Just use lpg for anything that requires significant heat - boiling water, heating air in a room etc. This is much better than burning fuel in generator where 75% of the fuel's energy goes into heating the air outside! I live in an off-grid house and this is what I do. I have only small or moderate solar and storage but I can still use all my lights, computers, fans, appliances and a toaster for a couple of overcast days. Water boiling gets relegated to a small saucepan on the gas burner when it's overcast like this. I'm getting a split system soon but I don't plan on ever using my generator to run it. EDIT: OK sorry I wrote that before I watched the whole vid. So yes I agree with what you're doing!
yeah it's what I do when there is little sun. The good thing with my area is it is a Mediterranean climate so most of the time we have plenty of sun. Even on cloudy days with spasmodic sun I can charge batteries fully up and run everything from electric as I have 3.2 Kw's of solar for my 48 volt system and 1.1 Kw's of solar for my 24 volt system. I would probably only need to run my generator 6 - 8 times a year which is good for it anyway as one should give it a run every month or so to keep everything fresh. When I run my generator I usually I video it for my channel as most people love to see the "I'm down on power and need to run my generator videos". My biggest power consumer is the electric hot water unit for my bathroom / shower. I could change it over to LP gas but that would be around $1,500 to put in a new unit then have to pay $150 per 45 kg house gas bottle to run it. So it's easier and cheaper to run my generator a few times over winter on those no sun days.
Hi Glen. Great video! You are right about the hydraulic log splitter. I built one several years ago, & wish I had done it earlier! I have similar issues with my back. I bought a new Husky chainsaw a year ago, with a 26" bar on it, which, surprisingly, has helped save my back. Being so long, you don't need to bend over to cut wood, & large trees that previously were too big are now fair game. (We use a tractor with a front end loader to lift those wood rolls while we split them). As for running a fire, you get heating, cooking & hot water. No reliance on gas at all. For summer hot water use solar. Thanks again for an enjoyable video.
I have a few Husqvarna chainsaws, one of them is a 60cc with a nice long bar & chain. I probably should get them out, give them a service and a run, it's been a while. That would make some interesting videos for the channel.
Great question. Increasing storage and reducing consumption does have limits however knowing the maths of energy use is a big, and better, part of the answer. My 750W toaster uses 40Wh for 2 slices of toast on my 300Wh power station. Boiling enough water for a mug of coffee uses about the same but needs a bigger inverter. It’s the long term power use that shows up when the sun doesn’t shine. My 24V system is like yours and the 330l house fridge would barely last 2 days without charge however my 150l chest eco-fridge would easily last a week in winter on the same system, and a week of no sun is possible.
Yep, it all comes down to consumption. When the sun shines which is most days, I run all my electrical appliances. For those winter days with on sun, I use some of my LPG appliances. Making the best of both worlds 😄
Gleno, Mate !! So good to see you back on the tube. Thoroughly enjoyed your video. Sunshine here in Queensland ! Sorry about that brother one mate ! You have done a lot of work mate. Watch the health please. I am being checked at the moment myself as I had a very unpleasant happening in December and ended up in hospital for about a week. Ticker being checked out at tthe moment and will be having gall bladder removed prior to ticker fix apparently. Arthur-ritis (!!) big pains in the spine, hands (left in brace will have to operate eventually - bone on bone at base of thumb and cartilage worn out.) Look after yourself bro. Onya !!
Thanks mate. Yeah arthritis is a pain for sure. My L5 and S1 are pretty will fusing together with bone spurs and the narrowing is pushing on the nerve root. Can be painful at times for sure and L4 isn't much better. I have trouble bending down to pick stuff up off the floor, I usually kneel down on one knee to get down now. So the days of splitting firewood by hand are finished.
I should get another thermos flask, worth doing on those cold winters nights when the power is getting low. Plus one can't knock back a hot chocolate 🍮😁
One thing I'd say is I wouldn't mix a lead acid charger with a lithium charger in a series pack. Because they'll be different voltages and you'll end up with your batteries out of balance. A 12V Life charger will actually attempt to charge each individual cell to 3.65V or 14.6V in total - the BMS in the battery might stop it at 14.4V, while a typical lead acid charger generally sits between 13.2 and 13.8V - so you will never fully charge a LiFe battery with a lead acid charger. Close enough but in a 24V system you'll end up unbalanced. Once they are out of whack because the two BMS's don't balance between each other the batteries will stay out of balance until you top balance them individually.
In the set up in the video the chargers were not wired up in series they were in parallel, they charge each battery individually. The output to the inverter is a series connection but the chargers are in parallel. An advantage of this is charging the batteries individually you get both batteries to 100% SOC as each charger is assigned to only one battery. But yes as you said the chargers should be the same chargers, at the same charging parameters, using a lithium charging profile. This in not something I usually do with two twelve volt charger. It was only because I was running low of power and it was my only option at the time. I do plan on getting a proper Lithium 24 volt charger for days of no sun.
The trick is, you need to panel for winter. I don't think we will need to run the generator at all this winter. Time will tell. We don't always get full, but we bring in enough to keep going without compromising what my wife can run. Over time, I think you will slowly get to that stage if you keep improving and experimenting with the system.
I use to have 7.7 Kw of panels, some on the roof and some ground mount which worked well in winter and way to much in summer. This year I removed the ground mount as they were only laying on the ground unsecured. Then I added the 24 volt system using some of those panels and seeing how it goes in winter. With the exception of days like the last few days it has worked fine with 3.3 Kw of solar on the 48 volt system and 1.1 Kw of solar on the 24 volt system. I do plan to set the ground mount panels back up again with a proper solar stand rack. But for now I don't have any spare money to build the solar rack as I am saving to buy a little car to get around in, as I only have the motorbike for transport which sucks in winter. I am not going to borrow money to buy a car, saving money is the way, like we use to back in the good old days.😇
@@TheSimpleLivingAussie Sigi and I are the same Glen. No way will we go into dept. The world is going mad right now. So we do without on luxury items and eat out meals, buy just what we need and save save save. Every thing takes time.
I don't think over panelling for winter is really a thing (of you mean overcast weather?) When it's properly overcast, even 5x or 10x the panels won't be enough. And if you did this you'd have 5x excess when the sun comes out... I think it's better to just forget solar on overcast days and have better storage. My solar makes almost as much in clear sky winter sun as it does in summer sun. It's slightly less but not significant. Maybe 1kw in summer and 800w in winter (For less hours of course).
I guess a small DC to DC converter would work for you. I use a 24 to 12v DC 15A because I did not want to buy another charger. I also agree 100% on the special lithium type chargers that it is fear mongering as the BMS system should protect the battery during charging. Good luck....new subscriber from Michigan, USA
Thanks mate. Yes the BMS takes care of most things. The one advantage of the Lithium chargers is they stop the charge when the battery is full where the AGM chargers will hold a float voltage across the battery once fully charged. But that is not realy a big issue unless your leaving the battery charger permanently hooked up and then yes one should have a lithium charger. But for most of use that charge a battery the turn off the charger, then an AGM charger will do the job just fine.
Why you do not use heat pump for heating. The Japanese models put 4-5 times morr heat in 0 degree C weather than resistive heaters. They also work quite well in Finnish winters and for cooling.
Yeah I am planning on putting in a reverse cycle aircon (heat pump) in my cabin. Just gotta save up a little more and I will get it put in, should be in intime for summer.
@@TheSimpleLivingAussie Nice! Keep in mind that the most advanced mini split types can run efficiently on partial loads consuming only few hundred watts and giving about 1 kW of heating power. I heat my house with Mitsubishi mini split unit, and it is enough to about -25 °C for haöf of the house. Other half is heated from few decades old GSHP system. These are about 2-4 times cheaper than gas or oil at here.
Be careful. If you do not isolate the batteries from the Inverters before charging this way, when the sun comes up you will fry the inverters with overvoltage. Found this out the hard way.
The chargers have voltage limiting so when the sun does come out and the solar controller starts charging the batteries, the mains powered chargers stop putting in power. So it's not a problem with the chargers I am using.
@@TheSimpleLivingAussie Still, it would be better to isolate the inverters when charging with this method. Why chance it? I had to replace every electrolytic capacitor, they were all 16V and putting 24V on them let the smoke out.
My Jaycar battery charger is the 6/12 volt model, it doesn't have a 24 volt option. I got that model so I can charge my little 6 volt test batteries. I do have some old style transformer based 12/24 volt chargers for truck batteries but those transformer based one's are not good for Lithium batteries and BMS's. I am gonna invest in a 20 amp 24 volt lithium charger. iTech World have them for $299 if I remember.
@@TheSimpleLivingAussie I kept going with Victron IP67 340W chargers. They also work as power supplies and they can be set for high or low charge rates. Same bluetooth options as their other products using the same app. About $220 each when on special. Both run on the 800VA genny at full output if needed
I have some of those amorphous solar panels on my old bus. I bought them 23 years ago and they still work well. They are Uni-Solar solar panels and I paid $750 each of them back in 2001. Panel sizes and prices have sure come down over the decades.
@@TheSimpleLivingAussie sure have , these days i just buy good quality second hand solar systems that are just a few years old for peanuts, so much cheaper and work perfect. i have 4 schott 100w amorphous made im hamburg , theyre absolutely HUGE for 100w panels compared to monocrystaline, multicrystaline etc panels . now theyre bringing out panels that work on multiple light wavelengths they say they produce quite a bit more power .
The generator is a 3.3 Kw inverter generator. It connects into the solar shed through a 15 amp input plug at the shed as shown in one of my other videos which I have a link below at that point in the video showing me plugging it into the power shed. I am slightly inland from the coast so by the time the storms hit the coastline and get's out to me, they usually have dropped in there intensity, well most of the time. ua-cam.com/video/ozcyWULQCU4/v-deo.htmlsi=VZKSdeIqw7wSDBOU&t=329
@@frankmcalinden3699 All we can do is sit tight and see what happens, Frank. We are well insured, not that we want to have any damage. These types of storms have done a lot of damage in a 20 kilometre around us.
They don't give off as much as people think plus I have an air vent above the heater as well as the cabin is not 100% air tight. The heater has tilt switch, low oxygen censors on them. There has been a few interesting tests done with these heater running in RV's / motohomes, testing for carbon monoxide. All the tests done never set any of the carbon monoxide alarms off and the levels were extremely low to not even registering at all.
@@TheSimpleLivingAussie I mean no disrespect Glen, but my personnel experience tells me otherwise.. I've had a carbon monoxide alarm sound from the gas pilot light running a 3 way fridge .. problem is there are a lot of people that watch videos on youtube that may think this is a good idea to heat their tent etc.. it is not a good idea and the warning labels on the heaters clearly state this for a reason.. for those reading this thread other than the op.. DO NOT DO THIS WITH AN UNFLUDE GAS HEAT IN A CONFINED SPACE.. YOU WILL DIE.
Yep totally correct, been doing that for over 20 years. I will say since the innovation of Lithium batteries, I don't need to run the generator anywhere near as much compared to when I was running on lead acid batteries. Lithium is sure a game changer.
I already have 15 Kw's of batteries on my 48 volt system. It's not often I have to run my generator as I live in a Mediterranean climate with plenty of sun. I only usually need to run my generator 6 - 8 time a year on the days of cloud and no sun which is not often and only for a few months of the year. When I have those no sun days I usually video them for this channel as lots of people love seeing the video of when I am down on power and need to run my generator. But in reality most of the time I have more then enough power, especially in spring, summer and autumn which is for 9 months of the year.
You read my mind.. I did want to see a cold start on the generator 😛😛 don’t ask me why though 😂
Just use lpg for anything that requires significant heat - boiling water, heating air in a room etc. This is much better than burning fuel in generator where 75% of the fuel's energy goes into heating the air outside!
I live in an off-grid house and this is what I do. I have only small or moderate solar and storage but I can still use all my lights, computers, fans, appliances and a toaster for a couple of overcast days. Water boiling gets relegated to a small saucepan on the gas burner when it's overcast like this. I'm getting a split system soon but I don't plan on ever using my generator to run it.
EDIT: OK sorry I wrote that before I watched the whole vid. So yes I agree with what you're doing!
yeah it's what I do when there is little sun. The good thing with my area is it is a Mediterranean climate so most of the time we have plenty of sun. Even on cloudy days with spasmodic sun I can charge batteries fully up and run everything from electric as I have 3.2 Kw's of solar for my 48 volt system and 1.1 Kw's of solar for my 24 volt system.
I would probably only need to run my generator 6 - 8 times a year which is good for it anyway as one should give it a run every month or so to keep everything fresh. When I run my generator I usually I video it for my channel as most people love to see the "I'm down on power and need to run my generator videos".
My biggest power consumer is the electric hot water unit for my bathroom / shower. I could change it over to LP gas but that would be around $1,500 to put in a new unit then have to pay $150 per 45 kg house gas bottle to run it. So it's easier and cheaper to run my generator a few times over winter on those no sun days.
Hi Glen. Great video!
You are right about the hydraulic log splitter. I built one several years ago, & wish I had done it earlier! I have similar issues with my back.
I bought a new Husky chainsaw a year ago, with a 26" bar on it, which, surprisingly, has helped save my back. Being so long, you don't need to bend over to cut wood, & large trees that previously were too big are now fair game. (We use a tractor with a front end loader to lift those wood rolls while we split them).
As for running a fire, you get heating, cooking & hot water. No reliance on gas at all. For summer hot water use solar.
Thanks again for an enjoyable video.
I have a few Husqvarna chainsaws, one of them is a 60cc with a nice long bar & chain. I probably should get them out, give them a service and a run, it's been a while. That would make some interesting videos for the channel.
Great question. Increasing storage and reducing consumption does have limits however knowing the maths of energy use is a big, and better, part of the answer. My 750W toaster uses 40Wh for 2 slices of toast on my 300Wh power station. Boiling enough water for a mug of coffee uses about the same but needs a bigger inverter. It’s the long term power use that shows up when the sun doesn’t shine. My 24V system is like yours and the 330l house fridge would barely last 2 days without charge however my 150l chest eco-fridge would easily last a week in winter on the same system, and a week of no sun is possible.
Yep, it all comes down to consumption. When the sun shines which is most days, I run all my electrical appliances. For those winter days with on sun, I use some of my LPG appliances. Making the best of both worlds 😄
Gleno, Mate !! So good to see you back on the tube. Thoroughly enjoyed your video. Sunshine here in Queensland ! Sorry about that brother one mate ! You have done a lot of work mate. Watch the health please. I am being checked at the moment myself as I had a very unpleasant happening in December and ended up in hospital for about a week. Ticker being checked out at tthe moment and will be having gall bladder removed prior to ticker fix apparently. Arthur-ritis (!!) big pains in the spine, hands (left in brace will have to operate eventually - bone on bone at base of thumb and cartilage worn out.) Look after yourself bro. Onya !!
Thanks mate. Yeah arthritis is a pain for sure. My L5 and S1 are pretty will fusing together with bone spurs and the narrowing is pushing on the nerve root. Can be painful at times for sure and L4 isn't much better.
I have trouble bending down to pick stuff up off the floor, I usually kneel down on one knee to get down now. So the days of splitting firewood by hand are finished.
Another energy saver is to put the excess boiling water into a thermos for later, very convenient.
I do that also. Great timesaver as well.
I should get another thermos flask, worth doing on those cold winters nights when the power is getting low. Plus one can't knock back a hot chocolate 🍮😁
One thing I'd say is I wouldn't mix a lead acid charger with a lithium charger in a series pack. Because they'll be different voltages and you'll end up with your batteries out of balance. A 12V Life charger will actually attempt to charge each individual cell to 3.65V or 14.6V in total - the BMS in the battery might stop it at 14.4V, while a typical lead acid charger generally sits between 13.2 and 13.8V - so you will never fully charge a LiFe battery with a lead acid charger. Close enough but in a 24V system you'll end up unbalanced. Once they are out of whack because the two BMS's don't balance between each other the batteries will stay out of balance until you top balance them individually.
In the set up in the video the chargers were not wired up in series they were in parallel, they charge each battery individually. The output to the inverter is a series connection but the chargers are in parallel.
An advantage of this is charging the batteries individually you get both batteries to 100% SOC as each charger is assigned to only one battery. But yes as you said the chargers should be the same chargers, at the same charging parameters, using a lithium charging profile.
This in not something I usually do with two twelve volt charger. It was only because I was running low of power and it was my only option at the time. I do plan on getting a proper Lithium 24 volt charger for days of no sun.
The trick is, you need to panel for winter. I don't think we will need to run the generator at all this winter. Time will tell. We don't always get full, but we bring in enough to keep going without compromising what my wife can run. Over time, I think you will slowly get to that stage if you keep improving and experimenting with the system.
I use to have 7.7 Kw of panels, some on the roof and some ground mount which worked well in winter and way to much in summer. This year I removed the ground mount as they were only laying on the ground unsecured. Then I added the 24 volt system using some of those panels and seeing how it goes in winter.
With the exception of days like the last few days it has worked fine with 3.3 Kw of solar on the 48 volt system and 1.1 Kw of solar on the 24 volt system.
I do plan to set the ground mount panels back up again with a proper solar stand rack. But for now I don't have any spare money to build the solar rack as I am saving to buy a little car to get around in, as I only have the motorbike for transport which sucks in winter. I am not going to borrow money to buy a car, saving money is the way, like we use to back in the good old days.😇
@@TheSimpleLivingAussie Sigi and I are the same Glen. No way will we go into dept. The world is going mad right now. So we do without on luxury items and eat out meals, buy just what we need and save save save. Every thing takes time.
I don't think over panelling for winter is really a thing (of you mean overcast weather?) When it's properly overcast, even 5x or 10x the panels won't be enough. And if you did this you'd have 5x excess when the sun comes out... I think it's better to just forget solar on overcast days and have better storage. My solar makes almost as much in clear sky winter sun as it does in summer sun. It's slightly less but not significant. Maybe 1kw in summer and 800w in winter (For less hours of course).
I guess a small DC to DC converter would work for you. I use a 24 to 12v DC 15A because I did not want to buy another charger. I also agree 100% on the special lithium type chargers that it is fear mongering as the BMS system should protect the battery during charging. Good luck....new subscriber from Michigan, USA
Thanks mate.
Yes the BMS takes care of most things. The one advantage of the Lithium chargers is they stop the charge when the battery is full where the AGM chargers will hold a float voltage across the battery once fully charged.
But that is not realy a big issue unless your leaving the battery charger permanently hooked up and then yes one should have a lithium charger. But for most of use that charge a battery the turn off the charger, then an AGM charger will do the job just fine.
Why you do not use heat pump for heating. The Japanese models put 4-5 times morr heat in 0 degree C weather than resistive heaters. They also work quite well in Finnish winters and for cooling.
Yeah I am planning on putting in a reverse cycle aircon (heat pump) in my cabin. Just gotta save up a little more and I will get it put in, should be in intime for summer.
@@TheSimpleLivingAussie Nice! Keep in mind that the most advanced mini split types can run efficiently on partial loads consuming only few hundred watts and giving about 1 kW of heating power.
I heat my house with Mitsubishi mini split unit, and it is enough to about -25 °C for haöf of the house. Other half is heated from few decades old GSHP system. These are about 2-4 times cheaper than gas or oil at here.
5ml of rain is at least something, although the cloud cover is not so good for generating power.
Be good if it rained overnight and the sun came out during the day. Then I would get water for my tanks and power for my batteries.
Be careful.
If you do not isolate the batteries from the Inverters before charging this way, when the sun comes up you will fry the inverters with overvoltage.
Found this out the hard way.
The chargers have voltage limiting so when the sun does come out and the solar controller starts charging the batteries, the mains powered chargers stop putting in power. So it's not a problem with the chargers I am using.
@@TheSimpleLivingAussie Still, it would be better to isolate the inverters when charging with this method. Why chance it? I had to replace every electrolytic capacitor, they were all 16V and putting 24V on them let the smoke out.
Great video, Glen. Glad you are getting rain do you still have your old gennys in the shed
Na, I got rid of that a long time ago. I just use the inverter generators now.
I have that same jaycar charger. Ours does 12 and 24 volt. You just need to hold in the mode button for 3 seconds.
It won’t supply the required amps.
A diesel heater is way cheaper to run than LPG though Glen.
My Jaycar battery charger is the 6/12 volt model, it doesn't have a 24 volt option. I got that model so I can charge my little 6 volt test batteries. I do have some old style transformer based 12/24 volt chargers for truck batteries but those transformer based one's are not good for Lithium batteries and BMS's.
I am gonna invest in a 20 amp 24 volt lithium charger. iTech World have them for $299 if I remember.
@@TheSimpleLivingAussie I kept going with Victron IP67 340W chargers. They also work as power supplies and they can be set for high or low charge rates. Same bluetooth options as their other products using the same app. About $220 each when on special. Both run on the 800VA genny at full output if needed
a few low light solar panels may help, like good quality amorphous
I have some of those amorphous solar panels on my old bus. I bought them 23 years ago and they still work well. They are Uni-Solar solar panels and I paid $750 each of them back in 2001. Panel sizes and prices have sure come down over the decades.
@@TheSimpleLivingAussie sure have , these days i just buy good quality second hand solar systems that are just a few years old for peanuts, so much cheaper and work perfect.
i have 4 schott 100w amorphous made im hamburg , theyre absolutely HUGE for 100w panels compared to monocrystaline, multicrystaline etc panels .
now theyre bringing out panels that work on multiple light wavelengths they say they produce quite a bit more power .
Hi Glen , what size is your genny ? and how does it connect to your system......I see you guys had a storm over in the west ....
How are you going, Frank. On the coast we are having some big storms and where I live tornadoes.
The generator is a 3.3 Kw inverter generator. It connects into the solar shed through a 15 amp input plug at the shed as shown in one of my other videos which I have a link below at that point in the video showing me plugging it into the power shed.
I am slightly inland from the coast so by the time the storms hit the coastline and get's out to me, they usually have dropped in there intensity, well most of the time.
ua-cam.com/video/ozcyWULQCU4/v-deo.htmlsi=VZKSdeIqw7wSDBOU&t=329
@@JustinCaseSolarPower Hope it passes without any damage ...fingers crossed ...
@@TheSimpleLivingAussie Ok thats pretty cool . the genny runs the victron inverter which runs some appliance and it also charges your battery,s...Nice
@@frankmcalinden3699 All we can do is sit tight and see what happens, Frank. We are well insured, not that we want to have any damage. These types of storms have done a lot of damage in a 20 kilometre around us.
You do realise that gas heater is slowly filling the room with carbon monoxide
They don't give off as much as people think plus I have an air vent above the heater as well as the cabin is not 100% air tight. The heater has tilt switch, low oxygen censors on them.
There has been a few interesting tests done with these heater running in RV's / motohomes, testing for carbon monoxide. All the tests done never set any of the carbon monoxide alarms off and the levels were extremely low to not even registering at all.
@@TheSimpleLivingAussie I mean no disrespect Glen, but my personnel experience tells me otherwise.. I've had a carbon monoxide alarm sound from the gas pilot light running a 3 way fridge .. problem is there are a lot of people that watch videos on youtube that may think this is a good idea to heat their tent etc.. it is not a good idea and the warning labels on the heaters clearly state this for a reason.. for those reading this thread other than the op.. DO NOT DO THIS WITH AN UNFLUDE GAS HEAT IN A CONFINED SPACE.. YOU WILL DIE.
When down on power, just crank up your generator, simple solution.....
Yep totally correct, been doing that for over 20 years. I will say since the innovation of Lithium batteries, I don't need to run the generator anywhere near as much compared to when I was running on lead acid batteries. Lithium is sure a game changer.
Buy more batteries.
I already have 15 Kw's of batteries on my 48 volt system. It's not often I have to run my generator as I live in a Mediterranean climate with plenty of sun. I only usually need to run my generator 6 - 8 time a year on the days of cloud and no sun which is not often and only for a few months of the year.
When I have those no sun days I usually video them for this channel as lots of people love seeing the video of when I am down on power and need to run my generator. But in reality most of the time I have more then enough power, especially in spring, summer and autumn which is for 9 months of the year.