Many of my long-time subscribers will remember that back in February 2021, Texas experienced
one of the worst wide-spread weather catastrophes in decades.
A significant portion of the state was without electric power, clean water, or food.
As well as shortages of propane, gasoline, natural gas, and just about anything else
you can imagine.
This lasted for several days.
Myself, I usually consider myself prepared for emergencies as I already had a small stockpile
of the necessities to last 2 weeks.
But the one, or really I should say two things I didn’t have were electricity and a means
of heat.
Now, why was I so unprepared?
Well, despite the fact of Texas becoming the butt of all jokes regarding power failures,
the reality is, the reason we were all so unprepared here in Texas is because the power
is actually extremely reliable, normally.
In fact, I’ve lived in this house for over 20 years and I can count the number of power
failures we’ve had on one hand.
In fact, I used to have a linux machine that had an uptime of over 3 years and it wasn’t
even connected to a battery backup.
That’s how reliable the power is here, so we’re just a little bit spoiled by it to
be honest.
Nevertheless, after that last incident a year and a half ago, I started looking into some
backup power solutions.
One consideration off the bat was seasons.
And even though the terrible power outage happened during the winter, that’s literally
the only winter power outage we’ve had.
The other 4 power outages happened during Summer as a result of things like tornados,
or horrendous heat that overloads the power grid causing transformers to explode, that
sort of thing.
So, I figured if I was going to want a backup solution, I should really consider both Winter
and Summer.
After all, if the power goes out in the middle of Summer in Texas, the average home becomes
uninhabitable.
I started researching portable generators, solar panels, wind turbines, and power inverters
I could use with my car.
Each of these had pros and cons.
And after doing my research I found that many of these have issues that most people don’t
think about.
The first thing I crossed off my list was the wind turbine.
After much research, I realized it was totally impractical for the geography around my house.
In order for it to work properly, it would need to be so tall as to not even be allowed
by city ordinance, not to mention the cost of building it.
And while I’m a big fan of large-scale wind-farms, for my home it just wasn’t going to be practical.
And the next thing I crossed off my list was a regular gas powered generator.
I’m sure a lot of people will be surprised by this, as it is often the de facto standard
for power outages.
My reasons boiled down to 3 basic problems.
First is that they require regular maintenance to keep them running.
If it sits in storage for 2 years and I bring it out to use it, it is probably not going
to start.
And I don’t want to have to mess with maintaining one.
The second problem is the storage of fuel.
Gasoline goes bad a lot faster that most people realize.
A lot of people get around this by having several cans of gas, and cycling the oldest
can into the car once a month or so, that way they keep a fresh supply of gas.
Beyond the inconvenience of this, we’re also a household of electric cars.
So, this really isn’t a good solution for us.
And the 3rd problem is, it’s something I can only use in emergencies.
I have no other use for a generator.
Which means I have to spend a lot of money on something that I might use once every few
years, or possibly never.
I also did not want to go with a full house solar system.
I have nothing against these.
But they are really expensive.
For my home I was looking at a minimum of around $40,000.
And the worst part is, they don’t actually even work during a power failure.
This is a common misconception, but these systems are actually designed to shut off
in the event of a power failure so that they aren’t sending power back out on the power
lines.
If they did, then it would be impossible for the power company to de-energize parts of
the grid for repairs.
Yes, it is possible to get a more sophisticated system including those with something like
a Tesla power wall, which can make this work, but that costs even more money, and this is
just way out of my price range.
So, I ended up investing in five different things to help alleviate with the next power
outage.
And I wanted to let you know, I was not paid to promote any of these.
I bought all of these with my own money and of my own free will.
So, my friend Johnny Hemberger, who you guys may remember as the DeLorean Guy from my Houston
trip video I did a while back, had shown me his little home solar setup he did on the
cheap.
Basically, he has just enough to run a single room in his home off-grid with air conditioning.
And having seen his setup actually working, I decided this was the direction I wanted
to go.
After all, what I was looking for was an affordable solution that could give me a minimal amount
of power for the basic necessities.
I don’t necessarily need to live like a king while the power is out, although that’s
probably a bad metaphor since because most kings probably didn’t even know what electrical
power was, but you get the idea.
I really wanted to put some solar panels on my studio building.
I was thinking something along the lines of a dedicated solar patio cover.
That way this building would be like a little sanctuary I could keep powered in an emergency.
Unfortunately, I ran into one big snag with that.
These mini-split air conditioners that I installed are designed to run on 240 volts, split phase.
They actually don’t consume that much power overall.
They are very efficient.
I think I could keep at least one unit running on low power with 300 watts or so.
The trouble is, it has to be 240 volts.
They do make 120 volt units like this, but it never occurred to me when I was building
the studio to use those.
Why is 240 volts a problem?
Well, basically, any power inverters you can find that output 240V are usually very big
and very expensive because they figure if you need 240 volts, you are probably going
to be pulling a lot of power.
I think my case is quite an exception to the rule.
So, what I ended up buying was a Bluetti power station.
This is actually the largest and most expensive unit they sold at the time, but that was over
a year ago, and I understand they have larger ones now.
I paid around $2,500 for this unit and it came with these 3 portable solar panels.
In retrospect, I wish I hadn’t bought the portable solar panels, but you’ll see why
shortly.
So I plugged these up to see how it all works, and this is when I learned quite a bit about
solar panels.
For example, I didn’t realize that panels in series basically didn’t work if any one
panel was in the shade.
As you can see, I’m only generating around 33 watts here.
But once I got them all in the sun, I was generating 400, almost 500 watts.
So that’s a very useful amount of power.
You can run a lot of stuff with that.
The next thing I did was buy a Midea-U window-unit air conditioner.
This is, or at least was, the most efficient air conditioner you could buy.
I had researched this heavily online.
No retailers in my area carried it, so I ordered it on Amazon.
Anyway, I hooked it up in my office room in the main house and was not disappointed.
If I run this unit on the low setting, which by the way, is plenty to cool a single room
with the door closed, it only pulls around 200 watts of power.
And so as you can see here, the number on the top left is how much I’m generating
with solar, and the bottom right is how much the air conditioner is pulling.
So I’m using about half of the available solar power and the rest is going to charge
the battery pack.
So, I did a number of tests with the portable solar panels and I found that I was able to
keep this air conditioner running pretty much all day and then when the sun went down I
could run it all night on battery power.
And the batteries would run out just about in the morning when the sun was coming up
again the next day.
Which means, I could repeat the cycle and pretty much keep this air conditioner running
indefinitely during the summer time.
Now, there was also enough power left over to run som LED lights, and a laptop, and some
other basic electronics.
Another advantage to having a window unit around not just for power failures, but for
the inevitable time that the central air conditioner breaks down for whatever reason.
Mine’s about 10 years old and is probably due to a breakdown soon.
In that event, at least I can keep one room cool.
I didn’t really like the portable panels, though.
I wanted something I could mount more permanently.
And that’s when I ran into Christopher Beene, who has a warehouse in Mansfield, just a few
miles from my really, where he sells used residential solar panels for $60 each.
So I bought four of them and took them home.
Actually this is my mom’s back porch if you’re confused on the geography here.
These were really dirty so I wanted to spend some time cleaning them up.
And as you know, I’m good at cleaning things.
Oh, and I think every one of them had at least one dead wasp nest on the bottom.
After I got them all cleaned up like new, I setup them out in my yard and connected
them to my power station for testing.
I was vey happy to see that I was generating over 700 watts now.
The only problem was, on the ground I could only get about 5 hours of good sunlight before
the trees would wind up casting a shadow over them.
So I needed to get them on the roof.
I hired these two guys.
The guy on the left is Justin and he’s actually a professional fighter of some kind, but also
installs solar panels.
Yeah, I get punched in the head for fun and for money, and I aint the smartest person,
but I can do some electrical work.
And I couldn’t believe these guys just carried these panels up to my roof.
Those panels weigh probably 80 pounds a piece.
It took them a couple of hours, but let me show you the result.
So here’s some drone footage and for those that were curious, you can better compare
the size of my studio building to the rest of the house.
Anyway, there are my 4 solar panels.
Installed in this location, they pretty much receive sunlight the entire day and are generating
a good amount of power for about 10 hours per day during the summer.
In fact, even on a cloudy day I’m still getting 300 to 400 watts of power.
Since I was very happy with this setup, I wanted to add one more thing.
I bought a 4-circuit transfer switch and installed it next to my sub-panel in my network closet
here.
And the idea with this panel is I can now power 4 different rooms in the house at the
flick of a switch.
So in the event of a power outage, I can keep a lot the lights and appliances running without
even digging out an extension cord.
So here are the wires coming in directly from the solar panels.
And they go right into the bluetti unit.
And then this of course, powers the transfer switch.
Now, don’t get this confused with a grid-tie system.
My solar generation setup cannot tie in with the grid, or send power back out of the house.
This transfer switch is literally an either/or situation.
My rooms are either powered by the grid, or powered by solar.
But not both at the same time.
Now, why didn’t I tie it to the grid?
Well, that requires some very expensive equipment, various permits, and all kinds of nonsense
I didn’t want to deal with just for a backup solution.
However, I do get to make use of the power.
So, one of the circuits I keep energized all of the time is the one that powers the plugs
along this wall.
And that’s so that I can keep this air conditioner running pretty much all day.
I just open the door to my office.
I set this thing on high, so it consumes about 5 or 6 hundred watts of power or high, and
I just let it contribute to cooling the house during the summer time.
So, while it may not be grid tied, it is contributing.
I mean, it is free power, right?
So, it’s contributing to the overall energy use of the house.
Likewise, last winter, I ran this space heater almost every day on low power, which also
consumes about 600 watts.
And that brings me back to the part where I was talking about a gas powered generator
only being useful in emergencies.
My solar setup can be used every day.
In fact, by my calculations, this system will probably pay for itself in about 10 years.
OK, I know that that sounds a little ridiculous, but, a gas powered generator would pay for
itself, uhhh never.
And other interesting benefit of this approach is that I get to see my system working everyday.
So, If it develops a problem, I’m going to notice it right away and thus get it repaired,
get it fixed, get it working.
Where, if you have like a generator in storage or something like that and you don’t use
it for a few years, and then you go to get it out when the power fails, you may find
that it doesn’t work and it’s kind of too late at that point.
Of course this isn’t a perfect solution.
We did have one snow-storm last winter after I installed the panels, and as you might guess
having the panels covered with snow means no power being generated.
In fact, on that day I was getting about 10 watts of power, which is just about enough
to charge a cell phone.
Granted, snow is a once per year event around here, so on most days, the solar will probably
work fine.
Well, since we haven’t actually had a real power outage in the last year and a half,
during our last cold snap last winter, I thought maybe I should perform like a mock power outage,
just to see how everything works.
Unfortunately, due to some family considerations, especially my wife working from home and so
forth, that wasn’t really feasible.
But I did collect some interesting data.
For example, I turned off the heat pumps in my studio building and I setup this little
200 watt space heater.
I wanted to see how much wattage a resistive heater would need to keep the temperature
tolerable in a single room of the building when the temperature outside fell to around
20 degrees Fahrenheit.
I set this little thermometer in the room and that night the temperature was 71 degrees
and by the next morning it had dropped to 63 and was still falling.
So the next day I repeated the test with 2 of these heaters, which is 400 watts of power
and the temperature did remain stable.
So I learned that I need about 400 watts of resistive heat to keep a single room warm
in the winter.
So yeah, solar panels are no good covered in snow, but remember I said I bought 5 things,
and I’ve only shown you 2 of them.
The next thing I want to show you is this.
It’s a 1000 Watt inverter, which I can plug into my car.
And the great thing about having an electric car is that I can keep the cars in the garage
and I don’t even have to open the garage door to ventilate because there are no fumes.
1000 Watts should be fine because that’s even more than my solar panels can generate
and most of my equipment will use about half of this.
Also, I don’t care for these alligator connections, so I did order some better cables that will
bolt down on both ends, but they’re on back order.
I should have them soon.
My Chevy Volt has about 14 Kwh of useable capacity in the battery, and I’ve I’m
using 500 watts then it should last 28 hours using simple math.
Of course it isn’t that simple as there are conversion losses and the car itself has
to be powered on, which uses some power.
So I think probably 20 hours is reasonable.
One problem is the car will shut itself off every hour or so, which is a bit annoying,
but not a serious problem.
Of course, if that runs out, I can always move the inverter to my wife’s car, which
has a 65 kilowatt-hour battery, so, I could probably get several days of power out of
that.
Or you know, maybe If I wanted more power, I could use the solar system and the car at
the same time.
OK, so what else did I buy?
Well, I bought these.
They are emergency candles.
Don’t be fooled by the advertisement, you won’t really get 36 hours out of one of
these.
In fact, with my tests with all 3 wicks burning it is more like 7 hours.
But hey, they are cheap, small and easy to store.
So I bought a bunch of them.
Each one of these wicks puts off the equivalent of about 70 watts of heat.
So all 3 together is about 210 watts, or about the equivalent of this tiny space heater.
So, these aren’t a perfect solution, but they do make a lot of light and they do make
a lot of heat.
In fact, you could even cook with them if it came down to it.
Although, if I were going to worry about cooking, that’s actually why I bought this.
It’s a little camping stove and I think you can use a candle in here but you know,
more preferably I would use these.
I think it’s alcohol in here, heating oil, whatever.
So that’s what I’d use for that.
But anyway, the question remains, if I could go back in time during the 3 day blackout
we had.
If I had one of these in every room of the house, you know, that’d be like a 200 watt
space heater in every room of the house.
And I’m not saying it would have been great, but it might have kept the temperature maybe
tolerable enough that we wouldn’t have had to evacuate.
Who knows.
But, I have one more thing on the list.
If we have a power failure in the winter and the solar system doesn’t work.
And the inverter doesn’t work for whatever reason, and the candles don’t work.
Then well, I also bought this.
This is a kerosene heater.
It produces a crazy amount of heat, I think somewhere equivalent of around 3,000 watts.
So this should basically heat the whole house.
I have a gallon of kerosene here, which is supposed to last for 5 years sealed in this
container.
And since, things like this scare me since I’m not accustomed to working with fire
inside the house, I also figured I should buy something like this.
This is a carbon monoxide detector.
Obviously that’s one of the biggest concerns with running something like this indoors.
However, a few days later I found this guy, which was actually cheaper, and it monitors
a number of things, but more specifically carbon dioxide.
This way I can keep an eye on both levels.
So.
if I do have to fire up the kerosene heater, or even use those candles, I can monitor the
air and keep from asphyxiating myself and my family.
And so there we have it.
I spent about $4,000 on all of this equipment over the last year and a half or so.
And while that may seem like a lot to some people, the reality is, considering what we
went through for the first 3 days, and then the 3 months following while I had to live
at my mom’s house while my house was being rebuilt, I think it’s a small price to pay
to avoid that scenario again.
So, I want to stress one more time, none of these options are meant to be a complete backup
solution or power my whole house.
They’re all just meant as basic necessities to help me get through a power outage.
I also want to say that I’m not advocating that you do any of the things that I just
did because I know there’s going to be a lot of people out there that are going to
say “that won’t work for me.”
Some people, for example, might prefer a gasoline powered generator, totally fine.
I’m not suggesting that’s a bad idea at all if that’s the way you wanted to go,
great.
I just wanted to show everybody what I decided, what I thought would work best for me, and
how I’ve implemented it, and how it’s worked over the last year and a half.
And mostly I just wanted to follow up a bit after that winter storm, because a lot of
people saw the video where I had some devastation around here due to that winter storm and wanted
to show you how I’m better prepared this time if it should happen again.
And I think I’m ready.
At minimum, I’m definitely more prepared than I was last time, but I guess we’ll
just have to wait and see.
But that’s it for this episode, so as always, thanks for watching!