The luxury of electricity.

When we bought our place all it had to run our off grid house  were two car batteries hooked to a few 20 year old 30 watt solar panels which only ran the lights on a 12 volt system.. All other power usage was via a small generator.
Since then we have added  8x 200 watt panels,new batteries and a big new power inverter and some other bits and bobs. We now  run the house  on a 24 volt system and rarely have to back up with a generator.The cost of having mains power was ridiculous so we opted to stay with the solar off grid stand alone and are very happy with our decision. We cannot run air conditioning but that's not a major problem. I have two stoves, one  gas and the other wood. We also heat with a wood fire in the lounge.The photos below  show the existing system  with a few changes before it was relocated and upgraded,the battery bank and the new inverter,. Also a pic of the new panels.

We are in constant upgrade mode, there is always something we choose to add or improve and that will probably always be the case.
The current system seems to be working well, and if i can give any advice on this it is to buy the best(or better) than you can afford, it will save replacements down the track and wasting money.(Especially when it comes to inverters and batteries)
So until next time, everyone take care,
Cheers,
Jane.