# Powering a house off the grid **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 23, 2006, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/powering-a-house-off-the-grid/385333 "2006-12-23T07:38:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![groman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@groman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groman)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/powering-a-house-off-the-grid/385333/21 "2006-12-28T09:27:03Z")
Nobody has answered the flywheel question yet (I’m sorry if somebody did and I missed it), but I would also like more information about this. It seems like a flywheel combined with an electric motor powered off solar would be very efficient, no? ---
**Author:** ![Seven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Seven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seven)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/powering-a-house-off-the-grid/385333/22 "2006-12-28T10:16:52Z")
The big question would be what are your power needs? What do you plan on running? If you only intend to use a power shaver in the morning and a small light at night, your first idea with UPS’ just might work. A 50" plazma display and a couple tanning beds - you might want to scale up. A friend of mine bought some property in the middle of nowhere, fully off the grid, to use as a weekend retreat. He built a small cabin and heated it with a small wood stove. For power (mostly lighting) he went to a marine store and wired the cabin like a boat - all 12v. He’d take a small generator up friday night and charge a handful of deep cycle batteries. They’d last the weekend. In fact, most of the things on his property were based on marine technology. He’d catch run-off from his roof into large 55+ gallon drums. One drum connected to a handpump marine head in the outhouse. The output went to a deep sewage drain field he created. I don’t think it would handle a the Brady Bunch full time, but for a handful of people every other month (and him alone on most weekends) it worked nicely. His homemade galvanized horse trough hot tub ran on propane. 😃 I guess the other question for the OP is how long are you intending to be off the grid? If it is a year or two then I can see smaller investments - more jerry-rigged solutions. If this is a long term thing, then I think you’d be looking at larger solutions. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2006, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/powering-a-house-off-the-grid/385333/23 "2006-12-28T18:57:52Z")
[QUOTE=Seven] The big question would be what are your power needs? What do you plan on running? I guess the other question for the OP is how long are you intending to be off the grid? If it is a year or two then I can see smaller investments - more jerry-rigged solutions. If this is a long term thing, then I think you’d be looking at larger solutions. [/QUOTE] Assume a permanent situation with three people and normal household needs. I know normal can mean a lot of things, in our case regular appliances plus a few bigscreen tv’s, computers, etc. I’m willing to shell out the big bucks at the beginning to do it right. That’s why I’m interested in a flywheel system. It sounds like it is (or will be) the storage system of the future. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/powering-a-house-off-the-grid/385333.md?page=1)