A bank of ten truck batteries powers the electricity in our houseI thought I’d include a photo of our bank of batteries – these are, literally, the heart of our home because without them, we would have no electricity. This battery bank (they are truck batteries) sits in a cage attached to the outside wall of our house, between the pantry and our home office.
We have a large 30 KVA diesel generator in the main workshop area. This is switched on during certain times of the day, and it charges up this bank of batteries. The battery power is then converted via an Inverter/Charger (fixed to the inner wall of our office) into electricity for use in the house.
The battery power is not strong enough to run fridges and freezers for long periods (I have a gas stove but refuse - REFUSE - to have gas fridges or freezers as in my experience they are absolutely useless, and more trouble than they're worth !) so once the generator is switched off at 10 pm each night and the battery power kicks in, we have to remember to switch both fridges off, else we will wake up in the morning with flat batteries and no lights ! The fridges run just fine on generator power at sporadic intervals during the day, and if we are careful not to open and close them too much they manage to retain their coolness for long periods without power.
We are lucky to be able to generate our own electricity, as in a lot of the main town and cities, electricity supply is erratic and when we used to live in one of the large towns years ago, we would sometimes go for periods of up to 4 days without electricity.
We have a large 30 KVA diesel generator in the main workshop area. This is switched on during certain times of the day, and it charges up this bank of batteries. The battery power is then converted via an Inverter/Charger (fixed to the inner wall of our office) into electricity for use in the house.
The battery power is not strong enough to run fridges and freezers for long periods (I have a gas stove but refuse - REFUSE - to have gas fridges or freezers as in my experience they are absolutely useless, and more trouble than they're worth !) so once the generator is switched off at 10 pm each night and the battery power kicks in, we have to remember to switch both fridges off, else we will wake up in the morning with flat batteries and no lights ! The fridges run just fine on generator power at sporadic intervals during the day, and if we are careful not to open and close them too much they manage to retain their coolness for long periods without power.
We are lucky to be able to generate our own electricity, as in a lot of the main town and cities, electricity supply is erratic and when we used to live in one of the large towns years ago, we would sometimes go for periods of up to 4 days without electricity.
A litter of kittens once crawled in to the battery "cage" but were rescued after the dogs alerted me ... I suppose they thought that it would be a nice place to have a little afternoon snooze !
