After posting the last entry, I realized that I should probably briefly talk about our house wiring – even though we will be off-grid, we still want to be able to run and wire our house for regular appliances and lighting.

In years gone by when people went off grid, they would in many cases use DC lighting and DC appliances, to avoid having the costly inverter in their system.  There are a few problems with this: DC wiring runs have higher losses so distance from the battery bank becomes an issue, DC electrical devices are less common, and the ones you do find are lacking in modern convenience and visual appeal (and are more expensive), and lastly, if you ever did want to connect to grid power at some later point, you would have to rewire your entire house.

Instead, we will wire the house for standard 120/240VAC, be able to use all regular lighting and appliances (except for a gas range, instead of electric, and a gas clothes dryer as well), and if we ever choose to connect to the grid down the line, we’ll be able to do so with a minimum of hassle.  We’ll just run the output of the Xantrex inverter into our standard electrical service panel as though it was a grid power connection.

Thanks again for reading!