on or off grid ?

You'd be surprised.
We have good friends that built an addition onto their house and added several south facing windows. The only time the room is comfortable is on days when it's below freezing. Otherwise it's too hot...

__________________
~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

~~ Waving from Western New York so I get your disdain for our power grid. Congratulations on your dilemma. If all goes according to my husband's plan we will be faced with this issue in 5 years.

When we build from the ground up we will do a mix of old school, on & off grid.
On grid because of resale (u never know plans change) and we do age.
Off grid for back up not just power failures but income loss/social unrest. That said I'd make my own solar applications such as those projects on Build it Solar. I'd do the solar hot water heater & the space heater. Currently we re purpose Christmas & garden solar lights with good results on the cheap.
Old school well because it usually works out to be so incredibly correct in every sense of the word. Take cold closets in a kitchen for example - you could use one for well over six months out of the year instead of a refrigerator. Root cellar is another. Decreasing your reliance on electrical appliances - can more then freeze, design your home for maximum ventilation instead of a/c, ect.

Since we will be building what we believe will be our last home we will be incorporating handicap elements such as a wheel chair ramp, wheel chair accessible kitchen cabinets, shower, hand rails. It will be a one story cabin with a sleeping loft & a wrap around porch. Russian fireplace. Sun room off the kitchen. Solar heated radiated floors. 4 foot high raised beds in the garden.



~~ pelenaka ~~
http://thirtyfivebyninety.blogspot.com/

Since you are building new you will have control of site selection , orientation of home to summer & winter sun & with proper roof overhangs you can take advantage of the winter sun & block out the summer sun allowing you to use a lot of windows .

Adding lots of windows in completely different than designing a solar passive home. It is funny you tell me to do more reading. Seems to me you need to do more reading. It is the basics of SP. The roof shelf design. Did your friends strategically place the windows at certain angles, under a much longer roof shelf? Open any good SP book and the 1st idea is like here:

http://www.soundhome.com/article/passive-solar-heating

But thank you for thinking of me...lol

WVhillbilly You hit the nail on the head. I have been watching that spot to build now for 12 years. It is the best location of my 75. I am in a valley. A small hill is on the west side, woods on the east, open north and south. It is not up against the woods either. Pretty much I would plop me right in the middle of a hayfield, well, after much bulldozing unfortunately.

Yes that "industrial" type generator will take a bunch of bucks up front, . . . .but a good one is going to last a Long time. . . .Running on nat gas they run very 'clean' and there fore--taken care of--have a long life..
Put it in a a very innocent looking *garden shed*.
A Battery bank and a inverter for overnight quiet time. . . . .
A good install and gen noise will not be an issue....

From a good friend of mine in NY state and what you have posted here, I would not at all mess with "back feeding" the grid. . . .
Its pretty obvious that the utility doesn't want you to . . . . .

Another advantage of running a *free fuel* generator is in the summertime you could run a window air conditioner...........

Yup . . having lots of *free fuel* can really help off set those nasty taxes .........

I personally, would go off the grid. My feeling is Screw the comapanies and screw the governement, they both want to bleed us dry. If you heat with your gas source and make your electric with solar panels then you are all set up for old age, because your heat is free and, other then clearing and cleaning the panels, the solar panels pose no serious physical labor. make your house as close to size as the gas you get for free can heat the building, there is no sense in building too big if it is just two people there, and there is no sense in wasting time and money to pay for the extra heating for a bigger house.. Also, insulate and weather proof the building the best you can to keep the heat in.

I heard that you could side your house with tar paper and it would bring your tax estimate down. maybe that will work.

I live in NY also, we are headed for serious dark times here, so buckle down and get ready for them. Remember how bad things got in the 70's and 80's here, at least down here in the city? Well, they are coming back, it is just taking some time to manifest. The State is almost bankrupt.

I suggest insulating during the winter. I did this, and it proved helpful. You can feel the drafts and the deeper cold spots and you can work on them until the drafts and chills go.
I got my apartment to a year round ambient tempiture of 68, so I only needed heat when it droped under 20 or cooling when it went over 80. The first winter after I made this change to my insulation I only used my heat once all winter. The next year twice. In the summer all I need is a fan.

Turn your heat and cooling off in the winter and summer and then measure the tempiture, that will give you the true tempiture of your home.

Our next house will be passive solar, super insulation and completely off gird. As I go into retirement I have no intentions of relying on the future of the grid or it's increase in cost. I want the control of my destiny.

Nope. They just "added lots of windows" which is what you said you were doing.
My apologies for trying to be helpful.

I promise, I won't think of you anymore.

__________________
~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

Free gas, WOW. I would go off grid. My free energy is 24 volt micro hydro from a gravity fed spring. We also have 2 little 12 volt solar panel systems. We live comfortably in a 16'x24' cabin with 12 volt lights and a 24 volt 5.8 cuft chest refrigerator. We also have a springhouse and fruit cellar. Big windows in the right places, shaded by trees in summer and wide roof overhangs works good in a passive solar cabin. Being less than 400 sqft there is no property tax assesment. We use several 12 volt appliances, cell phone, tv, netflix, Ipods, battery powered tools, etc. We do have a very small generator that can charge the battery system, all wired right in. So simple with 12 volt. We have no 110v power. It all depends on what you are willing to live with. We don't feel deprived, we have what we need and live within the constraints of our enviroment. We love the freedom of living off grid. No "power" bill....James

Ding, ding, ding....we have a winner here. For me it is _when_ not if I get the opportunity to build an off grid place. Most posters in this thread seem to skim over the delivery fee that the OP has mentioned both on their bill and their neighbors bill. $70 + a month for _DELIVERY_ not usage. I'll be doggone if I would pay $70 a month PLUS the surely associated taxes if I didn't absolutely have to.

The delivery fee must be a state thing or maybe certain power companies charge this fee . I don't have this charge . My electric bill never runs over $50.00 a month & the highest bills I get are in the summer when the central air conditioning is running . This is why it's not feasible for me to generate my own electric .
From what I've read , at one time gas air conditioning in residential sized units was fairly common . The smallest I can find now are 5 ton units which are too large for my needs . I sure wish there was smaller units available .

James, your homes sounds exactly what I am looking build in five or ten years. Do you have any pictures to share?

Also, what about storage in the home? Do you have enough closets? Do you have a seperate shed for your tools and workshop? Did you dig a basement onto the cabin?

Thank you.

I agree with TNAndy...On Grid for now...Grid Tied Solar with battery back up as you can afford it. If I were in that position, that is what I would do.

Unfortunately, the power company wanted $50,000 plus clearing the right of way in the late 90s to run power to my parents place...it would have to be much higher now.

You can't get cheaper power than grid power...even at double the current electric rate--especially if you want to run AC or some machinery.

Delivery and service charges really get my blood burning too. Here, you pay $30 for the basic connection fee to be hooked up tot he city water and sewage, then they charge for water used and then times that water usage by three to calculate your sewer charge.

I dumped my phone land line because I paid $30 a month for connection, service charge, taxes, FCC taxes and all the other fleecing these butt-heads do....then I would make $1 or $3 worth of calls a month. The plan I signed up for was the basic plan, the lieing salesman for the phone company told me it was a $14 monthly package. They are snakes, they know the total of the bill will come to $30, yet they say it cost $14........that is just trickery.

I have a track phone now, I pay as I go, and some years I pay $80 some years $100. I got the magic jack also, and it actually does work.

The fees are an end run around the state utility regulatory board that sets rates. They cant raise rates without approval so they add service/connection fees to get the money they want.

__________________
"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

We were off-grid here for seven years and decided to tie to the grid two years ago. It was a great decision. Our power bills are super low and we can run heat tapes and trough heaters with no problems in the extreme cold like right now.
When the grid power goes down (like it did a few times in the storm a few days ago) we kick over to our solar power and batteries with genny for backup.
Best of both worlds.

A utility room with an 8' closet on 1 side, laundry sink and broom closet on the other gives a lot of storage. Not much kitchen, 4' of overhead cabinet, old cast iron sink hung on a wall beside a wood cook stove, a large pantry and a 3' island/prep center. A 6'x8' cellar/fruit house for storage also. I do have a workshop 8'x12' with a passive solar leanto greenhouse on the concrete block end wall for heat. No pictures, no camera. No basement. I do have an interior heat/cooling chimney that draws cool air from under the cabin during warm days, it also holds and disperses heat in the winter with a 2' sq. insulated plug. An 8'x12' outdoor pavilion with summer kitchen and a custom built wood burner lets us can, smoke and grill year around....James

ErinP: No, I love your advise. dont stop I'm just fun' in

jwal, this is very useful info, I have another meeting with the building code guys,
Last visit they told me no homes under 900 sf. They even tried to tell me no windmill, I said that isnt true, he had a list of approved windmills, mine is that Air one, real common, it was on the list...lol. What a dork. Most the stuff he told me wasnt even true, I found out later. They make it up as they go. There is a new guy there now, I will see what he has to say this week. When they lie to you, how do you trust and work with him after that? Maybe he was fired.

Lisa, that is useful info also. What did you heat with when you were off grid? What was your biggest electrical consuming appliance? Heat tape, I use that stuff. These are the things I think of, the convenience and unlimitedness of on grid vs the limits of off grid.

This is like a big nightmare... lol It took a year to make the decision to stay...lol (Dad got cancer and passed in that time) I have to make the off/on grid decision in a month, I need my plans at my architect friends so he can draw them up and I can go back n forth with the building code guys and be ready for breaking ground asap. I dont want to be in this camper in the barn next winter...lol

You can read and understand the whole system and theories and still not know actual use realities. It is fear of the unknown.

I cant wait to have a pantry!!

I've got an off-grid friend who went that way because he couldn't see paying to run lines to his house just for the privilege of paying a monthly bill and being at the bottom of the priority list every time there's a blizzard. So he spent even more money and hasn't had an electric bill or a power outage in years. If I were building, I'd probably be off grid.