Category: Home Power

Three Letters Re: Battery-Powered House Interior Lighting

Sir: I enjoy your blog and support you in a small way with the 10 Cent Challenge.  After reading your response to the Battery-Powered House Interior Lighting letter, I want to add some information that I learned at a FAA seminar that I attended.  The FAA is now endorsing blue or green lighting in the cockpit of all aircraft (general aviation and commercial).  The green and/or blue takes less energy output for the eyes to see details.  Also, red lighting can be seen from further away than blue/green (red is used to designate towers and tall buildings at night, where …


Letter Re: Battery-Powered House Interior Lighting

James Wesley: We have frequent power outages.  We bought a [deep cycle] marine battery from Bass Pro Shops that was intended use with a trolling motor.  We keep this battery continuously trickle-charged.   A small inverter from Radio Shack provides 120 VAC for three strings of white LED Christmas lights attached to the uppermost part of the most important wall.  A charged trolling motor battery will keep these efficient lights on for a very long time.  All we have to do is to plug the lights into the inverter socket. Very safe. – Anonymous JWR Replies: It would be much more efficient …


Letter Re: A Self-Sufficient Vermonter

Hi James,  Thank you for SurvivalBlog. It’s an incredible resource. I thought you and your readers mind find this interesting: There is a man that lives with his family on his 24 acre parcel of forested mountain in Vermont, completely off the grid using hydro-electric and solar for power and a natural spring for water. He builds everything himself, including his house and workshop. His land is mostly accessible only on foot (though he has cleared a road — by hand). This guy is building a giant mechanical robot. Seriously. But the best part is that all of this is documented …


Letter Re: Electric Cars and Bicycles

Sir: I had an epiphany a few years ago when I first viewed “Who Killed the Electric Car?” Since then, I’ve acquired several cars converted to electric and a Nissan Leaf. We bought our last tank of petroleum fuel in May of 2011. Recently, I’ve been pondering how the electric cars might be used as a backup source of electric power. The battery packs of the conversions are readily accessible and can provide almost 100 kwh of energy. The Leaf’s battery is not accessible at this time. Inverters that use the car’s DC voltage (120-156v) as input are available but …


Two Letters Re: Understanding Five Types of Electrical Losses in Alternative Power Systems

Hello Jim, I enjoyed the article regarding off-grid power by Roger A. I’d like to add a few points  about the elimination of phantom loads and the use of inverters. As defined by the author, “phantom loads are created by appliances that have been designed to still need electricity while nominally switched off.” The elimination of these phantom loads reduces electrical needs in two ways; by eliminating the power needed by the appliance and the potential of being able to turn off the inverter. As pointed out in the article, inverters draw an average of 25 watts just to operate. …


Understanding Five Types of Electrical Losses in Alternative Power Systems, by Roger A.

“Line Loss” is often mentioned when discussing alternative energy systems, but that is just one of several significant losses. This article will describe five distinct types of losses. In an alternative energy system that incorporates a battery or battery bank, the first electrical loss is within the batteries themselves as they discharge, this is called the Puekert exponent. This loss increases with the aging of the batteries. Look at it this way: If you had a 500 gallon tank of water and you used 200 gallon a day you would have to replace 200 gallons every day or 400 gallons …


Alternative Power in a TEOTWAWKI World, by Scott H.

I am currently working in the Alternative Energy industry after retiring from a 21-year career with the military.  As part of my Vocational rehabilitation, the military allowed me to choose my future career.  As a long time reader of SurvivalBlog and a Bible-believing Christian, I saw the importance of prepping.  This includes living off grid. Alternative energy seems to be emerging as a buyer beware market.  You can see many manufacturers prey on fear claiming that their systems can run your fridge, furnace, freezer and well pump during any grid down event. This is simply an impossibility, a typical house …


Letter Re: Handy Photovolatic Calculators

Jim, I’m a retired U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer who has taken restoration carpentry as my second career.  I’ve been following you for a couple years now and very much appreciate what you’re doing. To those ends, I received a link to this article from Fine Homebuilding and thought it might be interesting and perhaps useful to fellow preppers.  Of particular interest to me was the interactive maps from NREL.  One can point their mouse to a particular point on the U.S. map (or to pre-selected points on the global map) and then load the location data into NREL’s PVWatts …


Trial by Snow, by Bill S.

To say we have had a mild winter here in Iowa is an understatement to say the least. That was until recently. It would be safe to say that with temperatures in the 50 degree range I have gotten a little complacent this winter. Like many who read SurvivalBlog I spend time watching the news and trying to keep an eye on the big picture. At least in this case it came at the expense of some of the details. Like everything in life I would like to remind myself as well as all my Brothers and Sisters out there …


A Hiccup in the Matrix, by R.W.S.

Southern California, September 8, 2011, 3:45 p.m.: Crud, my computer just shut down. It had been an uneventful day at the ranch studio to this point. I was finishing the day’s work on a project and looking forward to riding my horse before it got dark; now my computer flat-lines. Great…, what next? Hit the television power switch on the remote, nothing… Power light on the plotter is off too, Huh? Went to the main breaker to see if the circuit to the studio had tripped. Nope, the wheel-of-debt inside the meter was not turning so the solution was not …


Three Letters Re: Some Thoughts on Burning Coal

Mr Rawles, To chime in on the “heat to electricity issue”: A Stirling engine or “hot air engine”), might be what Dale from Vermont is looking for.  There are not many commercially available – one company was making them in New Zealand before the earthquake, but a quick Google search has also revealed that they moved their manufacturing to Spain. There may be others.  According to their web site they haven’t yet resumed their ‘off-grid’ line of  engine production. They can be quite efficient, and run off any heat differential.  For example: Hot air temperature and a cold spring, or …


Letter Re: Some Thoughts on Burning Coal

Sir, Probably the biggest gap in our survival preparations at present is having a good source of energy if we have to stay underground for an extended period. If surface conditions are such that we cannot venture outside, then most likely there will be problems with our photovoltaic panels, solar water heater and hydropower, all of which are above ground. With currently available technology, propane seems to be the only reasonable solution to support heat, hot water, and electricity. Propane can be stored indefinitely and furnaces, stoves and generators that run on propane are readily available. However, storing enough propane …


Two Letters Re: Lessons From an Ice Storm

Dear Mr. Rawles, I have been a daily visitor to your site for about three years now. I want to drop you a line regarding our experience in the big Pacific Northwest ice storm–wit effects still being felt. I live with my wife in a suburb of Tacoma, part way between the city proper and the farm country. The television and Internet news sites all warned of a “massive” and “record breaking” storm that would move into our area this past Monday. We are on PSE power and have our own water well. We consider ourselves pretty well prepared (we …


Comprehensive Crisis Communications Planning for the Prepper, by Hammer

In the words of the fictional character Jeff Trasel from the novel “Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse”: “If you don’t have Com, you don’t have jaaack“. The subject of radio communications as it relates to Prepping is an often misunderstood topic. Understanding radio communications issues can also be confusing, complicated, and daunting for the newcomer. There is a lot to know about the subject, and speaking as one that has spent a good part of his life experimenting with radio communications, it seems that the more I learn about radio communications, the more I learn how …


Letter Re: A Reliable Propane Insulin Refrigerator

James: I’d like to suggest one solution for grid-down insulin refrigeration: I have purchased a Dometic RC4000 3 way portable refrigerator for insulin.  It runs by 12 VDC,  120 VAC  and LP gas.  It is an absorption type ammonia system (as used in recreation vehicles) and appears to be a high build quality unit manufactured in Hungary.  It is the size and shape of a large wheeled ice type cooler but with only a small 1 cu ft cooled area.  It is perfectly suitable for long term insulin protection and uses 1 lb of propane a day  =  18 days …