Basically, how we live without power.
Now I honestly shouldn’t say that we live with no power, we have plenty of power.
The difference here, is that we do not have an electric bill coming in the mail every month.
These are the tools we use for everyday power.
DeWalt rechargeable batteries
12 volt battery
Solar panel
Converter
Generator
Below I’ll explain our setup and how we use the above tools to work together for our off grid power.
For the super off gridness “to da woods” experience, we try to use our DeWalt rechargeable batteries most. Everyday we use these batteries.
We listen to the radio all the time and use the batteries. Radio is the newest and oldest way for background noise and entertainment you know, everyone is doing it.
We charge our phones with these batteries.
My boyfriend has all kinds of tools he can use without being plugged in because of these DeWalt batteries.
We have a vacuum cleaner that uses these batteries. It really is just an awesome feeling not being plugged into a wall. These batteries last so long too.
Now for all our other power, my boyfriend has a little system going on here.
He has ceiling lights throughout the tiny house that he wires to the 12 volt battery. He labels these wires down by the battery with the name of the room they are in.
You have to make sure you know the difference between positive and negative so you don’t blow the battery.
You just touch the wire to the battery and boom you have lights.
This 12 volt battery needs to charge and keep life so we can turn our lights on whenever we want. So he wired the battery to a solar panel that is outside in direct sunlight.
The solar panel will charge throughout the day when we have sunlight and this way the battery can charge without us even thinking about it. That’s how we get our lights.
We also use a converter that is wired to the 12 volt battery and the generator. When you turn the generator on the 12 volt battery charges.
We basically only turn the generator on when we watch tv. Yes we watch tv sometimes.
We actually use this awesome antenna he bought for a one time fee and it gives us 4 channels. These channels are awesome, they have documentaries, news, cooking, soap operas and more. We use a dvd player too.
When we use the antenna we like to call it “free TV” because we don’t get a bill on it every month and we enjoy it so much.
The generator is also our way to charge all the DeWalt batteries, the ebike batteries and we can charge our phones. (We mainly use the 12 volt or DeWalt batteries for the phones)
To me, his system is pretty awesome and easy. The parts were super inexpensive and we don’t have a light bill ever!
We look at the cost of our tools like you would an electric bill.
Our tools to help us stay off grid and have power is like a one time fee unless something breaks or you want even more power so you up your game.
It costs some money to get the things you need to unplug from your electric supplier but it’ll pay off quick when you stop paying a huge bill every month.
Take this post as adviser and an idea booster for you. Have fun and let your creative juices flow!
Remember to research a lot about these tools so you can find what works right for you.
Feel free to tell us about your setup, ask questions or tell us a story in the comment section or send us a message.
