The Combined Backup System

To me, getting the system up and runnig is the best part of all of this process. Seeing the system come together gives a person a feeling of accomplishment and independence. Seeing that you have the ability to live without the power company is part of what survivalism is all about. No matter if it is the weather, some other natural disaster, war, depression, or a whim of our government to shut off your power, you still have the ability to live comfortably. I set up one system but have since moved and am working on setting one up here at our present residence. Depending on whether you live in city or country, there are some things that you may or may not be able or want to do. This will be kind of a generic model of setting up your system. First, you need to list everything electrical in your home. List them in order of importance for a survival situation. Living in the country, my list starts with my well pump for water followed by my furnace. Having just a crawl space under my house, I am building a small insulated lean-to shed against the house near the outside entrance to the crawl space. This will house my gas powered generator for short term outages. This is temporary until I get all of my solar and wind generators in place at which time they will replace the generator. At the present I am not quite ready to do so. This outside lean-to will allow me to move batteries in and out as they they need changing for charging. I am not sure I will need to move them as at my present location, unlike my past home, I may be able to put both my wind generator and my solar panels near enough to the house not to have to move batteries. I will probably have six batteries. One set of four wired in parallel and a set of two wired in parallel. The fuse block and volt and amp meters will also be located in the lean-to with the batteries. I will also have a volt and amp meter to tell me how much charge I am getting, allowing me to switch back and forth between wind and solar. I also have a battery condition tester with which I can test the condition of various batteries and will know when one needs to be replaced. The four battery set will be hooked to an inverter(s) which will be used for powering furnace, pump and appliances. The two battery set will be used to power such things as radios, tv and other items that can be powered directly by 12v power. Having a pop-up camper, we already have quite an array of 12v equipment.

Wiring III

When wiring for 12v appliances, it will be much the same except you will be using automotive wire. You will need to run two wires, a hot or positive wire and a ground wire. Be sure to use heavy enough wire in the 12v wiring also. Most 12v appliances use a cigarette lighter type plug, so you are going to need to figure out how to mount a lighter receptacle near each appliance. You will be running the wires directly from the twenty amp fuse in the fuse block to the receptacle at the appliance. The shorter the distance that needs wiring the better, so do some careful planning, both in the location of your power station and the location of your appliances. Should you decide to run your wires directly from the battery to the appliance without the use of a fuse block, go to an automotive store and get an in-line fuse holder and install that. Having fuses in all of your lines is important. Wiring is not really that difficult. You simply need a clear understanding of electrical principles and knowledge of what is needed for the job. Wiring for a backup system will be a little more difficult, because you will need several different types of connectors, plugs, plug-ins, etc. This is due to the fact that you are using both 12v dc and 120v or 249v ac. For instance, many generators use the twist lock type plugs. However, everything you need can be purchased at either a hardware, electrical or automotive store. The important thing is to plan out your instalation, making a list of as many components as possible. List them on a sheet of paper and then go and purchase everything. This will keep you from makiing numerous trips to the store. My feeling is that with proper planning, a good knowledge of electricity and careful work, a great majority of survivalists can install their own backup system. However, if you do not feel comfortable or do not feel that you have enough knowledge, by all means hire an electrician. If that is too much for your budget, see if you can find a good friend who is knowledgeable about electricity. Another option is to purchase a good book on home wiring and follow directions. There are too many dangers in electricity for someone who does not understand the process to mess with it. However you get it done, I feel that a backup system is a good survival idea.

Wiring II

How you are going to wire depends on where your generating system and batteries are located in relation to the items that you are going to power. The best place for the batteries is in a ventilated room against or in the house itself. If, as in my case, the charging systems are located in another building, you will need to make some decisions. Some of these decisions will depend on the distance from the house the charging system is. Do you transport batteries to a special room in the house and exchange them for fresh batteries as needed? Do you wire from the charging station to the house, putting your junction box in the house? I have opted to transport batteries, saving much wiring and cutting down the loss of power due to long wiring lines. Should you opt to wire from building to building, I would suggest you buy underground wire and bury it at least 18 inches deep. At your charging station you will also need to install an amp meter and a volt meter. These can be obtained at any auto store and will tell you how the batteries are being charged. You may want another set of these at your junction box to let you know how much electricity is being used. The one I use at the junction is basically a volt meter, but uses colors instead of numbers. Green=fully charged, yellow=low and red=discharged. Thus you can tell at a glance when your batteries need changing. Now to wire from your power source to your batteries. If you are using a gas or diesel generator, all you need is an extension cord to your appliances. I use regular house wire and make my own cords, using 12/2 for 110v wiring and 10/2 for 220v. I never use anything lighter than these and occasionally will go to an even heavier grade. Wiring inverters to your appliances is very much like any other house wiring. It takes some real planning to keep the new wires hidden when retrofitting. You can buy outlets that mount on the wall instead of in it. You can drill through the floor next to the wall and mount the plug in right there. Lacking a basement or crawl space, you can pull your baseboard off and run the wires behind the baseboard. I like to use single plug outlets, which I paint red and install the plastic childproof caps, which are also painted red. This will keep anyone from attempting to use one of these except in an emergency when the power is connected. Other than that, these plug-ins remain inactive. To be continued.

Wiring

Unless your house was built with a backup power system in mind, you will not be able to just unplug the power company and plug in your backup. This can be one problem with setting up your backup. Some of you will need an electrician to do your wiring. This will greatly increase your cost. However, as in all survivalism, safety needs to come first. Having the greatest backup system in the world will not do you any good if you burn down the house the first time it is plugged in. You also need to worry about codes. Some areas will not let you do any wiring unless you are a qualified electrician, and that includes backup systems. I know many people who have done their own wiring, as I have, but it is not something that I can reccomend. Only you know what your capability is. First you need to know that you need different types of wiring and different types of receptacles, different types of fuses or breakers for different types of power. 12v and 12ov and even 240v all require different wiring. With 12v you usually need a stranded wire rather than the standard solid house wiring. You also need a larger diameter for 12v. When you wire in an inverter, you will need to use 12v wiring from the battery to the inverter, then back to regular house wiring. First we need to wire from the charging unit to the battery. For this I simply use heavy automotive wire. I use red for positive and black for negative. Anytime you go to a wire that is available in only one color, be sure that you mark the wires plainly. When using heavy wire, such as that which battery cables are made from, which only comes in black, I wrap a piece of red tape around each end of the cable that will be used for the positive cable. When wiring a system from the charging unit to the battery, make sure there is a diode in the line of the charging unit that will prevent bleed back from the battery to the charging unit. Most manufacturers provide these, but be sure to check out the specifications to make sure. When hooking the batteries to inverters, you will need a fused junction box. This is the same type as the fuse block in your car. You need a six fuse unit with six 20 amp fuses. If more fuses are needed, simply add another fuse block. The reason for the fuse block is that most of the small inverters that I use for my backup system come with a ciggarette lighter style plug. The larger ones come with clamp on leads, the smaller ones do not. This means that your are going to need to wire a lighter receptacle to a fuse for each inverter you are going to use. If you have inverters with the clamps you can use an in-line fuse and if you are going to use one large inverter for your entire backup system, that makes it even easier. To be continued.

Wind Power, Etc.

The battery and inverter requirements for wind power are exactly the same as for solar, so I will not bother going into that here. For power production, wind is a lot like the sun; wherever you live you will have some and wherever you live it will probably not be enough to completely run your home. The only exception to this may be solar power in the southwest U.S. I like wind power as a backup power system because a person can build various types of windmills and save the cost of purchasing one. You can purchase a 300 watt unit for just over $500 and the prices go up from there. To get a real good idea of prices, just go to some of the wind power sites on the internet and you will see what they sell for. This is also true of solar power, there are many of both on the internet. Later I will be giving some instructions on building a wind power unit yourself. It is a simple unit and many people do not see it as a viable wind unit. While it does not produce a lot of power, I feel it can be an integral part of your overall backup system. Looking at some other methods: water is not an option for most of us. First you need to be on a stream of running water. You then need to build a dam and build or buy a water wheel and turbine. As these are not popular, they can be hard to locate and expensive. I have no esperience with water power, so I will have to leave you to do your own research. Back in 1980 a man by the name of Jim Cullen published a book titled; "How To Be Your Own Power Company." It deals with an automobile being your main source of power. By adding an extra battery or two to your vehicle and keeping them charged in your daily driving, this would be your power source. I have used several ideas from that book when I had a cabin, but find it inconvenient to try to run an entire house with this system. By adding a marine battery or two to your car and a switching system to keep all charged and not bleeding the charge from one to the other, you could get a little extra power. This could be done for around $100 so it might pay. When I had my cabin, it was in a remote location so I had everything 12v. This eliminates the need for an inverter. Inverters rob a portion of the power you generate. You can get just about anything you want in 12v now. In your home today you might even want to incorporate some 12v appliances so that you save on your present electric bill. When you get into a complete backup system I find that a combination of things work best. Cooking and heating can be handled with wood, LP or kerosene. Water can be heated by solar or wood and almost everything else can be handled by 12v batteries. Coming up I will get into a little more of the tecnology of a complete backup system.

Solar Energy

Like I stated earlier, solar energy is free, solar panels are not. If you want a 20 watt panel the price will be something over $200 while and 80 watt unit may run $600 or more. For about thirty dollars and up you can get various sizes of what are called battery maintainers. Next there is the batteries to store the power you captured from the sun. Collecting all the sunlight in the world, with the world's largest solar array will not do you much good if you do not have a method to store the electricity. First, rule out automotive batteries. They are not made to be totally discharged and recharged the countless times necessary for a battery used for home electricity. Probably the best way to go is to obtain the large industrial six volt batteries that are used in fork lifts, golf carts, etc. You need two of these wired in series for each 12v battery required for your system.These sets can then be wired in parallel to give you more amp hours when using them. I have taken a third option and chosen to go with heavy duty marine batteries. While not as powerful or quite as reliable as the industrial sets, they are made to be discharged and recharged, they are less expensive than the six volt sets, they are readily available virtually everywhere and they are smaller, easier to handle and take up less space. They make an excellent compromise for a home back-up system. Whatever battery you decide on, you will now have to decide on how many you need. For just lights, a radio and a couple of small items, one or two twelve volt batteries will do. The more appliances you run, the more batteries you will need. You may find that for everything you want to run you will need a dozen or more 12v batteries. That would mean at least two dozen 6v batteries. Now you are also going to need an inverter. Unless you chose the option of going to all 12v appliances for your back-up unit, all of these 12v batteries are still not doing you any good. The prices of inverters can vary from about forty dollars for a 140/250w unit to eight or nine hundred for a 2400/5000w unit. The first number denotes how many continous watts can be drawn while the second number denotes the surge power available. The surge power allows motors to start, etc. The inverter draws power, so it will shorten the amp hour life of your battery. Most inverters are rated at about 90% efficient. When purchasing inverters, you need to decide whether you want one inverter that will handle all of your load, or several so you can use a seperate battery and inverter for every couple of appliances. With 12v power, it takes part of the power to push the amperage down the line, so the shorter distance between your battery and inverter and the shorter distance between the inverter and the appliance the better. The ideal way would be to have a battery and inverter right at every appliance you are going to run. This is not realistic because we do not want batteries sitting all around the house. Batteries give off a gas that is poisonous and should not be kept in a closed, non-ventilated room. You may want to keep your batteries in a basement or heated porch and have a vented hood over them to vent the gas out of a window. Batteries are best kept at about seventy degrees faranheit. You may not be able to locate your batteries where they can be hooked up to the solar panel and the house at the same time. When solar houses are being built this is taken into consideration. When retrofitting for a back-up, it can be a problem. You may even need to put your solar panels on a garage or shed with a southern exposure and bring a set of batteries to the house while another set is charging. This adds to the expense as two complete sets of batteries are needed, but gives you more leeway on placement of the batteries. This could even save you enough money on wiring that it would not be too much more expensive. Solar is an excellent way to go in certain locations. Areas of the south and especially the southwest of the U.S. are ideal for this option. Other areas of the country may require a different option or a combination of generators.

Gas/Diesel Generators

These are the easiest (and most costly) way to go. They can be had from small gas powered units of 2500 watts to large diesel units able to supply power to several households. Using this type is simple. When the power goes out you simply start up the generator and plug into it. You can even have them set up to start automatically when the power goes out. However, there is a lot to have done to insure that you are not sending power back to the power company, that you will not short anything out and that you will not burn down your house. Much of this may need to be done by a qualified electrician. In many areas, codes specify this. Using a smaller unit for only two or three items is much easier. You will need to put a junction box on the outside of the house as near to the generator as possible. Next to each appliance that you will want to power, install a single outlet. If you use double outlets, paint them red or some other color so that you will know which outlet is which. Now run a wire (14/2) or heavier from each appliance to your junction box. If your generator has fused circuits, you will not to worry about fuses, otherwise you may need to install a small fuse box rather than a junction box. Plug your generator into the junction box and when the power goes out all that is needed is for you to start the generator and plug the proper appliances into the generator outlets. While generators are the easiest to use and can give the most power, there are definite disadvantages. While you can get some of the so-called camping generators for $500 or less, a large diesel generator will cost from about $3,000 upward. Choosing between gas and diesel is not always easy. While diesel runs quieter than gas and usually lasts longer, diesel fuel in my area runs about ten cents per gallon higher than gasoline. You are also going to need a large storage area for either one. If you are already going to store gasoline for other uses, you will need to put in a second storage unit. Diesel is less flammable than gasoline, thus being safer to store. There are also dual fuel generators which run on either gasoline or LP fuel. While they are somewhat expensive, if you live in the country and already have a large storage capacity for LP they may be something to think about. When you look at the initial cost of the generator, the cost of set-up, and the cost of the storage tank and the fuel to be stored in it, you can see that it will not be cheap. Another thing is that fuel goes bad after a certain length of time and must be used or discarded. This is why I would opt for gasoline. That is what I use in my autos and in all of the small power equipment around the place, so I already have gasoline on hand all of the time. Another problem is the amount of fuel burned and the ability to restock it during a survival situation. Many of the generators burn about a half gallon of fuel per hour. That makes 12 gallons in a twenty-four period. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to see how quickly you would go through, say, a 100 gallon supply of fuel. Another problem is the noise. No matter how well muffled an engine is, they will make some noise. While this may not bother you, it would tell anyone else close enough to hear it two things. Number one that you have power, thus having heat, unspoiled food, etc. Number two and even more important it would tell them that you had fuel stored on your property. In a real survival situation, that could be bad news. While this may be a choice you would like to make I do not reccomend it. Having just lately moved to my present location I have a 5,500 watt generator. It has never been used and I will keep it until I can build my regular back-up system, when I will sell it to help pay for my permanent system. The reason I have it is to give me time to get the food out of the freezer canned and the well switched over to manual along with running the furnace if necessary. When I have my home-built in place, the generator will no longer be necessary. I do not intend to use it for over one week and then if need be it is candles and all other non-electric things. A generator is just not the way to go for long term survival by a true survivalist.

Energy Backups II

The first thing we need to do is to sit down and design a comprehensive plan of what we want. Buying or building a power system could backfire on you if you go to plug something in and find out that your system will not handle that item. So, get a sheet of paper and list what you think is necessary to have in the event of a power outage. List the items in importance to you. Along with each item list the wattage it takes to run it. The wattage can be found in one of several ways. On some appliances it is listed in the owners manual or on the specification tag on the appliance itself. On other appliances only amps and volts are given. In this case simply multiply the amps times the volts to find the watts. For instance, a circular saw that draws seven amps at 230 volts needs 1610 wats. All three of the numbers are important, so list them all on your list. Include voltage, amperage and wattage. The reason voltage is important is that there are several types. The most common types are 12v DC, 120v AC and 240v AC. These are the three voltages that are most common in today's world. These are the ones we will generally need to deal with, so I will not go into the various other voltages. Schould you come across something in 6v DC, 24v DC, 440v AC or something even more rare, you will just have to do some research. The reason for putting voltage as well as wattage on the list you are making is that you may need to change the voltage you generate by the use of a converter or inverter. A 110v appliance will not run on 12 volts nor will a 12v appliance run on 110 volts. Amperage ratings are needed because when using batteries they are rated in amp hours. By knowing how many amps something draws, you will know how long your battery will last without recharging. Batteries are important in that when generating electricity, we normally need storage capacity. Except for gas or diesel powered generators, it is rare that you would be able to run your household directly off your generating unit. The sun does not shine at night or even every day and the wind is intermittent, thus the need for storage batteries. Let us take a quick look at some different types of generating systems. I will go into more depth later. First, you have diesel or gasoline powered generators. These are the easiest to use but the most expensive to run. Plus you do not know if you will have a continous supply of fuel to operate them. They can be had in sizes from 2500 watts to 15 kw (15,000 watts), at a cost of from around $400 to $4,000 or more. The smaller ones are usually only 120v AC, so if you have anything of 240v that you want to run, you would need something bigger. Now solar. Solar energy is free but getting set up for its use is not. You will need two or more solar panels and they may cost five or six hundred dollars apiece. Now you need to add in the cost of the batteries and an inverter to operate your ac equipment. Wind power tends to be the same. you need the tower and a turbine and you also need the batteries and inverter. Neither wind or solar is 100% reliable as the wind does not always blow and the sun does not always shine. What you need is a combination of both and unless you can build what you need that can be expensive. That is why I am going to geve you some ideas on building your own. Water power for electrical generation is tricky. You need to be in the right spot, have the right drop to the flowing water, etc. I will not go into this type of setup in this explanation. You will need to do your own research should you want to try it. There is also the consideration of going completely to dc power. With the plethora of 12v appliances now being made for the camping and rv industry, it is an option you may want to consider. That saves the price of an inverter and also the power it takes to run the inverter itself. Next we will look at each one of the three methods individually to see what the advantages and disadvantages of each are.

Affordable Energy Backups

Many people ask, "Why backups anyway?" A lot of them want to know why they should not just get off the grid completely. My main answer is cost. I feel the the cost of getting off the grid completely would prohibitive, at least for me. I have done a lot of reasearch and attended energy shows and cannot come with a cost effective way to get off the grid. The cost of my getting off the grid would range somewhere between twelve and twenty-five thousand dollars. One reason for that is that here in central Wisconsin neither solar or wind can be depended on to do the job alone. Therefore I would need both solar AND wind generating units to be assured of enough power. Thus it partly depends on where you live as to whether going off grid would pay. With my electricity running at about $720 per year, even a mid range eighteen thousand dollar set-up would take me twenty-five years to get a my payback. That is without even figuring in the cost of maintaining the equipment. I feel that this is much too long and would not be a wise investment. This would in fact strip me of all of my money for other survival projects. I also would probably have to borrow to accomplish the task and that I refuse to do. That would add interest to the cost and make the payback even longer. Another thing you need to think about are the laws. Those survivalists living in cities, suburbs and even some smaller towns may have zoning laws to contend with which do not allow wind towers, etc. Although no one should be able to tell us what to do with our property, the fact is that they do. Also there is the consideration of space. Would you have enough room on your city lot to put up a wind generating tower and several solar panels. So if we are not going off the grid, why a backup? When things like ice storms, hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes and other natural or man-made disasters hit, we will need that backup. Even with a natural disaster, you might be without power for weeks. Should the disaster be caused by terrorists or future war, you may not get power for much longer. There are many things that need electricity. In todays world we have refrigeration, the blower on the furnace for heat, medical conditions that need power equipment and you may have need to keep your computer running. Whether one or more of these reasons, or something else entirely, I believe a backup unit is needed. What you need your backup power for will determine how big and what type you need. I will not be able to cover everything, but I will look at several different options. From there you will need to decide what you need, what you can do yourself, how much you want to spend and possibly what is legal in your area. Where I presently live I can install anything I wish for the generation of power and I will tell you what my plans are. Having moved here recently I am just getting started on my new backup unit. It is my wish that every true survivalist can set up at least a minimal backup system. Whether it is because you get shut off for not paying your bill in a coming depression, an act of nature or an act of man, I think that eventually we will all need that backup.