Posted: 11/28/2009 5:53:18 AM EDT
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Who has experience with propane appliances? Looking at the whole deal: heat, range, refrig, dishwasher, clothes washer and dryer, hot water, etc. What are the pros and cons, etc? The thought is next house, do it all propane, too include a generator with the largest tanks I can get buried. I would like to be able to ride out significant power outages with no problems, preferably for 3-6 months, without much of a lifestyle change. It seems propane would be the way to go to achieve this. I’m personally not very excited about wind or solar, but would consider them as a way to power the basics like lights and such and provide the basic electricity for the rest of the propane stuff, leaving the generator as complete backup. We already doing egg laying chickens and pigs, and am getting ready to add meat chickens and ducks. I’d also like to do honey bees. We are trading pig for red meat, and plan to add more pigs next year so I can do even more trading. Getting into serious gardening is next, could plant ¼ or more if I wanted. So I feel good about all of that but would really like the house to continue to function through pretty significant issues ( I know that if the problem is big enough power will never come back on, but I am not too concerned about that and even if it happened we still have those months to convert our lifestyle.) |
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Most of the propane fridges I have seen are for RV's. I had one on my houseboat and it was definitely not as trouble free as an all electric one. I also have never been exposed to a propane washer however everything else you listed is easily doable. My home currently has a propane range, hot water heater, and furnace. My dryer and oven are electric but my mother has a propane dryer and likes it better than electric.
The largest underground propane tanks I have found for residential use are 1000 gallons. I recently added another 500 to my existing 500 gallon tank, not only does having a large capacity of propane give you a nice SHTF backup but it also allows you to buy when the price of gas is low. If I was in your situation I would explore doing an all gas home with the exception of the fridge and look at a generator with a tri fuel kit. I have a Generac auto switching generator on my house with a Honda 2000 to "get by" on and to save fuel. The Generac uses 2.5/gal per hour of propane so I don't want to run it all the time. But like right now I'm out of town and I would be happy to pay for refiling both my propane tanks to avoid coming home to both freezers and fridges melted all over my floors. Grove |
| Warehouseappliance.com has a pretty good selection of propane appliances including full size refrigerators and freezers. They are some what common here in Amish circles. I don't know if there is much of a payoff in comparison to electricity but for off grid living it would be nice to drop a cube in the Scotch... |
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12V stuff never works as good as 110/220, I’m looking for 110/220 full sized stuff. Are you talking about natural gas? That doesn’t solve anything as just a few days after the power is out the NG won’t be flowing. I’ve seen 1000 and 2000 gallon underground tanks. I’d prefer to have one installed at the house and another at the shop and plumb them together just because I’m extra paranoid and want two separate tanks. The more the house runs on propane the less there is for the generator to do and the more realistic it is to have a battery bank and only run the generator during certain times. I’m not looking to get cheaper power bills off of the build just have the ability to weather almost any problem even ones that last months. |
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we have a propane hot water heater, it works well and seems to heat water faster than electric. propane HW heaters are quite a bit more expensive than electric and the lower end models are less efficient than lower end electrics. so spend the money and get a good one.
you may want to look at a propane tank less HW heater. you'll pay a lot more up front, but save money from that point on. during a SHTF event you'll want to be conserving as much propane as possible. also, some propane HW heaters don't use a pilot light, they have an electric spark, so you'd need electricity to at least get the HW heater going. as far as propane whole house heaters go, the problem is they require electricity to run the fan. granted the amount of electricity to run the fan is a lot less than what is required to run an electric heater. the reason you want solar and wind is to reduce the reliance on and use of the propane. every percentage point that you can rely on solar and wind will extend the amount of time you can use propane. also, propane will eventually run out, whereas the solar and wind won't - if it does you probably won't be to concerned w/ keeping stuff in the fridge cold. |
| http://www.backwoodssolar.com/ Spend $5 ,get their catalog. It really is a beginners book, lots of info. |
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I love a propane cook stove and since I don't really bake a lot of picky stuff I like a propane oven but I know some people will do better with the electric oven option.
If I had the money I would go with a propane water heater that only heats water as it is needed. I consider it a waste for there to be hot water available while I am not home or when I am sleeping and what not. I had a propane heated dryer, still needed 110 I think to run the drum around, I don't think it was 220 but I forget. Due to well issues I generally just did laundery in town and used their dryers since it is nice for a single guy to run 4 or more loads of laundery at once and get it all done real quickly. I am my own dishwasher and I generally load myself with a few beers before doing dishes. I tend to use a dishwasher as storage if I have access to one because I don't use a lot of dishes everyday and if you do this you either wind up almost washing the stuff clean in the sink before putting it in the dishwasher or you sometimes find food still on the dishes after running the dishwasher. For a fridge I am set on one of the very low cost electric setups, probably going to try the chest freezer as a fridge once I move into my new place. There are many ways to come up with electric to run it and while I like kerosene and propane fridges I am not really set on using just propane for a fridge since propane can fluctuate in price a lot. My old place had a propane furnace and it worked well, when the power was out I had a big wall mounted ventless propane heater that kept the place from freezing up but it was not planned well and I was still learning so while I survived it was not nice. My new place has a ventless propane heater as its only heating setup but since I have some kerosene heaters as well I am not concerned about it. Previous owner used only propane ventless heater for heat so I expect to be darn comfy, this one bedroom house is setup for this sort of thing. To some extent I have cut way back on how much of a fridge I need so I don't mind little super efficient oddball stuff. Kids or a wife might consider it odd. I personally won't set things up for one type of power or fuel supply in most cases. You can find over the decades that costs will change and options might be better chosen when an appliance dies rather than sticking with what worked 10 years ago. I like propane heat as a backup to wood heat. Wood is nice when I am there to run it but even when at work I don't want the house to get too cold so having some propane heat to keep the place decently warmis nice compared to walking into a 45 degree home. Depends on how long you are gone. I like the instant on water heaters but as a single guy I don't use a lot of water and I have read enough on them to know about sizing one right for my needs. This helps conserve the propane I buy for heating water. Fridge I like electric with a small battery bank and a ew solar panels and a generator backup. I like the really efficient stuff since I think it winds up being cheaper in the long run than a propane setup over the years. I also want some small solar setups to learn from and this is doable for me and I already have a small generator to recharge the batteries when the sun won't come out to play. Washer and dryer will still need electric to spin the drums so I don't know how efficient they are. I have not had a washer or dryer for 4 years or so now and will soon have them again so I will be thinking about this subject a bit more soon. But to some extent a line where the birds won't poop on the clothes is more my choice for a colthes dryer since I am trying to be super cheap for a while. As a single guy I don't mind my version of getting the dishwasher loaded so it stays for a while. I love having a dishwasher when there are a lot of dishes to mess with but when folks are comgin to visit I tend to just buy the nice paper plates and then burn the trash later on. That is all for now I am sick of this message setup where you can't see what you are typing and it hops all over the place once a message gets this long. |