Off Grid Home

[Tesseract]

Im thinking to in the future build a small cottage home on a 2.5 acre piece of land that I own. Its across a bridge from a highway, right beside a main road, and is next to a river (theres also a small stream running on one of the boundries. I want to make it an off grid self sufficient home.

Im thinking about different renewable systems to supply my electricity, and my space/water heating. I was thinking about using high efficiency appliances and photovoltaic power. I would also consider a wind turbine but the land is on the river valley with a large hill one side across the street. I dont think it would have enough power for all my appliances, and it seems difficult to set up. There is alos the possibility of water power but river is controlled by a conservation authority, and they dont allow barriers,dams or mills in the river. And the stream is much to shallow.

Regarding heating I was thinking a high efficiency fireplace, furnace or box stove. To burn biomass like chunkwood or corn, and create heat for a water heating system for the house. luckily there is a well on the property with abbundant water for the tank. The water (pumped in using a solar power water pump)would go from a large holding tank into the water heater then pumped through the house into baseboard type water heaters. Also it would heat the water needed for cleaning.

I want to ask for suggestions or opinions in the creation or other things related to the home.

[Sayonara]

Photovoltaics and sun-heated water have come a long way in the past 10 years - they're now highly efficient and can generate electricity/heat water even in poor light conditions.

 

You might also consider wind power if conditions near you are right. Garden turbines are quiet and efficient, as well as being cheaper than you'd think.

 

Have a look at sites that sell the hardware - they usually have information about the battery system you'll need, installation etc.

[Nave]

Go with wind power. In my engineering class with a two motor and the right gearing i created 6.5+ volts of electricity. This was also with a prop i made too. You could prob find some sites that have plans..but i can give u some hits..First off go with propellers and not a turbine.. My results are not alot of proof but the closest team with a turbine only got 3 Volts. When u go to make or buy the prop or make one use three blades and not four. And gear it up like crazy..remeber you want more RPM's on the last gear then on the Prop. Remeber the more gears the more torque u need...

hope this helps

[Redrang604]

First off the closeest team to us was 5.3 volts, not 3, and this was a small generator using a 2 volt electric motor as the generator, span of the prop was about 6" radius, and the gearing could have been better we also got about 6.69 volts

[5614]

you could use the smoke created by the fire place to power a turbine of some sort.

 

wind doesnt seem to good due to the hill and water... well that's just a shame.

[coquina]

You might consider straw bale construction to conserve energy:

 

http://www.txses.org/epsea/straw.html

 

In what part of the world will this house be situated - so much depends on hours of daylight and typical amount of cloud cover for solar to be efficient.

 

I know a woman who is an ecologist. She is fixing to build a straw bale home on the side of a mountain in western Virginia. It will have a trussed roof, covered with a waterproof membrane, then planted with sod.

[YT2095]

is there anyway you can exploit that Hill at all? is it on your Land?

I was thinking something along the lines of digging a large and long hole along the hill about 2/3 of the way up it.

line the hole with heavy duty plastic sheeting then line it with cement (like a long swimming pool. the other 1/3 of the way (above it to the top uf the hill lay some waterproof sheeting, so that it`ll have surface area to catch rain water into your new reservoir and it has a good 2/3s of the hill to gain pressure, a pipe with a cutoff valve from that to a small generator, and you have your own Hydro-Electric power plant

it`ll be great for emergencies or sudden power requirements, any overflow can be used for crop irrigation for your Bio-Mass.

 

don`t keep all your eggs in one basket though, you need to use this as a suplement rather than a main source. you`ll need to do all the other things as well.

I`de also reccomend a South facing Greenhouse/Conservatory Adjunct to your home, there`s a special plastic you can buy that lets heat in but not out (make sure you get the stuff the rightway around, it`s etched in a corner with an arrow) I use it myself on my greenhouse and have hit 52c! and I live in the UK.

it`s a great way to subsidise your heating needs even in Winter

[Gilded]

"I use it myself on my greenhouse and have hit 52c!"

 

Whaoh, I need some of this plastic too. Also, a very light-absorbing black paint would be a nice choice for heating in regions like Finland and why not Antarctica.

[5614]

and you could always have the manual magnet in a coil turned by YOU for excercise... you could have a bike where instead of turning a wheel you turn a magnet in a coil... you could have similar device for your arms - and you could have different gears for different strength levels.

 

i mean, that's all manual stuff, but rather than wasting energy on excercise, why not power your house through excersise?

[Gilded]

Well, keeping your electronics working is surely a good way to motivate yourself to exercise.

[5614]

now we have a way of generating electricty - how do you store it?

 

i mean, can you just use rows of capacitors (aka 'caps'... NOT capacitators!) ?

[YT2095]

for power storage I`de opt for SLAs or Marine batteries, zero maintainance and sturdy and no explosive gasses on charging.

 

keep it at 12volts and get a good Inverter(s) run the 12 volts around the house and use local inverters, OR just have one big one and run 240vac as normal

[Molotov]

You'd need a distiller and pump for your drinking water.

[YT2095]

Why am I thinking "New World project" here?

 

ROFLOL ))

[5614]

Why am I thinking "New World project" here?

hey, that's is a GOOD idea YT... think about it seriously.

[ed84c]

well if we are talking new world project and electricity, i would personaly suggest Sea water and pencils to store, if there is nothing else that is.

 

I say this because it is much more of a chalange than all those SLAs.

 

http://www-odp.tamu.edu/publications/186_IR/chap_03/c3_5.htm

 

this may spark a few ideas.

 

Also is it possible to generate a current by inducing a current somehow from something with beta decay?

[ed84c]

Note; He didnt say in his first post how far from the sea he was so im prosuming he lives by the coast, and this is therefore viable.

[5614]

well there's a stream which would lead to the sea... although that rule is sometimes followed with the word 'eventually' in which case it is not pratically useful.