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Comment by substack | Hacker News Reader

It sounds like the refrigerator is the problem here:

"But they still have rainy weeks where they run out of power and have to run their gas-powered generator to keep the refrigerator from spoiling."

You don't need to run any other appliances all night when the sun isn't shining. Also, why would you even have a microwave, toaster, and ELECTRIC dryer? Those all use obscene amounts of power.

I live off-grid and we run laptops (using boost converters) and lights directly off 12v DC. A big part of making an off-grid system work is reducing your consumption drastically in ways that you can't even do if you're plugged into the grid.

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> Also, why would you even have a microwave, toaster, and ELECTRIC dryer? Those all use obscene amounts of power.

Of the three appliances above, only the dryer uses a large amount of ENERGY, and energy is what's important for sustainability calculations. I can run my RV's microwave just fine from a 2000-watt inverter and two deep-cycle batteries which are recharged from a 180-watt solar panel, as long as I don't run it very long and I use it during daytime. An electric dryer is a different story because it has to run a long time to be useful. But there's no reason a toaster and microwave can't be part of a modest PV system.

> Also, why would you even have a microwave, toaster, and ELECTRIC dryer? Those all use obscene amounts of power.

Modern dryers are actually quite efficient. I live in an apartment without a balcony, and bought a new electric condenser dryer the other week. A standard cycle at half load (4.5kg / 9lb) uses 1.2 kWh. If you use it once every two or three days, over the course of a year it will use about the same amount of electricity as a fridge freezer.

But yes if I was living off grid, it would probably be the first thing to go...

" Also, why would you even have a microwave, toaster, and ELECTRIC dryer?"

To me, only the electric dryer might be optional because the alternatives are even worse.

A microwave or toaster would be replaced by another appliance, which has its own problems. Toaster ovens would run longer than the microwave. You can have a propane baking oven or propane burners on a stove, but this isn't all that efficient either. Or you can make fire and cook there, just to warm up your leftovers from yesterday. A Microwave or toaster seems like a comparative smart choice.

The electric clothes dryer seems the wasteful bit, since you can just hang the clothes on a drying rack. I haven't personally used a clothes dryer in years. It is most definitely a luxury, even if one has children since folks can just buy a few more clothes to make up for drying time.

Depends what you are warming - cold pasta dish? Just pop it in a pan with a little water or oil and will be hot in no time - can heat with gas (or wood, or biomass if you want to be truly off-grid [off-grid doesn't always meet environmentally friendly sadly...]). I guess that is one of the 'benefts' of off grid living in the UK - you will likely always have a fire burning anyway much of the year.

Heating with energy generated from solar is going to be 'costly' for some time. Amazed they run a tumble dryer - but guess it is very humid there?

Air drying is pretty useless in a humid, tropical climate --- you end up with perma-damp, mildewy clothes.

The sun is also very intense when it shines and it dries out clothes very quick. We have problems because the sun dries out the soil too much for plants so we have to put them in shadier areas. I live in an area with 300+cm of annual rainfall.

> Also, why would you even have a microwave, toaster, and ELECTRIC dryer? Those all use obscene amounts of power.

For the former two, I think microwaves and toasters are efficient uses of energy. Heating/toasting the equivalent with propane or some other fuel isn't worth the trade-off of running the generator for a few extra minutes.

But I guess it depends on how big you size your inverter, and if you intend on having a 2ndary power source.

> He and Sokchea scaled back their lives to live within their solar-powered means — ditching their toaster and microwave, giving up laundry on cloudy days when their batteries wouldn’t be able to recharge.

I read this as they completely got rid of their toaster and microwave. Otherwise I think it would read "giving up their toaster, microwave and laundry on cloudy days".

Is it you that I recall reading about who is/was living on the big island? Would be neat to meet up sometime if you're open to it, would be neat to see what you've built considering that you also do software development :)

Hey, not the poster you responded to, but I am an off-gridder in Puna who codes and actually was classmates with Luke Evslin (super good guy back then, sounds like he still is). I would love for a group of big island Hacker News reading off-gridders to get to know each other!

Yes I also live in Puna. Are any of you open to using https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/ ? It's an "off-grid" social network.

See you there!

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