stokie Posted November 25, 2014 Report Share Posted November 25, 2014 I technical live off grid on a boat . All my appliances are 12 volt with the exception of the microwave and washing machine. The main saving on power is lighting swapped all mine for led . A standard 30w bulb is now replaced with equivalent which draws 0.5 watts and is also brighter . You could use your hydro power just to charge batteries as a charger uses little power at all. Then use your genarator when you need to run the washer . Most other appliances are actually 12 v such as tv which has a transformer inside to run from mains . This can be bypassed so it can run from your batteries. Any other smaller things can be run from a pure sine wave inverter mine is 3KW so that will even run the washer but does draw quite a lot of juice . Another alternative to log burner for heat could be an Eberspacher diesel heater . Mine runs 4 radiators and does the hot water at the same time . They burn about 1 ltr an hour but you can run it on red as a cost saving . My battery bank only consists of 5 110amp leisure batteries and I never run out of power Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
four-wheel-drive Posted November 25, 2014 Report Share Posted November 25, 2014 I technical live off grid on a boat . All my appliances are 12 volt with the exception of the microwave and washing machine. The main saving on power is lighting swapped all mine for led . A standard 30w bulb is now replaced with equivalent which draws 0.5 watts and is also brighter . You could use your hydro power just to charge batteries as a charger uses little power at all. Then use your genarator when you need to run the washer . Most other appliances are actually 12 v such as tv which has a transformer inside to run from mains . This can be bypassed so it can run from your batteries. Any other smaller things can be run from a pure sine wave inverter mine is 3KW so that will even run the washer but does draw quite a lot of juice . Another alternative to log burner for heat could be an Eberspacher diesel heater . Mine runs 4 radiators and does the hot water at the same time . They burn about 1 ltr an hour but you can run it on red as a cost saving . My battery bank only consists of 5 110amp leisure batteries and I never run out of power With a long boat could you not also have lots of soler panels along the top or would that be frond on by the powers that be. I changed over from solid fuel to Oil a while ago one thing that worries me though is if we ever had a big power cut and it was really cold the heating would go off and if left the pipes could freeze I do still have a log burner so could keep worm myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stokie Posted November 25, 2014 Report Share Posted November 25, 2014 With a long boat could you not also have lots of soler panels along the top or would that be frond on by the powers that be. . Solar is the norm on the waterways there are no restrictions at all . When I'm out travelling it takes my alternators 2 hours to charge my batteries back to full capacity Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerSim Posted November 25, 2014 Report Share Posted November 25, 2014 Can you not use the waste heat from the gennie to charge a heat store? I.E:- http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/domestic/content/thermal-stores IIRC, this then becomes a combined heat and power set up, which used to attract some tax advantages - but I may be out of dat on that - but you could still save the waste heat from the gennie.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fib new Posted November 25, 2014 Author Report Share Posted November 25, 2014 Interesting read Farmer Sim... And not that difficult to realise either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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