Winter Chores for Off-Grid Living

Reader Contribution by Paul Scheckel
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There are great advantages to being off-grid. For example, two weeks ago, an ice storm a bit northwest of us left more than ten thousand homes without power for several days. Thankfully, we avoid the frenzy of stocking up on batteries and water before a big storm, and the inconvenience of power interruptions afterward. Outside of a few rare equipment failures, we’ve never had a power outage in the past 20 years that wasn’t our own fault — usually caused by not paying attention to power use or proper battery charging. Weather failures, on the other hand, are starting to become noticeable. This past December has been incredibly cloudy, and the wind abnormally non-existent when we count on it to deliver. Fortunately, the diesel generator has always provided reliable backup power.

Yesterday evening we had a brief, wet, snowfall amounting to about a quarter of an inch. Later at night,

the soft whir of the wind generator suggested that the cold front promised by the weather forecaster was moving in. This was confirmed in the wee hours of the morning by the sudden, cold breeze zipping through the slightly open bedroom window, waking me with a frosty slap in the face.

As I sipped my coffee this morning, the low winter sun just coming up through the trees, I knew what had had to be done without looking. Perhaps I’d wait another hour and let the sun do some of the work for me. Checking my web-based energy and weather monitoring systems on the tablet, I saw that the temperature had fallen from a balmy 40 degrees F yesterday, to a more normal 15 this morning. Unfortunately, the batteries that store the energy for our off-grid power system were at a voltage that showed a little too much neglect. It’s been an incredibly cloudy and wind-free December! One last sip of warm wake-me-up and out I went.

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