I'm thinking of buying a log cabin kit from one of those

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>>1070893
>no location
>no skills
>log cabin kit with no log cabin
>off grid

it don't work that way

stop coming to 4chin with your fantasy threads with no specific detail whatsoever

>>1070897
Sorry

>no location
Montana, Wyoming, or Colorado. Haven't decided yet.

>no skills
I'm a truck driver and learned how to work on diesel engines from reading service manuals. I know some home reno stuff from working for my Uncle's company doing dry wall, painting, kitchen.bath renos, etc. I'm not licensed to do any plumbing or electric work though, and have never build a house from the frame up, unless building a small shed kit from Lowe's counts as experience

>log cabin kit with no log cabin
The kit is the log cabin. I just need to build a foundation to set it on, then get the doors, windows, plumbing, electric, etc.

Handmade, hand notched, hand peeled, completely Pre-assembled log package
Log Homes Council (LHC) Grade Stamped logs (every log in every home)
Log exterior walls
Log interior bearing wall where shown on plan
Log loft joists
Log exterior walls upstairs
Log gable ends to peaks
Log interior trusses to carry roof where required
Log roof purlins with 4’ standard overhangs- 3’to 4' on cabins
Log balconies where shown
Log porch kit, log posts and header where shown
Log dormers where shown
Log handmade stairway, one- pc. or 2 pc, depending on design shown.
Log sunbursts where shown
Log posts and settling jacks where required
Cutout slots for loft flooring
5/8"x10" Steel rebar pins
Window/ door tops and bottoms cut precise, sides cut rough

>off grid
How is off grid fantasy land? Do you know understand that solar panels are an affordable option these days? Or that wells can be dug?

>>1070904
>Do you know understand that solar panels are an affordable option these days?
Sure. They are great. When used with a grid tie system they are quite affordable. Without grid tie, you need a battery bank of several dozen deep cycle lead-acid or nickel-iron batteries to keep you going when the sun isn't shining. Also a charge controller. Lead is 'cheap' and iron is expensive but lead wears out in 10 years or so. So you either pay an arm for lead batteries now and another arm every 10 years or so or you pay an arm and a leg now for nickel-iron and hope its someone else's problem by the time they give out.

Now, I don't know much about log cabin kits but I expect it to be a bigass fucking house if its $60k just for the walls and shit, unfinished. So you are going to need a ton a power to run it. So you can either drop several grand on a power inverter, on top of the panels, the batteries, and the charge controller and use standard electical or you can run your system on 24v DC, skip the inverter and spend a ton of money on special appliances and such that run on DC. The latter is more efficiency though and efficiency is king when it comes to off-grid systems.

TL;DR
Depending on your power needs and option choices, without those nice blue state rebates and tax credits, it could cost more than your log cabin kit on day one. It also requires maintenance and, depending on your choices, they could be substantial.

>>1071010

My Grandparents went solar with battery back ups in their home. The total cost came to about $45K after 20% off because of their deal with the utility company. Any excess power they make, the utility company buys. They got Lithium-ion, I don't know why you only mentioned the cheapest type of battery possible. And if you don't get a life time warranty, shop for a different battery. You also get a federal 30% tax credit, and 15% from the state's DSIRE. So they essentially got a 65% discount.

>>1071029
>20% off because of their deal with the utility company.
He is going off-grid. No utility company to get a discount from.

>Any excess power they make, the utility company buys.
Most places you get a credit on your bill, not a check from the utility. Sometimes, if they owe you money at the end of the year, they won't even roll it over. So it's gone. Many places they won't even pay you the wholesale price for the power. So if you 'break even' on power used/power generated you still owe them money.

>They got Lithium-ion, I don't know why you only mentioned the cheapest type of battery possible.
Because he's concerned with cost. I'm not going to tell the guy to get a Unimog when a Tacoma will get the job done.

>And if you don't get a life time warranty, shop for a different battery.
Warranties cover defects in manufacturing, not wear and tear. Batteries, even rechargeable ones, are a consumable product. They will not replace your battery if it wears out. I have never seen a battery with a warranty that lasts longer than its expected lifespan. I know of know battery type that will last longer than a solar panel. Even nickel iron will start to lose is capability after a few decades. There are photovoltaic panels from the 70's that are still 60%+ of capacity and the technology has come a long way since then.

>You also get a federal 30% tax credit
Which is only useful if you pay a shitton in taxes or don't have a good set of deductions already.

>15% from the state's DSIRE
Which is only useful if you live in a state that offers that for solar. For example, California has more incentives than the three states he's looking at combined. So it's likely he's not going to get that much.

Labor/construction is going to cost at least as much as the material cost. Then going off the grid can cost anywhere from $25K to $100K.

Solar power is practically free depending on the state.

There's a 30% federal tax program, plus a federal grant program that offers another additional 30% off.

Montana is 15% tax credit.

Wyoming has their own net meter program, 50% residential rebate, up to a maximum of $3000, and no sales tax.

Colorado offers $0.50 per watt rebate up to 50%.

>>1071047
Almost all of California's residential programs have been closed.

>>1071010
> grid tie
Oh sure get public money to install panels then push up everyone else's line voltage. Thanks a lot

>>1071069
Ohmegerd them Jew neighbors increased the line by 0.5 to 0.6 volts!

>>1071056
California still has a tax rebate program for solar thermal systems. Of course, the cost of applying for the rebate (inspection costs, etc.) is greater than the face value of the rebate.

>>1071090
> Ohmegerd them Jew neighbors increased the line by 0.5 to 0.6 volts!

If it's just the Feinsteins it's not a problem. But if the Rosenbergs, Bob the farmer with a nose for subsidies, Jeff the old hippie with the fat retirement fund and a bunch of Boston Brahmins who need to feel good about global warming also get in on the act it becomes a big fucking warning. All this intermittent "generating capacity" destabilizes the power grid.

The bit about line voltage is garbage, actually. It's the grid frequency that changes if a lot of solar panels waggle their inverters as the clouds blow away. For grid frequency to remain at 50-60Hz the utility companies need to quickly switch a lot of generating capacity on or off to balance these spikes. To that end they build and maintain huge gas fired plants or pumped storage hydro plants. These show up on everybody's electricity bill. But the fuckwits who let their wind turbines/solar panels destabilize the grid actually get paid for it. Screwed up world, huh?

>>1071103
I can tell you have a very glancing knowledge of this subject. Stop listening to Alex Jones, the power companies are well able to cope

>>1071127
> Stop listening to Alex Jones

Who is that? Some doom-and-gloom hillbilly who is crybabying about brownouts? Nope. That's not me. My beef is with cold, hard economics.

> the power companies are well able to cope

Oh they are coping just fine. Coping is easy. Just have capacity that can be turned on and off on short notice. Traditionally hydro plants plus a little pumped storage would did that job just fine. With more and more wind turbines coming online[0], that potential for spikes needs more on-demand capacity to deal with. Enter gas turbines. These can be scaled at will, but they are mostly sitting idle since their chief purpose is picking up the slack as needed. Now the power company paid for them, but they're not making money most of the time. That lack of money ends up on people's utility bills. And that is why I hate the fucking assholes who act all goody-good with their solar paneled roof, and pay half the price per kilowatt hour than their rent paying fellow citizens who happen not to have access to a roof and couple of thousand bucks for a by-out.

[0] Solar panel don't have much of an impact. The rich countries where the bulk of that religion's followers are happen to be in northern latitudes without a lot of sun). It's basically an opt-out scheme that keeps rich eco nuts from paying their share of the extra cost their whining about evil nuke plants imposed on everybody.

>>1071103
The bit about line voltage is fact
Around here several houses share a substation, the line voltage is set by tapping the transformer, houses closer to the substation get a slightly higher voltage than those further from the transformer.
Houses that put up pv solar cells that feed back on a different meter do something, perhaps they lead the phase as you suggests I don't know, but as it was explained to us by the power company after they had installed metering equipment because our light bulbs blew often and equipment buzzes and lights flicker etc etc and an electrician advised our voltage was out of spec, was that in order to actually feed back electricity into the grid the solder cells have to pump electric out at a higher voltage and occasionally that means houses nearby get out of spec voltage.
That's what we were told, that's what electrician and the power company actually measured.

What a shit storm.

OP, it'll be about 6x what it says on the site if you're lucky. It generally wouldn't be worth it to go that route. If you buy land up there just fell a hundred trees or so and come back in a year and make your own cabin.

Most power companies have a bad billing model. They only charge for power delivered and heavily pad the wholesale price of electricity to cover the cost of infrastructure and such. My water company has the right idea. They charge a flat fee for the connection (which pays for the infrastructure and such) and then a fee for each CCF of water supplied. People like me, who have a water-efficient yard and appliances, only use 1-2 CCF a month. So the water use portion of my bill is literally $3-$5. I pay about $15 for the connection. If power companies did the same thing they wouldn't be in the hole all the time when maintaining their infrastructure.

That said, a little story:
>Live in large, rural, low population county
>Most of the power lines were originally run in the 20s and 30s
>Every god damn winter we had power outages, sometimes lasting for over a week at a time
>Power company that originally ran the lines was never profitable in the county and got bought out in the 50s
>They won't pay shit to improve the lines here because there's 'no profit in it'
>We pay some of the highest rates in the state
>Every year its patches on top of patches
>County gets tired of it, has a referendum to buy out the power company and kick them out
>Passes with over 60% of the vote
>Power company fights it tooth and nail for years, because reasons
>Probably spent more on lawyers than on maintenance during that period
>County wins, floats a bond and buys the infrastructure
>Takes them 10 years to untangle rats nests, replace over a thousand rotted poles, upgrade the substations, etc
>Haven't had a single power outage in 6 years
>Some of the lowest power rates in the state, yet the utility is 100% paid for by its fees, no taxpayer support needed
>Bond was paid off years ago
>Last winter the next county over had three major power outages (10k+ people for over a week at a time), guess who maintains their lines?
>That company made over 800 million NET PROFIT last year
>FUCKERS

>>1071135
Those cheap inverters introduce harmonics into the power system. Not good for anything that needs a clean sine wave.

didnt read much but for foundation you need at least a foot of concrete and reinforce it with steel rebars. You can probably buy a book about it how to do it properly. Your foundation needs to be solid so its not the place where you want to save money.

for the solar system, start with 1000 watts peak panels and you should get an average of 5.5 hours of sun per day average throughout the year. Also 4 deep cycle batteries series paralel bank will be enough and looking at 1000$. People are discouraging on this board but its totally doable. Building a house is really rewarding.

Planning is important. Dont underestimate it.

>>1071103
yeh lets not encourage any infostructure for the future generations so when we run out of coal in the next 100 years wellllp not my problem

fuck solar hippies right

>>1071368

> yeh lets not encourage any infostructure for the future generations so when we run out of coal in the next 100 years wellllp not my problem

Running out of coal is less of a problem than you think, unfortunately. There's a whole lot of lignite around just waiting to be scraped out when the anthracite gets tight. Germany is currently going down that road because the bloody fools are getting rid of all their fission plants.

> fuck solar hippies right

Them and the horse they rode in on. Sustainable power means nuclear fission or coal, as much as the hippies may hate that. Me, I prefer the latter. And the solar hippies and wind power folks are welcome to their intermittent power sources up to a point. Once they start feeding into the grid I expect _them_ to pay for gas plants required to buffer their feed-in, though. I don't want to pay for the infrastructure their "contribution" requires while watching them _get_ paid for the useless power they feed in.

>>1071376
and pollution is a myth to aye

>>1071283
You are retarded. Power and water use the same billing model because they are publicly regulated utiliites

>>1071401
My bill says otherwise. I was out of state for 2 months and I turned off everything. I cut power to my house at the main breaker, shut off the gas, and turned off the water supply (reduces the chance of a flood or fire). My power bill was zero. My water bill was still 15 a month with zero CCF used. The taxes on it were zilch though, since they are based on water used, not the connection fee.

Back on original topic.
Wiring a log home is a bitch.

>>1071450
Never though about that until now. It'll either be a bitch or ugly as hell.

>>1071463
>>1071450
Yeah that energy discussion got a little out of hand.

Could you just run all your wiring under the floorboards? Have a crawl space there or lift able boards?

I have a basement and thin floors so running wires like new ether net has never been easier, just drill two hole and run the wire underneath

>>1070893
>amish
>plumbing
>electric

Are you for real?
Sounds like a scam to me..

>>1071103
Electrical engineer here.

You don't really understand how triphase frequency is maintained. Please don't make people worry about non existent problems. All you're doing is fear mongering.

>>1071471
Amish make and sell their rootbeer from sassifrass. Canned. They have secrets...

>>1071450
Just drill straight down the centre of a bunch of logs and run the cables through there. Those are the rings the tree grew when it was a sapling so they'll be softest.

>>1070904
>Do you know understand that solar panels are an affordable option these days?
only because of subsidies that aren't going to cover your inverter blowing up two times before the mortgage on your panels is paid off.

>>1071500
How large is the room?
20 foot?
That's a 10 foot drill bit if you start on the end.
And its not just running down one wall. Everything needs to be routed back to the main panel some where.
If you have a crawl space you can come up from underneath, if you come down from the ceiling side you're still looking at 7 foot drill bit if you want the receptable anywhere near the floor.
Ceiling fan or any type of lighting....
Unless everything is run through exposed conduit, its a bitch.

>>1071471
Can you read nigga?

>>1071401
>>>1071283
>You are retarded. Power and water use the same billing model because they are publicly regulated utiliites

No you're retarded. Private companies own these utilities in my area, and while there are some regulations, billing models are different.

>>1071029
If the system they got was from any big solar company and it cost $45k then it was probably around 5-6 kW DC which is the size cutoff for systems for most companies, if you go smaller than that it's not worth it. >>1071010
Probably mentions the worst battery types because that $45k system probably cost $25k before the batteries. And that's for the smallest system possible. I might be slightly off on the numbers because I'm ballparking it but I've been an installer and system designer at a small solar company for a couple years now.

>>1071668
How do you sleep at night knowing your employer is tricking retards by the hundreds into taking loans for this crap and selling it all off to a third party who doesn't know any better?

How long do you expect the inverters to last btw?

>>1071341
use something better than steel rebars, get appliances for 12/24 volts, cheaper and more efficient/less batteries needed, if enough wind a wind-generator too, have venting from battery bank to rest of house for extra heating/outdoors for summer.

Insulate your baseboards and walls, vent your attic space with solar powered fans/will MASSIVELY reduce your cooling/ice damming in winter issues.

>>1071681
25 years. I don't think you really grasp how small our company is. We have two crews of guys, the roof installers and the electrical installers. Not sure what you mean about selling it off to a third party. If you're talking about awful solar leasing we don't do that. Otherwise the customers own their system and we maintain it for as long as we can.

>>1070904
Avoid Colorado, we're slowly being infected by Californian scum.

>>1071696
>25 years
I know that's what you tell your suckers but how long will they really last?

>>1071701
Not really sure what to tell you mr. skeptic, like most mass produced things there are some edge cases where they fuck up within the first month but all we have to do is call the inverter manufacturer and explain what's going on and they send us a new one in 3-4 days to swap out . Honestly the longevity probably depends on how people view solar, if enough people want the government benefits to end for it before it's cheap enough it will probably vanish and all those people with inverters will be screwed, but if it keeps growing like it has been then it shouldn't be a problem.

>>1071699
You could do with the dilution

>>1071580
Saw the logs into 6 inch sections, use a normal sized drill bit, glue them back together.

/diy/ has sure been lacking in problem solving skills recently