Great information. I bought a Jackery 1500 several months ago. Referenced your last article plus some other information. We have been extremely pleased with it. I have the 200 W solar panel though I am thinking that the 100's may be a little easier to work with. oh well. I bought it primarily for "in case of emergency" but also use it as a portable generator in the back yard for my old school electric tools. In spite of the inconvenience of the cords I like not having to deal with all the batteries and chargers. Though i do have a few.
We used to have all corded stuff too, but have recently switched to Makita's battery tools about 2-3 years ago and wow...they're really amazing. Super fast charge, really impressive life (even on something power hungry like a reciprocating saw) and now we're all in. Still, when we were working corded in the woods a power bank like this would have been amazing...instead of literally several 100 foot extension cords leading back to the house.
We got really lucky. Some very minor flooding, but we were able to get it under control really fast here on our land. Our town is completely cut off though, as are each of the neighboring towns...there's no way to drive more than a mile or two in any direction without hitting a wash out somewhere. They're calling it the worst flooding since the 1920's, with more damage than Hurricane Irene. Crazy.
Personally we're doing fine, but locally there's going to be a lot of hurt for a long time. Even once the roads are back, the grocery stores are underwater in many places.
I would be interested in seeing more about your off grid battery set up. Looking to install some panels on an off grid cabin. Have you shared this previously?
i suspect if my property were anywhere near as big as yours is I would feel the same way about the batteries. Makita has always made an excellent product so I'm not surprised to hear your praise for them. Off topic, i hope you have gotten some relief from the rains. Please feel free to send some to us in SC.
This is great! Thanks for the research and info! What do you think an entire system would cost, ballpark, to power a home with something like a chest freezer and all the regular appliances? I was looking on the website and wasn’t sure what would be best.
So that really depends on how long you need to power them, and what exactly a "normal home" entails for you, and depending on what's going on in your house that can really vary. (Like, literally you could run most basic systems for days in one house, or try to run an induction stove for a few hours and then kill your battery in another. Some things are just crazy power hungry, and knowing what's truly essential is key.)
If you really understand that you can't run anything too crazy (electric heat, ovens, etc) if you want to be able to go for a while, then you'll be a lot better off.
We've been living with batteries and off grid in mind for 10 years...so "normal" to us is a bit out of touch from average American life. When the grid's down in an ice storm, hurricane or the crazy flooding we're experiencing now with waist deep water on main street in many towns, we go into "essential systems' mode and are just keeping our lights on and our food cold (3 chest freezers, but 2 of them are DC powered.) We keep phones charged, and out internet running (our starlink internet is surprisingly power hungry).
Anyhow, if you can go into essential systems mode, have a propane or non electric way to cook food, then you'd do great with a something like the Bluetti AC200Max and backup batteries if necessary will allow you to keep things going. The AC200Max is about $2000 normally, but it's almost $700 of today for prime day (everyone does prime day these days, not just amazon). It will keep a normal refrigerator/freezer running for 12 hours, and allow you to charge phones, run your internet, etc. If you're able to recharge it with solar during the day (or a gas generator) you should be able to limp along on it quite well. (If not, you can add backup batteries to it to expand it, which is nice, because not all systems are expandable.)
It as 2000 ish Watt Hours, so you'll be limping along, not running full normal living. More realistically to be a bit more comfortable, you're looking at a AC200Max and one or two B300 batteries...which would run you about 5 to 7K for two, depending if they're on sale, and maybe 1 to 2K or so for solar panels (or you can charge it with a gas generator) if you hope to be able to recharge for an extended outage.
So the short answer, if you're really on it and can pare things down and have the ability to recharge well, you can run a house on a battery that's around 2k normal price, plus a generator or solar panels. More realistically, if you have kids and a bigger house and more needs, it'd be somewhere between 2k and 10k depending on how you set it up.
Thank you for this information! I may have missed a post, but have you tested water filters!
Yup, here's my post on water filters: https://practicalselfreliance.com/emergency-water/
Great information. I bought a Jackery 1500 several months ago. Referenced your last article plus some other information. We have been extremely pleased with it. I have the 200 W solar panel though I am thinking that the 100's may be a little easier to work with. oh well. I bought it primarily for "in case of emergency" but also use it as a portable generator in the back yard for my old school electric tools. In spite of the inconvenience of the cords I like not having to deal with all the batteries and chargers. Though i do have a few.
We used to have all corded stuff too, but have recently switched to Makita's battery tools about 2-3 years ago and wow...they're really amazing. Super fast charge, really impressive life (even on something power hungry like a reciprocating saw) and now we're all in. Still, when we were working corded in the woods a power bank like this would have been amazing...instead of literally several 100 foot extension cords leading back to the house.
This is terrific info, thanks so much. Hope you are safe from the flooding.
We got really lucky. Some very minor flooding, but we were able to get it under control really fast here on our land. Our town is completely cut off though, as are each of the neighboring towns...there's no way to drive more than a mile or two in any direction without hitting a wash out somewhere. They're calling it the worst flooding since the 1920's, with more damage than Hurricane Irene. Crazy.
Personally we're doing fine, but locally there's going to be a lot of hurt for a long time. Even once the roads are back, the grocery stores are underwater in many places.
If you're in Vermont, I hope you're ok too!
Bet you're glad to be a prepper. :-)
I would be interested in seeing more about your off grid battery set up. Looking to install some panels on an off grid cabin. Have you shared this previously?
Here's our current setup, but we're completely rebuilding it this year: https://practicalselfreliance.com/off-grid-solar-wind-tour/
Thank you very much.
You're quite welcome!
Is there anything ya'll don't research . Always a pleasure reading your blogs. GOD bless .
Thank you Joe!
Great info, Ashley!
Thank you thank you thank you…I’ve been waiting for this
You are an invaluable resource machine Ashley! Thank you. (Would love a composting toilet review if thats ever possible...?)
i suspect if my property were anywhere near as big as yours is I would feel the same way about the batteries. Makita has always made an excellent product so I'm not surprised to hear your praise for them. Off topic, i hope you have gotten some relief from the rains. Please feel free to send some to us in SC.
This is great! Thanks for the research and info! What do you think an entire system would cost, ballpark, to power a home with something like a chest freezer and all the regular appliances? I was looking on the website and wasn’t sure what would be best.
So that really depends on how long you need to power them, and what exactly a "normal home" entails for you, and depending on what's going on in your house that can really vary. (Like, literally you could run most basic systems for days in one house, or try to run an induction stove for a few hours and then kill your battery in another. Some things are just crazy power hungry, and knowing what's truly essential is key.)
If you really understand that you can't run anything too crazy (electric heat, ovens, etc) if you want to be able to go for a while, then you'll be a lot better off.
We've been living with batteries and off grid in mind for 10 years...so "normal" to us is a bit out of touch from average American life. When the grid's down in an ice storm, hurricane or the crazy flooding we're experiencing now with waist deep water on main street in many towns, we go into "essential systems' mode and are just keeping our lights on and our food cold (3 chest freezers, but 2 of them are DC powered.) We keep phones charged, and out internet running (our starlink internet is surprisingly power hungry).
Anyhow, if you can go into essential systems mode, have a propane or non electric way to cook food, then you'd do great with a something like the Bluetti AC200Max and backup batteries if necessary will allow you to keep things going. The AC200Max is about $2000 normally, but it's almost $700 of today for prime day (everyone does prime day these days, not just amazon). It will keep a normal refrigerator/freezer running for 12 hours, and allow you to charge phones, run your internet, etc. If you're able to recharge it with solar during the day (or a gas generator) you should be able to limp along on it quite well. (If not, you can add backup batteries to it to expand it, which is nice, because not all systems are expandable.)
It as 2000 ish Watt Hours, so you'll be limping along, not running full normal living. More realistically to be a bit more comfortable, you're looking at a AC200Max and one or two B300 batteries...which would run you about 5 to 7K for two, depending if they're on sale, and maybe 1 to 2K or so for solar panels (or you can charge it with a gas generator) if you hope to be able to recharge for an extended outage.
So the short answer, if you're really on it and can pare things down and have the ability to recharge well, you can run a house on a battery that's around 2k normal price, plus a generator or solar panels. More realistically, if you have kids and a bigger house and more needs, it'd be somewhere between 2k and 10k depending on how you set it up.