During the 50's my Dad and I spent many an afternoon fishing Merritt's Mill Pond. The grass, weed, and cypress bring back so many memories. A mid-50's survey revealed that the pond (all 7 miles of it) was overpopulated with immature bass and panfish. Best chance of getting larger ones was early in the year during the spawn. Largest one was a 5 lb. largemouth bass. Had several good stringers of bluegills and shellcrackers but also had many days when all we caught were small ones. Jonboat rental was a dollar a day. Is that the camp and property Mr. Kelly used to own? Went to school with his daughter.
@@samphillips8322 Hello Sam, what a great story! I love hearing about the ole days and yes, they certainly were "good." I could share similar stories, fishing with my dad in the Florida Everglades in the late 1970's. I don't know about the camp or property but if you read just a couple comments down, someone posted that his grandfather owned that land and "Midway Fish Camp." Just super cool stuff that made me stop and imagine how awesome to fish back then. Before all the pollution, overfishing and environmental destruction. Ask "user" and I'll bet his grandfather was Mr. Kelly. Again, great story and thank you for taking the time to post.
@@HomesteadOnThePreserve awesome I got one given to me that needs a hole patch if I wanted to fix it after me n a group of friends went on a nice float so I went down the big rabbit hole on all of it still not sure witch I'm gonna try might even just get the gator guard stuff since the kayak was give to me but all the patches are cheap n awesome I know I'm gonna plastic weld the hole but seeing how I'm heavy built I thought maybe JB weld but molding some heavy duty thick PVC be better for a nice keel guard for myself
@@coherenttruth4713 Yeah, these days there's so many good products thanks to chemistry. Modern automobiles are held together almost exclusively with glue and pressure snaps. Whatever you use or combo of each you'll be fine.
@@CRAZYBUILD349 Thank you C.B. very appreciated. Very cool you're into R.C. I've been fascinated with remote control since I was a youngster and have been flying 250 & 450 size helicopters for the last 15+ years. I think I'm going to get into boats next since I have a 1/4 acre pond on my property.
@@garywhitaker9854 We had the coop for 15 months so far. It's holding up excellent and surprisingly it even looks like new! Sorry it's not available in Canada, it's worth the money.
Just found your video and have been contemplating this coop. I have a fenced in yard…do you think this is a pretty secure coop to keep them safe from predators? We have mostly possums, raccoons and armadillos in our area. Thanks!
@@PaulaWalnuts Hey Mr. Walnuts (great name) We had the coop for over a year now and it's been wonderful! Surprisingly it even still looks like new. We use a Premier One 4" fence. Every 6 months we trim their flight feathers for good measure. The first couple months we would close the coop door every night and open every morning. We got tired doing that so for the last year we just keep the sliding door open but I removed the ramp. I figure that makes it a bit harder for snakes and stuff to find and access the only opening. Chickens come & go as they please without worry about a broken "automatic door." So far zero critter problems. I have cameras all around the coop to see if anything is stalking them but the only things I've ever seen that close are rabbits. We have tons of wildlife including bobcat, coyote, black bear, raccoons, opossum and armadillos everywhere. We never had a problem, maybe we have just been lucky. Maybe Brindy's scent keeps them at bay? I was most worried about hawks and eagles but if you have a couple trees around the fencing / coop, air predators won't fly in, they want a clear and open flight path. All the best if you get the coop. If you don't want to build your own, it's great for the money.
@@PaulaWalnuts I just wrote a lot but really didn't answer your core question. The coop itself is VERY strong and solid and it's much heavier then it appears. Critters digging under the frame to enter would be the weak spot but that's not the coops fault. We bank on the E-fence to keep em out completely.
1 if you want better balance for your batteries disconnect the + that goes to your invertor from the first battery and connect it on your last battery or iven better , do the same and use buss bars ; 2 realise that that you are cycling those lifepo4 batteries with solar , that means you can run them down to 10 % at leest and it will be time and age that will kill them and not cycling ..... with these batteries it is not the batteries themselfs that (battery cells) but the management systems (bms) that fail ...... i use lifepo4 allmost since they arived on the market (about 5 years for me) and i charge them to 95 % and discharge them to 5 % and the batteries are like new , bms's however i changed in the first 2 years 6 bms's for 4 batteries , they are better today
@@cristiancucu4100 Hey Christian, I really appreciate your input and taking the time to post. You're correct and many months ago I had the lead solar technician come out. He fixed the battery imbalance issue and update the Sol-Ark so everything is great now. You run your LiFePo4's down to 5% wow. Factory settings on mine are to shut down at 20% and kick back on at 32%. I know this by opening the Sol Arks program settings. I would lower the values to say 15% / 27% or even 10% / 22% if I needed to squeeze out more juice but living here for almost two years it's not necessary as we never killed the batteries. Many times we didn't see the sun for several days but we just save laundry washing & drying for a sunny day. As you know clothes drying is a massive draw.
Hey, just dropping a note if you haven't bought your second Sol-Ark yet, you might want to check out the 18KPV inverter and its little brothers at Signature Solar. Basically a clone of Sol-Ark but a lot cheaper.
@@lbroome Why hello there! Our main house will be finished next week, they are knocking out the punch list items now. The solar was installed and inspected a few months ago and it's amazing. We have 22 Canadian Solar "all black" 400 watt panels, 4 Life Power 7.5k batteries (same as the cabin but 4 of them instead of 3) and a Sol-Ark 15k. No tankless water heater because it would require a second inverter. A Rheem 60 gal tank is in the corner of the 3 car garage. The house is 2,000 sq ft under central air with soft start motor. We are very excited to move in soon. Thank you for checking in with me and the suggestion.
@@HomesteadOnThePreserve Wow, that's good to hear. That 60 gallon tank is a good idea with all those panels, free hot water! Sounds like you are all set!
And THEN..U can install maybe 400ft long 8ft deep 4"diameter Sched.20 pvc pipe loop grid circulating antifreeze through a CAR radiator & fan setup..two radiators better..for the 50 to 60-ish°F ground temps. Then whatever else u now have is only for supplement Just needs modest circulating pump..no power-gobbling compressor!
The small vent on each side and the front door remain open during the hot months. The chickens can enter and leave the coop at will. This provides lots of air flow keeping them happy and healthy.
Heating water with solar is so much more efficient through thermal solar, you can always supplement with the tankless heater. Plus it is on your roof, saving precious inside space. That could solve your inverter size problem.
I solved the tankless water heater with an $8 adjustable flow valve. (I made a video on it) Everything works perfect now. Thanks for your suggestion which otherwise would be a great solution.
@@HomesteadOnThePreserve I will check that out. I really like your setup plus what an amazing price. I recently installed my own off grid system (3300W solar with 14.4kW battery bank) and am now focusing on water. Here in rural spain many people have solar thermal panels with tanks on their roofs. Thanks for the detailed tour. All the best!
The actuator has held up perfectly. About 4 months ago my brother came to visit and preferred the thumb throttle so I swapped it for him. I never put the twist throttle back on because he's coming to visit again. I much prefer the twist with one exception. Going off road when it gets real bumpy it's difficult to maintain throttle control and can actually be dangerous. My final verdict, if you're riding on smoother surfaces the twist rocks, otherwise the thumb throttle wins.
I worked hard my entire life. Save alot, spend a little and Invest wisely. You don't want to see our main house which just finished being built and also 100% off grid. I'm afraid you'll have jealousy overload.
@@HomesteadOnThePreserve Thank you thats my thoughts also no digital, seems I read alot of ppl complain on the digital. I seen yours and had to ask. Thank you.
@@HomesteadOnThePreserve I have to switch off my inverter (which is my load) in the house in order to make the battery charge faster. Any idea why? Thx in advance
How about one of those dedicated heat pump water heaters? They only need a 120V outlet with a 15 amp breaker. When heating water with solar and batteries it seems to make more since. Love your videos by the way.
I recommend two upgrades. One more battery so you can have 28kw of battery storage. Second install a heat pump style water heater they would be more energy efficient than that tankless electric water heater that you currently have. And the heat pump water heater will not over load your inverter.
So far the three batteries have been sufficient and it's been a year and a half living here. Our main house is almost finished so having guests stay in the cabin for a few day or a week we definitely have enough storage. I installed an $8 flow valve on the shower head which solved the tankless heater problem. I simply dialed down the flow to around 1 GPM and it's working great. Draws around 3k and the temp is slightly over 100 degrees. I did a video on that if you're interested. What you suggested with the heat pump is great but luckily unnecessary for us.
Hello my friend. Your chicken coop turned out very nice. Your chickens will be very happy. Could you write me the width and length dimensions of this chicken coop and the height of the roof and the height of the garden fence in feet?
Afternoon Halil. To make sure I don't give you wrong dimensions, just Google "Tractor Supply Sentinel Coup." It's holding up really great and actually still looks new. We are both very impressed with it and I hope you will be too.
1kw/hr baseload roughly you got running your settup....you really could use 30kwh of batteries if you have no grid backup. That might buy you enough to get past most cloudy days if you dial back the consumption.
We've gone multiple times, 4 days without a hint of sun and never ran out. It's been a year and a half so far and it's been great! The only issue we had I fixed. The tankless water heater I talked about, solved it with an $8 flow control valve.
Instant hot water is terrible for offgrid. Large tank is the way. Use it as a dump load from panels when battery is full. Having 500 litres of hot water will last you a long time.
You have the batteries wired incorrectly. The negative and positive needs to be at opposite ends to pull power equally through the cells in a balanced manor.
It actually is heavy because it's built very well. We move it with a wheel system called ChickLift which we did a video on if you want to check it out. Makes moving it pretty easy.
The problem with your batteries is your SOL ARK is connect to the top battery on the POS and NEG terminals. So if you move the NEG cable down to the bottom battery you should be perfect.Don't forget to shut everything off first. Be careful.
Months ago I had the main technician fix the imbalance issue. He also updated the SolArk's software and everything has been great since. I solved the tankless water heater issue with an $8 flow control valve. (I made a video about it) Thank you for watching and taking the time to comment!
if I were going to do this I would do a few things differently. Would use a solar thermal heater for the water as a drain back system.. So no more 7kw water heater. I would look at using a water to water heat exchanger heat pump smallest one that i could find to do radiant heat picking up extra heat from the thermal heater or possibly just expanding the themal system large enough to run radiant heat also. I would consider putting in rain water collection as it is pretty much just a matter of filtraton. even with storage tanks the cost and running cost of a well would be much reduced Looking at your windows would place more on the south face to add to solar heat gain during the winter. Just my two cents
I solved the tankless water heater issue with an $8 part. I made a video on it to help others. Being over a year now living with solar it's been absolutely amazing!
Doing research on PVs in 2021 and 2022 Panasonic made the most efficient and reliable products, plus they had one of the best warranties. No wonder Tesla used (don't know if they still do) Panasonic PV's for their flat solar tiles and the Tesla Powerwall is actually made by Panasonic, it's a rebadged "Evervolt."
Interesting - Google searching doesnt even show any half decent Panasonic PV panels that I can see and states that the Powerwall is made in Nevada. Evervolt seems to come out of India. @@HomesteadOnThePreserve
Indeed buyer beware... do your home work. On the hot water I just do not understand your approach. You are coming at it like you are ON grid in town.... Just put in a LARGE hot water tank and put it on a timer so it is only powered from the time you get up until 6-8pm sun set.. It will heat on the solar only basically. The water is still too hot in the morning for me to shower in before the power even comes on. Lastly I have no information to back up your claim about NOT using the bottom 20% of your batteries. For the very reason that they are Lithium iron phosphate you mistaken... If anything dont charge the shit out of them to get the very top. But use the bottom right down to 1% or less. Suggested reading... RU-vid DIY solar with Will Prowse. And Of grid Garage They are both clinical testers of all things solar and LIVE SOLAR Good on you for getting out of the barn with all the other sheeple. As you notice taking care of ones self has ups and downs but it is always worth it.
We decided on a tankless because we love them and there's no room inside the cabin for a tank. Besides all tank heaters rust and leak after 10 years. No way I would ever put one inside the cabin. I did solve the tankless water heater issue with an $8 valve which I did a video on. The system has since been flawless and amazing. Our main house is almost built and that's 100% solar also. 3 bedrooms, 2 baths with central AC..... You shouldn't run any battery chemistry under 20% if you can help it. It slowly degrades it, effecting the max charge levels and overall performance. It's not right away noticable but will show in time.
@@HomesteadOnThePreserve You are good at stating things with authority but I notice you are not sighting your sources. I sighted two that will show you, to the molecule, why you are wrong. RE. the hot water. It is your house and you choose what you like thats the point of it all. The hot water set up I suggest is far more efficient as it only uses solar and it would be dirt cheap compared to your system even it you had put it outside. Yes I hear you you dont want to do that. FWIW. Every hot water tank short of the very cheapest that I have ever seen has anodes in it. Change the anode every 3-5 years ... blow the bottom of the tank clear with the valve that is there and you are good for at least 20 years on any $500 hot water tank. No no one does this as they are ignorant and or lazy. Its the way it is. Its all in formation. Education takes time. OMG 135 943 new videos up... I gotta go watch videos. cheers
