Here’s a neat feature of the Sol-Ark inverter… it can back feed the grid. Growatt inverters do not interact with the grid but they can “fall over” to grid if your batteries die. Sol-Ark can actually run your meter backwards. But what if your power company doesn’t buy back excess power? Or they shoehorn you into a crappy deal? In California they will buy back power but if you have a net-meter agreement they will always sell power to you at peak rates. So what if there was a way to use a grid interactive inverter that made just enough power to not export any? If you install a Sol Ark with some current sensing transformers on the main lines feeding your panel box, it will measure and make just enough power to not run your meter backwards. This allows you to have solar run your entire house with a grid backup. If you need more power at any given moment than sol ark can provide your power will come from the grid.

Additionally, if the grid does go down, the sol ark will separate from the grid and feed only things that are downstream of it such as a few lights or your fridge.

Put another way… a sol ark can run your whole house from solar without modifying the main panel box and if the grid goes down and switch to running critical loads only.

Food for thought.

Just FYI ladies and gentlemen, that does NOT mean the channel will get deleted. The owner is alive and well. Just has forgotten his login info.

Glad to have all of you in the following and in the chat(s).

Due to confusion and retardation in the comments, to reiterate, the channel will not be deleted due to active admins that continue to post on the channel.

I am now owner of a channel that the owner disappeared and his account was auto deleted. Over time, the ownership was given to me automatically. The same thing will happen to OTG. Either me or another admin will automatically be assigned ownership over the next few months. Nothing will change in posting or otherwise.

In the case of no admins or inactive admins, the channel would face deletion. That is obviously not going to be the case here.

I'm going to bring up a retardation topic we discussed a few months ago. There are a lot of new people here so I think it's worth hashing out again.
Have you done a security check on your property? Take a walk around at night to see what a hungry wandering person would see. Not just from the street but from the backside or from the non-dominate direction of travel. Don't get tunnel vision standing at your front porch. Approach (pun intended) your property from an outsider's perspective.

Can you see the doors to outbuildings from your house? Maybe you'll be in the barn or workshop when someone breeches the gate... do you have a "reach out and touch someone" device in the barn?

Eariler in the week we talked about noise discipline and generators... what about light discipline?

How To Grow Lots Of Food In A Grid Down Situation Even If You Have No Experience, Are Older, Or Out Of Shape

If you enjoyed our interview, Marjory Wildcraft is hosting a FREE webinar TODAY -- SATURDAY, March 12 — including her take on:

- Status of global food shortages
- How long the crisis will last
- How much space you need to grow food
- Easiest, highest calorie foods you can produce
- A complete plan for producing all the food you need
- How to get started today.

Check it out here: https://iceagefarmer.com/grow

South Carolina law permits shooting and or kïlling of someone stealing at night. Read this carefully. YMMV. Now would be a good time to research similar laws in your state. If you find a law that has to do with personal or property protection print it out and keep in your wallet.

SECTION 17-13-20. Additional circumstances when citizens may arrest; means to be used.

A citizen may arrest a person in the nighttime by efficient means as the darkness and the probability of escape render necessary, even if the life of the person should be taken, when the person:

(a) has committed a felony;

(b) has entered a dwelling house without express or implied permission;

(c) has broken or is breaking into an outhouse with a view to plunder;

(d) has in his possession stolen property; or

(e) being under circumstances which raise just suspicion of his design to steal or to commit some felony, flees when he is hailed.

Just a friendly reminder. You should have one of these in your glove box. About 1500 people a year die of hypothermia in the United States. I had a dear friend who froze to death in his broken down car just a few years ago. One of these could have saved his life. They're less than $3 at Walmart in the camping section and about the size of a deck of cards.

It’s been brought up a few times here but… ladies how’s your stock of girl supplies? Have you considered silicone menstrual cups?

Well pump pressure switch. You can buy a pressure switch with a low pressure cut off. Who knew? It cycles like a regular pressure switch, but if you loose water pressure completely it will simply stop running the pump. Prevents pump from running forever with a broken pipe or other issue.

Also a buddy just bought a grundfoss soft start pump. He reports that when you turn it on, it takes about 1-1/2 seconds to start coming on and then slowly ramps up to full speed. No torquing up in the well case… no coming on with a bang…. No surge on a solar inverter system. It also has an integrated float switch so if your well level drops it will shut off before running dry.

Pressure tanks and pump sizes.

Get as large a pressure tank as you are willing to afford. Each time your pump starts, it’s hard on it. If you get a large pressure tank, you make the pump start and stop less frequently.

Have you noticed water pressure changing a few times when you are showering? Get a bigger pressure tank. Or check the one you have for a broken bladder. When we first bought the house, hte contractor gave us a 5 gallon pressure tank. The pump would cycle each time someone flushed a toilet. Ideally, a large pressure tank will allow you to run water in the sink or flush toilets all day without the pump coming on.

Wellmate makes fiberglass pressure tanks with a replaceable bladder. Good stuff. Sure you can use a steel pressure tank, but it will inevitably get a nick in the paint and rust. Tanks are always covered in condensation.

Another tip here is to look into potentially decreasing the size of your pump. Just as a small tank can cause rapid cycling, a large pump can too. But but but… bigger is better you say! Nope. The right size for your water usage is best. Most homes in my area have a 2hp pump when a 3/4 will do. Your pressure switch will arc less, and if your goal is off grid, you won’t need as large of an inverter to start the pump. What you are looking for is a pump that can just maintain pressure in the tank on your largest demand. It might be watering the garden. So if you water the garden, the pump should come on and run the whole time and not power cycle. Once the demand is gone, the pump can then top off the pressure tank and shut off.

Ants seem to love ionized air. They will get into your pressure switch like crazy and gum up the contacts. I have had success by poking a hole in a plastic butter tub for the 1/4” water line coming in to the pressure switch and filling the bottom of the plastic tub with sevin dust. This technique also works if you have an automatic dog feeder that the ants get into. We finally gave up and put the pressure tank in the basement along with the switch.

As mentioned in a previous post, you can get a soft start pump such as a grundfoss. Something interesting about this pump is that because of the electronics inside, it doesn’t care if you run it from AC or DC. So it would be possible to run it four solar panels directly with no inverter.

Thanks to Madwolf for mentioning a gavanlized water pressure tank, I've located an article that tells how the air management works in them. Since they dont have a bladder and the air in the tank can be dissolved in water over time, you have to manually add air or there are systems to automatically add air and bleed off the excess.

This actually is a pretty darn good video for getting a battery made and inverters. Much of his stuff is specific to Victron inverters and REC BMS…. Folks here on this group have used QUCC BMS, JK BMS, Chargery. Never the less if you want a pretty good overview of what you might do to get off grid, this is worth watching.
https://youtu.be/vnjMQLhp6LE

You can live three minutes without air three days without water, three weeks without food.
So if you want to know what to prep…

do you a source of water? If you say we have a wellpump, then do you have a way to power it? Or maybe you should get a handpump for emergencies. Maybe you have a source of running water like a creek, but is it Seasonal? Maybe you have a source of standing water, but do you have a ceramic water filter? If you cannot answer yes to any of these questions, you may as well get on the fema train.

What do you do for food? Most canned food only last two years. At some point you will need to grow your own food. Think about all the steps that takes… Seeds… Water… Equipment… Ability to preserve food. Course having electricity means having refrigeration… And that means having meat several days in a row. If you can’t answer yes to the ability to grow food then eventually you will get on the fema train.

Having electricity makes the two things above much easier. Having water on tap, refrigeration. If you think you can run your house on the gasoline or LP gas generator, where will you get fuel in the future? This is why I push Solar so much. Sunshine can: put water into your garden, make meat last longer, make your life more comfortable. You can stop your wife from saying I told you so. It can stop you from having to get on the FEMA train

Not exactly off grid related but… I know far too many young men whom I call man cubs. They need to be mentored by real men. Part of the downfall of our society is boys not becoming men and being prepared to make tough decisions. We allowed the feminists to pull the rug out from under men by calling it toxic masculinity. God made us for different roles. Women are for love and nurture and men are tough love and tough decisions. Man up y’all!

https://youtu.be/sxePuWBABKk

Several months ago we just might have bought some suture kits from Amazon and some small syringes and some lidocaine from mountain side medical equipment online.