I’m curious, what’s an item, tool, or purchase you own that you feel has completely justified its cost over time? Could be anything from a gadget to a piece of furniture or even software. What made it worth it for you?
I’m curious, what’s an item, tool, or purchase you own that you feel has completely justified its cost over time? Could be anything from a gadget to a piece of furniture or even software. What made it worth it for you?
I have two 10,000 liter water tanks in my basement that I use to harvest rainwater, and another 2,000 liter tank on my roof. From October to around May I close the city water and use only rainwater. I’ve been doing that for a bit more than 10 years now, and it paid for the installation cost in about 4 or 5 years. I also have solar water heaters, but it’s hard to tell how long they took to pay for themselves because I also have on-grid photovoltaic panels for energy generation. My energy bill is about 1/6 of my neighbors’, and the photovoltaic panels paid for themselves in about 5 years as well.
When you say "I close city water’, sounds like you are also drinking that water? Sounds like a cool idea that I too have been thinking about. That water needs disinfection though
Wow. Thats very cool. I’m planning on getting a solar system installed this winter too (costs less in the winter). Here power supply is not reliable but solar is fairly cheap thanks to China. Infact I’m pretty sure we have a very impressive solar system for a country of our status. (Pakistan)
It’s been more than a decade since I installed mine, so there are probably more options today, but when I did, you were either on-grid or off-grid. On-grid means you “sell” your energy production to the energy company, but if the city power goes out, so does yours. Off-grid means you don’t use city energy at all, but it was much more expensive because it required batteries for storing energy… however, I remember recently reading about people using their electric car batteries to power their houses when the electricity was out, and I’m sure batteries are much more affordable nowadays because of how much electric car technology has developed.
Batteries are quite expensive. Lead-acid batteries are readily available, but don’t really work well for powering a house on a regular basis, because they don’t have a very long life cycle. LiON batteries work very well, but they’re fire hazards. Even worse, if you live in an area where you get freezing temperatures, they must be kept inside, because they can’t be allowed to freeze if you’re cycling them. LiFePO4 is the current best option. If you don’t charge them above 80, 85%, and never discharge below 20%, you should have a nearly infinite lifespan. But that means that for every 30kWh of power you use, you want 50kWh of battery. And currently LiFePO4 battery banks run approx. $1000/kWh (+/- depending on band). If you heat your home with electricity, and you live in e.g. North Dakota, you’re going to want more like 200kWh of batteries, because even high efficiency heat pumps can suck a lot of power when it’s -20F.
I’m currently working on getting a 17.7kW system approved by the local utility. It looks like I’ll need to step down what I’m feeding into the grid, because the line capacity out where I live is only 10kW, and they will only approve 75% of the line capacity for grid-tied systems.
I’ve got a 5kw battery/solar system for my little off the grid trailer home. Batteries were at $1000 a piece, at 2.5 kw a piece, last year. They are currently $800 each so prices are dropping year over year
Bit different here. You can be on grid or off grid too. But the government has limits. They don’t want to buy all the power lol. Despite the fact that they don’t produce enough themselves.
You are put on a waitlist first. Now we do have one side of the house under solar already for a year. But thats my uncles side, and they are on grid by now plus have have batteries. And yep batteries are the expensive part here too. But you can manage a combination too.
You drink the rainwater?
Not directly, but I probably could. I have nets in my gutters so insects and leaves don’t fall on it and I have another filter before the tanks in my basement. I regularly do tests to check levels of pH, chlorine and other stuff. The chlorine tablets I use says it’s used to make water drinkable, and I use the rainwater to cook and make coffee (so I only consume rainwater that was treated and boiled).
My city is in the middle of mountains and it rains a lot and it also has tons of public water fountains, so every weekend I just go to a natural water spring at the bottom of a mountain and fill some bottles to drink through the week - the city’s water company do weekly tests on the fountains and every fountain has a QR code for you to check that fountain status.
I think that’s a cool option for preparedness, but seems like a bit of a hassle compared to just using municipal water. But I’m guessing the municipal water is also fairly expensive where you live
Filters, hommie.
I mean, I know, but wouldn’t those also increase the cost?
I pay $200 a month for water in the seattle suburbs, plus $180 for city drainage, and a one time $25k fee for hook up to the water system. So yeah filters might be a cost.