or two of judicious water use. At any rate, when on a private well it's handy to have some water on hand. You don't need any fittings at the water barrel side, the input to the pump can just be draped over the top of the barrel and a weight on the end will keep it at the bottom. I >think< the pump will self prime.
(Pro tip: When you first turn on the shower/sink and are waiting for the warm water to arrive, catch the water in a bucket. Dump that bucket back into your barrel or use it to flush a toilet, etc)

Mark

 

[Hedges]

"Priming Capabilities 6 feet (1.8 m) suction lift"

 

[Vigilant24]

"Priming Capabilities 6 feet (1.8 m) suction lift"

That should do it. It could mount to a board on the wall full time near the barrel, or just drag it out when needed and put it (with mounting board) on the floor somewhere convenient.
PS: These pumps will tolerate some dry running, so it's not a disaster if that happens for a while before it gets turned off.

 

[David in nh]

David,
Thanks for the update, your system looks very nice.

In your boots, I think the next thing I'd consider is water. I'm on a well, too, and being without water during a power outage is a bummer.
If you've got room for an approx 40 gallon barrel of water in that basement, you could use a small 12VDC RV diaphragm pump to take water from that barrel and pressurize your home water system. Presto: Hot water for (short) showers, water at the kitchen sink, flushable toilets, the whole shebang.

Water barrel: 44 Gallon Brute container ($52). Approved by NSF for food contact. I'm not sure about possible PFAS contamination during fabrication, so I wouldn't drink from it without running the water through a carbon filter, but it should be fine for bathing, etc. Every 6 months I'd pump out the water, add fresh water, and put in a few capfulls of fresh bleach.

Water Pump: This SeaFlo 33 series pump costs about $50, gets good reviews, puts out about 1.6 GPM at 35 PSI, turns on at 35 PSI, turns off at 45 PSI. Tech specs here. It draws about 6A at 12VDC, and you could hook it straight to your battery (so no inverter standby or conversion losses. You can flush your toilets without making a trip to the basement to turn on the inverter). A 1.3 GPM shower ain't a firehose, but it works and lots of RVers get by with less.

For a "hook it up when I need it" case, I'd just rig up 1/2" tubing from the pump to a convenient hose outlet in the basement. Your existing well pressure tank serves as a pressure reservoir. That should be okay as long as your water flow at a tap/shower doesn't exceed your pump capacity for very long. You'll hardly notice the electrical draw on your battery (you'll drain the entire water barrel in about 30 minutes of pumping = 3 AH (36WH)).

Barrel, pump, fittings, etc: It would probably cost about $130 in parts, and might get you by for a day or two of judicious water use. At any rate, when on a private well it's handy to have some water on hand. You don't need any fittings at the water barrel side, the input to the pump can just be draped over the top of the barrel and a weight on the end will keep it at the bottom. I >think< the pump will self prime.
(Pro tip: When you first turn on the shower/sink and are waiting for the warm water to arrive, catch the water in a bucket. Dump that bucket back into your barrel or use it to flush a toilet, etc)

Mark

well good thought , i have a deep well , and should i need water i just start my generator that is hooked into the house via a transfer switch
the main reason the battery back up is just the furnace when i am not there

 

[Vigilant24]

well good thought , i have a deep well , and should i need water i just start my generator that is hooked into the house via a transfer switch
the main reason the battery back up is just the furnace when i am not there

Ah, okay. Well, maybe it'll be useful to someone else.
I have "stages" of backup. If there's 2 feet of snow outside and I expect power to be back on in 24 hours, I try to get by without the hassle of dragging out the generator. It sounds like your generator is ready to go and convenient, which is great.
Again, thanks for this thread.

 

[David in nh]

snow is coming ! is wrong to wish for a power outage so i can justify my back up system to my self

 

[Madcodger]

snow is coming ! is wrong to wish for a power outage so i can justify my back up system to my self

Depends on how long the batteries last and how hard it it to clear the snow off the panels when the storm ends. I love my solar, but a long snowstorm is a good time to appreciate a grid that's still powered.

 

[David in nh]

Depends on how long the batteries last and how hard it it to clear the snow off the panels when the storm ends. I love my solar, but a long snowstorm is a good time to appreciate a grid that's still powered.

well no power lost this time more crappy weather coming .

cleaned panels this morning same time i cleaned off the truck for work .

well if its in the 30 degree range and i only use for furnace and it is no solar condtions
36 hours would be about it .

i have 900 watts of solar so even a few hours of sun makes a huge deference

and the gen is always ready to go

 

[David in nh]

Well another winter almost over . and i must admit my solar powered back up is a failure for the year

# 1 due to extensive tree cutting along the roads , no loss of power

# 2 drunk driving is down . along with less trees , now the normal weekend crash induced power outages seem to be a thing of the past

#3 development , they always fix the power outages that effect the most people first . there are many more houses around and condos around now the cows and deer never cared about power outages but those condo dwellers sure do . i was going to ask the neighborhood moose if he cared but he moved on years ago.

when i started this i would lose power at least 10 to fifteen times a year

so with out the power outages , i need a new way measure to make my self feel good about this

so i added up all i ever spent that includes solar panels never installed and things like a inverter that died and all kinds of small parts i thought would be use full and have not used and stuff i refuse to toss because i now have no use for .due to upgrades

so after buying more wire this week the grand total $3620 so i added a meter about two weeks ago
and as i have produced 24kwh so the cost per kwh so far $ 150.83

Now for the good news
#1 i can expect my to be lower by at least 6 bucks a month

#2 cost per kwh is dropping fast at least for now if i only save 1 kwh a day by next week i should be down to at least 115 dollars per kwh

now it is me vs my brother so i log into his solark .
do some quick math and he is at 1.98 per kwh
so i got some work to do i got at least 6 unused 425 watt panels and enough charge controllers to hook up 3 panels ( yes Will P 12v sucks )

i have spent all i wanted on 12v and my solar charger would be much happier with 48v

so i just using what i have lying around my fist goal was to displace 1kwh per day now i am going for 2 kwh !

my brother made 52 kwh yesterday i may not catch him that way , but i can work on cost per kwh
next goal under 100 dollars per kwh

 

[wheisenburg]

# 2 drunk driving is down . along with less trees , now the normal weekend crash induced power outages seem to be a thing of the past

This is bad news. Without drunks running into trees, where will our supply of donor kidneys come from?

 

[Hedges]

Motorcyclists.

Their organs tend to be better quality than those of drunks (likely recipients, at least of livers.)

 

[SunDave]

David,
I don't know how familiar you are with the laws of the universe, but I am good friends with them.

The reason you don't have power outages anymore is because you are ready. Congrats!

For example, I put a new shift linkage, new plow shoes, and new snow deflector on the plowing rig this year. Didn't snow enough to plow once, and that is very rare, but just how things work!

Wash your and wax your car on a nice day, boom rain out of nowhere carrying dirt somehow...

Funny how that works.

Anyways, nice setup. Looks like a fun hobby.

 

[David in nh]

think this rack will hold six more panels ?

 

[SunDave]

Ah, the ol' ford rack. Yeah, good for more.

 

[Supervstech]

think this rack will hold six more panels ?
View attachment 200048

Ya might have to build a upper horizontal panel support, but sure!

 

[time2roll]

think this rack will hold six more panels ?
View attachment 200048

If you can get them attached and off the ground you could push it around to get best sun.