We are starting to get serious with the solar options for our tiny house. We want to be totally off grid, so that we have unlimited options for where to park the tiny house, as well as be self-sustaining with water and electric. Living in New England we realize that might mean we have to have a back up generator for bad weather. But reaching out to the Tumblr community for advice seemed like a good idea, since as you know there are soooo many options out there.
Most pre made packages, like the Solman pictured above run in the $4k area. The outback packages seem to run about that area as well. We'd like our panels to be semi-portable (not attached to our roof) so that we can acclimate them toward a 40 degree southern exposure as much as possible and keep our tiny house in the shade. We'be been told to use 120 watt panels and 280 watt panels. There also seems to be a very large price difference in the deep cycle batteries and the lithium batteries.
If anyone has had any experience with running a tiny home completely of solar I'd love to hear from you. It seems like people use anywhere from 580watts to 1000k and above per day. We won't be running any tv's, microwaves, dishwashers or laundry machines. We are using LED lighting, alcohol stove (origo), propane heater (dickinson). We will have 2 iMac's, several tech devices that need charging, wireless router and small audio speaker (VERS). Occasionally, a sewing machine. We are still undecided about an ac, but the unit we are looking into is the Friedrich Uni-Fit Series UE08D11 which has environmentally friendly coolant, can be used as a back up electric heater, and has an eco mode. This unit can also be set flush on the exterior with a grill plate. Any tips from your own personal experience would be great hear!
Link for photo above: http://www.sol-solutions.com/portable-solar-power-lighting/solman-classic-portable-solar-generators.html
