What if we were frozen like Texas?
Feb 17, 2021 22:37:13 GMT -6
brucearmstrong65 and 9idrr like this
Post by papaof2 on Feb 17, 2021 22:37:13 GMT -6
While I'm not able to do serious building and testing, I've done some additional testing of the solar-charged battery backup system: a 48 hour run of just the furnace. I can plug in a Kill-A-Watt and an extension cord with one hand and everything else is flipping breakers or switches ;-)
I ran a 48 hour test of powering the furnace on the inverter (worked fine) and the battery bank's capacity versus a real world load: cold weather and no power, as in Texas. The average daily temperature on the 16th was low twenties (I printed the 3 day history from the nearest county airport and will plug those numbers into Excel to get close to the actual average). At that temperature, the original spreadsheet was too optimistic about power used by the furnace - in actual use, we'd get about 2 hours less run time, depending on whether the freezer needed power, among other things. At 20F, the freezer should be on the screen porch where it would not need power most of the day - just need an appliance dolly and some younger muscle for the move :-(
Does knowledge of the exact level of heating time versus temperature change anything? Just some numbers in the spreadsheet for now and maybe add in a place for "Average Daily Temperature" or "Expected High" and "Expected Low" and work that out, adjusting the furnace's % ON time based on that temperature. Probably be a few days while I work out the numbers for this house, its location and its heating system. Yet another thing for the serious backup power user to include in calculating "What if?"
I ran a 48 hour test of powering the furnace on the inverter (worked fine) and the battery bank's capacity versus a real world load: cold weather and no power, as in Texas. The average daily temperature on the 16th was low twenties (I printed the 3 day history from the nearest county airport and will plug those numbers into Excel to get close to the actual average). At that temperature, the original spreadsheet was too optimistic about power used by the furnace - in actual use, we'd get about 2 hours less run time, depending on whether the freezer needed power, among other things. At 20F, the freezer should be on the screen porch where it would not need power most of the day - just need an appliance dolly and some younger muscle for the move :-(
Does knowledge of the exact level of heating time versus temperature change anything? Just some numbers in the spreadsheet for now and maybe add in a place for "Average Daily Temperature" or "Expected High" and "Expected Low" and work that out, adjusting the furnace's % ON time based on that temperature. Probably be a few days while I work out the numbers for this house, its location and its heating system. Yet another thing for the serious backup power user to include in calculating "What if?"
