mark19891989 said:
I wanted to know general setup costs, and how much you are able to run of off it. in real world rather then Kwh
Not sure I understand, but . . .
Roughly $20K installed, verses $135K for a wire, I'm roughly 4-miles from the nearest utility wires @ $35K/mi. The solar > battery > inverter system runs everything in my house: well, furnace, refrigerator, microwave, TV, DVR, this PC, wireless internet, furnace, washer, dryer, dishwasher, lights . . . everything, but limited to 3KWH/day assuming it's sunny.
do you have your pc running from 12v dc or is that also powered by the inverter?
EVERYTHING is 120V/60C AC, no DC. If I need DC I'll use a AC/DC converter such as a battery charger for a car. DC is only available at the battery box whereas AC outlets are everywhere, to code.
In 11+ years I've had one failure, last year, 2 of my 12 - 6V batteries died. I shuffled them around such that I'm now running only 8 batteries. They're very heavy ~150# and very expensive ~$300 each and you can't replace two, I'd have to replace all twelve.