Selfsufficientish.com

I'm fed up, but I have discovered that paging back to a page where I was logged in allows me to carry on viewing topics.

Another item to add to the mix :iconbiggrin: If you live in a windy part of the world you can get a wind turbine to power an immersion heater in your thermal store. All you need is the turbine and a DC immersion heater, nothing else, no controllers, and on a windy day you could be injecting a kilow...

Not really a practical starting point for all sorts of reasons, you'll need some sort of permanent magnet generator (PMG) which COULD be made from a washing machine motor but you'd need to rewind the stator and buy or construct a permanent magnet rotor. (not a "so simple an eight year old could...

Found these on eBay, 330785312285 Perhaps they might be of use.

Hello Matt,

Your charge rate is probably around 5 amps so 200 watts worth of solar is probably a good starting point. The grid tie inverter is of no use to you as it's designed to have a grid connection without which it won't work.

Hello Matt, It seems under your current arrangements that you're charging your batteries at somewhere between 5 and 10 amps at 12 volts (you could check with a meter). If that's an accurate figure you'd be looking to replace it with 60 to 120 watts worth of solar or wind or both. I'd kick off with 2...

Greetings Mattbrown, and welcome. My wife and I and two sons spent 4 winters in a static caravan on a mountain in Snowdonia in the 90s whilst rebuilding a derelict cottage. I used a similar setup to the one you describe (generator, battery charger and batteries), and found that a large battery was r...

All the dating sites seem to be full of timewasters and dreamers who like the idea but find it hard to give up their urban trappings. No pain no gain.

Adding a little petrol will lower the temperature at which the cooking oil will start to wax.

I'm currently in the process of constructing a composting toilet, but her indoors reckons I'm just going through the motions!

We call ours "Borealis" ...... 'cause it's a roarer.

Mine aren't quite on the doorstep but about 50 metres away, if you press your ear to the towers you can hear them humming, like an underground train, only they're making electricity, not using it. I don't care whether they're "economic" or not, they're my friends , and I love them. Must ge...

Roger, The occasional lack of wind does mean wind turbines are unable to produce power, but this pales into insignificance when compared to the decomissioned nuclear power stations which will continue to be eyesores for many years to come whilst costing a fortune to look after, and producing no elec...

Hello Paul, Snowdonia has such a low population density and as I live up in the hills miles from anywhere I could well use more fuel collecting used vegetable oil than I collected. I used to use fresh vegetable oil in a diesel 4x4 until the price became comparable with diesel, and all perfectly lega...

TheGoodEarth, I take your point, I've even got a suitable Lister generator, it would be so much easier, the trouble is,I've no used vegetable oil, but plenty of wood.