Hello from the Sacramento Mountains, Lincoln National Forest in southern New Mexico. My off-grid home sits on 15 acres and is at 7,157 ft. I am about a mile from the nearest power pole. It is nothing fancy, just 800+ square feet consisting of 2 bedrooms and one bathroom. In the spring of 2003 I added a 2 car garage. It is warm and comfortable. It costs me about $20 a month for the maintenance of the system, distilled water for the batteries, bleach for the water tanks and propane. The exterior walls are built as a staggered stud wall and are about 10 inches thick. The walls have about R-40 and the attic has R-55. The foundations were dug by hand, cement mixed by hand, 600 80 pound sacks- all in a wheelbarrow and hand carried water. Work! A small propane wall furnace heats it along with a woodstove. I cut the firewood right here by thinning the forest which is extremely overgrown anyway. A small evaporative cooler cools the house in summer with ease. The solar array puts out more power than the air conditioner uses during sunny days so does not use the battery storage. My power comes from a 475 Watt solar array on the roof. There are 6 panels of 77 watts each set at 40 degrees year round. This is a compromise between February clouds and summer hail stones. It works out. I also have a wind generator. It is a small (AIR-X) model, 3 bladed and 47 inch diameter and sits atop 95 ft of AB105 tower. Battery storage is 4 L-16HC industrial batteries having a capacity of 415 amps at 28 volts and is fused with a 175 amp circuit breaker. Power for the radios/amp is a pair of L16's and a 4 1/2 farad stiffening capacitor. This secondary battery pulls from the mains through a 24 to 13.8 volt converter made by Astron. When I am on the air I connect the 12 Volt battery and use it as a buffer. The capacitor is always charged. The batteries sit on a 4x4 ft sheet of plywood over cement blocks. They are boxed in for warmth and vented to the outside. The battery bank total weight is about 600 pounds. Adding water usually takes 1/2 gallon. During clear weather most of the power comes from the sun, however storm fronts, long winter nights and cloudy days tend to be windy. Between the two sources of power I almost always receive more than enough. During springtime and summer the wind generator is turned off most of the time because it is not needed because of lots of sun. This prevents wear and tear. AC power is provided by a TRACE DR-3624 inverter/charger. Solar charge control is with an outback MX60 MPPT boost controller. This controller can give as much as 25 percent more energy from a solar array. I have a subaru powered 40 volt DC genset as backup but it is very rarely used. I use a Staber clothes washer, a low-flow shower head and a 1.5 gallon toilet to save water...saving water means pumping less, heating less and getting rid of less. Lots of advantages. Water caught in the rain gutters are directed into a 4 inch pipe that runs all the way around the house and the garage. All 7 downspouts are connected and in a nice rain shower I can catch 200 gallons in 15 minutes. I have seen 1500 gallons in one afternoon but that is unusual. I have 12,000 gallons of storage and is usually full or pretty close to it. This water is great for washing clothes and flushing the toilet! Rainwater contains no minerals so it takes less soap to get the clothes clean. Refrigeration is a Sunfrost RF-12 and is super efficient. It runs off 24 volts directly from the battery bank. Some other things in my home using homemade power include a microwave, toaster, Mr. coffee, hair dryer, laptop computer, small copier/ printer, TV, VCR, DVD player, satellite receiver, FM stereo/CD player, sewing machine, vacuum, washing machine, water pump, table saw, drill press, shop-vac, air compressor, fans, cement mixer, compact florescent lights, air purifier, etc. Just about everything a 'normal' house would have. It DOES work guys. There is no telephone service here so I rely on cellular using a cell repeater that has a 8 element yagi pointing at a cell site that is 8 miles away. My internet connection is via a pair of paraflector antennas pointing at one another from a top secret location nearby. Driving each antenna is an 802.11B Ethernet card and network hub. The system is thrown together using Linksys gear. I would love to hear from other hams out there interested in or already using solar.. 73