ROBERT BERTRAND

Choosing the wrong solar water heater drains an Ontario off-grid battery bank before breakfast. A homeowner on Edinburgh Road South in Guelph learned this when his 9kW electric tankless commissioned. His Tier 2 system was correct: 200Ah LFP at 24V, 600W array, Victron MPPT, 3000W inverter. Two 8-minute showers at 1800W modulated flow consumed 480Wh

A composting toilet turns human waste into inert, odourless organic matter through aerobic decomposition, and it does it on approximately 10 to 20W of electrical draw from a vent fan, compared to the $15,000 to $25,000 cost of a conventional Ontario septic system installation. In spring 2023, a homeowner on Stone Road East in Guelph,

A propane generator starts on the first pull at -15C in a Wellington County February when a gasoline generator with six-month-old fuel will not start at all. A homeowner on Kortright Road in Guelph, Wellington County installed a 2,500W gasoline generator as his backup power source when he commissioned his off-grid shed system in August

The off grid fridge is the load that never stops, it runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and every watt-hour it consumes comes from the same battery bank that powers everything else in the system. A homeowner on Edinburgh Road North in Guelph, Wellington County brought a standard 120V AC dorm-style fridge

An off grid shower is only as reliable as its hot water source, and in Ontario the correct answer for year-round comfort is propane tankless, not solar thermal, not electric on-demand, and not a wood-fired tank that requires 45 minutes of planning before every shower. A homeowner on Woolwich Street in Guelph, Wellington County built