on or off grid ?

farmgal · #1 12/31/10, 01:19 PM

With the new year here, my deadline has approached for my decision to be made, (I always give myself deadlines or I will be too prudent and never make one)...lol.
The decision was; stay here in NY and build or move south a little, to a lower taxed, warmer state. I have made my decision and decided to stay here, for now. Land is paid for, I get free gas and by summer I will have saved enough to have a small home framed in, septic and well, nothing more.

No interior walls, no plumbing, no wiring, a lot of work ahead of me. I have redone 4 homes in my lifetime, this time will be easiest, as I wont have old stuff to rip out 1st. A smaller home with building code specs to meet as low taxes as possible, like ruff cut siding, instead of real siding. It is sad this country has come to this.

Anyway, now this has brought me to another huge decision, on or off grid?

this decision has to be made next, as the home should meet design to include the set up, possibly a little solar passiveness. I have a windmill, 400w., inverter and other stuff I was given to clean out a barn. I was thinking add some solar panels, and get a generator for the gaswell to charge batteries too.

I am alone, (my son and I) and will need to do it ourselves, with little help. I am ambitious and educated for this adventure, but not as strong as a man. We do have friends tho.

Looking at a recent neighbors electric bill of 78$ delivery charge and 38$ usage, leans me toward off grid.

How well does off grid really work? this is a big decision, what would you do?

ErinP · #2 12/31/10, 01:37 PM

Is this going to be YOUR house, or are you planning on selling in the near future?

farmgal · #3 12/31/10, 01:53 PM

It will be my home. I dont plan on selling it. I dont believe homes around here will be selling in the future. They dont sell now..lol I am not worried too much about resale, I want it to be assessed as low as possible. Will off grid help in that?

If you put nice siding on a tiny house (900sf) here you are looking at $100 minimum a month added to your taxes. Stupid. Most homes here look awful for that very reason. Nicer looking homes are always for sale and changing hands often, because the taxes are too high. they are too high for the income level here.

stef · #4 12/31/10, 02:22 PM

Dear Farmgal,

Congratualtions on coming to such a big decision. I'm sure you've thought long and hard.

The free gas is a real blessing. If it were me, and it's not, but you did ask (

), I would definitely get electric. This way you have the option of using it if/when you get old and what is easy to do now is very difficult.

Chopping wood, building a fire, carrying water are all fine and good when you're young and strong, but bones get tired, arthritis comes to most and what was once fun and adventurous becomes tedious and painful.

just my 2 cents worth...

stef

ErinP · #5 12/31/10, 02:26 PM

Quote:

I want it to be assessed as low as possible. Will off grid help in that?

It's really hard to say. It probably would depend upon how snazzy your system is. They often INCREASE the value of a property if off-grid means all the same amenities, just powered via wind/solar/etc.

But if this is going to be your home, I'd probably go with the system that will make everyday life more pleasant. Ie, lower bills if that's your aim.

Maybe call the assessor's office and get their take...

Harry Chickpea · #6 12/31/10, 03:22 PM

What is the "free gas"? Is it natural gas? Is there any limit on how you can use it? The obvious thought is to use the gas to run a generator and skip all the other stuff.

kreig · #7 12/31/10, 03:37 PM

As someone who is begining to age I agree with Stef, look at how you will get along when physical things are hard. I have a small passive house and some of the stuff I do every year to get the most efficiency is becoming hard to do. If getting grid electric is not prohibitively expensive get it, you don't have to use it until you need to. Also, if you make an off grid electric system you MAY be able to sell excess electricty back to the power co. Those kind of system are more expensive though. As for the small size, I don't regret making a small house at all. It is cheaper,easier to clean and maintain and forces me to get rid of excess stuff!

farmgal · #8 12/31/10, 03:50 PM

I get 200,000 cf of natural (methane) gas from the well on my property and royalty checks also. You can heat a house of about 2500 sf with it, more or less.

It sounds tempting to just run a generator, but it is illegal to do that alone, so I have heard. I know a few who do it, tho. 200,000 cf isnt really that much to work with. Some have contracts for 500,000.

I think having that option to run the generator for free, makes the off-grid chance adventure not sound too scary. Like if all else fails, there is that little back up...

It is very nerve racking to make decisions any more. I dont want to bite off more than I can chew...I do want everything ready to break ground come spring, so by next fall we are inside making walls...lol

Hi stef.... I dont plan on getting old... j/k of course...lol I value your input. What do you find I will have to do different? I picture having mostly dc appliances, a gas fridge, I though lots of windows...lol What else?

It is nice to get others opinions. when it is just yourself trying to brain storm "what if's", you can miss that one thing that could cost you.

TnAndy · #9 12/31/10, 03:54 PM

If money is the issue, assuming you are close to the grid and it won't cost a fortune to get it to you, ON GRID is the way to go. NO WAY will you ever come close to producing your own as cheap as the grid supplies it.

That said, I'd have ( and do ) an alternative backup system for the the day the grid goes down.

IF you gas is free natural gas ( as in you have a commercial well on the place and you get yours free ), my alternative system would be based around an industrial, water cooled, generator system, with a small set of batteries/inverter for night time so you could shut off the generator, but still run the fridge and cut on a few lights at night if you have to...figuring you'd run the generator only 8-12hrs/day or so....maybe not even that much.

One HUGE advantage to a water cooled generator is you can use the heat generated in the water jacket for space heating and domestic hot water ( with a heat exchanger )....that gives you a "2-fer".....electricity AND heat !

A unit like an industrial Ford engine ( 4 or 6cyl ) with a 15-20kw generator head would be perfect.

farmgal · #10 12/31/10, 04:33 PM

wow those generators are really expensive, the nicer ones I mean. Unless I am looking at industrial stuff.

Maybe I should add, I am close to power to hook in. Will be a bit to reach, but doable. I dont plan on making some big elaborate system if I do.

Here is a list of where I use power now.
Fridge, chest freezer, lights, microwave, water heater, toaster oven, vacuum, washing machine ? others?

What about my air compressor? power tools?

No dishwasher

My bills when I had the house here, I used at most 20$ worth of electricity, summer time lowest was 6$, but usually the bill had $40-50 in delivery charges. But NY added lots of fee's and now the delivery has doubled. I dont foresee it ever going down...lol

speedfunk · #11 12/31/10, 04:49 PM

hey farmgal.

the house we are building is also in NY. I have also thought about the assessment also and getting it as low as possible. YOur sq foot is exactly the same as mine so that I think should help you. Some one mentioned calling the assessors office that is a good idea, I think I might do that also.

One thing I learned is that bedrooms change assessment ( I think by quite a bit). I did not even think about this and had to do this to beat the egress requirements being that the house is bermed where the kids will sleep. So on our permit we have it as a 1 bedroom residence ( we will have 3 kids and us). Our house will is VERY open , no load bearing walls except outer walls. This should allow for creative partitions that are not defined as a bedroom. Hopefully we can keep it low as in NY taxes are a major hurdle on our path of low consumption and self sufficiency..

Generally the equipment for off grid is more extensive but given your electric bill being so low maybe a 12volt system or something simple for lights and using your free gas etc might be the ticket.

I curious as to any other ideas you have (or anyone else) to lower accesement in NY also!!

jeff

#12 12/31/10, 04:50 PM

I also have free natural gas but mine is unlimited . It doesn't even go through a meter , just a regulator . I think maybe some people doesn't grasp the idea . For instance someone mentioned splitting wood , heating water with a water cooled generator ect. If you have free gas there is no need to cut & split wood & a gas water heater heats your water for free . I have a gas furnace , water heater , range & clothes dryer . If I wanted to I could even have a gas refrigerator . Of course these things eventually wear out & have to be replaced but other than that it doesn't cost me anything to use them except of course the furnace has an electric fan & the dryer has an electric motor to turn the drum . I could even have gas lights if I wanted . I also have a generator that could be ran off natural gas in the case of a power outage .
I would love to generate my own electricity but with my heat , hot water ect. already using free natural gas my electric bill is small enough that it's not feasible to invest in alternative electricity .
I have no idea how much having grid tied electricity vs being off grid will affect your taxes but being grid tied & having free gas means you should have a very affordable electric bill . If you happen to be thinking of building in an area where it will cost you thousands to get grid power to your home site then maybe it would be feasible to think off grid . Otherwise I would be grid tied as I am now .

I see now that you have grid power fairly close . New York taxes & delivery charges are something I'm not familiar with . If I was you I might reconsider the idea of moving to another state .

FarmerRob · #13 12/31/10, 05:28 PM

If getting on the grid is not very expensive why not consider a grid-tie system. You use your own generated power during the day (from your solar panels and windmill) and at night (or whenever you are not generating power) you use the power from the grid. In most states the electric company has to buy your excess generated power and this offsets anything you use in the evening hours. Your bill should be between low and none depending on how much you generate. These systems are less expensive to have since they do not require replacing expensive battery banks periodically.

greg273 · #14 12/31/10, 05:54 PM

It really depends on a lot of factors. You mentioned natural gas, theres an energy source that you control. I'd definitely want a way to tap into that, if I had a gas mine on the property. As a backup to a combination solar/wind power set up, well that would be just about ideal.
The equipment to harvest all that 'free' wind and sunshine ISNT cheap, and you will find batteries to be an ongoing expense, something on the order of $20 a month replacement costs figured over thier average lifespan. (Again, depending on the size of the system you want).
You mentioned chest freezer, those things alone probably need 600watts of solar panels plus battery backup to function reliably day in and day out. I have a 1.1KW PV system on my house, with battery backup, and I've been running the generator a lot this winter. And I dont even have a deep freeze, just an energy-efficient normal fridge.
I found out I can have a powerline run to my place for $1600...I'm definitely going to do that. The electrical co-op around these parts installs services for less than cost. If I had been in a for-profit electrical service area, I'd looking at about $10,000 to get the power run.
Now a small solar or wind backup system might be a good idea, but if you have the grid available, its mighty nice to have basically unlimited electrical power at your disposal.

ErinP · #15 12/31/10, 06:08 PM

Quote:

I though lots of windows...

If this is your "passive solar design", you might want to do a little more research.

Too many windows will make it miserably hot. There's actually a formula for figuring square footage of the house and square footage of windows. With and without thermal mass.
Excellent resource on the subject: The Solar House: Passive Heating and Cooling
I referenced this book constantly while designing my house.

HermitJohn · #16 12/31/10, 06:08 PM

People get confused by fact that off grid equipment to produce EQUIVALENT amount electricity as normal on grid household would use is way too expensive unless you are wealthy eccentric living miles from nearest power line.

Thing is you dont really need that kind of power. Most on grid appliances are not very thrifty no matter some mythical "energy star" rating. There are more efficient versions that off gridders use though they tend to be pricey. Get your electric needs down to what you ACTUALLY need and for which electric is most efficient way to go. With rise in price of propane, kerosene, etc. Electric is best way to go for lighting. I think refrigeration too. Just decide whats important to you. Usually anything requiring use of heating elements or large motors is not going to be good to use off grid.

Many off grid people have one day a week they run a generator to power heavy consumption appliances/tools that dont have to be available 24/7. Dont need that everyday.

farmgal · #17 12/31/10, 06:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FarmerRob

If getting on the grid is not very expensive why not consider a grid-tie system. You use your own generated power during the day (from your solar panels and windmill) and at night (or whenever you are not generating power) you use the power from the grid. In most states the electric company has to buy your excess generated power and this offsets anything you use in the evening hours. Your bill should be between low and none depending on how much you generate. These systems are less expensive to have since they do not require replacing expensive battery banks periodically.

The power company actually frowns upon you doing so. It isnt worth their hassle maybe? they will charge you more for the return amount you use, than if you were to buy it outright. Not only that, it is a 3 phase system etc. this means when they are working on power lines in your grid, they have the right to come into your home and shut off your panel. so they wont get shocked. I dont like that idea. You dont get much for the power anyway. There is much more involved, to do that. Like the system has to then be installed by qualified joe shmo etc, certain equipment with outrageous price tags etc. it ends up costing more in the end.
There is a lot more bureaucracy about it, just being general, another thread maybe...lol

It is like, New Yorks incentive program to go off grid, they will give you like 10,000$ but require you to have it installed by their joe shmo and buy their stuff. That is so BS! I dont even want to go there.

Other states incentive programs say "recommended" to be installed by joe shmo". But not good ol' New york. I swear they think we are so stupid. This makes it so they can say, oh we are sooo green, we have incentive program...that no one can realy utilize without going into huge debt.

Give me a break, New York, get your head out of the sand and grow up!

lol

oregon woodsmok · #18 12/31/10, 06:15 PM

My opinion is that off-grid is for people who don't have access to electricity.

Get the house hooked up, then use some energy saving construction and install enough equipment so that you'll be comfortable in a power outage.

Use the free gas to heat the house, heat your hot water, run the dryer, and cook with. That eliminates the expensive electric stuff. I'd also see if I could get a couple of gas lights installed (if they even still make them)

Electricity is wonderful for the computer, working in the barn after dark (believe me, pulling a calf by the headlights of the car is not my first choice.), and the washing machine. While I know how to wash the clothes by beating them on a rock in the river, I refuse to do so unless there is absolutely no other choice.

farmgal · #19 12/31/10, 06:30 PM

ErinP. We have that book in our library. I have read lots of passive idea's. I am just saying, I would like lots of natural lighting. Too much heat isnt a big issue here. They do have lots of windows in the solar passive homes I have seen. they have them strategically placed, with shelves for summer blocking and when winter sun, at a different angle, the shelf doesnt block the light. I like the solar chimney idea.

If I go off-grid I will wire in dc lines, as well as ac, is what I was thinking.

Hermitjohn, stuff does seem expensive but I found a dc water pump and other gadgets at the camper/boat junk yard...lol dc takes about half the power of ac appliances.

I am picturing my son and I peddling stationary bikes to watch tv...lol

Or sitting in the dark...lol

jlrbhjmnc · #20 12/31/10, 06:41 PM

farmgal, can you get the electric run to the house but not turned on? Like have the pole and outside line and a spot (I don't know what to call the actual equipment) for a meter installed on the house but not have the electric company install the actual meter unless/until you need it? Having the house wired outside and inside for regular electric service would give you flexibility in the future.

Best wishes for good Spring and Summer weather for your construction!