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1. You need to look at Marine Diesel gen. set. Lots of good stuff for boats would work fine. I spent several years running Yachts from the US. to Mexico in the 60’s. Never had a problem with the gen. set.
   If I were you I would make a Living Trust for my property and all your “STUFF” I will say
   Looking for a wife can be frustrating to say the least. My wife is a Christian and from a foreign country. I met her during one of my vacation. Great lady and a good Mom.I found a lot of America women don’t like the weather in Alaska where I worked but they sure liked my pay check. They all said we could move to the lower 48 to where it is warmer. They didn’t make the cut. My wife never complained and is very good with money.
   I retired and moved to a warmer place and had petty good schools. At 80 years old life isn’t perfect but it beets the alternative.

   Wishing you all the best.

   Gman

2. Love,love,love your articles— your humor is refreshing — admitting your mistakes means you have “matured nicely” — sharing your fixes means everything to those of us aspiring to follow in your footsteps— as a wife of 48 years ( and yes I married when I was very,very young—lol) I was trainable— it’s my husband who isn’t !!! God bless your endeavors! Keep calm and carry on!

3. JWR, in your Preparedness Notes, you mention that Eugene Stoner’s AR-15 is now owned by 6 million Americans. I believe that this was a typo, and that you meant to say that the AR is owned by 16 million Americans. Because I’ve heard the estimate being as many as 15 million ARs in the past, I did a quick search and found varying estimates on different web sites. Some articles are several years old, so the estimates are out of date. The NRA currently says that 1 in 5 rifles sold in the US are AR-15s. In 2013, the NRA reported that 300,000 to 500,000 ARs were being manufactured each year.

   The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the national firearms trade association, classifies ARs as “modern sporting rifles.” According to Townhall.com one year ago, “The NSSF’s research shows that there are over 16 million AR-15 and AKs in America today. That number might actually be higher because firearms built from 80 percent lowers are not tracked by the firearms industry.” https://townhall.com/notebook/bethbaumann/2018/09/17/the-number-of-ar15s-in-america-will-shock-antigunners-n2519877 Of course, AK-type rifles represent a small fraction of “modern sporting rifles” when compared to AR-15s.

   What this means is that when Democrats speak of “buy backs” (which are, in reality, gun confiscations because the government never owned the ARs in the first place) the tab for “buying back” all of those ARs will be in the billions of dollars. Add to that figure the cost of the magazines that are rendered useless without the firearms and the price tag only skyrockets.

   With each passing year, hundreds of thousands of ARs are sold to the public and the tab increases more and more. While Diane Feinstein and other Democrats can whine about the situation, to mix metaphors, “the genie is out of the bottle” and “that ship has sailed.”

4. Sounds awesome, how did you get the funds for this? What kind of work do you do? Are you in construction?

5. I LOVE the overkill the author invokes in his design and construction. If a six inch slab is good, a 12″ slab is BETTER!
   Like the author, I’ve been learning as I go with solar power and now….propane (which scares me spit-less).
   For a time, I had only a 30 watt solar panel on my remote shelter to maintain 10 six volt gel cells in my shelter at the ranch. The panel worked fine, and if I spent a weekend there cooking with a microwave, ventilation, etc…the little panel would replace the used power in about a week.
   With the severe drop in solar panel pricing around 2010, we got serious about solar. Now, 900 watts of power run the shelter and about 3400 watts runs the arched steel building we use for “normal” living. A 5kw military diesel gen set supplements the solar when weather or darkness prevents solar augmentation during heavy draw chores. We try to do everything that pulls a lot of power during the day when practical.
   Like the author, we started simply, but as technology improved, we upgraded to better charge controllers, panels, etc.
   I’ll put in a shameless plug for Magnum Energy’s new PT-100 charge controller. No programming required, other than to set some DIN switches for battery type and absorb charging time. Other than that, you connect the input power and output wiring to the battery (i use a single forklift battery), and wait 15 seconds. The inverter figures out voltage differences and VOILA! It powers up and you’re in business. You can over-panel the PT-100 to 6600 watts. It will ignore the extra 3300 watts, instead of burning out- and just utilize 3300 watts for your battery. The payoff in over-paneling is when it’s cloudy. You’ll only harvest 10% to 20% of panel capacity on cloudy days, so the controller will then use that extra panel power…up to 3300 watts- to charge your system.
   As the author discovered, golf cart batteries are a non-starter. They die with boring regularity and in a short time. L16s, the heavier lead-acid “solar” battery, isn’t much better. His Edisons may serve him well for a long time. Another good solution is industrial forklift batteries. Yes, they are lead-acid, but the plate thickness is far heavier than the L16s and will last for several decades. Cheap in the long run!
   Cool article so far!!
   Pole top mounted arrays are far better than roof-top. Snow slides right off with direct sunlight, and you don’t have the hassle of putting them on the roof….removing them from the roof to do repairs or a new roof, etc.

6. ‘Pictures’, or it didn’t happen! Let’s see it!

   1. I’m with you, Tim. Let’s see at least one pic.

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