Well Pondman I have a " normal " 2 story 2 bedroom house with grid power on my 50 or so acre farm that I just inherited. and I have a log cabin, a school bus , an REO speed wagon and a step van that was the band van for a local band named Stark Raven that used to be pretty popular around here, on my adjoining 150 or so acres that I have lived on for the last 30 years. I am VERY land and house wealthy but VERY money poor I just spent 100 dollars on a Skippy filter for my inter sub-generic seedling tubs in the big house and have 40 cents to my name right now.
For the last 3 years I have lived in the unheated step van over looking my ponds so I can wake up at the crack of dawn and get out on the pond to bag flowers for the days crosses.
My 2 buses are at the bottom of the big pond dam and I planed to move into the big school bus this winter so I could have heat but I have to build a wood stove for it and that could take me a week to build and I have to get ahead of a few things like building two Skippy filters and planting a bunch of seedlings and getting firewood together to heat the greenhouse pools, building the big island pond etc etc. So I'm probably not going to get moved into the bus until mid winter if that soon. I may just stay in the step van for another year because I like to be able to overlook the ponds during breeding season and I like sleeping in a freezer. I don't mind climbing into a zero degree bed or putting on sub zero cold clothes in the morning.
I have spent most of my life camping in the cold or whatever weather and I have the best clothes and sleeping bags so I am never really cold. I usually spend the day working in the greenhouse which is usually above freezing even at night and some times 90 in the day. I work on my tan during the day then sleep in a 10 below bed at night with snow blowing through the cracks. I live what I call a full contact life, full contact with Nature. I go barefoot all spring, summer, and fall and am still barefoot today and I walked down to the big house, about a mile, on frosted ground and mud this morning. Yes my feet were very cold but, I HATE wearing shoes. Maybe I will get a dozer to pull the big bus up above the pond this fall so I can have heat and see my ponds. heat is not a high priority for me, growing lilies is.
I hope to build a house on my island in the big island pond some day and then I will be surrounded by lilies and water. Deer proof and rabbit proof gardens surrounded by a moat. I will have to build a draw bridge. I'm going to try to make the big island pond happen next weekend if I can get the dozer up here.
Jonna, RV life has probably gotten more people used to living with solar power than all of the off the grid people like me combined. The batteries are the weak link in an off the grid system. Utility inter-tie is a completely different story since you use the grid as your battery there is no difference between solar and coal power to the homeowner. A person that has lived in a coal powered house all of there lives could move in to a utility inter-tie solar powered house that makes money instead of making a bill every month and would not know the difference unless you told them. Or they looked on the roof.
One difference they might notice is that with a minimal battery back up they would almost never have a power outage. When the whole neighborhood is dark their house will be lit up and the TV running
I would love to get a Solar Boost charge controller since I have high voltage panels and short wire runs.
What is AGM I can't figure that one out, I probably should know.
Isn't the feeling of not wanting to waste excess free power great, it's the opposite of not wanting to waste power and money on unwanted or unneeded lights running etc.
First pic is the general view. The second is a closer view, third is the greenhouse and step van that I live in. I don't have a pic of the buses but they are the white spot in the left of the last pic during big pond construction to show where they are located in relation to the greenhouse and ponds.