My Portable DIY Home Solar Powered Battery Backup System for in Case the Grid Goes Down...

So far, all my other videos on this channel are firearms related. So, I apologize to my subscribers that this is not firearms related. This is a general overview and demonstration of my Solar Power System which I designed to be able to run the essential items in our house in case we lose power from the grid for an extended period of time. This shows it in its earlier 12 volt form. I have since swapped out the 12v 3000W Giandel inverter for a 24v 4000W Giandel inverter. The 12v inverter worked fine before but the 24v inverter does allow for some growth flexibility by cutting the amps in my conductors in half. Please read the the rest of the description before you ask me, "Well, why didn't you use bigger panels and charge controllers from the beginning?"

A couple of years ago, we lost power for a couple of days following a bad windstorm. I decided we needed to be better prepared so I bought a generator that does power the whole house. But when I saw instability in the oil supply following President Biden’s cancellation of federal oil leases and the Canadian pipeline during his first days in office causing gas prices to climb weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, I decided I needed a solar option as well. I didn’t want to take on a loan for a full-scale home solar system costing tens of thousands of dollars so I started off with modest goals to power my computer and internet router and aquariums. For the next year, every time I received an email from Harbor Freight advertising a sale on their solar panels ($100 each), I bought a couple more panels thinking to add capacity but without a final plan of how I would put it all together.

After more than a year of collecting components and watching YouTube videos on solar power, my goal had increased to run all the essential items in the house overnight (refrigerators, furnace, lights, wifi router, etc.) and this is what I ended up with. It's not the most optimal design for this much power but it works well enough. It turns out, it runs everything in the house except the electric dryer and air conditioning. Total cost was around $5000 for which $3000 was LiFePO4 batteries.