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Have you lived on a north facing lot for a year yet ? When I lived in Germany for 3 years, the house that I rented sight unseen was on a north facing slope. The 140 stairs to the house from the street were icy for months at a time and I slipped and fell on the stairs on several occasions. The...

My motivation for the water cooled generator is that I plan to capture waste heat from the coolant and exhaust to get the most out of the fuel used to run the genny. I'm going to be in a cool climate where no AC will ever be needed so heat is a significant factor for most of the year. My...

I just bought a SunGoldpower split phase inverter/MPPT solar charger / AC charger. I have a 24V battery, they have 48V options too. This unit will accept up to 450V from the solar array. Accepts 120VAC from the grid/generator and will charge the batteries up to 40A. On the PV side will...

The county in Colorado I am moving to does not have building codes and provides no services related to electrical and plumbing, these are done through the state and with inspectors provided by the state. Has anyone had any experience with this from a DIY point of view ? What is the attitude of...

Take a look at this offer from Central Maine Diesel. https://www.centralmainediesel.com/order/Perkins-6-kW-Diesel-Generator.asp?page=P6125 This is rated at 6kW for $4800 and is water cooled. The generator is belt driven and I am guessing the engine runs at something like 2800rpm vs 3600. Will...

I just bit the bullet and got the Sungoldpower 3kW charge controller / inverter. It was $509 + taxes right from the source. I dont need the inverter or AC charger functionality, but in this deal I get them for free, and were my bigger low frequency inverter to take a dump, now I would have a...

Price reduced to $400.

I get the impression the high voltage DC input inverters are made by Sandi Electric in China. I dont know the history of the company.

Back in ZA some well heeled people had thatch roofs. They always had twin poles with lightning conductors on them because if the lightning did strike the thatch there was no way you were going to get the fire put out. They apparently went like that for decades without being struck. In...

I have a new never taken out the packaging Midnite Classic 200 in the factory packaging. It was bought in approximately June 2016 so the warranty would have expired for sure. Back when I bought it, 200V on the input side of a charge controller was a pretty decent voltage, but as it turns out...

Im currently building what I refer to as my "survival shack" which I will live in at 9000ft until I have my house built. Its not a conventional build, I made it from 2" square tube with 11ga wall, all fully welded and cross braced. When I originally started it I was thinking of going to...

Im pretty much going to be by myself. Extra storage is just an invitation to hoarding.... I might have tens of small 3 cylinder japanese engines in inventory, but I will just use vertical racking and pallets and get myself a small forklift. As far as hoisting goes, a Cummins 5.9 possibly with...

Your door height is pretty modest. What was the reason you opted for the high ceiling ? Im going to do injection pump rebuild / conversion and possibly build airplane engines. The only reason I went with a 12' ceiling was to allow the car hoist so I can maintain my vehicles in a bit more...

Thanks for the proper terms when referring to different parts of the building. Im not a builder although I have done 2 very extensive renovations over the last 5 years, all on a pay as you go basis, no sub contractors used. We will be the selling the house in town to pay off the mortgage on my...

The page on which I found that reference seems to supply professionals in the field. They have standard packages for 50-300kW lithium batteries, so utility grade, not homeowner type stuff. I have requested manuals for the equipment I referenced because it was not available right on their web...

Fortunately it is a low humidity area (humidity dropping with altitude) and then rendered even lower through heating. All equipment will be installed in conditioned space, there will not be sources of high humidity. In the midwest condensation can definitely be a problem when equipment cools...

I just see this as a personal investment which is going to offset future utility costs. Of course if in the future the utility does expand into the area, it will no doubt be highly contentious possibly being forced to take utility power in an "all or nothing" deal struck with local government...

If I used 105AH Eve cells, 75x required for 240V it would yield a 25kWh battery for a little over $4k. Seems a bargain.

There is also this multi voltage solar charge controller which will support a 240V battery bank 240Vdc solar charge controller

Digging a bit further, this product 240VDC input inverter offers a DC input voltage up to 240V. That would indeed have an impact on the cost of the copper in the system and resistive losses. Of course one would have to take appropriate caution on securing such a high voltage battery from...

If I go up to a 12kW inverter at 48V that is 250 Amps. If running at half of that still 125A. Going up to 96V halves the amperage. It seems that 96V equipment is available. It will be 1-2 years before I have to make that decision, but I will probably go with the highest voltage that is...

Adding that much height for a use case I will never have, so that I end up with a cold shop because I cant afford to heat it sounds like a lose/lose scenario. One has to live within your means. The 12' walls will be 2x6 24" on center and the ceiling will be R60 blown in insulation. I have...

I dont see the need to get a bigger vehicle than my F250 inside so I fail to see the benefit of such a high roofline in a cold climate ? A 10' door should allow me to move a CNC mill or lathe inside, and doors and windows are horrible for air leakage and poor R value.

The plan is to use the generator in a heat recovery mode long term. Its too expensive to run it at 30% thermal efficiency just sucking electricity off the alternator. One might be able to get as high as 80% recovering heat off the exhaust, coolant and oil. But that is a project of its own to...

It would be the highest shop I ever had. Adequate to have some car hoists. The greater the volume, the more material will be used, the more costly it will be to heat on an ongoing basis. I wont be parking or working on RVs or other tall vehicles.

I finally closed on a land parcel in Custer County CO. 36 acres at 9000ft in the wet mountains. The >1000 acre subdivision has no utilities, like many in the area. Long term water will be from a 300-500ft deep well, but given the approximately $26k+ cost of drilling the well, that will have...

My error pointed out, withdrawn.