TalkBaja.com » Baja Mexico Forums » Off-Grid / Solar, Wind or Generator?

Your getting there, Wooo .... and your posts on the "subject" are very informative ... real time usually is.. thanks to all who share their up's and down's with us on so many things ...

Our home is off grid and we use both. I have a guest casita with the LG electric and in the main house I have a Servel. I'm happy with both. I have a tier 3 kubota diesel generator, with a two wire control for air conditioning, when it runs, my batteries pretty much stay at full charge. But I run the LG without any generator assist throughout the fall, spring and winter and never had a problem.

Randy

Originally Posted by BigWooo

We're still using our Servel propane fridge, no problems to date. We only use the fan inside when the weather gets hotter. Can't tell how much gas it's using because we also have a propane water heater.

We bought a Whirlpool resource saver refrigerator to install at a later date. Monitored it with a Kil-O-watt meter before we left the U.S. . Uses between 1000 and 1100 watts per day depending on temp. Now if I could finally finish installing the additional solar to run it.......

In my experience, where you are located makes a huge difference. I live in BoLA, and I found that the gas refers that I had would keep the contents of the refer about 40 to 45 degress cooler than ambient.at their maximum setting. That was fine during the fall, winter and spring, but during the summer when it was 100+ degrees during the day and most of the night, that meant that the refer was between 55 and 60 degrees. That does not meet my expectations for a "cold beer". I have since gotten rid of all my gas refers and switched to elec and am very happy with them. My 18cf Sears uses about 1kw of power a day during the milder months but during the hot months it goes up to a whopping 3kw a day. My solar system can handle it but just barely. My batteries fully recharge everday but not till the end of the day. Anyway I would imagine that in San Quintin, where the temps are so much milder, that a gas refer would be just fine.
Good luck with yours.
Larry

Thanks for that Larry. I have heard similar comments from a couple of friends who live outside El Rosario and deal with some hot summers. We have decided to go with both. We have a propane fridge that we are using and has served us very well so far, but at only 8 cu ft we would like a little more room. We opted for a Whirlpool electric that at 12 cu ft is extremely energy efficient. A friend down the road has the same model and he tells me that it consumes about 600 - 800 watts from October through May and up to 1400 watts in the summer months. Once I get some good usage data I will post its average drain on my battery bank. That is really one of the big benefits of the wind turbine as it keeps adding amps to the batteries after the solar panels have shut down for the day...