$2000 to connect to grid again... Should I just go solar? (Pahoa: renter, appliances)

[hapci534]

I bought a fixer upper house near Pahoa that had electric service previously. Still has the 30 year old meter box but the cable going to is aged and the mast for the cable on the roof is at 45 degrees.

Electricians quoted me $2K to fix the cable and tie the mast straight which are apparently required to sign off on the paper okaying electric service, demanded by HELCO. I don't know, $2K for this seems a bit of a racket. Should I just look for a second hand off-grid solar rig at this price point to power the house and not bother with this choosy electric company to start with? What are your thoughts on this?

[terracore]

It really depends on what your power needs are going to be. I have a DIY hybrid solar power system that I use to reduce my power bill and at any time I can go off-grid if choose to invest in the batteries.

A good whole-house inverter is going to set you back at least $2k. Then you still need to add the solar panels, batteries, charge controllers, and all the cabling. When I looked around for second hand stuff, I found it was hard to come by and the discount wasn't worth the risk. Better to buy something with a warranty.

A house near Pahoa is going to have a lot of days with insufficient sun so you'll frequently be running a generator on an off grid system. They do make inverters that detect battery voltage levels and start the generator automatically (you have to invest in a generator with this capability, or purchase an adapter kit) and they can be configured to charge your batteries but also prioritize solar energy for your consumption.

Also if you go that route, and you have neighbors, consider investing in a generator that is quiet. Our neighbors are off grid and the sound of their generator doesn't bother me, but I can understand how others would disagree.

You also have to consider that you'll need to install a solar hot water system if the house doesn't already have one, and propane powered clothes dryer and stove/oven. I think our solar hot water system was about $5,600 ($1600 after tax rebates/credits/etc, but you have to come up with the money up front).

You could do a bare-bones DIY PV solar solution for about $3500 that would give you most of the creature comforts but that doesn't include the price of the batteries.


Living off grid usually means living with some trade-offs and implementing some ingenuity. A lot of off-griders don't have conventional refrigerators but instead invest in a $30 gizmo that converts a chest freezer into a refrigerator. They use about 10% of the power of a conventional upright frostless refrigerator.

[hapci534]

Having spent years off-grid in Kalapana, I still have the quiet 2000W generator (that ran 12 hours a day for $3 - about same as a utility bill), the 4 gel batteries and the 2000W inverter for the lighter load use at night. All this rig would need for 24/7 full load use is some more batteries and some solar panels. Between other things, I ran a 17 cu. ft Hotpoint fridge on this Kalapana rig, it would cool down enough during the 12 generator hours to keep things safely cold for the 12 overnight unplugged hours till next day.

[hotzcatz]

If it were me, I'd ask another electrician for another bid. That $2K seems rather a bit high for that amount of work.

Unless they're having to assume responsibility for the previous installation, basically all they're doing is what would be to set up a temporary power pole. I.e. power drop from the utility pole to a pole/mast & breaker box. In the case of installing temp. power, they'd also have to provide the basic meter box, so it seems the quote to just do the power drop and fix the existing mast is a bit high.

[terracore]

"Having spent years off-grid in Kalapana, I still have the quiet 2000W generator (that ran 12 hours a day for $3 - about same as a utility bill)"

That's a fantastic generator, what kind is it?

Unfortunately we had to buy a monster generator because our catchment pump won't start on anything under 5,000 watts and Costco had a really good price on a 7000/9000 dual fuel model. After Iselle I think we ran it about 16 hours a day and even then with 8 hours off the fridge temp wasn't great in the morning (we were freezing jugs of water in the deep freeze and putting it in the fridge at night to help too). I'm guessing we were using about $35/worth of gas a day. Knowing what I know now, I would have replaced the catchment pump with something smaller (the one we have is overkill) and bought a smaller generator. But when the hurricane is coming you look for quick solutions.

We wound up getting a handyman to install a transfer switch so we could power the whole house directly from the generator (instead of running extension cords everywhere). Now I can use that same mechanism to run our house off solar.

[hapci534]

Originally Posted by terracore

That's a fantastic generator, what kind is it?

It's a second hand Honda eu2000i with an ebay-bought adapter that lets it run with an external gas tank and pair up with a second eu2000i (which I never added) on one gas tank for cranking out up to 4000 Watts. The eu2000i's internal tank is about 1 Gallon, I usually get 9 hours of runtime out of that gallon in Eco-Throttle (power saver) mode with my appliances if I forget to reconnect the external gas tank.

[hapci534]

Originally Posted by hotzcatz

If it were me, I'd ask another electrician for another bid.

I did, same result.

[hotzcatz]

We had one of those Honda generators when we were entirely off the power grid. Lovely things, they are! Ours had a remote switch in the kitchen and that came in real handy for starting and stopping it. Honda makes lovely generators.

If the house is going to be either sold after it's fixed up or used as a rental, then sucking it up and paying to connect to the grid would probably be best. If it's going to be a house for you, then you'd have enough experience to have an entirely off grid house if you wanted. We had an entirely off grid system at one of our rental houses and had to remove it and connect the house to the grid since the renter couldn't manage to keep the system running.

Currently, (no real pun intended) we're on a grid tie system and it is really nice to not have to deal with generators or batteries. The other rental house has a grid-tie system too, and that's very renter friendly.

[hapci534]

It's not just the $2K connection racket, solar may also annihilate the monthly electricity bill. I come out almost even with grid power costs when I run the eu2000i daily for 12 hours. If solar panels can replace just half of the eu2000i Amp hours, I just cut my energy costs 50%. And, running solar panels is quite automated, I heard, it's the charge controller that takes care of the mundane chores?

[Open-D]

Originally Posted by hapci534

I did, same result.

Paradise isn't cheap!