if you were building, what lighting set-up would you use to get off the grid

[eagleriver]

Hello my name is Alan Berry i live in kansas city i built a morton type building 64x48 with a mother-in-law apt. inside. the house will come later after the shop, dont ask me how i talked my wife into that. i want to light as much with led as poss. or wire now and add leds as i can afford. i have southern exposure 5- 4x10 solar panels to heat everything, earth contact i am at the wiring point and dont know if i should wire 110 and use batteries and an inverter or wire 12v. i read somewhere about cat5 wire running leds ? help my goal is to get off the grid as much as poss. i hate to type if you had lots to say you could just call me thanks Alan 816-721-8878 :thinking:

 

[ponygt65]

Short answer?

Wire for 120V. YOu can always reduce later and you can do it on a 'per fixture' basis and it will give you more options and room to play.

Also, you might want to check with your local building codes. A building that size may not be 'allowed' to wire for only 12V.

 

[SFG2Lman]

+1 on the 120, but maybe you want to double wire your light fixtures with 12VDC and just leave the wires unconnected for now, and then as you see fit you can upgrade the fixtures and turn the 120 off at the box and hook up the 12VDC to your battery thats being recharged by solar panels. That way if you ever do decide to sell, it will be wired to code as well of for "green" operation. But a lot of things like coffee maker, hair dryer, iron, etc etc need the 120 and 12+ amps.

It sounds more complicated but if you do it now, it will save a huge headache later and that way you can update the light fixtures in a timeline that allows for budgeting and such. Also I might look up windmill kits, I put one together for my grandpa years ago and he sells power back to the grid most months. They are very good generators and the kits are not prohibitively expensive...though not cheap either.

 

[eagleriver]

im in the country so code isnt an issue just safety i will have to wire some for 110. shop equipment, kitchen etc.

 

[SFG2Lman]

in that case i would wire for AC and keep the breaker box accessible so you can switch the wires to the battery when needed/desired. There should not be any issue running 12VDC over 110AC wires...but if you were to do the opposite you would instaflash your whole house....not pretty, I would definitely stick with the 110AC wiring and thus be prepared for all eventualities.

 

[WilliamN]

You might wanna check your panels construction method too to keep it at low cost. I found a good site to build solar panels at a lesser cost.

 

[yuandrew]

For general lighting of a room, linear fluorescent fixtures in the middle of the ceiling. A single 2 foot T8 strip light does a good job for my 13'X10' bedroom. Larger rooms such as a living room or kitchen could go with a 4 foot fixture.
Only thing is that these would require the use of an inverter to operate off a battery bank unless you equip the fixtures with IOTA DC ballasts

http://www.iotaengineering.com/dcselect.htm

A 21 or 37 watt IRC MR-16 12 volt halogen bulb should brighten task areas such as a desk very well. They can run off a 12 volt battery directly.