Ok time for an update, a little run down on what's Up...
I'm working towards full off grid status , Here in Aus electrical energy costs are spiralling upwards at silly rates due to several reasons 10% increases in connection costs a year is common , along with kw/h rates steadily increasing.
I've finally purchased (a protracted 12month stuff around) 2 ah of land out in dairy country , flat green irrigated farm land, surrounded by 500 ah paddocks. A dilapidated 3 bedroom weatherboard house and shed on the block for $120,000 Aus .
Currently on the end of a long 2 phase grid line, power is reasonably secure dropping out a few times a year for 10 to 24 hours maybe 3 to 4 times .
There was no water or house heating when purchased , hot water heater was a low pressure gravity feed copper water storage tank with resistive element and wet back wood stove. Someone stole the tank for the copper in the houses 4 years of vacant life.
I've just re stumped the whole house lifting it 8 inches to a total of 20 inch off the ground now, placing it on galvanised 3x3 RHS flood damage and 40 years had done considerable damage to the hardwood stumps along with someone poring concrete up against the house front and rear allowing termites direct access to the houses structure . 3 rooms floors and several main bearers replaced due to termite damage and I've just now moved in to the house after 4 months renovating.
No insulation in the walls or sub floor , 20 year old fibre glass bats in the ceiling are squashed and about FUBAR , re insulating the ceiling to R10 status with polly bats and air cell Ali/foam sarking , insulating the sub floor with polly bats and conventional sarking.
Walls are hard plaster hollow cavity with painted pine weather boards , to be clad with straw bale (wheat straw is local and cheap) rice straw is 100km away and cheaper BUT transport cost increases price to similar to Wheat prices. Rice has the advantage of being un-palatable to local termites , being mounted on further Galvanised posts 20 inches above ground I consider this of little issue now. So will go with wheat straw .
Rendered and a 2.4m (8 feet) veranda to be added around the perimeter of the house.
To speed up getting in here (we plan to rent our old place in a town of 45,000 people 20 min travel time away) I stripped out the wood fired stove with wet back to be used latter for a "cook house/BBQ area" and fitted a 900mm wide resistive load oven LPG (propane) gas hob free standing stove (I like to cook and its a good SMEG oven)
I also fitted a electronic ignition/regulated instantaneous water heater (also LPG) there is only electrical supply here no reticulated GAS and there never will be . Two 100 pound cylinders feed the gas appliances.
Heating (we are coming into our winter atm) is now provided by a pellet heater fed with wheat , local (1 mile away) grower sells me 1 metric ton in a bulka bag for $170 Aus I'm burning 20kg a week atm. Temps here don't drop as far as parts of America with -10 deg c being the coldest morning temp and average day temps mid winter sitting around 10 deg c. Currently temps are around 6 deg c over night.
Plans for the house include Solar power generation , what would be considered a very large array of panels for the area (for a home anyway) starting with a 2kw array (about average install for the area) building to 16kw of panels in total.
Sealed AGM Lead acid battery bank , I currently have twenty 12v 100ah sealed units I picked up second hand (cell network backups) in a 48v bank on charge via a 4kw inverter charger with built in MPPT input for panels . With a dedicated battery shed and the plan to triple the storage on the way.
I can pick up second hand (as new) grid tie system panels for around $100 Aus a 280w panel.
A DIY solar powered Ground source heat pump feeding heat to a low pressure water storage tank, running a high pressure copper loop as heat extraction with the instantaneous gas system as backup.
Eight meter high water tank tower with 5000L tank mounted on it fed by a solar powered pump from a ground based 44,500L rain water tank , Boosted with a "Pressure booster" 100w flow assistance pump to feed the house .
Another large ground based water tank (probably another 50,000L) to catch wasted water falling on the roof in high rainfall events. The house and shed currently catch around 5000L for every 10 mm of rain fall , with an average rain fall of 426mm in the area over a year. Catchment roof area is going to increase significantly
A Vertical Axis turbine mounted on top of the 8M water tower around 2m in dia and height .
Well that should do for a start , many more projects planed , This is not my first dance with this sort of stuff But hopefully my last.
Some photos to come and links to projects as they develop.
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