One of the problems with a grid tied house is that when the grid is down the house is down. We decided early that we did not want to use batteries. We had talked with several people and battery storage is not all that easy. The batteries are expensive, wear out and have a tendency to leak explosive hydrogen gas. So what are the back up options? What do we really need to run?
Water, heat (all set have the cookstove), solar circulators and refrigerator/freezer.
We thought of a generator to do all of these, but we would need about a 7500 watt 220 generator as we have 220 well pump (more efficient, but draws more on start up).
I then found a company in Maine that has modernized the old fashioned well pump. They cost around $800 and can pressurize your pressure tank with a couple of pumps. Check out www.bisonpumps.com So this would fix the water problem. Now by eliminating the large pump load we could run the house on a smaller generator and would only need to run it a couple times a day to keep the food from spoiling. So for the price of a large generator I can purchase a small generator and a hand pump. This arrangement will use less fuel and create less pollution. I could also consider a PTO generator and run it with my tractor. Any other ideas?
No comments:
Post a Comment