Quote from: RE on Jan 22, 2024, 06:32 AMYou don't need 10Kw to power a house.  3Kw is enough.

RE

You forget where I live.  People here do not believe in climate change.  There is a reason.  They have money.  I called it Tesla Land for a reason.

With a heat pump I would need a large size too.

People do not believe in anything unless they have a reason.  And when they want something bad enough the reasons they find depart from reality.

Yea, if you're doing home heating and cooling and cooking and charging a car with electricity, you need a lot more than 3Kw.  I would just buy an emergency propane or kerosene heater and camping stove.  Electricity just for lights, computer and refrigerator.

RE

You would, but the burbs will be buying generators.  It won't be just the Lake Mead area that will be having power interruptions.  Remember the brouhaha when John Denver tried to put in his own underground gas storage tank?

Ahead there will be no such outcry in the new wild west.  And life is good for the generator companies.


As you can see, the recent increase in level is part of normal fluctuation, and in Las Vegas the house always wins over time.  The house being mother nature here.  She rolls the dice every day.  The overall trend is clear.  The law of large numbers will kick in.  Mother natures'  house we can't leave, so she has the time.

Having a 10000 watt or even 20000 watt whole house generator to power a house is the equivalent of having a semi truck in the driveway to pick up milk. Now that is when you have an inverter with a battery bank. Average power use in a big house is roughly 500Whr/ht to 1kWr/hr. You do need that huge generator for the start up load or to run large loads simultaneously. The dedicated loads electrical panel with the critical stuff on it is a better solution. I have a 4500 watt generator at home for charging up batteries in a long outage when the panels can't keep up. It would be powerful enough  to run the heat pump, furnace fan and water pump on its own. I would not run it continuously even if I had no battery back up as the idling fuel use would be too much. Idling is where those inverter generators come in handy as they can idle down to match the load on them while maintaining perfect power then ramp up fast when something bigger comes on. Usually an inverter generator is not ideal for battery charging since you are pushing it heavy the whole time so the fuel saving qualities are not used.

QuoteEquivalent of having a semi truck in the driveway to pick up milk.

That is how some people roll -  Or how Trumpers do prepping.


$2299.99 Was $2499.99 <- New lower price.  9500 Watts

The colors match.



None of these people are changing their lifestyle.  They just want to be cozy when the power goes out. 

Talking about batteries to them would be cognitive overload.

Quote from: Nearings Fault on Jan 23, 2024, 08:10 AMHaving a 10000 watt or even 20000 watt whole house generator to power a house is the equivalent of having a semi truck in the driveway to pick up milk. Now that is when you have an inverter with a battery bank. Average power use in a big house is roughly 500Whr/ht to 1kWr/hr. You do need that huge generator for the start up load or to run large loads simultaneously. The dedicated loads electrical panel with the critical stuff on it is a better solution. I have a 4500 watt generator at home for charging up batteries in a long outage when the panels can't keep up. It would be powerful enough  to run the heat pump, furnace fan and water pump on its own. I would not run it continuously even if I had no battery back up as the idling fuel use would be too much. Idling is where those inverter generators come in handy as they can idle down to match the load on them while maintaining perfect power then ramp up fast when something bigger comes on. Usually an inverter generator is not ideal for battery charging since you are pushing it heavy the whole time so the fuel saving qualities are not used.

When I had lead acid batteries charging them up was important over a long stretch of cloudy days, now with Lifepo4 I do not charge them up rather I just fire up the inverter generator when I don't get enough sun on a winters day and place a roughly 300 watt charging load on the generator, just enough to cover my hourly consumption. The generator doesn't even come off low idle, and I get ridiculously long run times on a few liters of fuel. With Lifepo4 leaving them at a low (lower) state of charge is just fine, no harm will be done.

Wouldn't you know it, I had said it looked like I was done with charging back around the 20th, now we have been hit with such fog and frost that I have had to fire up the genny again. I think this will be the latest date I have had to fire it up.

I know I am rolling in power again, fell asleep with the gaming computer running and woke up to still full batteries. I never measured the angle of my panels when I put them up years ago, just eyeballed what I thought should be good for winter production, I know whatever your latitude is, is the recommended  angle (53 degrees for me) for max production, but I only want max production in the winter. A stumbled across my Starrett mechanical angle gauge the other day and for fun measured some of my panels. I am just off vertical  by 10 degrees. The great thing about having panels at such a angle is little snow sticks to them, and they still produce huge amounts of power in the summer.

Quote from: 18hammers on Feb 16, 2024, 07:36 PMI know I am rolling in power again, fell asleep with the gaming computer running and woke up to still full batteries.

If you're interested in increasing your transportation resilience, you should look into buying one of the cheap mini EV scooters wiith enough range to do your local shopping and errands and see if your solar array has enough power to keep it juiced up for weekly shopping, bank, post office type trips.  You can pick one up for as little as $4000 or so.  Mine has a 40 mile range on a charge and top speed of 15 mph.  I use it to go food shopping at the superstore and drive it right inside the store aisles picking up my food, then back inside my building to my room to unload.

If you can swing $6-10K, you can get an enclosed mini car with a range of 80-120 miles that will do 35 mph.  Too big to actually drive inside a store though.



RE

Quote from: RE on Feb 17, 2024, 12:03 AM

Quote from: 18hammers on Feb 16, 2024, 07:36 PMI know I am rolling in power again, fell asleep with the gaming computer running and woke up to still full batteries.

If you're interested in increasing your transportation resilience, you should look into buying one of the cheap mini EV scooters wiith enough range to do your local shopping and errands and see if your solar array has enough power to keep it juiced up for weekly shopping, bank, post office type trips.  You can pick one up for as little as $4000 or so.  Mine has a 40 mile range on a charge and top speed of 15 mph.  I use it to go food shopping at the superstore and drive it right inside the store aisles picking up my food, then back inside my building to my room to unload.

If you can swing $6-10K, you can get an enclosed mini car with a range of 80-120 miles that will do 35 mph.  Too big to actually drive inside a store though.



RE

That electric car type is in my future, I am getting there in steps, already have electric bikes, Fat tire electric bikes for the gravel roads around me, have all the spare parts to keep them running. I have started building my own electric velomobile, but not like those flimsy fiberglass ones. Mine will be the velomobile equivalent of a 79 Lincoln continental in comfort. I have the rough frame done, a exact copy of a guy named Lothar from the bike forum's. Not his new design's but of the style he was building back in 2014/15 ish. I have the belly pan to add and a domed top, the top is the bubble canopy off a De Havilland Chipmonk. Not the British canopy, but the Canadian one as shown here,  https://www.vikingair.com/viking-aircraft/dhc-1-chipmunk.

Quote from: 18hammers on Feb 19, 2024, 10:17 PMThat electric car type is in my future, I am getting there in steps, already have electric bikes, Fat tire electric bikes for the gravel roads around me, have all the spare parts to keep them running. I have started building my own electric velomobile, but not like those flimsy fiberglass ones. Mine will be the velomobile equivalent of a 79 Lincoln continental in comfort. I have the rough frame done, a exact copy of a guy named Lothar from the bike forum's. Not his new design's but of the style he was building back in 2014/15 ish. I have the belly pan to add and a domed top, the top is the bubble canopy off a De Havilland Chipmonk. Not the British canopy, but the Canadian one as shown here,  https://www.vikingair.com/viking-aircraft/dhc-1-chipmunk.

I'd love to see the design, if you could do a drawing or schematic.  I don't see fiberglass as being flimsy, it's generally a lot lighter than working with sheet metal for the body, and unless you have really good metal working experience, it's quite difficult to make the complex curves to make it aerodynamically efficient.  I did some fiberglass boat building, and it's quite easy to get any shape you want out of it.  The strength comes from the frame and chassis underneath the fiberglass.  Steel bicycle tubing makes a great frame, although aluminum tubing saves a lot of weight.  Welding much easier with steel though.

When you start the build, make some how to videos!  I'll put them up on our YouTube channel. 

RE

Quote from: RE on Feb 20, 2024, 12:00 AM

Quote from: 18hammers on Feb 19, 2024, 10:17 PMThat electric car type is in my future, I am getting there in steps, already have electric bikes, Fat tire electric bikes for the gravel roads around me, have all the spare parts to keep them running. I have started building my own electric velomobile, but not like those flimsy fiberglass ones. Mine will be the velomobile equivalent of a 79 Lincoln continental in comfort. I have the rough frame done, a exact copy of a guy named Lothar from the bike forum's. Not his new design's but of the style he was building back in 2014/15 ish. I have the belly pan to add and a domed top, the top is the bubble canopy off a De Havilland Chipmonk. Not the British canopy, but the Canadian one as shown here,  https://www.vikingair.com/viking-aircraft/dhc-1-chipmunk.

I'd love to see the design, if you could do a drawing or schematic.  I don't see fiberglass as being flimsy, it's generally a lot lighter than working with sheet metal for the body, and unless you have really good metal working experience, it's quite difficult to make the complex curves to make it aerodynamically efficient.  I did some fiberglass boat building, and it's quite easy to get any shape you want out of it.  The strength comes from the frame and chassis underneath the fiberglass.  Steel bicycle tubing makes a great frame, although aluminum tubing saves a lot of weight.  Welding much easier with steel though.

When you start the build, make some how to videos!  I'll put them up on our YouTube channel. 

RE

I can't figure out how to post pictures here or I would show you, but I can post a link to one of lothars builds, mine is similar, but will be finished in aluminum sheeting, closed in the bottom with the bubble canopy and maybe, just maybe finished in a complete wrap if I find a pattern I like.
 https://www.bentrideronline.com/messageboard/forum/main-category/specialty-discussions/homebuilders/103447-plywoodtrike-vers-2?t=102754&highlight=wood&page=3

Quote from: RE on Feb 17, 2024, 12:03 AMIf you can swing $6-10K, you can get an enclosed mini car with a range of 80-120 miles that will do 35 mph.  Too big to actually drive inside a store though.

RE

$8k. Had 35k miles on it at purchase, was a lease. Meets all the criteria of being cheap, indestructible and more than enough range in a suburban environment. Total runnings costs to date have been a rear window wiper blade, windshield washing fluid, and a set of tires.

Keep your Tesla's you suckling at the altar of Elon sychophants! I'll take a glorified golf cart with A/C, airbags and free electrons at work!

Quote from: TDoS on Feb 20, 2024, 08:17 PM$8k. Had 35k miles on it at purchase, was a lease. Meets all the criteria of being cheap, indestructible and more than enough range in a suburban environment. Total runnings costs to date have been a rear window wiper blade, windshield washing fluid, and a set of tires.

Keep your Tesla's you suckling at the altar of Elon sychophants! I'll take a glorified golf cart with A/C, airbags and free electrons at work!

Nice one.   Good choice.

RE

Quote from: RE on Feb 21, 2024, 01:59 AMNice one.   Good choice.
RE

For my area perhaps. Cold winters that reduce mile/kwh by -20%, but not that bad, but the traction control on electrics is awful. You get stuck pulling into your driveway if there is a little bit of snow slime there. So not optimal for any snow slick conditions. So perhaps REALLY not optimal for your clime. A 3 season car in Alaska probably.