Creating a simple shelter - and living with it!

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Appliances for solar electricity
  With solar electricity the list of appliances is short. The few things described here are carefully selected to work with our system, and in fact, half of them are non-electric!
   

Our System

Why Solar?

Compromises
with Solar

Appliances

Gadgets

Refrigerator:
I knew that choosing and installing this relatively important appliance would require some thought. An electric refrigerator easily represents the single largest power consumer in an off-the-grid home. Something to ponder with a 300 watt array!
There's off course the propane option, but since cost and ethics speak strongly against this solution, it was rejected early on.
Also a monster free standing unit would gobble up a lot of precious floorspace.
Again Backwoods Solar came to the rescue. They suggested the Novacool R4500, a 12V, built-in reefer of modest dimension and power consumption. The unit is high quality, plenty big for us (others beware!!) and equipped with a silent Danfoss compressor.
From mid april to mid october our system can easily fuel Nova's average needs of 300 watt hours/day. So far so good. But what to do in the remaining months?
Framing the refrigerator into a northfacing exterior wall with half the unit protruding into the frigid winter air was the elegant solution. Simply turn off the power when the days get short and cloudy and wait for nature to passively preserve the crisp veggies. It works remarkably well.
The portion that sticks out in the elements is framed in by a bottomless plywood box with a sloping metal roof. In the summer, when the temps hover around 90 degrees we wrap the refrigerator with precut pieces of rigid insulation.
I expected some condensation to form on the outside of the refrigerators metal casing, given the steep temperature gradient from inside the cabin to outside. With this in mind the wall opening is tightly packed with rigid insulation to eliminate airflow before applying a sturdy vapor barrier. The bottom of the hole is gently sloping to the outside. Inspections at various seasons have not revealed any moisture, though.

KitchenAid:
A 110v indulgence. The only item inside the cabin that require turning on the inverter, but the delicious dips and smoothies Sonja make are essential.

Stove, cooking:
Non electric propane stove. We found a 20" model with standing pilot lights. It is just one step up from a camping unit in size. In fact, install this stove in any normal sized kitchen and it would look ridiculous, but here it fits right in!
It has 4 burners and a decent oven and is made by Premier.

Stove, heating:
Cast iron wood burning unit from Vermont Castings. See more on heating here


CoyoteCottage.com is NOT a commercial site. Neither are we on a quest to change your political or religious leanings.
All this is about is simplefying and downsizing because it makes sense. Web design by fivenineclimber.com