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Why a Shed? Shipping Container - My Off Grid Adventure [Migrated}

HighTechLab

AKA Dexter - CTO of Current Connected, LLC
Joined
Sep 23, 2019
Messages
1,637
This post was on the old forum, but it's quite informational so I went ahead and copied it over.

So one of the issues that Will had mentioned is that sheds aren't very strong and have a hard time lasting for years. Why not use a shipping container? They are steel which will last a long time, and you can get them in various sizes from 12' x 8' all the way up to monster 40' long by 8 foot wide by 9 1/2 feet tall.

It's actually exactly what I did. I took a 40 foot shipping container, and framed in the back 20 feet with 2x4 studs, then insulated it with R16? insulation (It's the insulation designed for 2x6 framing, it fits into the highs and lows of the container walls). After that I put up plywood sheeting and painted it white. I then installed some lights and went crazy with the Off-Grid setup. In hindsight it would have been a good idea to put fire rated drywall over the plywood so that the plywood acted as a backing instead so that mounting things still worked nice.

Boy was I in for an adventure.


So I installed 2 outback FM80s, a 40 space load center, a 12kw sigineer "Low Frequency" inverter (Scope proves they actually aren't low frequency, but that's a video I have in progress. It's the type with the big heavy transformer.) and some shelving units from Costco to provide support for my batteries. For batteries I went with some size
8D
flooded lead acid deep cycle batteries. Big Mistake. More on this later. I then tied all the batteries together and made sure they all had equal length cable to the inverter/chargers and went wild. For a backup generator, I only had a couple of 2000 watt honda inverter generators, but those only output 120 volts, so I also had a step up transformer making 240 volts to feed the battery charger in the sigineer inverter. This was a very lossy process.

Here is a video of what this setup looked like after I first started in the world of Off-Grid.


So what was the weakest link in the system....Everything. Batteries, Inverter, load center, generators, solar panels, you name it.

Let's stop for a moment and talk about what the purpose of this system is...This setup was built to run all of our electrical needs on our 40 acre property that had zero utilities. When we first moved to the property, we were living in a fifth wheel toy hauler, so the main goal was to have more reliable power than the inverter in the rv and the 4 100 watt solar panels. Mom works from home on the computer so we really needed to keep the trailer cool as well as run her computer for work.

I had incorperated PLC control into the system and was getting things to be more automated. I pretty much rebuilt the whole electrical room and if you check out my channel you can see the whole series on rebuilding that. Meanwhile I moved from my parent's ranch to North Idaho, so the need to have the system run itself was very desirable.


So fast forward about 12 months. Slowly but surely I started having cell failures on the lead acid batteries. These batteries did not last one bit. Living in Idaho, it was impossible for me to keep up on battery upkeep. This is about the time that I found Will's channel and started learning about lithium. So anyway I replaced "2000" amp hours @ 48v of lead acid with 100ah of calb cells.



27 of those 32 batteries are sitting out back on pallets because they have failed. Call me crazy but the 100 amp calb LiFePO4 cells perform WAY better than all those lead acid batteries for half the cost. Very impressed with these new cells. Video on them below.

https://youtu.be/EQZOCH6_3g8
https://youtu.be/Bmbz5_3SBgo


So here I am. The system is pretty sweet and the YouTube following has inspired me to keep adding awesome stuff. I even added an air conditioner to the shipping container the other day and tied it into the PLC touch screen panel so that I can keep the room nice and cool in the summer time.

Let me know what you guys think - How exactly you would go about making this a system that you could install to your home that has existing wiring, I am not sure. We are working through getting our house built and have a few more steps to make this system run the house properly, but like I said earlier this is just running my parents living in a trailer and the laundry room and the shop (Shop is also a shipping container!)
 
Wow. That's just amazing. To answer your title question, there was no way a truck could deliver one to my location.
 
Lucky for me, my land has a 1300 square foot shop with a STURDY built roof covered in aluminum.. I’m tinkering with solar there. My plan is to install 2.5” conduit between the shop and my house. Then setup solar to die for. One step at a time.

Because my town has banned shipping containers...
 
That thing is amazing! I love it.

And reason I can't is I have a shipping container is because my HOA wouldnt approve of it. and the color of my shed needs to also match my house. Or else I would use a shipping container. But I am pretty much stuck with a shed.
 
That thing is amazing! I love it.

And reason I can't is I have a shipping container is because my HOA wouldnt approve of it. and the color of my shed needs to also match my house. Or else I would use a shipping container. But I am pretty much stuck with a shed.

I was hoping you were out in the desert where anything flies! HOAs can be a real pain!
 
Yes indeed, but it will present an amazing challenge for me to design systems that are HOA compliant. It is tough though. I have some stuff in the works.

And everyone in vegas seems to be part of an HOA minus a small neighborhood on the west side. Very strange. But HOA helps out here. The non hoa areas do not look nice haha
 
I have a 10'x16' Weatherking shed. Grace also makes them. Standard 16" 2"×4" framing. Barn doors and man door. Thermal pane window. About $4,500. My HOA approved it. Painted to match house. A thought...dave
 
15 years ago I built a shed with a monolith pour concrete foundation, french doors and a window for my riding mower, tools, etc and still have the plans. I'm not 100 % positive but I think it would be approved in most areas. It was 20 x 16. Once i finish my current project or the weather gets unbearable, I'd gladly come build one with/for you. How ironic I just joined and read a post by HighTechLab. I also am now in a rural area of Idaho doing a project. Great work Will.
 

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  • 2002 The Shed.jpg
    2002 The Shed.jpg
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Just watched a couple of your video's, very impressive work indeed, a kindred soul ;) Lesson's learned are the best teachers and your sharing that too which is awesome. I have a 20' Sea Container but only the panels are hung off the side as I have a separate powerhouse. Just a small system of 2Kw of panels, 24V battery bank. Tinkering (this winter) with RaspberryPi, Node-Red, Grafana, InfluxDB doing Modbus to my MIdnite Classic 200 and Samlex EVO-4024 Inverter, so I can monitor & tweak things remotely from the cabin.
 
24 years ago I moved onto reclaimed coal strip mine property, the coal mine left behind 'Junk' that had been sitting for more than 10 years.

That 'Junk' included two mobile office trailers, big truck parts, a big truck flatbed trailer, 20' shipping container and 2 each 40' shipping containers.

My first go at a "Utilities Shed" was a 20' shipping container sitting on the ground (mistake #1).
120-125*F with the doors open in summer, close the doors and it would melt the cases on plastic power tools.
Impossible to use in the summer or winter, the inverter over temp would kick the inverter off in late spring with the doors open.

I'm a disabled Marine, and one thing Marines know is sand bags!
Since I didn't want to put anything combustible in that container, I put 'Blue Board' up against the outside and sand bagged it.
WORLD OF DIFFERENCE!

When I had a water well drilled & lined, I dragged the container over and cut a hole in the bottom to fit around the well head.
Deep rock well with liner, so no danger of contaminating the well,
I put in 'French' drains under the container, pilings for 'Foundation' (I could do drains & pilings myself), installed a floor drain that connects to the 'French' drains, and set the container over the well head.

That gave me water & power.
With some angle iron welded to the container, I had solar panel mounts, and I externally insulated & sand bagged it again.

When I could afford it, I dug footers, poured footer & concrete walls on 3 sides. Later the panels came off and it got a concrete cap & earth sheltered, still insulated, but the dirt on top/3 sides is the best insulation, and it's more or less ground temp controlled, cool in summer, warm in winter.

While digging drains, I ran into continuous, no power ventilation.
130 yards of plastic flexible pipe run up through the floor, and a roof vent (that actually exits through the door so I didn't have to compromise the roof.
Air cools in the tube, sinks down hill, comes up in the container, when it sinks it draws in fresh air through a vent up the building.
That air cools and sinks lowering to ground temp and comes up in the container, while hot air rises and is drawn out the vent.

In winter, the ground heats the air in the container and it rises out, while fresh (cold) air is drawn in and warms up to ground temp on its way to replace what got away.

After water pump/tanks were installed, I put in a fire sprinkler.
If the ceiling hits 120*F the mains trip and the sprinkler comes on, 200 gallons available in the pressurized system can be delivered without power.

It's bug, flood, fire and tornado proof, which a tornado flipped a 40' container right after I poured the walls. I live in 'Tornado Alley', so it CAN happen again... I'm ready for it.

My first Onan generator is in there with power & water, battery banks, inverters, spare parts, etc.
Exhaust and fresh air come through the door with the vent pipe.

The only thing that can outright burn besides wiring insulation and water pipe into the well is the plywood I mounted inverters, breakers, etc on, and some boxes/bags of spare parts.

The same earth sheltered 'Hill' got a 10'x20' natural floor root cellar, 2 each 40' shipping containers for cold storage, and we eventually built an earth sheltered home on the other end...
My wife calls it 'Home & Bunker' ;)
 
My little solar shed in progress is an old military film lab that used to be rolled into the back of cargo aircraft made by Goodyear aerospace. The whole thing folds up and came with a set of wheels. $800 bucks on a gov auction. only one side is folded out in the pic while I dig under it.
.shed.jpg
 
That thing is amazing! I love it.

And reason I can't is I have a shipping container is because my HOA wouldnt approve of it. and the color of my shed needs to also match my house. Or else I would use a shipping container. But I am pretty much stuck with a shed.

Will, there are sheds (small 's') and SHEDS!
You live in Vegas, so you want have the issues we have around here with moisture...

What the guys around here have finally done is buy plans for a 'Shed' and gone serious with the build.
Double or triple floor strength, used pressure treated lumber, even marine grade lumber, fire resistant wall paneling, serious insulation...
They planned for panels on the roof/sides, batteries on the floor, reinforced door sills that won't crush when big heavy batteries get leveraged in there, etc.

The average 'Yard Barn' barely holds itself up, and I sent a fork truck battery through my floor,
Don't that in that wasn't fun to get back up with nothing to hang a host from... :(

All this got started when a local wanted solar, he bought TWO yard barn 'Kits' and doubled rafters, wall studs, floor joists, etc.
I thought he was nuts, but it actually turned out pretty well!
Outside paneling inside! No paneling with the kit, so he used the second kit sheeting inside.

Just some ideas if anyone can use them...
 
This post was on the old forum, but it's quite informational so I went ahead and copied it over.

So one of the issues that Will had mentioned is that sheds aren't very strong and have a hard time lasting for years. Why not use a shipping container? They are steel which will last a long time, and you can get them in various sizes from 12' x 8' all the way up to monster 40' long by 8 foot wide by 9 1/2 feet tall.

It's actually exactly what I did. I took a 40 foot shipping container, and framed in the back 20 feet with 2x4 studs, then insulated it with R16? insulation (It's the insulation designed for 2x6 framing, it fits into the highs and lows of the container walls). After that I put up plywood sheeting and painted it white. I then installed some lights and went crazy with the Off-Grid setup. In hindsight it would have been a good idea to put fire rated drywall over the plywood so that the plywood acted as a backing instead so that mounting things still worked nice.

Boy was I in for an adventure.


So I installed 2 outback FM80s, a 40 space load center, a 12kw sigineer "Low Frequency" inverter (Scope proves they actually aren't low frequency, but that's a video I have in progress. It's the type with the big heavy transformer.) and some shelving units from Costco to provide support for my batteries. For batteries I went with some size
8D
flooded lead acid deep cycle batteries. Big Mistake. More on this later. I then tied all the batteries together and made sure they all had equal length cable to the inverter/chargers and went wild. For a backup generator, I only had a couple of 2000 watt honda inverter generators, but those only output 120 volts, so I also had a step up transformer making 240 volts to feed the battery charger in the sigineer inverter. This was a very lossy process.

Here is a video of what this setup looked like after I first started in the world of Off-Grid.


So what was the weakest link in the system....Everything. Batteries, Inverter, load center, generators, solar panels, you name it.

Let's stop for a moment and talk about what the purpose of this system is...This setup was built to run all of our electrical needs on our 40 acre property that had zero utilities. When we first moved to the property, we were living in a fifth wheel toy hauler, so the main goal was to have more reliable power than the inverter in the rv and the 4 100 watt solar panels. Mom works from home on the computer so we really needed to keep the trailer cool as well as run her computer for work.

I had incorperated PLC control into the system and was getting things to be more automated. I pretty much rebuilt the whole electrical room and if you check out my channel you can see the whole series on rebuilding that. Meanwhile I moved from my parent's ranch to North Idaho, so the need to have the system run itself was very desirable.


So fast forward about 12 months. Slowly but surely I started having cell failures on the lead acid batteries. These batteries did not last one bit. Living in Idaho, it was impossible for me to keep up on battery upkeep. This is about the time that I found Will's channel and started learning about lithium. So anyway I replaced "2000" amp hours @ 48v of lead acid with 100ah of calb cells.



27 of those 32 batteries are sitting out back on pallets because they have failed. Call me crazy but the 100 amp calb LiFePO4 cells perform WAY better than all those lead acid batteries for half the cost. Very impressed with these new cells. Video on them below.

https://youtu.be/EQZOCH6_3g8
https://youtu.be/Bmbz5_3SBgo


So here I am. The system is pretty sweet and the YouTube following has inspired me to keep adding awesome stuff. I even added an air conditioner to the shipping container the other day and tied it into the PLC touch screen panel so that I can keep the room nice and cool in the summer time.

Let me know what you guys think - How exactly you would go about making this a system that you could install to your home that has existing wiring, I am not sure. We are working through getting our house built and have a few more steps to make this system run the house properly, but like I said earlier this is just running my parents living in a trailer and the laundry room and the shop (Shop is also a shipping container!)

You REALLY went the 'Power Station's route!

If you have time, I have some questions...
Please contact me on PM if you have the time for some brain picking,
If not, I understand...
 
15 years ago I built a shed with a monolith pour concrete foundation, french doors and a window for my riding mower, tools, etc and still have the plans. I'm not 100 % positive but I think it would be approved in most areas. It was 20 x 16. Once i finish my current project or the weather gets unbearable, I'd gladly come build one with/for you. How ironic I just joined and read a post by HighTechLab. I also am now in a rural area of Idaho doing a project. Great work Will.
Update: I started my semi trailer project but getting it there was a challenge. Needless to say it is being equipped and the photo attached shows what I'm starting with. I received a foot of snow last week so depending on the weather I'll be up whenever it allows. I have a few items running on solar while I'm not there, a cell boosting antenna, some accent led lights and a radiant floor heating system. 20191014_174145.jpg20191014_174211.jpg
 
Update: I started my semi trailer project but getting it there was a challenge. Needless to say it is being equipped and the photo attached shows what I'm starting with. I received a foot of snow last week so depending on the weather I'll be up whenever it allows. I have a few items running on solar while I'm not there, a cell boosting antenna, some accent led lights and a radiant floor heating system. View attachment 3519View attachment 3520

Was that a reefer? (Great insulation & metal floor!)

I SERIOUSLY considered a reefer when I started, but having containers on site for 'Free', the budget said to use them.
I went a different route, I used the container as a concrete form and backfill/buried mine, insulation on the outside.
Being a welder/machinist, I went the fireproof route, as little that can catch fire as possible.

EVERY SINGLE DIY starts out small, you went 'small' in a big way!
Workshop, power & water station all in one!

With a shop, power & water all things are possible!
Looking VERY good, I'm envious!
 
@HighTechLab I love it and am blown away by it. I love how you combine skills. Being a techie all my life, I appreciate your touch screen PLC integration and overall how you innovatively integrate everything.

Can you share a little about how your developed your skills... your background? How did you get into PLC? Do you have a list of links of your online learning and reference resources, as well as where you purchase supplies? For example, I've been ad hoc adding stuff to this Google Site, which is more of a loose attempt to organize notes than a presentable site.

I watched all your videos you posted in this thread and am very much looking forward to your tracking mount. I'll be looking for your lithium videos because I bet if there is on person here who can come up with a utopian LA/Lithium hybrid for cold weather, it will be you.
 
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I plan on using a shipping container for my workshop. How hard is yours to heat in the winter?
 
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