Getting Started - need some info

[BCHomesteader]

Hi, I just found this forum as we are just in the process of starting to "homestead" 159 acres of bare land in the mountains of BC. My husband and I have always wanted to leave the corporate world and live a "simpler" life (yes I realize it is a lot of hard work, but it is not the corporate world and the issues that go with that), so we recently found a really good deal on 159 acres of "bare land". The land was homesteaded at one point in the 1800's - but other than a couple of old out buildings there is really no sign that anyone has ever lived there.

Initially our plan was to take 5 - 10 years to build and get everything setup out there while we continued to work, however, after spending 3 1/2 weeks out at the property over Christmas / New Years both of us have agreed that the timeline needs to be a lot quicker, we are now looking at clearing a build site over the remainder of the winter and are hoping to build a log home in the spring / summer and move out there permanently as of the beginning of July this year.

There are a few issues we are struggling with however, the biggest one is frozen products - we will be 100% off grid and currently only have a small (30W) solar panel and a few batteries, which is enough for our average daily needs in respect to running the propane fridge and lights, however I know that it is not enough to run a freezer. We have done a ton of reading and research, what I can't seem to find is viable options for frozen goods other than running a freezer which takes a fair amount of electricity - which is at a premium at least until we figure out better power generation. Does anyone have an ideas or experience with how to deal with this?

The second one is obviously power generation - sun during the winter is a challenge at the property - however at the build site we have picked we will get sun during the winter - although even that is not a lot. We thought about wind power generation - however, we don't get much (if any) wind due to the tall trees and the protection from the surrounding mountains. Our next possible solution is micro-hydro power generation as we believe we have a creek on the property (not that we have found it as of yet) - after 3 1/2 weeks we haven't even made it across the property due to the amount of fallen timber, dense forest and 3 feet of snow - but finding the creek should be easier come spring when the snow has melted. Other than sun / wind and water does anyone have any ideas for power generation adequate to support a small family with small farm?

I am sure we have a ton more questions, however those are the ones that we have thought of so far. If anyone has any other helpful information or items that we may not have thought about we welcome any information from those who have experience with this. I'll be honest, although I grew up on a farm we had grid power, natural gas and all the conviences of modern life, this is a very new concept for us but we are really excited and understand that we will be in a constant learning curve for the rest of our lives .

Thank you in advance for any help!

[Ross]

Hi and welcomet to HT. Looks like your first post got caught by the system here due to its length. It automatically holds back longer messages from first time posting members in case its spam. Sorry about that! If you have any future problems please feel free to contact me.

Oh and check out the Alternative Energy forum here on HT for some ideas on off grid living.

[nduetime]

Welcome! It sounds like you have a very interesting piece of property and quite and adventure ahead of you. Sorry I am not knowledageable about alternative energy sources but hey...there is a forum for that! lol. There are tons of different types here that can give advice on many different things. I think you will love it here. Again, welcome!

[rockhound]

Welcome to the forum. Some compromises might have to be made as far as frozen foods go. Since the place is in the north, maybe a cold room can be set up to allow frozen meat etc to be kept just over the winter each year. We used to hang hams outside in winter in TN zone 6. We have too many warmer spells for that now tho. Again, welcome and good luck!

[Bob Huntress]

If I may start with welcoming you to the board BGhomesteader, I'll get right to my take on your questions. You know that there are propane freezers, which are not even that rough on the gas? Some have been reported to maintain temps with only 100gallons of propane a year in the northern part of our country. I'm sure that the results in British Columbia would be comparable. To be honest, many meat processors in America, and I'm sure Canada, use absortion refrigeration for getting the cooling quickly and cheaply. You could also reduce your freezing by canning, though you would still need to freeze some.

I am a big fan of wind power. Don't dismiss wind, simply because you don't feel wing, either. A windmill can be raised to a height higher than the surrounding trees. After all, that is where the constant winds are, anyway.

Another source of intermittent power that I am hear good of is wood fired steam boilers and generator sets. The downsides include, however firing the boiler up hours before it is able to generate any power. What I am hearing is that if you intend to have electricity on a given morning, you must start lighting fires that morning before. Another issue is that of all the folks who have mentioned their use such a system everyone has had to fabricate the boiler and steam engine. To the best of my knowledge, a usable rig for home/shop/farm use is not commercially available. I suppose a generator could be coupled to the old steam engine of an old tractor with a steam engine. It would need to be geared up or down to the proper speed, but for the purchase price it may be more cost effective to just build one. I've considered building one, yet, from listening to those who have done so, I am not that impressed. It may be something to consider, yet, the power to wood comparison doesn't sound great to me.

I will say that if you can maintain an affordable supply of propane, you could generate lots of power with a standard engine powered generator. The Ford 2.3 four cylinder engine converted to propane can produce more electricity than you and your husband are likely to use as long as you are able to govern the speed.

I would like to share this with you as a matter of importance. Refrigeration compressors are sensitive to frequency of electricity more so than many loads in your home. Whatever source of electricity you and your husband use to run your freezer most maintain proper hertz. If you are generating the power, I am refering to the speed of the prime mover (the generator's engine). This is what determines the frequency of AC electrical current. Like I said, the hermetic compressors used for freezers, as well as air conditioners, are very sensitive to this.

[Tricky Grama]

Welcome, you'll love it here.

Patty

[BCHomesteader]

Thank you everyone for the warm welcome!

Bob, you mention that if I can get above the trees, wind power maybe an possibility - however, according to the weather network, and what we have experienced - we only get about 5 - 10km/hr (3 - 7MPH) winds in the area majority of the time - are those wind speeds enough to even contemplate wind power?

As far as propane - although yes we do have a few things running on propane - we are trying to keep our fuel costs as low as possible on a regular basis - we will even be doing most of our cooking on a wood stove.

Our plan is to use whatever power generation we have to charge batteries and then work off 1 or more inverters to power the house. So I am hoping that we shouldn't have a huge issue with the frequency of the power....

Again, thank you everyone for your warm welcome!

[rambler]

You have the age old question, and you will get many answers, some will not apply to your situation, but we all have to guess some of the details.....

How much refrigerator and freezer space will you need? (Yup, I know, you're starting out, you don't know either, that's always the fun of starting out, you don't know, you ask for help, and what do we do but ask you questions right back that you don't know either....)

I'd think you will be putting in a battery/ inverter setup, and have a propane powered generator to run during heavy loads and once a day to bring up to full charge.

That will be the backbone.

Adding solar panels as you can afford will make the generator runs less and less frequently.

A small windmill can be added to help in windy periods, but it sounds like a poor fit for you and rather than adding a new technology, your money will be better spent on more solar panels? Might be a neat thing to add down the road a ways.

It sounds like the micro hydro is in the same class, if the water is that remote and small it might be a bit of an upkeep hassle for the few summer months of use you get out of it. See if you got a steady flow of water before laying out a few 1000 feet of wire.....

There is an energy forum on this site, there are some real good solar folks that visit that section more than this one, you might catch them quicker there.

They will ask you how many watt hours you use a day, and so forth, so you'll get the questions again, but it helps make a person think and put the idea into order. Off-grid living is a real study in living according to your system, not just turning on switches and expecting everything to work. It's more about figuring a way to save a few watts, than about building a bigger setup. You probably know that.

Sounds like a neat spot you got, and a life's adventure building it up. Sure hope you get the power and Internet connection to keep visiting here when you get there.

Paul

[BCHomesteader]

Thank you Paul!
I am not thinking I will need any more refridgeration / freezing than I currently have. We currently live in a small town about an hour from the nearest city, so shopping for extended periods is something we already do. We currently buy a side of beef a year, do a lot of fishing, buy chickens from local producers in bulk, etc - so most of the time I already have a significant amount of food in the freezers and I am currently running two small chest freezers plus a large fridge. However, our plan is to use the root cellar for a lot of our refridgeration needs and use a small propane fridge for the items that have to be kept colder than the root cellar will allow.

We worked it out the other day, and as best we can figure, to keep the freezers on and the lights on we need about 1KW/day at minimum, but then I don't get any of my electric kitchen appliances.

We do have a 3,250 gas powered generator that we use as necessary to recharge the batteries when alternative power doesn't replenish everything we use. We were out there for 3 1/2 weeks over Christmas and we ran the generator 4 or 5 times for a few hours each time - just to recharge the batteries, but I didn't have freezers, it was just the lights and the propane fridge (which takes a small amount of power as well).

The reason we are hoping that micro hydro will work, is we do have a 25 acre lake on the property that creek fed and also has a creek outlet. From the volume of water at the outlet (which is on the neighbors property) it appears we should have a pretty good in flow of water as well, so if we can divert part of it - use it for power generation and then put it back into the creek to continue to feed the lake that would be ideal.

As far as "power and internet" go - as of just before Christmas they finally put up the cel tower in the nearby area - and we actually have cel signal out there - which means we have internet (when I plug it in), it was a really big change to go from "civilization" where you have phone and internet all the time, to having to drive 20 miles to get cel signal, I was really happy when I got back to the property one day after plowing our road and the phone was ringing. So yes, we will still be online and around to keep visiting even once we get out there...I'm sure once we get out there we will have even more questions than we do now