I’m building a house from the ground up in Costa Rica which will be off grid with grid back up. I’m going to do a very high-quality system with basically all Victron maybe even Victron batteries as I am Victron dealer and get good pricing.
I have every choice in front of me for how the house is built and wired, voltages used, what appliances are chosen, light fixtures etc. I’m working on a load spreadsheet ans PDR I have some data from my current home there and some other similar homes. The home will be a luxury jungle villa at 1,500 ft elevation - very open to nature w/ very little HVAC needed but some storage spaces will be
dehumidified and we will put mini splits in the 4 bedrooms just in case someone has to knock down the humidity to sleep. I’m not asking for specific system design advice but rather general pitfalls.
What are the things that people don’t think about ahead of time that come up later or those things that “if I had it to do over again” .
For example there was recently a thread about a high efficiency front load washer that had inrush spikes back and forth due to the way the motor reverses. I would never have thought to consider this type of machine a special challenge for off grid.
Cook with induction or propane?
Passive rooftop water heater or several small instant heaters?
Pool pump choice/programming?
Lighting?
Smart home stuff?
Frig/freezer choices?
I have a similar situation as you...just a different location...100% off-grid, fairly remote, from the ground up.
I underestimated my peak loads.
I undersized my battery bank...mostly due to budget issues.
I used substandard, but "expert" recommended, parts.
I used hobby grade tools vs professional grade.
Now I am on my system 3rd upgrade, everything Victron. I love their impeccable quality and versatility for control. They do it all from end-to-end like no other. And no Victron batteries due to cost, I am expanding my battery bank with EG4-LifePower4 Lithium Battery | 48V 100AH | Server Rack Battery | UL 1973 Listed batteries.
I cook with primarily propane but we have a portable 2-burner electric cook top for back-up.
We use a single tankless propane water heater. I will be installing an electric one (with timer for daylight hours) right after the solar system upgrade as a pre-water heater so we won't use propane unless the electric water heater isn't working.
We don't have a pool...but a couple good dirt tanks with muddy water!
We don't do anything special for lighting, just standard SPDs, good panel grounding, and a 3 x 8' rods grounding system on the PVs and a separate ground system for the house.
The frig/freezer choices were just the best energy rated ones for a reasonable price that we could find. With the newer energy effcient models now available we weren't too worried about it. They are all pretty dang low draws/loads to begin with.
One thing I am extremely grateful for...we didn't do roof mounted PVs!!! I kept the roof integrity intact and the PVs on our ground 2 mounts are accessible as needed.