The house had been "winterized" by the same property management folks that had removed all the other stuff from the house several years earlier. Their workmanship was about the same. When Tom turned on the power to the deep well pump I went around to the several shutoffs, and faucets. Some were left open, and some closed. The sound of running water was everywhere. Unfortunately, one place it was coming from was the dining room floor. The pipes had evidently frozen, and burst in the dining room ceiling. We quickly turned off the pump, and got the plumbing drained back down far enough to stop the leak. I made a few calls, and managed to get a plumber to come over on a Sunday (it's nice to have friends) and he put in a couple of shut offs that let us isolate the upstairs plumbing. By the time he left we had running water (albeit cold water) to everything on the ground floor. Even this seemed like a big deal at the time. We now had water in all the downstairs faucets, and a working bathroom on the ground floor. There was extensive damage to the drywall of the dining room. Everything was soaked, and I decided to give it a few days to dry out before I cut in to the sheet rock looking for the leak.
After the plumber left, we noticed that for some reason, our inverters would not switch over to charge mode while the generator was running. We were still running the portable generator, but now had it wired into the system the same way the larger propane unit would be.
A little on inverter/chargers: Unlike the less expensive inverters that only convert DC power to AC, a inverter/ charger has the ability to automatically detect the presence of AC input power (coming from, in our case, a generator). Once the unit detects AC input power, it automatically switches over to charge mode. This lets the generator power the house, and the left over AC power charges your battery bank. At least that's how it's supposed to work. In our case we couldn't get the power from the generator through the inverter/chargers without tripping the resets on the inverters. So at this point it became evident that the only way we had to charge the batteries was through the solar panels.
Digging through the previous owner's paperwork that had been left laying around, I found the phone number for the solar power company that originally designed, and installed the system. I gave them a call, and scheduled a appointment for the next Saturday in hopes that they would find something we had overlooked.
The next day the technician from the propane company showed up, and hooked everything up. He also did a leak check, and turned on the gas. Now we had a propane stove. Another big hurdle!! Much of the Coleman stuff was slowly starting to disappear. We also managed to get the chimneys inspected by another friend (who happens to be a state chimney inspector) who also helped install the woodstove on the ground floor. While he was there with all his planks, and blocking, we also managed to move the big backup generator out of our kitchen, and onto the cement pad outside, where it belonged. Rather than just hooking it up, i decided as expensive as the generator was, and as long as it had been in storage, it would be money well spent to have it serviced, hooked up and tested by a professional. As it turned out, that was a good choice. The generator needed a new battery, and a circuit board that controlled the load RPM, plus a service, and the valves needed to be adjusted. By the time the generator service guy left, he had it running like a top, and hard wired into out house. So, we know had 10,000w of power, as opposed to the 4,200w we had been using, plus we weren't constantly dealing with refueling a sometimes hot generator. No more hauling gas cans around with us everywhere.
Also around that time I had cut into the dining room ceiling and found the broken pipe. My plumber friend had come over and soldered in a new section of pipe. With that done, and expecting more trouble, we turned the water on to the upstairs.
To my surprise the only the problem we had was one toilet that was leaking at the ball valve. With that repaired we now had hot running water in all the bathrooms. Finally, working showers!! We had been getting by using those camping shower bags up until that point, and although they do work, there's no comparing them to a real hot shower.
That Saturday, Charlie, the owner of Moosehead Solar Power, arrived to try to figure out why we couldn't charge our batteries with the generators. Unfortunately it turned out it was because of the rough handling of the inverters by the bank's goon squad. Charlie said that the problem was most likely only with one of the inverters, but there was no way for us to tell which one it was. they would have to be sent back to Xantrex to be bench tested and, or, repaired. The cost for that was around $1,400 for the pair, with no guarantee of success. Not to mention, we'd be without any inverter for however long they were gone. We opted to buy a newer, more efficient inverter 4,000w true signwave unit that would replace the previous pair of modified signwave units.
Charlie was back with our new inverter about two weeks later, and after about 3 hours of installation and setup, everything was working as it should.
Finally, we were really up and operating the way the system had been designed.
Here we are, in the woods of Maine, living off grid in a modern home. Some people have come to visit, and never realized we were off the grid. Without seeing the solar panels it would be pretty easy to miss. We enjoy most everything that anyone else has. Dishwasher, microwave, washer, dryer, satellite TV, pretty much everything you wouldn't expect from off grid living. We were prepared to live a much more primitive lifestyle, but finding this house made the life we now have a possibility. If we hadn't found this place, in the situation we were in, things would have turned out completely different.
As much as I'd love to see more people go off grid, and live more independent lives, I do believe that this lifestyle is not for everyone. You need to look no further than the people who were here before us to see that.
To be a success at this life, you have to be ready to do a lot of stuff for yourself. We had lived a "homestead" lifestyle for many years, and because of that we already had a lot of the things we use to make this life doable.
When we moved in here we brought with us many tools, and the knowledge of how to use them. And it's easy for the naysayers to see pictures of our 30yr old tractor,wood splitter, my old plow truck, etc and think we just went out and bought all this stuff, but the truth is, this is stuff we've accumulated over the past 25 years of already owning our own home. It's been a long process. We had been heading in this direction for a very long time.
Is this type of life for you??? Well, that's a question you'll have to answer for yourselves.
We never really entered into this as any kind of a statement, but it has it's rewards. Christmas day, we had high winds all over our area. Facebook was lit up with people complaining about having no power over Christmas. We had planned a large family dinner with about 12 family, and friends. I was making one of my many trips to the wood shed, and partially due to my own sarcasm, I snapped a picture of our solar panels using my phone. I posted it to Facebook saying "they say there's scattered power outages all over, but we hadn't noticed". I tagged all the people that were coming to Christmas dinner. It took off from there, and that original picture is the one that was posted with the title "1,800watts of freedom".
There you have it folks, the rest of the story. I'm sure it will continue, as we are continually tested.
Set your goals, and work slowly in that direction. Nothing worthwhile happens very fast. Where there is a will, there's a way.
I'll try and follow along, and I will do my best to answer any questions.
Good Luck
Scott+Michelle
We would also like to thank some folks who have unknowingly provided us with inspiration
Jack Spirko of The Survival Podcast
J.C. Desclos and his many Boss of the Swamp videos
I don't know if we actually learned much from them, but they were helpful in keeping us on track.
All that being said, if I had a dollar for every time someone told me that I should start a blog about our daily adventures, I'd be a wealthy man. I see this page as a compromise.
So come on in, grab a drink, kick back by the fire, and relax.
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