Off grid. Living with solar and bottled gas.

The sun has shone all week. So we have not needed the generator to top the batteries up. I have made a concerted effort to manage the household tasks within the power options. That means bottled gas or the batteries for power, and of course, the sun and wind to dry clothes. Not that it matters if we run the generator as it is very economical but I have sort of set myself a challenge to manage without it. The gas runs the caravan three-way fridge, water heater, BBQ and burners and the solar manages appliances.
I’m sure I have told you that I am not an open fire lover, and anyway this is fire ban time, so wood fire cooking is out.
As an aside we were very saddened by the news of the fires in SA this week. We know the affected areas well since we lived outside Freeling for many years and our kids played sport at Hamley Bridge on weekends. As it happens the shed on our old house site was burnt down during the crisis. Wow!  Our thoughts and prayers are with those who have lost so much, not the least being the sense of security that home is supposed to give.
Back to the off grid challenge.
So I have been trying to crack bread baking in the BBQ. Our BBQ does not have a lot of clearance under its lid so I have to watch how high the dough rises in case it hits the top.  The other challenge is the amount of heat coming from the flame under the BBQ plate. I have been cooking cob loaves in a pie plate with five layers of folded aluminium foil in its base. I place the tin on two small pizza trays and put the whole lot on a low rack to keep a space between the BBQ plate and the base of the loaf. The loaf is a bit black on the bottom still but the bread is really  nice.

I finally found a 1lb tin that has a really heavy base and not too high sides so today’s bread looks very professional. Still cooked on the rack and two pizza tins the bottom of the loaf is brown but not burnt. The sides are crisp as well. Looks like the loaves on the suppliers web site.

It helps that I have found the correct place to aim for on our temperature gauge that K drilled a hole in the BBQ lid to install. 180 degrees at the BBQ lid for an hour produce this loaf today.( I did scones in it last weekend and it does all our roast and meat cooking.)  K was doing important things outside while the bread cooked.

The 12v 2000w inverter runs useful appliances including the our beloved coffee machine. With the power flooding in from the solar panels, as long as I don’t exceed the inverter’s capacity and I don’t run appliances too long and drag the batteries below save charge levels,  I can pretty much do any task. The trick is to do things that draw larger amounts of  juice while the sun makes the power during the day and to choose appliances that are low in power requirements. Electric kettles and toasters are generator only appliance and I don’t use them. But my stick mixer works quite nicely. At night the batteries handle lights, charge phones, run the camp fridge freezer, run the DVD player and TV and stretch to a coffee or two. Occasionally on a grey morning I might have to boil water and make plunger coffee if the batteries are low.
Today I washed in the twin tub, made coffee, ran the microwave to cook eggs for K and cooked these cake pops in a cheap cake pop machine. Apparently grandmas are supposed to have “something special for me to eat” when granddaughters come to visit. I hope she likes these little wonders. Five minutes in the appliance for 6 little cake balls.  I used a microwave cake in a mug recipe because a full cake mix would do about 30 balls. Six at a time I think I might have lost concentration well before the end.
I think this might become a grandma and granddaughter activity.

On a completely different subject, I finally finished my 12ply knitted afghan. Now all it needs is a home. This pattern is a favourite of mine. It starts from a rectangle in the middle and with clever casting on and off grows outwards. Mind you the 12ply yarn is hard on my wrists so I might stick with 8ply in future.

K is running new cables from the inverter today so I need to go and move some things out of a cupboard. I am anxious for this improvement to be finished ‘cos then I can leave the coffee machine on the bench instead of lifting it across to the inverter plug. Anything to make coffee more accessible I say.
Feeling quite self satisfied.

Cheers Sue
A Ferg on the Move.

Shattered tablet and things electric

This blog is a bit harder to write than usual. Not because of the topic, but because my touch screen notebook computer has a couple of nasty cracks in its screen. I had it attached to its keyboard and it was in my bag. I'm sure I didn't drop it, although the mobile phone hit the deck twice yesterday.

But when I opened it up in class yesterday strange things were happening on the screen. Little bubbles of what looked like air were drifting across the lock screen and nasty flashes of light were happening.

 

Disaster!

 

Carefully holding the screen with one hand so it didn't move I was able to copy off the files for morning classes.

 

So no blogging last night for me.

 

 

A very helpful person suggested I use sticky tape to hold the cracked screen .

 



 



 

 

So I am typing now with big strips of tape all across the left of the screen. So far so good.  K ordered a new tablet and key board online last night, which turned out to be cheaper and faster than getting a new screen sent from overseas.

 

Just blew a few weeks pay! And probably added another piece of equipment to Mr Fix It's pile of things to be rescued.

 

Any way I thought I would tell you about  some things we have done to make battery power easier to manage.  ( K has promised an explanation of our power set up, solar and wind power as well as our batteries.) 

 

Now I am not good with volts and amps and such. I know I studied it all in high school Physics, which I passed quite well, but I never really got how it all works.What I do know is that normal household power in Australia is 240V AC and my caravan battery set up outputs 12v DC.   And therein lies the problem. Some things just don't work of the batteries.....and we spend up to three months of the year off grid.

 

Here are my favourite electric fixes.

 

Most wonderful is the ability to charge mobile devices whether we are plugged into 240v power or not.  K installed a car lighter type socket near the fridge. This beats running out to the car and turning on the car to charge my phone. Of course this useful outlet is in great demand and I have seriously thought of creating a timetable to control access during peek charging times.

 

The 12v fan can also be run from this socket. Great for warmer days at free camps.

 

 

 

 

 

The next fantastic addition to our electric supply kit is the 2000w pure sine wave inverter which magically turns the power stored in our batteries into 240v power just like the mains power in your house.  It has two power points, one of which can power the essential things like the coffee machine, the microwave (tiny 770w one), my stick blender, the crock pot and a computer charger. (Not a kettle or a toaster since they go over 2000w, and not all at once or for long periods of time) 

 

Now, I can get by without these devices. Ok not the coffee machine, but the others, if I have too. But the addition of the inverter to our battery bank and solar/wind power generation increases our capacity to live normally, yet be off grid.

 

The batteries' charge only lasts so long if I use the power too much. K used to be diving under the bench seat to check the charging levels of the three batteries all the time. Off would come the seat cushion and whatever was on the bench, the bits would go all over the bed and he would frown and/or smile depending on what the numbers on his testing thingy said. Sometimes I would precipitate this exercise by asking the question, "We got enough power for the microwave or do I fire up the BBQ?"

 

Then he discovered this useful device. It displays the exact voltage of the batteries at all times. It is placed in a overhead locker and he can lift up the door and look at the numbers to his heart's content. In fact many an hour has been spent monitoring the power generation and consumption without the bench seat being lifted at all. 

 

 

 

 

And then there are these essential outdoor safety features. I cannot see at night. Not at all. Never could. I can't tell the difference between shadows and holes in the ground and I can't see pegs or ropes. I have permanent scars on my knees from this "disability'.

So while it might look like we have pretty lights on the annex roof and around the edges of our camp, they are in fact important safety features designed to keep me out of hospital. Solar powered of course.

 

 

 

 

Sick of chasing the pointer over the screen. Catch you soon

Cheers Sue

A Ferg on the Move