Hi D-A!!
The cabin we have is fairly small, 800 square ft. So at first all we needed was lights, music, movies and computer. We also charged the battery operated tools.
I started with two medium grade panels that I bought used, $200 for the first $150 for the second. This was a great deal for what I got. I was in the right place at the right time and met some people that needed the money more than the panels.
Then I bought two car batteries. $70 each.
Then $90 for a nice new charge control module. You have to have this or your batteries will over charge.
Then I bought a cheap power inverter to convert the batteries to AC current. About $35 from Lowe's.
So that's around $600
As time went by I added two batteries. This basically doubled my "amp time'. In other words, with two batteries I could run lights, music etc. for about 8 hours. with 4 batteries now I'm up to 16 hours with the same load.
I also bought two more power inverters and had them supplying juice to three different zones in my house.
One for the bathroom, one for the kitchen area, one for the living/sleeping area.
This is not enough juice to run washing machines and things like that but it's better than reading by candle light. The next upgrade would be a high output inverter for appliances and 4 more batteries. For some reason you have to have 2,4,8,16,32,or 64 batteries, I had it explained once but it's over my head. Most modern houses would want 32 batteries at least. but we were roughing it.
We have a generator to crank up if we needed real juice like for my power tools.
It was really easy and I'm no genius I assure you.
The hot water was just a matter of running the water through black pipes on my roof, you'd be surprised how hot it got even in the winter.
edit
on 13-9-2012 by tanda7 because: (no reason given)
edit on 13-9-2012 by tanda7 because: (no reason given)
