Stories, software, and a life lived across several worlds
This week we added two air conditioners to the house. They are split units. One for the bedroom and the other for the office. The solar system has been working fine and recently we were using it for washing and drying other clothes with pure solar power.
The inside unit is mounted at the high point of the ceiling and the fan moves the cold air in such a way that it does not hit people directly.

The outdoor unit is mounted on two wooden brackets that are nailed to the subfloor of the house.

Once we put on the siding this will be covered and framed nicely. As it is right now it is fully functional.

Running one unit consumes a maximum of 1200 W as shown on the inverter. That includes the loss inside of the inverter. We had an outside temperature of about 35 degrees Celcius and the A/C cooled down the house to less than 25 degrees Celcius in a short amount of time.
Our current solar system only provides us 1980 W from the panels and we cannot connect more than 6 330 W panels. That means we have to be smart about what to turn on and when. We are getting two more batteries to have a total storage capacity of 500 Ah. We do have plans to have a much bigger system so that power becomes a non-issue. What we did learn so far is how solar works, what it can do for us in our offgrid situation and what the cost of it is. So far there is nothing to complain.
… and it is pretty cool to be able to work inside :-)
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About me
Hello! My name is Stephan Schwab.
I build and rescue software, and I write fiction about the human side of how it gets made. Here you’ll find my stories and novelas, notes on craft, and field notes from a life lived across several worlds.
Working with software teams is what I do professionally — see how on caimito.net. You can also read about my experience since 1986.
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