CountryByNet.com Forums :: living like a king on a low budget

Like the other poster said, Jerry, you have dissolved minerals (probably mostly calcium.) Because they are dissolved there is no simple mechanical filter that will help you. A softener will exchange sodium for the calcium so the water will work better with soap for various washing tasks but you may not want to drink the extra sodium so you may not want to plumb a softener to all the cold water lines.

Magnets mostly DO NOT WORK (Warning, snake oil!)

The "instant" water heaters save standby losses but take tremendous power to operate when actually turned on. You save energy in the long run but require large bursts of it to run the electric "on-demand" heater. Off-grid electrical generating systems for households are not generally compatible with those heaters as they can't meet the peak demand.

It is extremely expensive to install enough generating capacity with wind, solar, or hydro to meet huge peak loads without resorting to banks of storage batteries and enormous/expensive inverters.

I'm not knocking going off grid but... in several years of keeping abreast of the state of the practice, I have never seen a solar installation that showed better economics than a grid hookup if readily available. When faced with installing many thousands of dollars worth of power lines and poles to get to a remote property, an alternative energy solution may be the better deal but that is one of the rare exceptions.

If seeing your meter run backwards is worth it to you do a grid intertie system, especially if you qualify for "net metering." When your peak consumption out paces your alternative energy generation capacity you draw from the grid and the meter runs up but when you are not using much energy the meter can run backwards. You only pay for your net consumption. There are no expensive banks of batteries needed, no big honkin' expensive inverters, and much less maint. You can use your electric instant heat water heater on this system.

If you have the discipline to eliminate most of your electrical consumption you could end up with little or no electrical bill with the grid intertied net metering system and not have the hassle of inverters and batteries.

Batteries are not good energy savings accounts. They do not pay interest! In fact, they charge you interest for storing your energy. You always put in significantly more energy than you get back out of batteries. This means larger more expensive banks of batteries and more solar, wind, or hydro power has to be put in to get what you need back out. This is why I suggested the net metering system where you can borrow energy from the grid and pay no interest if you just repay the energy loan before the end of the billing cycle. You will only pay for your average net consumption that is above your own generation capacity. Not much incentive to go too big with your net metering system as most contracts do not allow you to have a negative balance at the end of the billing cycle. That is, you can reduce your bill to zero but any extra energy produced beyond your own consumption goes to the utility for free. This is not so bad since they will loan you energy with no interest. You can use electricity from them at night when the sun doesn't shine and pay it back the next day (assuming solar power.)

Pat

"I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"

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