Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

The content you’re looking for is no longer here. We’re finally beginning to shut this blog down, to remove old content.

We’ve chosen to start with essays that are available elsewhere. Specifically, this article has been edited into our book, Sacred Coffee: A “Homesteader’s” Paradigm. The book is available in print, as an audiobook, and in several eBook formats. It contains edited, improved, and expanded versions of essays that used to be available for free on this blog, and new material as well. You can learn more about it, and order it here in your preferred format.

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Off-the-Grid Electricity: Maintaining the Balance of Power

How sunny has it been lately? Thursday, just before the local Vernal Equinox, which falls today, I cut incoming power from the solar panels for a while!

The most basic goal of our off-the-grid system is to charge the battery bank to 100% as often as possible, and keep there for as long as we can. We obviously use the power we need, but keeping this goal in mind ensures that we have the power to use, and maintains the “health” of the batteries.

fuse box

"Igor, throw the switch!" The fuse box that controls electricity coming in from the solar panels. The Big Switch flipped to "Off" (Photo: Mark Zeiger).

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