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For a long time I have been fascinated with both a small version of an ice storage cooling system (underground, small septic sized tank with heat exchanger) ... I know here in the south I do not want to continuously feed a fire in the middle of the summer just for a hot shower.
You're making things far more complicated than they need to be.
Buy yourself an old travel trailer or RV camper. Inside, you will find a small propane fridge, a 3-burner propane cookstove with oven, a propane furnace, and a 12V water pump. Also, some 12V lights and sockets.
You can do a lot with these parts! Hopefully, they all work; if not, scrounge some more junk camper parts for cheap (or free). The propane appliances can be fed with 20-30-40 lb propane bottles, all portable in your truck or other vehicle, and easy to get refilled yourself. Most campers have 2x 30lb propane bottles with a Y fitting so when one is used up, it switches to the other automatically.
Hot shower? Easy! Use the 12V water pump from a camper (or buy one, about $70) and hook up a small camping propane on-demand water heater. The only power it will need is a couple of 'D' batteries, plus a 20 lb propane tank. These will get your water HOT! Here's a look at one:
Remember what I said about looking at boat and RV systems? Do it! Give up the idea that everything must be powered by solar. Some things are better powered by propane, kerosene, wood, etc. You'd only need a couple of panels and 2-4 batteries to start. Don't discourage yourself!
I haven't been in too many RV's lately,
are you sure they still used the propane fridge?
(I haven't seen one since the 70's, but I haven't really looked.)
I haven't been in too many RV's lately,
are you sure they still used the propane fridge?
(I haven't seen one since the 70's, but I haven't really looked.)
Yes, they do. Besides, for a cheap camper, a 1970s model is what you want (cheap/free).
But yes, just try buying a propane fridge new...big bucks. Get an older used camper, and you'll find one in there for the cost of the camper (usually to haul it away).
You're making things far more complicated than they need to be.
That is exactly the point. I aint gonna golf in retirement, my 11 handicap is as low as it will ever be. I aint gonna sell my homestead and get a trailer on a postage stamp sized lot in Florida, I already lived there for many years and hope to never go back. I aint gonna get some huge Chrysler, with the left turn blinker perpetually on, while I always drive 35 mph in the right lane. I want to keep the 1965 Massey Ferguson running. It isnt about easy or frugal for me. My 2400 sq. ft. home will stay on the grid. My 700 sq.ft. cabin may never be livable. But God willing it will look like something Dr. Emmett Brown from Back To The Future had a hand in creating. Well, except for the plutonium. I dont plan on stealing anything from the Libyans. Besides, I am skeptical of the flux capacitor. 1.21 gigawatts? That is like 15 jet engines. I want to go small, not large. I want to take some of the mechanical systems I have been around most of my life and miniaturize them. I want to shrink the 8000 ton ice storage cooling system that I messed with almost 30 years ago. I want to use some of the ideas that some very smart people thought up on how to deliver 30,000 tons of cooling to a college campus here in Ga.. In a very small way. Very very small. This will be entirely too expensive, and perhaps not even possible. I am looking for my own version of the ending of the movie Second Hand Lions, when they discover the airplane of the two older men crashed into the barn. Upside down. When they realize I have expired I want someone to walk around my place shaking their head saying "What the hell was this guy thinking?"
Which is exactly why I do not want a billboard sized solar array mechanically tracking the direct sunlight. Not to steal JFK's thunder, but, I want to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. I hope my kids are ok with just my life insurance policy. In regards to inheritance they aint getting much more. Unless, perhaps, one of these ideas pan out in an economical way. But I certainly would not bank on that.
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