Quote from: 18hammers on Oct 21, 2023, 10:18 AMThe shorter days of winter are here now, snow in the forecast for Monday, overnight lows going into double digit negatives.

That's getting into the Parka territory.  We're still at Sweatshirt weather here around 35F.  Sunny today also.  How about inside the house?  What temperature do you keep it at?  How many layers do you wear inside?

RE

Quote from: RE on Oct 21, 2023, 11:46 AM

Quote from: 18hammers on Oct 21, 2023, 10:18 AMThe shorter days of winter are here now, snow in the forecast for Monday, overnight lows going into double digit negatives.

That's getting into the Parka territory.  We're still at Sweatshirt weather here around 35F.  Sunny today also.  How about inside the house?  What temperature do you keep it at?  How many layers do you wear inside?

RE

For winter I move into my curtained off area down stairs, 9 x 18feet =162 sqft area. the diesel heater just heats this area to 20-22C. short sleeves comfortable, the rest of the basement will be anywhere from 10C to 15C depending on out side temp, and up stairs will be anywhere from 5 to 15C depending on day or night.

QuoteUp stairs will be anywhere from 5 to 15C depending on day or night.

You do serious hibernation.  I hope you have chocolate.

Quote from: 18hammers on Oct 21, 2023, 04:36 PMFor winter I move into my curtained off area down stairs, 9 x 18feet =162 sqft area. the diesel heater just heats this area to 20-22C.

That's too warm for me.  Prior to being relocated to the SNIF while in my own digs, I kept my thermostatatt about 15C.  I wore 2-3 layers indoors, thermal long johns, sweatpants and crew neck sweatshirt, adding a hoodie sweatshirt with no liner if I felt cold.  To go outside to smoke a cancerette, I added another lined hoodie.  I had an electric space heater under my desk if it was -10F or less outside and cold air would bleed in under the front and back doors.  Turn it on every so often to warm my toes.

RE

Power has just been great so far, looking at my charge controllers I am hitting 14.4 day after day right now. Roughly 3000 watts coming in (220 amps at 13.6 volts) when I check on them. At that rate I just need 2 hours of full sun to net me all I need. I never did finish cutting down the trees shading some panels, that will have to wait until I heal, maybe I can have them cut by next fall. My surplus power days will come to a end when December arrives. December is just ugly for power, the days so short and often cloudy.

I am paying for not getting those Poplar cut this year. I watch one of my mppt controllers pounding out 79-80 amps until about 1pm then by 1:30 as a little shade from the low angle of the sun in combination with the tree tops drops my output down to 20 or lower.
As best I can estimate, between the two MPPT controllers I am losing at least 2kwh a day. These MPPT appear to struggle more with partial shading than do my PWM controllers. I will have those trees cut by next winter, that should gain me a couple kwh a day more (when the sun co-operates). IF I make the jump to 24 volts next year and better utilize my 30 volt panels that should gain me roughly another 2kwh a day this time of year, so together I may gain as much as 4kwh a day. That will be sweet if so.

I think the 21st was the shortest day of the year, and the last 5 or so days have been mostly sunny, have not needed to run the generator at all. I seem to get my needed 6 kwh a day of sun. I know that can change in a instant but the 14 day forecast looks good. Very mild temps, not even burning wood, getting above 0c most days. I was out watering my Cedar's the other day. Mostly a brown Christmas here (spots of snow). 

Quote from: 18hammers on Dec 25, 2023, 07:27 PMI think the 21st was the shortest day of the year, and the last 5 or so days have been mostly sunny, have not needed to run the generator at all. I seem to get my needed 6 kwh a day of sun. I know that can change in a instant but the 14 day forecast looks good. Very mild temps, not even burning wood, getting above 0c most days. I was out watering my Cedar's the other day. Mostly a brown Christmas here (spots of snow). 

The 21st was the shortest day, that caught me by surprise. Times flies.  Every year seems shorter.

Quote from: K-Dog on Dec 26, 2023, 12:01 AM

Quote from: 18hammers on Dec 25, 2023, 07:27 PMI think the 21st was the shortest day of the year, and the last 5 or so days have been mostly sunny, have not needed to run the generator at all. I seem to get my needed 6 kwh a day of sun. I know that can change in a instant but the 14 day forecast looks good. Very mild temps, not even burning wood, getting above 0c most days. I was out watering my Cedar's the other day. Mostly a brown Christmas here (spots of snow). 

The 21st was the shortest day, that caught me by surprise. Times flies.  Every year seems shorter.

Every day is shorter, as a percentage of the total number of days you have been alive.  Seems insignificant, but if you think of years when you were a kid, a year seemed like a very long time.  At 10, another year was 10% of your lifetime.  At 50, another year is just 2%.

When I was a kid in the 70s watching TV shows made in the 50s, stuff like Leave it to Beaver seemed like ancient history.  Now in 2023, 2003 seems like yesterday.

Age changes your perception of time.

RE

No doubt age changes perception. 

It also does not seem cold enough to be this late in the year.  By now an endless rain of winter should be upon Seattle.  But today it is 44 degrees and sunny.  This is not the same Seattle I moved from Minneapolis to almost fifty years ago.  For decades the pattern was clear.  Endless rain with a couple or three weeks of snow in midwinter.  Very predictable, but things are much more random now.  I think it has been below freezing twice.  It has been cold, but not freezing.

We live in different times and it is not just the weather.

In the 70's the 50's seemed like ancient history.  Now old times are marketed $$$ so thoroughly that twenty years ago does seem like yesterday.  If in the 1970's old farts from the 1920's were still pushing old music it would have been weird.  Not so now.

Society ossified.  But nobody told me.  Social contradictions baked in the cake by cheap energy are tolerated by the satisfaction of general need.  Inequities hidden by human tribalism which ignores those who are out-group, flourish.

Money found a sweet spot and locked us down.

Well, it's true that life changed much more from 1920 to 1970 than from 1970 to 2020.  The inventions and applications of eneergy came fast and furious through the early part of the 20th century, the 2nd half was mainly expansion and refinement of those technologies. Few had cars in 1920, by 1970 they were indispensible.  Cars are still cars though, and you still can drive a 1970 Ford Mustamg around and be cool.  You couldn't drive a Model T in 1970 and be cool though.

Music changed with electrification of the Gibson Guitar in the 1950s, bringing on Rock n Roll.  Everything before was instantly obsolete.  A few AM radio stations still played Frank Sinatra and he still played in Vegas, but it was fuddy duddy music.  Today you can tune in the Rolling Stones on any Classic Rock station in the country and it sounds fine.

The only real significant difference between now and 1970 is computers and social media.  That has changed the social dynamic significantly.

RE

One other thing I have seen change over the years, but mostly due to the change from lead acid to LifepO4 is my usage. I used to keep a close watch on my power consumption, very close watch, always trying to drive it lower to keep the cycling of my lead acid cells down. It fluctuates but 6 to 6.5 kwhs is my daily usage, that is about 2 kwhrs a day more than when I had lead acid. After getting LifepO4 I was no longer concerned about about wear out failure of my battery bank. I slowly replaced all my lights from the 60 led equ to the 100 watt led bulbs. I stopped turning off lights like I once did and find I leave on multiple ones now. I leave the computer running 24/7 now. I don't use timers for load scheduling (daylight hrs) of some devices as I once did. I have become positively prolific in my use of power compared to how things were 5 years ago. Cycling of my batteries is not a concern anymore, age failure is. Now it is possible my batteries will live longer than I do. 

Well generator use is over, been so for about the last 5 days. Oh there maybe be a day I have to fire it up again but not likely. It usually ends sometime in the Jan20th to feb 1st period. 235 hrs put on it this year. It is just a little 2000watt inverter unit, burns about 1/2 liter a hour (a touch more) with the light load I put on it. So my fuel use would be about 120 liters. with fuel being 1.25 at the pump right now so about a 150 dollars spent late Nov until now. I will be able to cut that even lower when I make the jump to 24 volts and better utilize my 30 volt panels.  I am right close to being generator free just a little more work needed.

If the city has a power outage the store quickly sells out of generators.  The premium generator we sell puts out about 10,000 watts.  A customer told me "that is enough to power a house".  I looked at him and said to myself.  He has several daughters.

It takes two people to move that puppy.  Tesla land has big houses.  Some residents might need two generators.

As far north as you are I am amazed you can get off gas so quick.

You don't need 10Kw to power a house.  3Kw is enough.

RE