We finally got moved in to our new little house! Saturday, October 14, we slept in our new bedroom for the first time. It wasn’t exactly luxurious. Mary had returned from Utah with daughter Meagan earlier that week and we all (except for daughter Rachel who was still living in a tent in the woods) slept in the RV for several nights. We then took the mattress out of the RV loft and put it in the bedroom in the house. Stan slept on the mattress on the floor, Mary on a camping pad next to Stan, Meagan in the loft on the twin bed from the tent and Rachel in the RV. Whew! Not exactly in the lap of luxury, but at least we were in. No running water, no power other than by generator, no way to cook anything other than a camp stove in the living room, but by golly we were in our house!

Over the next days and weeks, things improved. We installed the cabinets we had bought from a remodeled kitchen back in the summer, put some plywood on for temporary counter top, cut a hole and installed a kitchen sink and faucet. The plumber came and connected the pump in the crawlspace, I (Stan) put in the drain for the sink and voila! we had running water (cold only–propane still not connected to kitchen stove, dryer, or on-demand water heater).

We ran generators 24/7 for three weeks or more until I could get the solar plant moved from the RV to the house. Pictures below depict the progress on that.

Sixteen 100AH lithium batteries installed in the solar closet and connected in four four-battery groups for a 48 volt system using 2/0 AWG cable. The tangle at the bottom is a bunch of cables for data display, remote controller, and 110 and 240 inputs and 240 output ready to be connected to the solar inverter/charger.

The Sigineer 6KW solar inverter/charger mounted on the wall. This unit weighs 100 lb. Getting it up there was a chore. Below is the tool we used to crank it up, one notch at a time.

Mary’s steadying the unit while Stan cranks it up.

Finally got it in place and wired in. This was taken before the monitoring gauges were added. Lots more wire in there now. The black rectangle on top with a cord hanging down is a 110 VAC 48-volt charger. That connects directly to the batteries and is powered off of a small 3.2 KW very quiet and fuel-efficient generator. Additionally, our large 9KW generator connects to the inverter/charger via a 240 VAC input. That charges much more quickly than the 110 VAC charger, but also uses much more fuel. In winter, due to the sun being so low and often clouded out, the solar panels don’t provide enough charging to keep the batteries charged and we need to supplement with one or the other generator. Reminder: we are completely off-grid: no utility power and no natural gas. We also don’t have a well, just a 2500 gallon cistern that gets filled by our hauling water from the fairground in Bonners Ferry (50 gallons for $0.25) or from rainwater that we capture. We use a composing toilet, so we don’t waste water flushing!

Mary’s driving son Keith’s tractor to move split wood from a pile to be stacked in the new wood shed.

We got our first snow of the season! It’s beautiful, but we’re happy it didn’t stick around too long.

One Saturday morning, we awoke to no running water! Something had frozen up in our water system. The cistern and pipes hadn’t been buried yet before the temperature got so low, so here we are loading up an excavator to bury the tank and dig the water pipe trenches deeper. Since that was done we haven’t had problems with freezing.

Mary’s daughter Rachel (almost) singlehandedly built us a wood shed. It’s only about half full at the moment, but Stan is dedicated to chainsawing and splitting wood from some of the trees we have cut down (when he’s not installing electrical outlets and switches, making “temporary” countertops, installing sinks, troubleshooting the water pump, etc., etc.).