Initial setup?

4 Posts

Aug 4, 2008 12:28 am

I want to get one of the XW units to run my entire house in upstate New York. It's a 2200 sqft house, two people living in it. I'd start with the XW, a generator, and some batteries. I want to put the Xantrex, batteries and generator in a nearby barn (100 feet from the house and electric meter). The barn has it's own electrical box with breakers and underground conduit (or Romex I don't know). For the moment I just want it for backup power (I do computer programming for a company in California). In the future I want to add solar and wind power.

I have a huge number of questions!

1) I am a do-it-yourselfer and want to pay the minimum I can to an electrician. If I set up the XW, batteries and generator, what's the minimum I have to have an electrician do?

2) Since the XW will be 100 feet from the main house where the meter is, do I need to run new conduit underground or can I use the wiring that's already run to the barn?

3) I researched batteries and the best deal, dollar per watt hour, are these:

http://www.staabbattery.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=staab&Category_Code=bma

Anyone have any experience with them?

Thanks for any help you can give me.

351 Posts

Aug 4, 2008 01:38 pm

Re: Initial setup?

Walt
The batteries are the heart and sole of any power system. Buying them on a dollar per amp hour basis makes about as much sense as hiring the cheapest computer programmer you can find. You usually get what you have paid for.

The first thing you need to do is, to identify and quantify how much load you want to support for how long. If you intent is really to run the entire house without cutting back, you can do that. But it will be expensive.

A few years ago, the average house in NY used about 500kWh a month. How close do you come to that average ? And how many days (or hours) of power do you want, before you have to run the generator.

The Alt-E library has some good resources and some calculators.
http://howto.altenergystore.com/

I would suggest do a load inventory of the loads that you wish to support during the power outages. Then size the system accordingly. You will save more money by supporting only the “emergency loads”, than you will by skimping on the battery price.

Ken

4 Posts

Aug 4, 2008 02:21 pm

Re: Initial setup?

Oh yeah, sure, I'll do more research on the batteries. I have a spreadsheet (I'll upload it) of different brands and prices. For now, I just want to hook up the XW and get the minimal number of batteries and let the GENERATOR bear the brunt of my usage (The XW also takes AC generator input). But I don't even know if the generator can be charging the batteries at the same time the XW is supplying power for the house.

If we were in a situation which demanded it, of course we would turn off all non-essential power hog stuff. We really would only need freezer, refrigerator, well pump, some lights, and Internet.

The difficult part for me is the wiring. I don't know what's required by codes, how to interrupt the main service and put in what kind of bypass switch and all that.

4 Posts

Aug 4, 2008 02:24 pm

Re: Initial setup?

Spreadsheet of various deep cycle/lead acid batteries:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=puNUuTBcs72gnGPH0AoMyWA

163 Posts

Aug 4, 2008 05:08 pm

Re: Initial setup?

Walt,

Your spreadsheet is comparing the initial costs of the batteries whilst you really need to compare costs over the useful life of the battery.

The Rolls Surrette for example has a useful life of around 15 years and I believe the manufacturer will warranty the battery for 10 years. If the cheapest battery in your spreadsheet is only warrantied for 1 year, then it has to cost less than one-tenth of the price ($/Kwh) of the Surrette to be a better deal.

$/Kwh/Years of expected life is a much better way of measuring your true costs.

4 Posts

Aug 4, 2008 10:22 pm

Re: Initial setup?

Fair enough.

However, I have in the past bought the more expensive and supposedly better product, only to find out it was junk too. Price is no guarantee of quality.

Also, a company that once produced a good product can coast on inertia for 10 years creating crap and people will still buy it because of their reputation. Sometimes I like to buy the underdog because they have to perform better. They come in at a lower price and higher quality because that's the only way they can compete with the established brand.

163 Posts

Aug 5, 2008 12:21 pm

Re: Initial setup?

I agree with you that price is no guarantee of quality. Even Mercedes Benz have made their fair share of lemons. However, when you're spending a large sum of money it doesn't hurt to have a warranty. That's why I still buy my tools from Sears. When I break a tool they replace it, no questions asked.

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