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Don't know if it has been mentioned but the chevy bolt has a "camping mode" that will keep the car from turning off after an hour. I've used it before actually camping with my bolt. I would be shocked if the volt doesn't also have a similar feature.
@@NickHorvath internet search says to clamp the gear shift lever handle closed while in park and it will stay on. It's a work around but will allow the car to run. Only problem will be when the ICE starts up.
The kluge for the Volt is to use a ziptie to lock the shifter button down, bamboozling the car's computer to keep it running. GM should add the camping mode in a patch tho.
@@christopherwalker4585 Its not really a "problem". If the ICE has gas its effectively your backup generator, which is pretty nifty to have in an emergency.
Dave, as a broadcast engineer, we get around snow here in Ohio on C-band sat dishes with (drum roll) a pool broom. It extends long enough you can brush the snow from your panels. You can also wrap it in a clean cloth on nice days and clean your panels OR wax the sat dishes in preparation for winter ice and snow.
I've been using off-grid solar for a long time, you're gonna be very happy with this setup. For emergency backup, I bought a propane generator instead of a petrol one. Propane will last indefinitely and the tanks last for about 12 years.
Yeah the neglect factor is a big one. I see too many people buy the cheapest little 2 stroke and leave it in their garage with a full tank for a decade then wonder why it doesn't work when they need it to. Propane generators do cost more and obviously they still do require preventative maintenance but requiring much less maintenance less frequently is something all homeowners should consider.
I recommend everyone put CO detectors in the same rooms you sleep in, and where your fire detectors are… CO is such an insidious gas, it’s not worth risking it, and isn’t to expensive to install.
I live in Canada and draining the water line when the house is cold is something my parents taught me when I moved out. One thing to keep in mind is that the pipes in the walls will be significantly colder than the room temp. You could heat your house but if it is not warm enough the pipes can still freeze. I have seen that happen in an older house even when the central heat is on.
That is why smarter builders made sure no water lines in outer walls. Even went as far to invent outside spigot with the shut off deep inside the house .
Yep that’s correct. Not only is the wet part inside but when you turn it off some of them automatically purge any residual water. That’s at least how my hose bib works. The water portion of the system is inside and it’s pretty cool when you close it you can see the water draining out from around the handle.
Houses usually have what is called a 'plumb wall' where all plumbing resides. If it happens to be on the exterior wall, you can be in trouble. If it's in the middle of the house, interior walls are usually not insulated and are impossible to freeze, if the house is still heated that is.
@@George196207 Older homes didn't have the benefit of such strategic thinking. We lived in a house that was built in 1904 for about 10 years and the outer wall did indeed contain lots of plumbing. We did update some insulation where it was possible, but in the coldest of the winter we would always have let a faucet or two drip.
Pro tip, fill it outside, wipe it down, bring it in and let the wick soak before lighting. Never add anything to the mix, even if the guy at the hardware store tells you it will make it smell like cinnamon.
We called this paraffin in the UK when I was a child. This was pretty much our only source of heat. We didn't have Carbon dioxide monitors, but no one died lol. I actually have an industrial blower that I bought for a large work shop, it has a spark plug to ignite the fuel and will run on paraffin or diesel. It makes a fair amount of noise, so only good for a work shop. Where we used to buy paraffin they had a sign that read, not to be used as diesel.
@@anthonyga Right, a fire extinguisher is what was missing in the video. Also, the main threat is from carbon monoxide as it is irreversibly blocking hemoglobin sites for binding oxygen.
Another interesting quirk to consider is that there was an immediate run on generators in TX - they were sold out everywhere for months after the outage
@@nateman10 definitely! Most people don’t though which is why my dad before he retired used to see a crap ton of them come into his workplace every year because they were not properly taken care of. Mostly leaving the fuel in them and forgetting about it
@@nateman10 I use my gas generator for camping, and I just use the leftover fuel when I get back if there is any for my lawnmower as I put a drain valve on my tank with a hose that can go right into a jerry can, but if I do store something that has a bit of fuel in it, then I add STA-BIL, and they claim 24 months, but the longest I've stored something with fuel in it was my boat, and RV for about a year, and with the STA-BIL the fuel was still good in both(just kept a battery maintainer on both, and they fired right up first time).
@@nateman10 Another factor people don't consider is starting a generator is more difficult in the cold than normal temperatures. This has been a problem in Texas where industrial back-up power systems failed to start because all the testing and maintenance was done at warmer temperatures.
Thats cool. I was also wondering if they could have water cooling. I remember on a LTT video that solar work better when they are cooler. Im guessing in the winter they could to the opposite and heat the panels
@@pleasedontwatchthese9593 Heating water takes tons of energy. You could pump tons of cold but not frozen water through, but it'd be really inefficient.
Here in Japan, most people tend to have solar panels that both power the house during the day and feed power back into the grid thus lowering your power bills. Mine is about 300 khwh at its peak. I also have a battery back up system that kicks in when the power goes off which can happen in an earthquake and with that we can power two rooms of the house (which are the kitchen and the living room). All toll with govt subs, I paid around 5000 U.S for it.
After the desired load wattage is calculated a properly designed off grid system would be run primarily with a bank of suitable batteries. Lead-acid batteries were favored at first but other battery technologies have come into play. The batteries would run one or more inverters to directly power the house. Appropiate solar panels would be installed tp charge the batteries and since neither solar or wind is 100% efective a portable backup generator could be used to charge the batteries. Finish all of this off with an automatic transfer switch and you've got a very good off grid power supply.
I'm 25. I probably won't be a homeowner for a few years, but I get really excited every time you make these home improvement videos because I just learn more and more about the thing you could do, and the things I myself would like to do to prepare myself with Texas' unpredictable weather. Cheers from Fort Worth!!!!!
4:46, for anyone wondering, I've been running this setup for at least a year. The 2000w (4000w peak) pure sine inverter is on 24/7 (though not under CONSTANT load). As David mentioned, it 100% powers my home office/mancave including that 5000 BTU window A/C. When using the A/C, I have it currently cycle 30 minutes on, 15 minutes off between around 11a-4p. I have my central A/C OFF between 9a and 4:15p most days I'm home alone in said office. It's been a great setup and has helped keep fans, TVs, computers, etc running during a few brief outages. I could go on with some details, but I will just mention that you get what you pay for with inverters. Spend a little extra on pure sine and a little extra from there on a quality brand. Also, go ahead and get the 3 year (or whatever) extended warranty for an extra ~$20 if you plan on 24/7 operation. Those 3 small panels are currently stored in the attic. At the time of that drone shot, they were used to keep my lawn/power tool batteries topped up between uses. Now I keep them charged off the main panels because 780w of panels is actually excessive for my daily needs. The same panels power everything on that patio too (TV, lights, etc....) The storage battery is a 200ah (~2500wh @ 12.8V) LiFePo4. It more than powers basic electronics throughout the night. Higher draw devices will of course need further power rationing considerations. I also have the inverter powered "zones" in my Alexa ecosystem. "Alexa, turn on/off Studio/Patio/AC/etc." Which means I can also turn them ON/OFF remotely through the app. Handy if I'm away and forgot to turn off the A/C for instance. My fiber modem and wifi are on backup UPS power. At the time of typing this, I'm generating ~600w of power and pulling ~550w powering my A/C, laptop, 32" monitor, audio interface, 7" studio speakers, etc...so my battery is very happily cruising along at 13.6v. Within 2 minutes of the A/C powering off, I'll be at my user-set full-charge of 14.2v. Also, in a "bug out" situation, I can bring some components with me to keep the EV charging to the tune of ~40 miles per week. Not a lot, but essential when only a few miles can mean the difference between life or death and gasoline is not available. Having at least some form of energy independence is key.
EV's are the apocalypses best friend, they will keep you alive with a few solar panels around, a gas car is gonna need you to go out there. and get what everyone else is getting, gas. I dont wanna be shot at trying to get gas in a chaotic situation, so I'll be home with my panels and my EV.
@@chrisw443 EVs definitely hedge your bets. With enough money you could even get a 10,000w 240v inverter, a 48V+ battery bank, and enough panels to charge at 7Kw+ from virtually any location.
@@iKingRPG If someone offered a hybrid truck that had a ~10kW class fuel-tolerant/easily tunable diesel genset built in but otherwise an electric drivetrain buffered with a reasonable size battery pack, I'd at least be interested. Of course it'd probably cost as much as a loaded heavy pickup so I'd be priced out too, but the flexibility of running on whatever form of "juice" I can find, be it electric from panels, electric from the grid, (bio)diesel, jet-A, or light fuel oil, combined with the vastly simplified electric drivetrain would be excellent. You also get a beefy generator that can power a substantial welder, or your whole house.
I DIY'd my own backup power system for around $4500AUD and it can power the entire house, including central AC and the hot water heater 2 5kw inverters in parallel 25kwh lithium ion battery bank 3kw of solar panels El-cheapo 1500w grid tie inverter for backfeeding to turn my electric meter backwards (mostly to zero out the usage when the guy comes to read it after a crappy winter or whatever)
Growing up, we used kerosene heaters to supplement the heat in our house. They made EVERYTHING stink. I never noticed at the house, but would notice whenever I'd leave the house and would open my backpack. I get having it as a last resort, but I would personally prefer to use propane as it's exhaust doesn't stink. Great episode!
They're also literally an open bucket of burning liquid fuel. I've used many of them for many years, and currently own two myself, but they're my absolute last resort. Propane is far and away a better solution. Propane is a lot easier to find too. I keep the kerosene heaters around primarily because they can be loaned out to others without me really losing any capability.
Uh..... just in case somebody sees this and thinks "gee, I'm ok with a little smell if I don't freeze...where can I buy a kerosene heater?" DO NOT RUN KEROSENE HEATERS INDOORS. Kerosene heaters produce carbon monoxide, and they destroy indoor air quality which can impact your quality of life, or even lead to lung diseases. Many people think they'll just run them at night during an outage so they can keep warm in an outage. The problem is that is exactly when you are most likely to asphyxiate yourself or give yourself carbon monoxide poisoning. You don't want any flames in your living space, especially something so dirty as kerosene.
@@WarrenGarabrandt David covered that in the video by stating, clearly, that you need to run a monoxide detector as well. Absolutely no one should be considering radiant kerosene as an everyday heating solution.
@@TheBrokenLife That "open bucket of burning liquid fuel" is totally safe. You could throw a lit match into a bucket of kerosene and it would extinguish as if it were water.
For emergency, hanging wool quilts or thick curtains on the walls and over the door as well as putting several layers of bubble wrap over the windows, can diminish heat loss significantly. I live in an old house that's not exactly well insulated, so stuff like that has come handy when the quicksilver drops below -20ºC and the wind howls in the trees.
Maybe he doesn't have them but when his power went out my first thought as someone who's winterized houses would have been to shut off the water and bleed the lines before leaving, in fact where his water line burst was exactly why I have a dedicated shut off to turn off the water to the outside faucets because I've had that freeze and burst a couple of times on a fully winterized house
@@AsbestosMuffins What's worse, is people in the South West don't seem to learn those lessons. I follow a YT couple building a container home down there, that had their water supply freeze and blow lines and water heater 2 years running. Simple heat tape, purging the lines, etc, would have prevented the issue both years. Instead, they were without water for days both times. Granted, heat tape may be overkill, but shut off the supply line and purge it is not unreasonable to prevent blow out damage, until the temperature comes back up. I'm a belt and suspenders guy in the Mid West, heat tape on a thermostat, cutoff valves for feeds to outside lines, etc. When REALLY cold (-20F or lower) all lines in outside walls get cut off. Cheap insurance.
Wise choices, solid logical analysis. Build some sort of long pole that will allow you to knock the snow off your panels during snow. My only suggestion. Like a long piece of 3/4 inch PVC pipe. You just need to get the snow to start moving, and due to the angle of your roof, the rest should just slide right off. You just need to break the sticktion of the snow at the bottom edge of the panel.
A good mix of different technologies is the way to go, in order to minimize a single point of failure and for redundancy. But then again, if noone else (or few) people have backups, you'll be the only person with power, it's gonna be lonely on the internet. lol
I appreciate your mathematical and analytical approach towards comparing each option and exploring further extensions with the direct alternatives. Great channel, pure content, Your enthusiasm makes me want to learn more to get the same sensation setting up my own inverter or power relay or solar panel in series or parallel, as well as monitor them. Thank you for your content!
Actually, considering energy prices are going up, the payback time may be less than you expect. I am curious how the battery holds up over the years though, so maybe you could do a follow-up in a couple of years.
I know a dude with gigantic solar panels and its still not enough to run his entire house, thinking off the top of my head I'd say he has around ten of em like ten by ten foot, my math could be off a little regardless they are huge and like I said, its not enough.
Looking like you might get your first test of that this week, Dave. Hope you guys weather it out - up here we're supposed to have subzero windchills and nearly 60 MPH winds... Kinda praying I don't have work on the day it swings through. I'm off until January after that.
17:19 as an enviromental engineering student, that is even better because it measures in PPM (parts per million) which i personally prefer over umol/mol. but for gas heaters it's recommended to buy a CO alarm similar to a smoke detector (or this is what they told us, but we're using gas for everything. cooking, heating, etc. it might be unnecesary for a small heater though)
I was going to suggest this - I'm in the UK so we use primarily gas for heating so it's fairly normal to have a CO alarm - thus they are pretty cheap. The benefit being if you are asleep or unaware of a buildup you get a warning. CO poisoning causes confusion and sleepiness so if you had a buildup you may not be in a position to read and interpret numbers. Also a large majority of CO deaths happen when people are sleeping (I have no figures to back that up but I have read this is the case.)
If you have a hybrid car, using an inverter gives you a great generator option. The car has a rather large fuel tank, the engine only kicks in when the battery needs recharging and there is no separate maintenance. Worked great with my Toyota hybrid, as it doesn't turn itself off.
if you wanted to automate it, you can set up a heater behind to solar that turns on when its cold and your generating less power then you should. if blanced and cycle it right you can have a net increase in power
A regular floor sweeping brush on a long stick should do fine. Works even if all batteries are flat, provided you still have bodily energy to use it outside in the cold.
@@nuthenry2 I have been meaning to test that with an old solar panel I have. If you hook up a voltage to the panel they act as Infrared LEDs. So you may not actually need a separate heater. You would have to bypass the panel bypass diodes though.
@@nuthenry2 I'm betting they make panels that have heaters built in. In fact, don't solar panels _need_ to be maintained at a certain temperature range in order to be at peak efficiency, like batteries?
I've been flying RC models for many many years and finally "gifted" myself a cargo trailer to carry all of them to the field and back. One major upgrade I'm adding is a solar panel setup. I have two panels on the roof running to a Renogy MPPT solar controller for two (2) 12v batteries (24 volt system). The batteries power a 24v, 2000 watt inverter for ALL the goodies in the trailer. I'm still learning about solar but can tell you I'm so glad I did. As a fellow Texan (who, unfortunately can count WAY more times I've lost power than you), I'd like to be prepared for that next unfortunate outage. Thanks for sharing your story - good stuff.
Went out to visit Christopher out at the Mansfield, TX location; loved conversing with him! Bought six 230W DelSolar panels, so glad you mentioned him! Apparently lots of people have called, but I was the first to actually go and buy them after this video release. 😅 Was a lovely 320 mile drive out to get them!
Just an FYI you need 400w to keep a room at a stable temperature without people in there. With you in there it may be less. Humans output about 100-120watts of heat. This is somewhat offset by energy lost when you open the door to go to the main house or get something from another room.
Small Advice for the Carbondioxide Meter. Dont put it to high, put it somewhere where it is at most waist height, preferibly lower. Carbondioxide and monoxide are gases that are heavier then air and if there is already enough in there to get up to a meter on eye height its already way to dangerous and you can get poisoned already.
CO is lighter than air, just slightly. If the meters are too low it is a danger. The dorms I am responsible for have outlets up high on the wall specifically for this reason.
@@one_b As always, it's a tradeoff. Carbon monoxide is lighter than air, but carbon dioxide is heavier. That's why a combination meter like the one shown isn't a great idea, you need to measure both, but no matter where you put it it won't be in the optimal position for each.
Theoretically you are correct. Practically no. The air mixes so quickly that it's farily spread even in your house. That's why modern smoke alarms have co2 detectors, and that works fine.
(One of) The main reasons why CO meters are usually are at waist height is because the biggest risk for CO poisoning is when people are asleep. Also, CO mixes pretty well with the air, it isn't going to travel up like hot air/smoke during a fire. Most people don't sleep next to their ceiling so that's why you want to detect CO at the level you are laying in your bed instead of at the highest point in room.
We recently had a natural gas standby generator installed that has an automatic transfer switch and hooked up to our gas pipeline, so no tanks. It’s a smart, connected device and does biweekly self maintenance checks to avoid issues when needed and reports back to our phones and email, albeit yes it needs an oil change yearly and other maintenance through its lifespan, but it’s mostly simple and laid out really well for homeowner to do easily (not so much for my sub compact tractor). We know we won’t have the generator pay for itself, but we also live in the Canadian prairies and if their is an outage in the winter, the house freezes fast at -30. Summer we can have some longer outages too and we get 30-40 temps in summer too. However after watching this, it makes me want to move my solar panel wish list a bit higher priority and have that simple manual transfer switch in place for our AC in the summer to save on the bill and be a bit cleaner.
Good having a generator running on natural gas. For standby use petrol and also kero go off after time. A generator being able to run on LPG bottles would be good too.
6:56 Thanks for the heads-up on Midea U A/C units! I didn't know they existed and I've been in the market for a new window A/C. The Midea is *so* much better and quieter than the one it replaced ever was.
This was fun! I'm an engineer and this type of problem solving is absolutely what I love. I know it was a pain to go through that winter storm (by the grace of God I somehow never lost power during it, and I still don't know how that happened), but seeing you come up with all these solutions afterwards was very neat and while I'm in an apartment and thus can't easily implement a lot of these things, some of these will be really good to keep in mind. Good stuff!
If you kept the portable solar panels, in the event of snow, you could put those outside and clean the snow off them now and then to get at least some power during the day. Also, I'm a bit surprised your window unit isn't a heater too, as heat pumps are much more electricity efficient than resistive heat. Edit to add: Something to prop up the portable panels to angle them would help keep the snow off, not sure about these in particular units, but some even have a flap to help stand them up.
The only issue with heat pump setups is in very cold conditions - they warm inside by cooling outside, and vice versa - if it's snowing outside it's going to struggle to reduce the temp outside and therefore struggle to heat the room inside. At least in my experience, without snow but in 5ºC type conditions here in Australia.
@@darwiniandude Fair point. Still, would be handy with recouping the costs in non-emergency situations by using that instead instead of the resistive space heater. Hopefully window-split units start having some of the newer refrigerant mixes whose temperature ranges can go down (or higher) than the older ones.
This was really good from an informative standpoint. I’ve certainly started to warm up to the idea of PV panels as a supplemental solution, and even as an emergency solution. Mind food such as this really helps. We’ve definitely come a long way with battery technologies.
$2500 for that bluetti thing, electricity's around $0.09-$0.11 kwh in Dallas area...that thing's gonna need to continuously power that AC for 5.70 years to pay for itself (or: needs to produce on average 500w/hr). Heckin' expensive "free" air conditioning innit.
@@pandeomonia Sure. The point isn't that it's independently cost-effective. The point is that it provides a backup solution, and as a side-effect happens to be useful in the interim. The video goes on at length about this.
I really appreciate this video! It shows your thought process on implementing an affordable and practical solution for emergency power outages, with the bonus that part of the system is paying for itself over time. Also, one other option not covered in the video, that I recently became aware of, is natural gas powered home backup units from Generac. They tie into existing natural gas lines on your home, and are installed with a automatic transfer switch, so they will run indefinitely as long as your house is getting gas to it. These natural gas generators do fall under the category of requiring maintenance (oil, oil filter, air filter, and spark plugs).
I worked at Canadian tire in Ottawa when that did happen, It was great they did keep the store open and let us bring people via flashlight for what they needed, most stores did close. I am thinking of getting the batteries as 100k mah is 85$ and you need 50k mah to just get by for 1 day. Want to keep my hairless cats safe if that happens again.
Same in the toronto/ brampton area. I was on vacation with my dad at the time, but when I returned to ontario, there were still fallen trees all over the place!
Here in British Columbia we have out power knocked out by wind, snow, lightning, and bad drivers/trees several times a year, usually only for a few minutes or hours but it never hurts to be sure. Having good, charged, flashlights around the house is always good, and we have both a generator and a small solar system for backup too, pellet fired BBQ that can (and regularly does) cook plenty of food. With hydroelectric dams providing the power for my area (and selling some to the USA) and a power grid with a decent amount of redundancy though it takes extreme situations to knock our power out for even two days. Every region is different though, sure, we're equipped to deal with regular failures and recover fast, but clearly regions like Texas are entirely ill-equipped for such failure due to rarity
For house owners I would actually prep one room in the house to be highly insulated. Either a room in the basement or by using several layers of foamboard insulation (with the best R-value you can find), preferably highly insulated window(s) as well. Adding something like small a heat exchanger (2-way fan ventilation kind) you will retain 85% of the heat in the room while providing fresh air at the cost of 2W for the fan. If your family stays in that room each person emits 80-120W, that way It can often be passively heated. Add candles, a gas/alcohol stove for cooking, perhaps some lava rocks for heat storage. And you won't freeze.... If you live in a hot climate go for a small efficient AC unit + self contained solar system. The insulation works both ways, it will keep the room cool as well. Living in a small space isn't bad, especially if it is just a short period. For electricity I have two cheap 30 000mah power banks for phones+tablets + USB LED light. I also have a 12V+5V electric system which I can connect to a 100W panel and a car battery (just remove it from the car) The 12V system is more than enough to power laptops for "entertainment purpose", but I have never needed to use it. The two topped up USB power banks is usually more than enough to go through power outages.. Treat power outage like a VERY comfortable camping trip and it isn't bad at all to be honest.
@@shikkonin I mean, I'm a swede. for me, insulating the whole home is a given. But in this case I was looking at it from the perspective of how American houses are built and the climate in Texas. For people trying to prep for outages during the cold. Insulating one room with highly efficient celotex/kingspan insulation would help a lot without breaking the bank or become too much of a building project. In Sweden we insulate pipes with pipe insulation as well, and one idea is to off the water and drain the system during an outage. That way, no pipes will burst.
@@SilmarilS79 Northern Michigander here, we've had power failures during big freezes. All you do is turn the water off, drain the pipes. And only turn them on when you need to refill your water/bathe, which should be done all at the same time, when done, just turn the water supply back off, and keep the pipes freezing, we do this when winterizing our cabins for the season.
If you really wanna use candles for warmth you should put 3 of 4 of them under an upside down plant pot. The modern rogue done a good video testing a few things and iirc this was one of the better options
Absolutely love this video! Everything you have done I have also done, of course not every detail but all of your reasoning for doing what you did was mine also.
This is a GREAT primer. I've looked at basically all the options you've covered and came up with much the same answers. The transfer switch is a GREAT, useful and price effective option
Simply get yourself a decent grid. You are not a third world country, are you? How many outages lasting days have been in Europe for the last decades? I am spoiled? Yes, thank you but for a reason!
@@adamPhoebe It is probably wise to prepare for something in Texas a developed country would take infrastructure measures against. Did you even read my comment?
Compare the population density of the areas with infrastructure in Iceland to those in Texas, or many other parts of the U.S. Given the amount of lines required, and the fact that they are run by for-profit companies that generally perform the bare minimum of maintenance, you're making an apples-to-oranges comparison,
I have a neighbor that has grid tie with natural gas backup generator that may be used once in a whole year. With hydroelectric power being more iffy in drought areas, more people should get prepared. Although there is a bit of a "new" solar panel shortage. It is OK going used, but if you have limited space then higher output in less space is best.
During that big Texas freeze, we were on rolling blackouts but never lost natural gas so we could always cook and heat water. I actually used my lawnmower battery with an inverter to power my Internet router so we always had Internet access. This allowed me to keep working my job and the kids kept quiet too.
This actually answered a few questions I had for a planned future project that would be filling almost the exact same use-case as yours, so thank you for this
Now that you have all of the expensive other parts that go with the solar panels, it might be better to double or triple the number of panels to increase capacity and lower the break-even point.
I'm very glad you found beene energy. I was going to comment here recommending him, I purchased a 11 kwh battery and 3000w inverter mppt and a pallet of panels from him for off grid power, great guy for solar stuff and he has a youtube channel as well
Always keep in mind that prepping is never really "done." Technologies and alternatives are constantly changing. You might choose to change your battery system or your heating system when you discover something you find more efficient. That's a former midwesterner accustomed to weeks of being snowed in, having a means of limiting the exhaust of the heated air is important. No matter how well insulated the house is, heat will vacate somehow. Window coverings would reduce the rate at which the heat leaves the house. Some window coverings can be seasonal and made with a padding and applied to the outside of the house. These can also be DIY projects and done more cost efficiently. My point concludes with: never think you're "done."
The price of admission is high, but what you get out of it is definitely worth it, my man. ...and Bluetti is not the only brand out there for this sort of thing. Jackery and EcoFlow are also big players in the solar generator game.
One thing to remember about heating, is that the bigger the space the more heat you need. If you can break up the space somehow (drapes, curtains, or even putting up a tent indoors), you can drastically cut the amount of heating required to keep a space warm.
Re: TX's grid's reliability. Out where I used to live--in a more rural area about an hour from the nearest edge of a metropolitan area--we had a failure probably every year(-ish) for 20(-ish) years, although they were usually not for longer than an hour or two and were very, very rarely citywide. On the other hand, there have already been blackouts in some part of the state due to increased demand from hot weather... So that makes me excited for suffering through near 100 F temps without so much as a fan when the dog days roll around. My sympathies to all the folks out in the more desert areas and the concrete-island cities who will no doubt see 100+ temps this summer.
Here in Minnesota, I grew up in an older suburban neighborhood with fairly dense woods and a _lot_ of overhead power lines. We used to get 1 or 2 outages per year after storms knocked tree limbs down, but they almost never lasted more than a few hours. Our longest outage by far was from an ice storm in the mid-90s, when our power was out for a few days while the power companies scrambled to reconnect everyone. We had a gas stove and a wood fireplace, so we kept both going for heat, and used candles, flashlights, and a Coleman lantern for light. (i think Dad might've dug out an old oil lamp too.) The house stayed above freezing enough that we didn't have any burst pipes. And we had pretty crystal trees for most of the rest of the winter. 😎 These days, I live in a neighborhood where the trees are all farther from the power lines. Outages have been less than one per year.
Every house we had until now had a wood stove. Power failures where we lived before were common. As a result keeping a generator operational was not a problem (but the power outages were). We moved and our new house is all electric. The house we moved from had solar supplement power, but it had the problem that it didn't work during power outages. This is a good review of options. Thanks.
This was an interesting episode and it had its 8bitGuy flavor to it that I got used to back in around 2016-2017 when I started watching your videos. Are you following Technology Connections? He has a lot of interesting subjects that you might learn some to improve your system/choices.
I liked the fact he cleaned the panels, very much in keeping with his channel :). I’m sure the main thing that got me interested in retro computing and subscribed to channels like the 8 bit guy, Adrian’s digital basement, etc. was all the cleaning of circuit boards, CRT screens and computer cases!!
That's really interesting. I didn't know that we reached the point where a minimal setup of solar panel could run a few appliances like that. It's definitely worth considering as a permanent solution for some equipment.
@@OlivierCaron There are distributors that will ship them to you, though it is freight shipping, so like $300 minimum. It is worth it if you are getting more than a few, but for a small setup, having one within driving range is a big plus. You can also find them used on Craigslist, though you would want to test them first.
@@okinnivlek yeah, especially used ones. The channel "DIY Solar Power with Will Prowse" has a lot of videos reviewing various panels, inverters, batteries, etc. Many videos feature panels from used distributors.
Great video! Glad you find people who didn't flake on you on installing the panels. Eventually I may do the same thing once things are steady around here.
My sister had solar installed in her house in FL. For them it was difficult to find insurance and the Republicans lawmakers tried to pass a state bill to make owning solar more expensive than dirty energy. DeSantis vetoed it a month ago, thankfully.
Great info. great video. Another option you could consider in the future as an addition to your system is a propane powered generator. The propane lasts pretty much forever in it's tank. Probably safer to store too. The generator itself would need nowhere near as much maintenance due to the fact that there would be no leftover gasoline in the carburetor or fuel tank to gum up and destroy the rubber components in the fuel system. 99% of the time this is the cause of small engines not starting after sitting around for some time. You could also use any propane tank that you already had (Grill) as extra fuel if you needed it.
yea propane generators are pretty good ive got 2 generac that i use to keep my house going when the power fails, but they do have some faults... for 1 their starting procedure is a little complicated what with having to prime the system while starting in my case... 2 the regulators are so finnicky. in my case my generacs were cheap because they both had failed and wouldnt run and at the time they were only 2 years old with less than 120 hours run time and both failures were the regulators, i was able to get them going for absolute cheap because i was able to take the regulators apart and fix them myself, but its a noted problem which could be problematic for someone who may not have his power fail again for 5 years, also that only fixes the fuel issue, other stuff like oil changes, valve clearance adjustment, changing or checking the brushes, heck the battery for electric starting are all maintenance items that could still cause issues in the long run for causing a generator to completely fail to start during a power outage, i also did almost what he did where i bought one of these "portable" power inverters and hooked it up to solar, originally it was for my trailer so i wouldnt have to bring my generator with me every time i wanted to go camping or out to the dunes, but the system worked so well that i decided to add another to my home, is it as good as a generator, well that depends on where you live, around my house its fine during the summer and winter was doable, but i also live in a desert in california so we get lots of sun here too, and this system has the one true advantage of not needing any maintenance at all aside from maybe having to clean the panels if they get dirty, but in texas where they get monsoons and much more sky water not really a problem.
Exactly this. I have a dual fuel generator, and will only ever run it with propane for this very reason. Having a private well, and my well pump is 220V, that became the bare minimum requirement for any form of backup power, because running water is definitely higher on the priorities list than a lot of other things.
those space heaters are awesome, I had an old one in the garage and in the middle of the winter when it was really cold outside it was able to keep me comfortable in the garage that only had the roof isolated and the walls were concrete panels maybe an inch thick and with all that I could get it warm enough that I didn't need a jacket so the space heaters work really well.
Seems like a really good setup considering the relative "on the cheap" approach. One other thing you can consider if you want to improve livability in a power outage would be to install very low power LED bulbs or lighting strips near stairs, entranceways and the like. You could run them right off of a 12 volt battery that you trickle charge off the solar, so they are always ready to go and provide a certain amount of safety. You could set up a double logic switch that only powers them on in the dark and if power is off. So that way, in the case of a power outage, these small emergency pin lights could come on and make it easier to negotiate your way around the home. The next morning, you get enough light, they turn off, and then it can recharge from the trickle charger off the solar again.
There are still ways to make the setup cheaper, though. • If you want to keep solar panels working during winter, buy or make a long broom to remove snow manually or use ones that have a built-in defrosting heater. Cheap and will get you a few hundred watts for free during the day. • You can increase the efficiency of electric heating about threefold by having bought an AC unit that also works in reverse as a heat pump. These are only slightly more expensive and pay for themselves very soon.
That pretty much describes my setup. I have 4 large solar panels in my back yard (easier to wipe off snow instead of mounted on the roof) charging 2 large deep cycle batteries with a 1000 watt inverter, which in turn charges my 18v and 40v Ryobi batteries.I have five 8 watt 850 lumen LED bulb lamps (40 watts total) in my living room/dining room connected together. During power outages I plug those lamps into a Ryobi power inverter for unlimited light. Charging my Ryobi batteries on my solar system during the day and using my Ryobi inverters for light at night, I can go for weeks if I so need.
A guy I knew, probably back in the 90s because he was talking about CFL's not LED's, said every time small UPS's went on sale he'd buy more and use them for lamps, so they could run for hours if the power went out. I have a couple of little battery powered lights with a light sensor and a motion sensor so they only come on when the other lights are off and somebody walks by. They're in strategic spots so we can see if nothing else is on.
@@SiriusJMoonlight With LEDSs you can get a whole lot of light for very little actual power. They are generally pretty awesome overall. I have seen people take flush mount pot lights (the type that use to use halogen bulbs) and replace the bulbs with LED versions. Remove the transformer and run them straight on 12v, it's pretty amazing.
This is a good idea. If I ever get a house, I'll probably apply solar panels, just in case. Especially since Southeast Ohio has hilariously unreliable power. Seriously, the power often goes out when it's clear outside. It just goes out randomly. Us at my parents place have a kerosene heater because of this.
Look into mobile home parks in your area to start. The prices are much cheaper than a standard home and you can pay it off quick. Then you can start saving a nice big down payment on a regular house. The main thing is to stop paying landlords rent as quickly as you can......because it's basically throwing away money.
I'm in northeast Ohio and the same happens here. It might have something to do with the Ohio electic scandle that came out recently. Also, I think the power goes out in the middle of a sunny summer day because of the air conditioners. But in the last year it hasn't been as bad as previous. I mean hell 2 years ago I started collecting 1500VA battery backups and now I have 6 to keep all the PC's running and the 2 TV's.
6:56 Midea should make a version of that for horizontal sliding windows. Those are the standard here in Brazil and other countries with warmer climates. I bet it'd be very popular, as I know many people don't have space or money for wall units or splits.
Back in '94 we had an ice storm come through that knocked out power for us for a week. We ended up cooking everything on a grill. Eggs on the grill, toast on the grill, pasta on the grill... The best was the coffee; hickory flavored coffee every morning. I'm impressed with how cheap those panels are. Definitely saving the link for when I build a house later this year/early next (depending on things). Honestly, I'd triple or quadruple it, and use a bank for each room. Enough to keep a window unit/space heater going at least would probably save a ton on heating/cooling costs. Might have to buy a blue controller for each room, but the extra battery backup would be nice. Add in a few hefty UPSes for pushing things like laptops along, and you'd be able to run all night. I know my UPS I keep on my TV (I have cats, they get pointy when their Frasier is missed) has kept it on all day before, and my old laptop went about 4 hours on one during a power outtage once. It works fine for emulating stuff, so plenty of gaming to be had.
Re: Media U Window Unit - I bought one myself a year and a half ago. Dropped my power costs substantially, and I've never been cooler. It's super quiet, too. Absolute best-buy unit, period.
For emergency lighting, I went and bought $4 solar garden lights and replaced the 100mAh Nicad batteries with NMHI 750 mAh batteries which are around $4 for a 2 pack. These lights charge well and last for around 17 hours. You can leave them on all night and then just put them back in the window or outside for recharging.
You can upgrade to a 4 pack of solar lights with lithium cell inside of them for about $20 off of Amazon. You get around an 1Ah lithium battery or so in size with the lights. I would avoid the models that you have to slide a switch in the back for the different modes. Go for the ones that have a button in the front for selecting the light modes. You can also look into some COB LED camping lanterns that take 3 AAs. They usually come in 2, 4, or 8 packs sometimes on Amazon. They usually sell for $5 a piece in 2 or 4 packs(I wouldn't pay more than $5 a piece). There is no switch to use. You just pull the light part up to activate it. You can purchase inexpensive NIMH AA batteries and on regular Alkaline AAs I read it goes for about 10-15 hours. Amazon sells an inexpensive 12 pack of 2Ah NIMH AAs for $15 or less. Also use search terms like "18650 LED work light". There are very very useful Chinese lights that come with magnets and hooks built in that you can tilt. They usually have two LEDs that one can be used as a flashlight and other is a mini spotlight COB LED panel. Used them all of the time when working on my car. Battery life is about 4-6 hours depending on the model but they all come with an 18650 lithium cell that is pretty easy to replace. There is also portable floodlights that run off of 18650s built into the lights and most actually have a power bank function built in because they usually have quite the capacity(anywhere from 2-8Ah). My experience with those is that they have 4-8 hours of good light
Not a whole lot of light output with those lights for a home emergency. I would recommend using lights that use power tool batteries. I have several 18v Ryobi batteries for my cordless tools (drills, saws, etc.) so it makes sense to pick up a lantern or two that uses batteries for your brand of cordless tools.
@@kentyler3962 That's too expensive. You don't need 18v to power a flashlight or lantern, you are in fact wasting the power capacity of those power tool cells. My father thinks all of my rechargeable lights are way too bright. The lanterns I bought run off of 4.5v total of AAs and they light up a whole huge room in full. For about what you spend in two lanterns that run off of tool batteries you can buy easily 4-8 rechargeable lithium lanterns/flashlights. No need for a tool charger that runs off of AC either. They charge off of 1A 5V USB or sometimes 2A. Any phone charger or in this case, the big battery bank 8-bit guy is using has 5V USB sources that are more efficient for this purpose.
Many grid tie inverters can be used in power outage. They just require an internal automatic transfer switch. You don't need batteries for them, though it isn't a bad idea to have a smaller one like you have for nighttime. As for panels, the fancy ones are severely overpriced. Going the used route is amazingly cheap. As for the snow, you can just get a broom or something on a pole.
@@CM-mo7mv They tend to be not that old, a few years maybe, often less. With panels tending to last 25 years or more under warranty, 80%+ effective after that, a few years will be a tiny difference for saving 60-75% on the cost of them.
@@CM-mo7mv Used panels often aren't anywhere near old enough to even consider that as an issue, around 10 years old on average and panels only degrade upwards of 1% per year, so we're only talking about a 10% power loss and at those prices you could easily afford to buy four (or 860W of solar) or more panels for the cost of a single new 240W panel, there is zero contest value wise, just about the only reason to spend more would be space constraints such as putting panels on his studio.
@ vganesx1 That is false. There's a very good reason those panels are used and that much cheaper. PV panels have a lifespan anywhere between 10-25 years depending on multiple factors, no least of which is the manufacturer, materials used and environment they're used in. The cheaper solar systems come with panels with an average lifespan of 10-12 years, by then they've degraded to a point where they need to be swapped out for the system to function. That's when they enter the used market. The panels with a 25 year lifespan are still attached to people's houses after 10 years because they haven't degraded enough to warrant being swapped out. Consider these 4x300W used panels were producing 733W combined or ~183W per panel or a 38% loss. They likewise will degrade faster at this point. That doesn't mean they're garbage, they absolutely still have usage. They just are no longer suitable for a main solar set-up in a residential or commercial promise. As an emergency back-up system or on top of vehicles to recharge batteries though, they're perfect.
Some advice from someone in the mountains of the north east and power goes out all the time. Don't run the kerosene heater in the house very dangerous.Get a blue flame ventless heater.they are designed to be in a home. It runs off a propane tank. Can save you in the cold and they are cheap. Also a small propane genny can be useful and doesn't have the same issues as gasoline.
Thanks for this. It’s timely and useful. I’d love to get links to the specific products you used, especially that high efficiency air conditioner. I just solarized my house, but I’m also trying to make the house more efficient so we can make the meter run backward as much as possible…
A common solution where I live is a natural gas generator, such as by Generac. It doesn't need fuel management, turns on and off automatically when the power goes out and comes back, can be ordered small or large depending on how much of your house you want to power, and I think at most it needs minimal maintenance each year. A while ago, someone I know had to have theirs running for 6 continuous days, powering their whole house, and it worked fine for that whole time. The only downside I can think of is the cost, which is about $9,000 for a unit that will power a 3-bedroom house.
Generacs aren't worth it when it comes to cost per use ratio. Unless you live in an area with constant long outages. Its not worth paying almost 10 grand for something that may get used once every few years. You are literally better off just leaving for a work vacation, and staying out of town at a hotel for a lot less cost.
Natural gas stops flowing when the pump stations lose power like happened in TX. A more complete solution is tri-fuel with an on-site 100ish pound LPG tank. That way you can utilize NG when available in an outage and switch over to LPG and even dump in some good ole gasoline if all else fails. LPG in an intact vessel has a storage life of decades, and with NG available full-time you can do a quarterly maintenance run on the gen to keep everything freed up and lubricated.
@@sentienthamster Well, as I said, her generator ran continuously for 6 days during a power outage. Either the natural gas was already pressurized upstream (maybe by a generator the gas company had for just an occasion), or the supply was coming from far enough away that it wasn’t affected by the electrical outage.
@@ObiWanBillKenobi Pumping stations shutting down is a rare occurrence that may never affect anyone, but that Texas shutdown was something else and a, hopefully, once in a lifetime event.
I live in the same similar area as you. I just ordered a power station battery myself but have not invested in any panels yet. Thank you for mentioning the place in Mansfield! I basically want to set mine up to power a small room ac as well as a fridge. So these used panels should be perfect!
one thing to consider with an inverter that is used in cars, you have to be careful putting an inductive load (such as a motor/compressor on a fridge/ac unit) on them as they dont always like the stepped sine wave that most generic inverters use as it's not a pure sign wave. you can damage the inverter and also whatever you're trying to power from it... don't ask how i know :P
Fortunately, the unit I bought is a pure-sine inverter. And better yet, my window unit is also an inverter system, so it probably doesn't care that much about the power source either.
In my area, hurricanes and similar storms have left me with many days of power outages. I have a gas generator, have had the same one for some 25 years. It works great. For gas storage I use steel fuel drums. You can get them from many places as many race cars use special fuel shipped in drums. Fuel lasts for quite a long time in these. On a hot day in my garage you can stand next to the drum and no fuel smell, because it is tightly sealed. Bad stuff doesn't get in or out. However I want to add solar as well, and similar to you I am going to run it all the time. For me, it will power my fridge and freezer to ensure we never lose food again.
Something to keep in mind: One of the big byproducts of hydrocarbon heating is water vapor. In older homes, they were "leaky" enough that it wasn't a problem. But in newer homes, especially electric heated homes such as yours, you need to be cognizant of it when you're relying on candles or the kerosene heater, especially if you use them for any length at all indoors. It can cause significant water damage and mold problems if done for a long enough period of time. A gallon of kerosene will put about a gallon's worth of water out of water vapor. A pound of propane will put about a pound worth of water vapor out. Also, you might look at the Mr. Buddy line of propane heaters. Propane is stable for long term storage, and it can also be used for your grill if you want to cycle it. Many of those heaters are indoor rated and actually have O2 level monitors to make sure it doesn't create a low oxygen environment. They also use catalyst plates which are safer and help to minimize CO creation. Water vapor still a problem, though.
But ac will get rid of humidity and in this case is an emergency solution. I don't think the humidity generated for 3 or 4 days will be that serious if you later are going to use ac.
When I first sealed up a lot of the drafty leaks in my old house it wasn't long before I had to cut a hole a rim joist and install an air inlet because the water heater would backdraft whenever the clothes dryer was turned on. At least though the outside air is brought in and used right where it's needed rather than hundreds of little drafts all over the house and my utility bills still went down.
they make dual voltage minisplits that start on "grid" power then run on direct linked solar. really cool setup and would allow you to run 2 sets of solar panels.
Regarding the space heaters, thanks to Technology Connections I learned that heat pumps are more efficient for heating the room compared to a resistive heater, maybe look into a window heat pump that can work both ways
They are only good above 40 degrees though, so not really emergency temps. Between 30-40 they lose almost all efficiency and then start switching to resistive heating coils.
Informative video. My Texas winter storm without power resulted in having an electrician install a 15 amp inlet outside the home and wired to its own dedicated 15 amp outlet indoors. 1800 w generator powers the outlet, without having to run extension cords through a window. Its enough to power the essentials. I do run the generator every couple of months and do use a fuel stabilizer. Expecting my Bluetti power station tomorrow, and that's primarily to provide power during the nights. You've given me things to consider. Thanks for the information.
It is always great to see how people can take precautions to ensure the have power. We went the solar and battery route and had to use them more than we thought. 3 times this summer alone. Twice for power company issues and once because some ran their car into a power pole
15:00 you know that you only take power from the 12v battery. The DC/DC converter has to constantly recharge the 12v battery. I dont know with how much wattage that happens.
yes youre right. But there shouldn't be any problems, if the car is running "Ready Mode" because the 12v batterie is constently monitort and charged accordingly. And not overcharged like old alternators often do. The only downside is the 12v batterie will degrade faster, but for emergency purposes probably tolerable.
probably the same or more than an alternator, as EVs have the same or more auxilery demands. Might not turn of every hour if it thinks somebody is in it, stuck in traffic.
@@phunkstar7347 Bigger problem is efficiency. You are converting the cars battery to 12 volts and converting that to 120 AC. But no other way to do it I guess.
@@UberAlphaSirus maybe with have different understanding from charging. I work on these cars. They don't charge over 14,4v. But gasoline cars do. The 12v battery will be always charged when running because without it, there is no connection between the motor and the battery And light, seat heating, radio is always on 12v. The 12v battery will never experience a full cycle off battery low then charge to full. its always on 70-100 percent state of charge. It would just go through the 100 to 70 % faster.
You know the end of the world is near when even The 8-Bit Guy is prepping.
🤣
Dydy zyd
he just likes buying and storing things, really
true.
indeed - just need to stock up on long term storage food now and i'm not talking microchips.
Don't know if it has been mentioned but the chevy bolt has a "camping mode" that will keep the car from turning off after an hour. I've used it before actually camping with my bolt. I would be shocked if the volt doesn't also have a similar feature.
"Shocked". Heh.
It doesn't. The gen 2 volt stays on longer than the gen 1 but neither have that.
@@NickHorvath internet search says to clamp the gear shift lever handle closed while in park and it will stay on. It's a work around but will allow the car to run. Only problem will be when the ICE starts up.
The kluge for the Volt is to use a ziptie to lock the shifter button down, bamboozling the car's computer to keep it running. GM should add the camping mode in a patch tho.
@@christopherwalker4585 Its not really a "problem". If the ICE has gas its effectively your backup generator, which is pretty nifty to have in an emergency.
0:40 you know u're in texas when a weapon is considered an emergency supply
Dave, as a broadcast engineer, we get around snow here in Ohio on C-band sat dishes with (drum roll) a pool broom. It extends long enough you can brush the snow from your panels. You can also wrap it in a clean cloth on nice days and clean your panels OR wax the sat dishes in preparation for winter ice and snow.
I'm surprised the dishes there don't have heat wire on them to slick up the snow layers so it slides off.
PAM dish oil works the best to make the snow slide off. lol
@@Iamdebug - Starlink dishes have a heating element built in.
@@Iamdebug We get 3-4 snows every winter in this part of the US. Nothing major.
ohio💀💀
I love how he cleans the solar panels like old computers.
Retrobrite!!
And then places them on the roof where they instantly get dirty.
They're electronics too!
@@Okurka. A.) not instantly B.) the less grime the more watts you get
Those wasp nests were gross tho 🤢🤢
I've been using off-grid solar for a long time, you're gonna be very happy with this setup. For emergency backup, I bought a propane generator instead of a petrol one. Propane will last indefinitely and the tanks last for about 12 years.
Yeah the neglect factor is a big one. I see too many people buy the cheapest little 2 stroke and leave it in their garage with a full tank for a decade then wonder why it doesn't work when they need it to. Propane generators do cost more and obviously they still do require preventative maintenance but requiring much less maintenance less frequently is something all homeowners should consider.
Virgins...
I use a fission reactor. I don't have power issues till 2500.
@@varunkoganti9067 Where do you get your fuel source from? I'm interested
Because I want some of that fission fuel
I recommend everyone put CO detectors in the same rooms you sleep in, and where your fire detectors are… CO is such an insidious gas, it’s not worth risking it, and isn’t to expensive to install.
I live in Canada and draining the water line when the house is cold is something my parents taught me when I moved out. One thing to keep in mind is that the pipes in the walls will be significantly colder than the room temp. You could heat your house but if it is not warm enough the pipes can still freeze. I have seen that happen in an older house even when the central heat is on.
That is why smarter builders made sure no water lines in outer walls. Even went as far to invent outside spigot with the shut off deep inside the house .
Yep that’s correct. Not only is the wet part inside but when you turn it off some of them automatically purge any residual water. That’s at least how my hose bib works. The water portion of the system is inside and it’s pretty cool when you close it you can see the water draining out from around the handle.
Houses usually have what is called a 'plumb wall' where all plumbing resides. If it happens to be on the exterior wall, you can be in trouble. If it's in the middle of the house, interior walls are usually not insulated and are impossible to freeze, if the house is still heated that is.
@@George196207 Older homes didn't have the benefit of such strategic thinking. We lived in a house that was built in 1904 for about 10 years and the outer wall did indeed contain lots of plumbing. We did update some insulation where it was possible, but in the coldest of the winter we would always have let a faucet or two drip.
The water wouldn’t run for days, and we had the water constantly running as to not let it freeze.
A kerosene furnace and a carbon monoxide detector is probably the smartest combination purchase I think I've seen in a while
Pro tip, fill it outside, wipe it down, bring it in and let the wick soak before lighting. Never add anything to the mix, even if the guy at the hardware store tells you it will make it smell like cinnamon.
We called this paraffin in the UK when I was a child. This was pretty much our only source of heat. We didn't have Carbon dioxide monitors, but no one died lol. I actually have an industrial blower that I bought for a large work shop, it has a spark plug to ignite the fuel and will run on paraffin or diesel.
It makes a fair amount of noise, so only good for a work shop.
Where we used to buy paraffin they had a sign that read, not to be used as diesel.
All houses should have them honestly.
I have a ceramic tile I place the heater on as well as a fire extinguisher nearby just in case. Good tip on carbon dioxide detector.
@@anthonyga Right, a fire extinguisher is what was missing in the video. Also, the main threat is from carbon monoxide as it is irreversibly blocking hemoglobin sites for binding oxygen.
Another interesting quirk to consider is that there was an immediate run on generators in TX - they were sold out everywhere for months after the outage
Live in a shithole will do that
and about half or more of those probably wont work when they go to storage to get them the next time
@@nateman10 definitely! Most people don’t though which is why my dad before he retired used to see a crap ton of them come into his workplace every year because they were not properly taken care of. Mostly leaving the fuel in them and forgetting about it
@@nateman10 I use my gas generator for camping, and I just use the leftover fuel when I get back if there is any for my lawnmower as I put a drain valve on my tank with a hose that can go right into a jerry can, but if I do store something that has a bit of fuel in it, then I add STA-BIL, and they claim 24 months, but the longest I've stored something with fuel in it was my boat, and RV for about a year, and with the STA-BIL the fuel was still good in both(just kept a battery maintainer on both, and they fired right up first time).
@@nateman10 Another factor people don't consider is starting a generator is more difficult in the cold than normal temperatures. This has been a problem in Texas where industrial back-up power systems failed to start because all the testing and maintenance was done at warmer temperatures.
Get a roof rake with soft brush attachment and you'll make it a lot easier to keep the solar panels working in the rare cases when it snows
Thats cool. I was also wondering if they could have water cooling. I remember on a LTT video that solar work better when they are cooler. Im guessing in the winter they could to the opposite and heat the panels
@@pleasedontwatchthese9593 Heating water takes tons of energy. You could pump tons of cold but not frozen water through, but it'd be really inefficient.
you can always reverse them. they are IR diodes after all.
You will be surprised how fast snow builds up on things
Why don't solar panels come with windshield wipers
Here in Japan, most people tend to have solar panels that both power the house during the day and feed power back into the grid thus lowering your power bills. Mine is about 300 khwh at its peak. I also have a battery back up system that kicks in when the power goes off which can happen in an earthquake and with that we can power two rooms of the house (which are the kitchen and the living room). All toll with govt subs, I paid around 5000 U.S for it.
After the desired load wattage is calculated a properly designed off grid system would be run primarily with a bank of suitable batteries. Lead-acid batteries were favored at first but other battery technologies have come into play. The batteries would run one or more inverters to directly power the house. Appropiate solar panels would be installed tp charge the batteries and since neither solar or wind is 100% efective a portable backup generator could be used to charge the batteries. Finish all of this off with an automatic transfer switch and you've got a very good off grid power supply.
I'm 25. I probably won't be a homeowner for a few years, but I get really excited every time you make these home improvement videos because I just learn more and more about the thing you could do, and the things I myself would like to do to prepare myself with Texas' unpredictable weather.
Cheers from Fort Worth!!!!!
most of us will never be lol
4:46, for anyone wondering, I've been running this setup for at least a year. The 2000w (4000w peak) pure sine inverter is on 24/7 (though not under CONSTANT load). As David mentioned, it 100% powers my home office/mancave including that 5000 BTU window A/C. When using the A/C, I have it currently cycle 30 minutes on, 15 minutes off between around 11a-4p. I have my central A/C OFF between 9a and 4:15p most days I'm home alone in said office. It's been a great setup and has helped keep fans, TVs, computers, etc running during a few brief outages.
I could go on with some details, but I will just mention that you get what you pay for with inverters. Spend a little extra on pure sine and a little extra from there on a quality brand. Also, go ahead and get the 3 year (or whatever) extended warranty for an extra ~$20 if you plan on 24/7 operation.
Those 3 small panels are currently stored in the attic. At the time of that drone shot, they were used to keep my lawn/power tool batteries topped up between uses. Now I keep them charged off the main panels because 780w of panels is actually excessive for my daily needs. The same panels power everything on that patio too (TV, lights, etc....)
The storage battery is a 200ah (~2500wh @ 12.8V) LiFePo4. It more than powers basic electronics throughout the night. Higher draw devices will of course need further power rationing considerations.
I also have the inverter powered "zones" in my Alexa ecosystem. "Alexa, turn on/off Studio/Patio/AC/etc." Which means I can also turn them ON/OFF remotely through the app. Handy if I'm away and forgot to turn off the A/C for instance. My fiber modem and wifi are on backup UPS power.
At the time of typing this, I'm generating ~600w of power and pulling ~550w powering my A/C, laptop, 32" monitor, audio interface, 7" studio speakers, etc...so my battery is very happily cruising along at 13.6v. Within 2 minutes of the A/C powering off, I'll be at my user-set full-charge of 14.2v.
Also, in a "bug out" situation, I can bring some components with me to keep the EV charging to the tune of ~40 miles per week. Not a lot, but essential when only a few miles can mean the difference between life or death and gasoline is not available.
Having at least some form of energy independence is key.
Nice. Under rated comment.
EV's are the apocalypses best friend, they will keep you alive with a few solar panels around, a gas car is gonna need you to go out there. and get what everyone else is getting, gas. I dont wanna be shot at trying to get gas in a chaotic situation, so I'll be home with my panels and my EV.
@@chrisw443 yeah, EVs and solar should be every prepper's dream.
@@chrisw443 EVs definitely hedge your bets. With enough money you could even get a 10,000w 240v inverter, a 48V+ battery bank, and enough panels to charge at 7Kw+ from virtually any location.
@@iKingRPG If someone offered a hybrid truck that had a ~10kW class fuel-tolerant/easily tunable diesel genset built in but otherwise an electric drivetrain buffered with a reasonable size battery pack, I'd at least be interested. Of course it'd probably cost as much as a loaded heavy pickup so I'd be priced out too, but the flexibility of running on whatever form of "juice" I can find, be it electric from panels, electric from the grid, (bio)diesel, jet-A, or light fuel oil, combined with the vastly simplified electric drivetrain would be excellent. You also get a beefy generator that can power a substantial welder, or your whole house.
Actually, $4,000 isn't bad at all for this! Definitely a lot of things to look into.
It boggles my mind how people can buy or lease $30,000 cars every few years and not think to upgrade their home for a tenth of that. 🤔
Nope, its a huge bullshit.
I DIY'd my own backup power system for around $4500AUD and it can power the entire house, including central AC and the hot water heater
2 5kw inverters in parallel
25kwh lithium ion battery bank
3kw of solar panels
El-cheapo 1500w grid tie inverter for backfeeding to turn my electric meter backwards (mostly to zero out the usage when the guy comes to read it after a crappy winter or whatever)
This is the only channel where I actually rewatch videos. Please keep making more. We love them.
I am surprised that you didn't retrobright those panels :O
Growing up, we used kerosene heaters to supplement the heat in our house. They made EVERYTHING stink. I never noticed at the house, but would notice whenever I'd leave the house and would open my backpack. I get having it as a last resort, but I would personally prefer to use propane as it's exhaust doesn't stink.
Great episode!
They're also literally an open bucket of burning liquid fuel. I've used many of them for many years, and currently own two myself, but they're my absolute last resort. Propane is far and away a better solution. Propane is a lot easier to find too.
I keep the kerosene heaters around primarily because they can be loaned out to others without me really losing any capability.
Ah, yes, the smell of the 70’s.
Uh..... just in case somebody sees this and thinks "gee, I'm ok with a little smell if I don't freeze...where can I buy a kerosene heater?" DO NOT RUN KEROSENE HEATERS INDOORS. Kerosene heaters produce carbon monoxide, and they destroy indoor air quality which can impact your quality of life, or even lead to lung diseases. Many people think they'll just run them at night during an outage so they can keep warm in an outage. The problem is that is exactly when you are most likely to asphyxiate yourself or give yourself carbon monoxide poisoning. You don't want any flames in your living space, especially something so dirty as kerosene.
@@WarrenGarabrandt David covered that in the video by stating, clearly, that you need to run a monoxide detector as well. Absolutely no one should be considering radiant kerosene as an everyday heating solution.
@@TheBrokenLife That "open bucket of burning liquid fuel" is totally safe. You could throw a lit match into a bucket of kerosene and it would extinguish as if it were water.
For emergency, hanging wool quilts or thick curtains on the walls and over the door as well as putting several layers of bubble wrap over the windows, can diminish heat loss significantly.
I live in an old house that's not exactly well insulated, so stuff like that has come handy when the quicksilver drops below -20ºC and the wind howls in the trees.
If you have an EV this should be very valid for improving camping mode efficiency. Just dont block air intake vent
Maybe he doesn't have them but when his power went out my first thought as someone who's winterized houses would have been to shut off the water and bleed the lines before leaving, in fact where his water line burst was exactly why I have a dedicated shut off to turn off the water to the outside faucets because I've had that freeze and burst a couple of times on a fully winterized house
@@AsbestosMuffins What's worse, is people in the South West don't seem to learn those lessons. I follow a YT couple building a container home down there, that had their water supply freeze and blow lines and water heater 2 years running. Simple heat tape, purging the lines, etc, would have prevented the issue both years. Instead, they were without water for days both times. Granted, heat tape may be overkill, but shut off the supply line and purge it is not unreasonable to prevent blow out damage, until the temperature comes back up. I'm a belt and suspenders guy in the Mid West, heat tape on a thermostat, cutoff valves for feeds to outside lines, etc. When REALLY cold (-20F or lower) all lines in outside walls get cut off. Cheap insurance.
Russian homes frequently have rugs nailed to the walls as decoration and extra insulation.
Sounds like a tent 👁👄👁🍿🍿🍿
Wise choices, solid logical analysis. Build some sort of long pole that will allow you to knock the snow off your panels during snow. My only suggestion. Like a long piece of 3/4 inch PVC pipe. You just need to get the snow to start moving, and due to the angle of your roof, the rest should just slide right off. You just need to break the sticktion of the snow at the bottom edge of the panel.
A good mix of different technologies is the way to go, in order to minimize a single point of failure and for redundancy.
But then again, if noone else (or few) people have backups, you'll be the only person with power, it's gonna be lonely on the internet. lol
I appreciate your mathematical and analytical approach towards comparing each option and exploring further extensions with the direct alternatives. Great channel, pure content, Your enthusiasm makes me want to learn more to get the same sensation setting up my own inverter or power relay or solar panel in series or parallel, as well as monitor them. Thank you for your content!
8 bit guy: i wanna cut the power to the house to check the backup genny
His wife: yeah no
Actually, considering energy prices are going up, the payback time may be less than you expect. I am curious how the battery holds up over the years though, so maybe you could do a follow-up in a couple of years.
Yeah
Eventually, the unit has to be replaced (self repair is probably unfeasible), or upgraded
@@tylern6420 im sure he will try haa
I know a dude with gigantic solar panels and its still not enough to run his entire house, thinking off the top of my head I'd say he has around ten of em like ten by ten foot, my math could be off a little regardless they are huge and like I said, its not enough.
IF its the lithium iron phosphate version then those batteries are good for 3000ish cycles and still have 80% capacity.
@@TheColinputerwhich is 10 years or more.
Looking like you might get your first test of that this week, Dave.
Hope you guys weather it out - up here we're supposed to have subzero windchills and nearly 60 MPH winds...
Kinda praying I don't have work on the day it swings through. I'm off until January after that.
17:19 as an enviromental engineering student, that is even better because it measures in PPM (parts per million) which i personally prefer over umol/mol. but for gas heaters it's recommended to buy a CO alarm similar to a smoke detector (or this is what they told us, but we're using gas for everything. cooking, heating, etc. it might be unnecesary for a small heater though)
I was going to suggest this - I'm in the UK so we use primarily gas for heating so it's fairly normal to have a CO alarm - thus they are pretty cheap. The benefit being if you are asleep or unaware of a buildup you get a warning. CO poisoning causes confusion and sleepiness so if you had a buildup you may not be in a position to read and interpret numbers. Also a large majority of CO deaths happen when people are sleeping (I have no figures to back that up but I have read this is the case.)
If you have a hybrid car, using an inverter gives you a great generator option. The car has a rather large fuel tank, the engine only kicks in when the battery needs recharging and there is no separate maintenance. Worked great with my Toyota hybrid, as it doesn't turn itself off.
You could also get a brush to remove snow from the solar panels, they make snow rakes specifically for getting snow off roofs.
if you wanted to automate it, you can set up a heater behind to solar that turns on when its cold and your generating less power then you should. if blanced and cycle it right you can have a net increase in power
A regular floor sweeping brush on a long stick should do fine. Works even if all batteries are flat, provided you still have bodily energy to use it outside in the cold.
@@nuthenry2 I have been meaning to test that with an old solar panel I have.
If you hook up a voltage to the panel they act as Infrared LEDs. So you may not actually need a separate heater. You would have to bypass the panel bypass diodes though.
@@nuthenry2 I'm betting they make panels that have heaters built in. In fact, don't solar panels _need_ to be maintained at a certain temperature range in order to be at peak efficiency, like batteries?
You can't rake the clouds.
I've been flying RC models for many many years and finally "gifted" myself a cargo trailer to carry all of them to the field and back. One major upgrade I'm adding is a solar panel setup. I have two panels on the roof running to a Renogy MPPT solar controller for two (2) 12v batteries (24 volt system). The batteries power a 24v, 2000 watt inverter for ALL the goodies in the trailer. I'm still learning about solar but can tell you I'm so glad I did. As a fellow Texan (who, unfortunately can count WAY more times I've lost power than you), I'd like to be prepared for that next unfortunate outage. Thanks for sharing your story - good stuff.
Went out to visit Christopher out at the Mansfield, TX location; loved conversing with him! Bought six 230W DelSolar panels, so glad you mentioned him! Apparently lots of people have called, but I was the first to actually go and buy them after this video release. 😅
Was a lovely 320 mile drive out to get them!
Does he ship?
Just an FYI you need 400w to keep a room at a stable temperature without people in there. With you in there it may be less. Humans output about 100-120watts of heat. This is somewhat offset by energy lost when you open the door to go to the main house or get something from another room.
Small Advice for the Carbondioxide Meter. Dont put it to high, put it somewhere where it is at most waist height, preferibly lower. Carbondioxide and monoxide are gases that are heavier then air and if there is already enough in there to get up to a meter on eye height its already way to dangerous and you can get poisoned already.
CO is lighter than air, just slightly. If the meters are too low it is a danger. The dorms I am responsible for have outlets up high on the wall specifically for this reason.
@@one_b As always, it's a tradeoff. Carbon monoxide is lighter than air, but carbon dioxide is heavier. That's why a combination meter like the one shown isn't a great idea, you need to measure both, but no matter where you put it it won't be in the optimal position for each.
Theoretically you are correct. Practically no. The air mixes so quickly that it's farily spread even in your house. That's why modern smoke alarms have co2 detectors, and that works fine.
(One of) The main reasons why CO meters are usually are at waist height is because the biggest risk for CO poisoning is when people are asleep. Also, CO mixes pretty well with the air, it isn't going to travel up like hot air/smoke during a fire. Most people don't sleep next to their ceiling so that's why you want to detect CO at the level you are laying in your bed instead of at the highest point in room.
In the manual for CO detectors it is said to mount them high
We recently had a natural gas standby generator installed that has an automatic transfer switch and hooked up to our gas pipeline, so no tanks. It’s a smart, connected device and does biweekly self maintenance checks to avoid issues when needed and reports back to our phones and email, albeit yes it needs an oil change yearly and other maintenance through its lifespan, but it’s mostly simple and laid out really well for homeowner to do easily (not so much for my sub compact tractor).
We know we won’t have the generator pay for itself, but we also live in the Canadian prairies and if their is an outage in the winter, the house freezes fast at -30. Summer we can have some longer outages too and we get 30-40 temps in summer too.
However after watching this, it makes me want to move my solar panel wish list a bit higher priority and have that simple manual transfer switch in place for our AC in the summer to save on the bill and be a bit cleaner.
It sounds so cool but also pretty expensive
Good having a generator running on natural gas. For standby use petrol and also kero go off after time. A generator being able to run on LPG bottles would be good too.
We all aren’t loaded
However what do you do if the natural gas utility were to go down as well?
6:56 Thanks for the heads-up on Midea U A/C units! I didn't know they existed and I've been in the market for a new window A/C. The Midea is *so* much better and quieter than the one it replaced ever was.
This was fun! I'm an engineer and this type of problem solving is absolutely what I love. I know it was a pain to go through that winter storm (by the grace of God I somehow never lost power during it, and I still don't know how that happened), but seeing you come up with all these solutions afterwards was very neat and while I'm in an apartment and thus can't easily implement a lot of these things, some of these will be really good to keep in mind. Good stuff!
@Gray Man 🅥 kv
If you kept the portable solar panels, in the event of snow, you could put those outside and clean the snow off them now and then to get at least some power during the day. Also, I'm a bit surprised your window unit isn't a heater too, as heat pumps are much more electricity efficient than resistive heat. Edit to add: Something to prop up the portable panels to angle them would help keep the snow off, not sure about these in particular units, but some even have a flap to help stand them up.
The only issue with heat pump setups is in very cold conditions - they warm inside by cooling outside, and vice versa - if it's snowing outside it's going to struggle to reduce the temp outside and therefore struggle to heat the room inside. At least in my experience, without snow but in 5ºC type conditions here in Australia.
@@darwiniandude most modern heat pumps can work to -32f/-35c before hitting efficiency losses
@@darwiniandude Fair point. Still, would be handy with recouping the costs in non-emergency situations by using that instead instead of the resistive space heater. Hopefully window-split units start having some of the newer refrigerant mixes whose temperature ranges can go down (or higher) than the older ones.
@@darwiniandude That depends a lot on the TD of your system.
Love your channel and this was an awesome educational episode and interesting departure from the “regular” content. Cheers!
This was really good from an informative standpoint. I’ve certainly started to warm up to the idea of PV panels as a supplemental solution, and even as an emergency solution. Mind food such as this really helps.
We’ve definitely come a long way with battery technologies.
"free" air conditioning always a good selling point.
it's free heating as well, and with a heat pump!!!
@@Margarinetaylorgrease this system is gonna struggle to make heat?
$2500 for that bluetti thing, electricity's around $0.09-$0.11 kwh in Dallas area...that thing's gonna need to continuously power that AC for 5.70 years to pay for itself (or: needs to produce on average 500w/hr). Heckin' expensive "free" air conditioning innit.
@@RabiesTheBeagle Depends what you need, maybe not in the snowy time but other times are still free.
@@pandeomonia Sure. The point isn't that it's independently cost-effective. The point is that it provides a backup solution, and as a side-effect happens to be useful in the interim. The video goes on at length about this.
I really appreciate this video! It shows your thought process on implementing an affordable and practical solution for emergency power outages, with the bonus that part of the system is paying for itself over time.
Also, one other option not covered in the video, that I recently became aware of, is natural gas powered home backup units from Generac. They tie into existing natural gas lines on your home, and are installed with a automatic transfer switch, so they will run indefinitely as long as your house is getting gas to it. These natural gas generators do fall under the category of requiring maintenance (oil, oil filter, air filter, and spark plugs).
Up here in Ottawa Canada we had a massive storm that destroyed hundreds of trees, knocked power out for 5-7 days. Your video is extremely relevant
I worked at Canadian tire in Ottawa when that did happen, It was great they did keep the store open and let us bring people via flashlight for what they needed, most stores did close. I am thinking of getting the batteries as 100k mah is 85$ and you need 50k mah to just get by for 1 day. Want to keep my hairless cats safe if that happens again.
Same in the toronto/ brampton area. I was on vacation with my dad at the time, but when I returned to ontario, there were still fallen trees all over the place!
Here in British Columbia we have out power knocked out by wind, snow, lightning, and bad drivers/trees several times a year, usually only for a few minutes or hours but it never hurts to be sure.
Having good, charged, flashlights around the house is always good, and we have both a generator and a small solar system for backup too, pellet fired BBQ that can (and regularly does) cook plenty of food.
With hydroelectric dams providing the power for my area (and selling some to the USA) and a power grid with a decent amount of redundancy though it takes extreme situations to knock our power out for even two days.
Every region is different though, sure, we're equipped to deal with regular failures and recover fast, but clearly regions like Texas are entirely ill-equipped for such failure due to rarity
For house owners I would actually prep one room in the house to be highly insulated. Either a room in the basement or by using several layers of foamboard insulation (with the best R-value you can find), preferably highly insulated window(s) as well. Adding something like small a heat exchanger (2-way fan ventilation kind) you will retain 85% of the heat in the room while providing fresh air at the cost of 2W for the fan. If your family stays in that room each person emits 80-120W, that way It can often be passively heated. Add candles, a gas/alcohol stove for cooking, perhaps some lava rocks for heat storage. And you won't freeze.... If you live in a hot climate go for a small efficient AC unit + self contained solar system. The insulation works both ways, it will keep the room cool as well. Living in a small space isn't bad, especially if it is just a short period.
For electricity I have two cheap 30 000mah power banks for phones+tablets + USB LED light. I also have a 12V+5V electric system which I can connect to a 100W panel and a car battery (just remove it from the car) The 12V system is more than enough to power laptops for "entertainment purpose", but I have never needed to use it. The two topped up USB power banks is usually more than enough to go through power outages..
Treat power outage like a VERY comfortable camping trip and it isn't bad at all to be honest.
The problem if you don't heat the complete building, you might burst a water pipe if it froze.
Just insulate the whole house like a normal person. You can go days to weeks without even being slightly uncomfortable.
@@SilmarilS79 Maybe have the ingress water come in through the room, with a valve to shut it off for the rest of the house?
@@shikkonin I mean, I'm a swede. for me, insulating the whole home is a given. But in this case I was looking at it from the perspective of how American houses are built and the climate in Texas. For people trying to prep for outages during the cold. Insulating one room with highly efficient celotex/kingspan insulation would help a lot without breaking the bank or become too much of a building project.
In Sweden we insulate pipes with pipe insulation as well, and one idea is to off the water and drain the system during an outage. That way, no pipes will burst.
@@SilmarilS79 Northern Michigander here, we've had power failures during big freezes. All you do is turn the water off, drain the pipes. And only turn them on when you need to refill your water/bathe, which should be done all at the same time, when done, just turn the water supply back off, and keep the pipes freezing, we do this when winterizing our cabins for the season.
Did you know that installing four solar panels makes one addicted to solar? Soon you will want more and one day your whole roof will be covered!
with 60$ price would be better install two or 3 string (12 panels)
Nothing wrong with that, eh? Why keep throwing money at garbage tech with awful environmental effects? Solar is all good, mate.
@@geofffitz1497 sounds like you'll be shocked at how dirty of a process PV panel and battery manufacturing is.
If you really wanna use candles for warmth you should put 3 of 4 of them under an upside down plant pot. The modern rogue done a good video testing a few things and iirc this was one of the better options
Absolutely love this video! Everything you have done I have also done, of course not every detail but all of your reasoning for doing what you did was mine also.
This is a GREAT primer. I've looked at basically all the options you've covered and came up with much the same answers. The transfer switch is a GREAT, useful and price effective option
Simply get yourself a decent grid. You are not a third world country, are you? How many outages lasting days have been in Europe for the last decades? I am spoiled? Yes, thank you but for a reason!
@@LasseGreiner this is in case the decent grid fails for some reason, did you even watch the video?
@@adamPhoebe It is probably wise to prepare for something in Texas a developed country would take infrastructure measures against. Did you even read my comment?
Texan: Only 5 power outages in 20 years!
Icelander: Ouch! How can you live like that?
Compare the population density of the areas with infrastructure in Iceland to those in Texas, or many other parts of the U.S. Given the amount of lines required, and the fact that they are run by for-profit companies that generally perform the bare minimum of maintenance, you're making an apples-to-oranges comparison,
I have a neighbor that has grid tie with natural gas backup generator that may be used once in a whole year. With hydroelectric power being more iffy in drought areas, more people should get prepared. Although there is a bit of a "new" solar panel shortage. It is OK going used, but if you have limited space then higher output in less space is best.
During that big Texas freeze, we were on rolling blackouts but never lost natural gas so we could always cook and heat water. I actually used my lawnmower battery with an inverter to power my Internet router so we always had Internet access. This allowed me to keep working my job and the kids kept quiet too.
This actually answered a few questions I had for a planned future project that would be filling almost the exact same use-case as yours, so thank you for this
2:26: "Totally impractical for the geography around my house".
I totally get it, wind turbines support for 8-bit bricks must be hard to come by
did he get spray foam insulation in his house outside walls?
he did for his studio room
@@raven4k998 ^
@@Novaprospekkt I asked about his house not studio lol
@@raven4k998 yeah but he still got spray foam there
Now that you have all of the expensive other parts that go with the solar panels, it might be better to double or triple the number of panels to increase capacity and lower the break-even point.
Especially seeing as those panels were $240…like go ham
@@EricLS Came here to say that! Hell, at the price he got them for, stash a few away in the event one needs to be replaced.
I'm very glad you found beene energy. I was going to comment here recommending him, I purchased a 11 kwh battery and 3000w inverter mppt and a pallet of panels from him for off grid power, great guy for solar stuff and he has a youtube channel as well
Always keep in mind that prepping is never really "done." Technologies and alternatives are constantly changing. You might choose to change your battery system or your heating system when you discover something you find more efficient.
That's a former midwesterner accustomed to weeks of being snowed in, having a means of limiting the exhaust of the heated air is important. No matter how well insulated the house is, heat will vacate somehow. Window coverings would reduce the rate at which the heat leaves the house. Some window coverings can be seasonal and made with a padding and applied to the outside of the house. These can also be DIY projects and done more cost efficiently.
My point concludes with: never think you're "done."
In korea we just stick bubble-wrap to the inside of the window with water sprayed from a bottle :)
I'm pretty impressed -- I think this is the kind of system I would want to have.
The price of admission is high, but what you get out of it is definitely worth it, my man. ...and Bluetti is not the only brand out there for this sort of thing. Jackery and EcoFlow are also big players in the solar generator game.
a lot of really good ideas. THANK YOU!
Great video and really good ideas! I've been thinking about this myself lately and you have some great solutions!
One thing to remember about heating, is that the bigger the space the more heat you need. If you can break up the space somehow (drapes, curtains, or even putting up a tent indoors), you can drastically cut the amount of heating required to keep a space warm.
Can we trust one man having this much power?
I see what you did there
This man we can.
.... And a 12 gauge !
Great content as always, greetings from the UK
I keep coming back to this video... Must have watched it 8 times... Can't wait for the update video
Re: TX's grid's reliability. Out where I used to live--in a more rural area about an hour from the nearest edge of a metropolitan area--we had a failure probably every year(-ish) for 20(-ish) years, although they were usually not for longer than an hour or two and were very, very rarely citywide.
On the other hand, there have already been blackouts in some part of the state due to increased demand from hot weather... So that makes me excited for suffering through near 100 F temps without so much as a fan when the dog days roll around. My sympathies to all the folks out in the more desert areas and the concrete-island cities who will no doubt see 100+ temps this summer.
Here in Minnesota, I grew up in an older suburban neighborhood with fairly dense woods and a _lot_ of overhead power lines. We used to get 1 or 2 outages per year after storms knocked tree limbs down, but they almost never lasted more than a few hours.
Our longest outage by far was from an ice storm in the mid-90s, when our power was out for a few days while the power companies scrambled to reconnect everyone. We had a gas stove and a wood fireplace, so we kept both going for heat, and used candles, flashlights, and a Coleman lantern for light. (i think Dad might've dug out an old oil lamp too.) The house stayed above freezing enough that we didn't have any burst pipes.
And we had pretty crystal trees for most of the rest of the winter. 😎
These days, I live in a neighborhood where the trees are all farther from the power lines. Outages have been less than one per year.
Im looking to build a house totally off grid and this video was incredibly helpful. Thanks for posting!
This is a great video!.. thank you for sharing your ideas on this topic.
Every house we had until now had a wood stove. Power failures where we lived before were common. As a result keeping a generator operational was not a problem (but the power outages were). We moved and our new house is all electric. The house we moved from had solar supplement power, but it had the problem that it didn't work during power outages. This is a good review of options. Thanks.
This was an interesting episode and it had its 8bitGuy flavor to it that I got used to back in around 2016-2017 when I started watching your videos. Are you following Technology Connections? He has a lot of interesting subjects that you might learn some to improve your system/choices.
Yes he does watch technology connections. I have seen him comment on his videos
I liked the fact he cleaned the panels, very much in keeping with his channel :). I’m sure the main thing that got me interested in retro computing and subscribed to channels like the 8 bit guy, Adrian’s digital basement, etc. was all the cleaning of circuit boards, CRT screens and computer cases!!
This definitely had an old school non-gaming 8-Bit Guy video vibe feel to it.
I do enjoy Technology Connections. Interesting food for thought there, but I wouldn't necessarily rush out and buy things based on the videos.
One of the most practical installations I've ever seen. Great work.
Great video, very informative and thank you for making it. Gives me options to consider a d I probably will utilize some of this information. Cheers.
I like these sorts of videos :) You live an interesting life! Thanks for sharing with us.
That's really interesting. I didn't know that we reached the point where a minimal setup of solar panel could run a few appliances like that. It's definitely worth considering as a permanent solution for some equipment.
Especially if you can find used panels like he did!
@@OlivierCaron There are distributors that will ship them to you, though it is freight shipping, so like $300 minimum. It is worth it if you are getting more than a few, but for a small setup, having one within driving range is a big plus. You can also find them used on Craigslist, though you would want to test them first.
@@okinnivlek yeah, especially used ones. The channel "DIY Solar Power with Will Prowse" has a lot of videos reviewing various panels, inverters, batteries, etc. Many videos feature panels from used distributors.
Also depends greatly on where you live. For example, Texas gets a lot more sun than Ohio.
and it's always improving. I'm also amazed.
Great video! Glad you find people who didn't flake on you on installing the panels. Eventually I may do the same thing once things are steady around here.
My sister had solar installed in her house in FL. For them it was difficult to find insurance and the Republicans lawmakers tried to pass a state bill to make owning solar more expensive than dirty energy. DeSantis vetoed it a month ago, thankfully.
Great info. great video. Another option you could consider in the future as an addition to your system is a propane powered generator. The propane lasts pretty much forever in it's tank. Probably safer to store too. The generator itself would need nowhere near as much maintenance due to the fact that there would be no leftover gasoline in the carburetor or fuel tank to gum up and destroy the rubber components in the fuel system. 99% of the time this is the cause of small engines not starting after sitting around for some time. You could also use any propane tank that you already had (Grill) as extra fuel if you needed it.
yea propane generators are pretty good ive got 2 generac that i use to keep my house going when the power fails, but they do have some faults... for 1 their starting procedure is a little complicated what with having to prime the system while starting in my case... 2 the regulators are so finnicky. in my case my generacs were cheap because they both had failed and wouldnt run and at the time they were only 2 years old with less than 120 hours run time and both failures were the regulators, i was able to get them going for absolute cheap because i was able to take the regulators apart and fix them myself, but its a noted problem which could be problematic for someone who may not have his power fail again for 5 years, also that only fixes the fuel issue, other stuff like oil changes, valve clearance adjustment, changing or checking the brushes, heck the battery for electric starting are all maintenance items that could still cause issues in the long run for causing a generator to completely fail to start during a power outage, i also did almost what he did where i bought one of these "portable" power inverters and hooked it up to solar, originally it was for my trailer so i wouldnt have to bring my generator with me every time i wanted to go camping or out to the dunes, but the system worked so well that i decided to add another to my home, is it as good as a generator, well that depends on where you live, around my house its fine during the summer and winter was doable, but i also live in a desert in california so we get lots of sun here too, and this system has the one true advantage of not needing any maintenance at all aside from maybe having to clean the panels if they get dirty, but in texas where they get monsoons and much more sky water not really a problem.
Exactly this. I have a dual fuel generator, and will only ever run it with propane for this very reason. Having a private well, and my well pump is 220V, that became the bare minimum requirement for any form of backup power, because running water is definitely higher on the priorities list than a lot of other things.
those space heaters are awesome, I had an old one in the garage and in the middle of the winter when it was really cold outside it was able to keep me comfortable in the garage that only had the roof isolated and the walls were concrete panels maybe an inch thick and with all that I could get it warm enough that I didn't need a jacket so the space heaters work really well.
Seems like a really good setup considering the relative "on the cheap" approach. One other thing you can consider if you want to improve livability in a power outage would be to install very low power LED bulbs or lighting strips near stairs, entranceways and the like. You could run them right off of a 12 volt battery that you trickle charge off the solar, so they are always ready to go and provide a certain amount of safety. You could set up a double logic switch that only powers them on in the dark and if power is off. So that way, in the case of a power outage, these small emergency pin lights could come on and make it easier to negotiate your way around the home. The next morning, you get enough light, they turn off, and then it can recharge from the trickle charger off the solar again.
There are still ways to make the setup cheaper, though.
• If you want to keep solar panels working during winter, buy or make a long broom to remove snow manually or use ones that have a built-in defrosting heater. Cheap and will get you a few hundred watts for free during the day.
• You can increase the efficiency of electric heating about threefold by having bought an AC unit that also works in reverse as a heat pump. These are only slightly more expensive and pay for themselves very soon.
Where do you find cheap-ish LED strips? Other than ebay's sketchy sellers I can't find anything!
That pretty much describes my setup. I have 4 large solar panels in my back yard (easier to wipe off snow instead of mounted on the roof) charging 2 large deep cycle batteries with a 1000 watt inverter, which in turn charges my 18v and 40v Ryobi batteries.I have five 8 watt 850 lumen LED bulb lamps (40 watts total) in my living room/dining room connected together. During power outages I plug those lamps into a Ryobi power inverter for unlimited light. Charging my Ryobi batteries on my solar system during the day and using my Ryobi inverters for light at night, I can go for weeks if I so need.
A guy I knew, probably back in the 90s because he was talking about CFL's not LED's, said every time small UPS's went on sale he'd buy more and use them for lamps, so they could run for hours if the power went out. I have a couple of little battery powered lights with a light sensor and a motion sensor so they only come on when the other lights are off and somebody walks by. They're in strategic spots so we can see if nothing else is on.
@@SiriusJMoonlight With LEDSs you can get a whole lot of light for very little actual power. They are generally pretty awesome overall. I have seen people take flush mount pot lights (the type that use to use halogen bulbs) and replace the bulbs with LED versions. Remove the transformer and run them straight on 12v, it's pretty amazing.
This is a good idea. If I ever get a house, I'll probably apply solar panels, just in case. Especially since Southeast Ohio has hilariously unreliable power. Seriously, the power often goes out when it's clear outside. It just goes out randomly. Us at my parents place have a kerosene heater because of this.
Ohio Edison was so unreliable unlike AEP which rarely went out.
Look into mobile home parks in your area to start. The prices are much cheaper than a standard home and you can pay it off quick. Then you can start saving a nice big down payment on a regular house. The main thing is to stop paying landlords rent as quickly as you can......because it's basically throwing away money.
Good luck relying on solar panels in Ohio.
@@PistonAvatarGuy where I live, we get pretty constant sun in much of the year.
I'm in northeast Ohio and the same happens here. It might have something to do with the Ohio electic scandle that came out recently. Also, I think the power goes out in the middle of a sunny summer day because of the air conditioners. But in the last year it hasn't been as bad as previous. I mean hell 2 years ago I started collecting 1500VA battery backups and now I have 6 to keep all the PC's running and the 2 TV's.
Very awesome set up 8-bit!!, I love Geek Therepy Radio here in Houston
6:56 Midea should make a version of that for horizontal sliding windows. Those are the standard here in Brazil and other countries with warmer climates. I bet it'd be very popular, as I know many people don't have space or money for wall units or splits.
Legal ver um brasileiro por aqui.
Back in '94 we had an ice storm come through that knocked out power for us for a week. We ended up cooking everything on a grill. Eggs on the grill, toast on the grill, pasta on the grill... The best was the coffee; hickory flavored coffee every morning.
I'm impressed with how cheap those panels are. Definitely saving the link for when I build a house later this year/early next (depending on things). Honestly, I'd triple or quadruple it, and use a bank for each room. Enough to keep a window unit/space heater going at least would probably save a ton on heating/cooling costs. Might have to buy a blue controller for each room, but the extra battery backup would be nice. Add in a few hefty UPSes for pushing things like laptops along, and you'd be able to run all night. I know my UPS I keep on my TV (I have cats, they get pointy when their Frasier is missed) has kept it on all day before, and my old laptop went about 4 hours on one during a power outtage once. It works fine for emulating stuff, so plenty of gaming to be had.
Coleman stove with 1 lb propane canisters for when you don't want the flavor of the grill.
@@saveddijon I really need to get something like that. Problem is I'd probably never use it, due to the power never going out again. :P
Re: Media U Window Unit - I bought one myself a year and a half ago. Dropped my power costs substantially, and I've never been cooler. It's super quiet, too. Absolute best-buy unit, period.
How much did it cost?
@@TheRainHarvester $375, because I picked it up during winter. Worth every penny, too.
Very sensible and practical solution. Great job.
Nicely done, thank you for the breakdown.
Thank you for the video David! It is always nice to learn ways to prepare for a power outage.
For emergency lighting, I went and bought $4 solar garden lights and replaced the 100mAh Nicad batteries with NMHI 750 mAh batteries which are around $4 for a 2 pack. These lights charge well and last for around 17 hours. You can leave them on all night and then just put them back in the window or outside for recharging.
You can upgrade to a 4 pack of solar lights with lithium cell inside of them for about $20 off of Amazon. You get around an 1Ah lithium battery or so in size with the lights. I would avoid the models that you have to slide a switch in the back for the different modes. Go for the ones that have a button in the front for selecting the light modes.
You can also look into some COB LED camping lanterns that take 3 AAs. They usually come in 2, 4, or 8 packs sometimes on Amazon. They usually sell for $5 a piece in 2 or 4 packs(I wouldn't pay more than $5 a piece). There is no switch to use. You just pull the light part up to activate it. You can purchase inexpensive NIMH AA batteries and on regular Alkaline AAs I read it goes for about 10-15 hours. Amazon sells an inexpensive 12 pack of 2Ah NIMH AAs for $15 or less.
Also use search terms like "18650 LED work light". There are very very useful Chinese lights that come with magnets and hooks built in that you can tilt. They usually have two LEDs that one can be used as a flashlight and other is a mini spotlight COB LED panel. Used them all of the time when working on my car. Battery life is about 4-6 hours depending on the model but they all come with an 18650 lithium cell that is pretty easy to replace. There is also portable floodlights that run off of 18650s built into the lights and most actually have a power bank function built in because they usually have quite the capacity(anywhere from 2-8Ah). My experience with those is that they have 4-8 hours of good light
Not a whole lot of light output with those lights for a home emergency. I would recommend using lights that use power tool batteries. I have several 18v Ryobi batteries for my cordless tools (drills, saws, etc.) so it makes sense to pick up a lantern or two that uses batteries for your brand of cordless tools.
@@kentyler3962 Makita do a great line up as well.
@@kentyler3962 I guess I got lucky with mine. They light a small room well.
@@kentyler3962 That's too expensive. You don't need 18v to power a flashlight or lantern, you are in fact wasting the power capacity of those power tool cells. My father thinks all of my rechargeable lights are way too bright. The lanterns I bought run off of 4.5v total of AAs and they light up a whole huge room in full.
For about what you spend in two lanterns that run off of tool batteries you can buy easily 4-8 rechargeable lithium lanterns/flashlights. No need for a tool charger that runs off of AC either. They charge off of 1A 5V USB or sometimes 2A. Any phone charger or in this case, the big battery bank 8-bit guy is using has 5V USB sources that are more efficient for this purpose.
Thanks for sharing this! This is very insightful!
Great work and presentation which will help many. Well done!
Many grid tie inverters can be used in power outage. They just require an internal automatic transfer switch. You don't need batteries for them, though it isn't a bad idea to have a smaller one like you have for nighttime. As for panels, the fancy ones are severely overpriced. Going the used route is amazingly cheap. As for the snow, you can just get a broom or something on a pole.
yea the used panels seem like a bargain, but you should consider the amount of power still collectible with them
@@CM-mo7mv They tend to be not that old, a few years maybe, often less. With panels tending to last 25 years or more under warranty, 80%+ effective after that, a few years will be a tiny difference for saving 60-75% on the cost of them.
@@CM-mo7mv Used panels often aren't anywhere near old enough to even consider that as an issue, around 10 years old on average and panels only degrade upwards of 1% per year, so we're only talking about a 10% power loss and at those prices you could easily afford to buy four (or 860W of solar) or more panels for the cost of a single new 240W panel, there is zero contest value wise, just about the only reason to spend more would be space constraints such as putting panels on his studio.
@ vganesx1 That is false. There's a very good reason those panels are used and that much cheaper. PV panels have a lifespan anywhere between 10-25 years depending on multiple factors, no least of which is the manufacturer, materials used and environment they're used in.
The cheaper solar systems come with panels with an average lifespan of 10-12 years, by then they've degraded to a point where they need to be swapped out for the system to function. That's when they enter the used market. The panels with a 25 year lifespan are still attached to people's houses after 10 years because they haven't degraded enough to warrant being swapped out.
Consider these 4x300W used panels were producing 733W combined or ~183W per panel or a 38% loss.
They likewise will degrade faster at this point.
That doesn't mean they're garbage, they absolutely still have usage. They just are no longer suitable for a main solar set-up in a residential or commercial promise. As an emergency back-up system or on top of vehicles to recharge batteries though, they're perfect.
I wonder if flying a drone over a panel really close and low would work to blow it clean?
Some advice from someone in the mountains of the north east and power goes out all the time. Don't run the kerosene heater in the house very dangerous.Get a blue flame ventless heater.they are designed to be in a home. It runs off a propane tank. Can save you in the cold and they are cheap. Also a small propane genny can be useful and doesn't have the same issues as gasoline.
Great video! Lots of great ideas, and I always like to hear new ways to give less money to utility companies.
great video! Being saved in my lists now.
I love how the 8-Bit Guy pronounces "Wind Turbine" as Wind Turbĭn
That's what Jafar was talking about: unlimited power (from wind turbans).
Turban
And roof as ruff.
@Les I lived in DFW for a few years and I've NEVER heard anyone call turbines "turbans."
Thanks for this. It’s timely and useful.
I’d love to get links to the specific products you used, especially that high efficiency air conditioner. I just solarized my house, but I’m also trying to make the house more efficient so we can make the meter run backward as much as possible…
A common solution where I live is a natural gas generator, such as by Generac. It doesn't need fuel management, turns on and off automatically when the power goes out and comes back, can be ordered small or large depending on how much of your house you want to power, and I think at most it needs minimal maintenance each year. A while ago, someone I know had to have theirs running for 6 continuous days, powering their whole house, and it worked fine for that whole time. The only downside I can think of is the cost, which is about $9,000 for a unit that will power a 3-bedroom house.
Generacs aren't worth it when it comes to cost per use ratio. Unless you live in an area with constant long outages. Its not worth paying almost 10 grand for something that may get used once every few years. You are literally better off just leaving for a work vacation, and staying out of town at a hotel for a lot less cost.
@@neoasura For that someone I mentioned, she does lose her power often. Often enough that she bought that generator before I ever knew her.
Natural gas stops flowing when the pump stations lose power like happened in TX. A more complete solution is tri-fuel with an on-site 100ish pound LPG tank. That way you can utilize NG when available in an outage and switch over to LPG and even dump in some good ole gasoline if all else fails. LPG in an intact vessel has a storage life of decades, and with NG available full-time you can do a quarterly maintenance run on the gen to keep everything freed up and lubricated.
@@sentienthamster Well, as I said, her generator ran continuously for 6 days during a power outage. Either the natural gas was already pressurized upstream (maybe by a generator the gas company had for just an occasion), or the supply was coming from far enough away that it wasn’t affected by the electrical outage.
@@ObiWanBillKenobi Pumping stations shutting down is a rare occurrence that may never affect anyone, but that Texas shutdown was something else and a, hopefully, once in a lifetime event.
I live in the same similar area as you. I just ordered a power station battery myself but have not invested in any panels yet. Thank you for mentioning the place in Mansfield! I basically want to set mine up to power a small room ac as well as a fridge. So these used panels should be perfect!
2:36 "while I'm a big fan of big fans..." what a missed joke opportunity
one thing to consider with an inverter that is used in cars, you have to be careful putting an inductive load (such as a motor/compressor on a fridge/ac unit) on them as they dont always like the stepped sine wave that most generic inverters use as it's not a pure sign wave. you can damage the inverter and also whatever you're trying to power from it... don't ask how i know :P
Fortunately, the unit I bought is a pure-sine inverter. And better yet, my window unit is also an inverter system, so it probably doesn't care that much about the power source either.
In my area, hurricanes and similar storms have left me with many days of power outages. I have a gas generator, have had the same one for some 25 years. It works great. For gas storage I use steel fuel drums. You can get them from many places as many race cars use special fuel shipped in drums. Fuel lasts for quite a long time in these. On a hot day in my garage you can stand next to the drum and no fuel smell, because it is tightly sealed. Bad stuff doesn't get in or out. However I want to add solar as well, and similar to you I am going to run it all the time. For me, it will power my fridge and freezer to ensure we never lose food again.
Something to keep in mind: One of the big byproducts of hydrocarbon heating is water vapor. In older homes, they were "leaky" enough that it wasn't a problem. But in newer homes, especially electric heated homes such as yours, you need to be cognizant of it when you're relying on candles or the kerosene heater, especially if you use them for any length at all indoors. It can cause significant water damage and mold problems if done for a long enough period of time. A gallon of kerosene will put about a gallon's worth of water out of water vapor. A pound of propane will put about a pound worth of water vapor out.
Also, you might look at the Mr. Buddy line of propane heaters. Propane is stable for long term storage, and it can also be used for your grill if you want to cycle it. Many of those heaters are indoor rated and actually have O2 level monitors to make sure it doesn't create a low oxygen environment. They also use catalyst plates which are safer and help to minimize CO creation. Water vapor still a problem, though.
I wonder if adding a few large packets of "Damp Rid" to the emergency kit would be enough to alleviate this concern.
But ac will get rid of humidity and in this case is an emergency solution. I don't think the humidity generated for 3 or 4 days will be that serious if you later are going to use ac.
When I first sealed up a lot of the drafty leaks in my old house it wasn't long before I had to cut a hole a rim joist and install an air inlet because the water heater would backdraft whenever the clothes dryer was turned on. At least though the outside air is brought in and used right where it's needed rather than hundreds of little drafts all over the house and my utility bills still went down.
they make dual voltage minisplits that start on "grid" power then run on direct linked solar. really cool setup and would allow you to run 2 sets of solar panels.
Regarding the space heaters, thanks to Technology Connections I learned that heat pumps are more efficient for heating the room compared to a resistive heater, maybe look into a window heat pump that can work both ways
I just made the same comment! You beat me to it!
They are only good above 40 degrees though, so not really emergency temps. Between 30-40 they lose almost all efficiency and then start switching to resistive heating coils.
@@dukee4333 I linked a video showing them working just fine at zero degrees. Just not 4x as efficiently
Just rotate the window unit so the hot side is inside
I wonder if that window unit has a heat feature, it seems like a lot of newer ones do.
Informative video. My Texas winter storm without power resulted in having an electrician install a 15 amp inlet outside the home and wired to its own dedicated 15 amp outlet indoors. 1800 w generator powers the outlet, without having to run extension cords through a window. Its enough to power the essentials. I do run the generator every couple of months and do use a fuel stabilizer. Expecting my Bluetti power station tomorrow, and that's primarily to provide power during the nights. You've given me things to consider. Thanks for the information.
It is always great to see how people can take precautions to ensure the have power. We went the solar and battery route and had to use them more than we thought. 3 times this summer alone. Twice for power company issues and once because some ran their car into a power pole
15:00 you know that you only take power from the 12v battery. The DC/DC converter has to constantly recharge the 12v battery. I dont know with how much wattage that happens.
Though the same thing, but probably no other way to do it on a Chevy Volt.
yes youre right. But there shouldn't be any problems, if the car is running "Ready Mode" because the 12v batterie is constently monitort and charged accordingly. And not overcharged like old alternators often do.
The only downside is the 12v batterie will degrade faster, but for emergency purposes probably tolerable.
probably the same or more than an alternator, as EVs have the same or more auxilery demands. Might not turn of every hour if it thinks somebody is in it, stuck in traffic.
@@phunkstar7347
Bigger problem is efficiency. You are converting the cars battery to 12 volts and converting that to 120 AC. But no other way to do it I guess.
@@UberAlphaSirus maybe with have different understanding from charging.
I work on these cars. They don't charge over 14,4v. But gasoline cars do.
The 12v battery will be always charged when running because without it, there is no connection between the motor and the battery
And light, seat heating, radio is always on 12v.
The 12v battery will never experience a full cycle off battery low then charge to full. its always on 70-100 percent state of charge.
It would just go through the 100 to 70 % faster.