wiring a house for 12 volt

Get batteries designed for long periods of discharge not car batteries. You will find them in fork lifts and golf carts.

As for wire use the heaviest you can get. Not quite starter motor thickness but thicker than the normal car headlamp wire.

How are you going to charge your batteries?

R >

Much better to ask in the correct group alt.energy.homepower

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John G

Wot\'s Your Real Problem?

I would wire the building as-if for 120VAC - 14gauge or better, 2-conductor plus ground (in fact, I did that in my cottage, which later became home - with AC). Then, if you decide to upgrade to AC later you don't have to redo everything. The biggest problem is to make sure that your wire _is_ large enough for 12V. If all you're running is lights, that doesn't take much, but fans and pumps are larger currents.

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derek

You may want to consider that to provide the same wattage as a 120 volt circuit, at 12 volts you need 10 times the current. Personally I used number

12 in my cottage and wish it was larger, but too late now. A bit more work but the ultimate solution is to wire for both 120 and 12 volts during construction. Once the walls and ceiling are finished it is a major hassle to add anything.

Jack

Your best bet is to go to

and post there.

It is the BEST site on the internet for alternate and remote energy discussion.

Your best bet is to go to

and post there.

It is the BEST site on the internet for alternate and remote energy discussion.

My solution was to wire 12V lights and outlets with ordinary 12-2-G AC cable, but provide a "home run" to the wiring closet for each one, and leave enough slack to reach both AC and DC distribution boxes. The 12 AWG is sufficient for most any _single_ DC light or portable load. For the DC pumps and a couple of kitchen outlets I did upgrade to 8 AWG cable.

As inverters have improved over the 20 years since this choice, I've swapped some cable runs to the AC side - same cable, different connections at the ends. In fact, one of the 8 AWG cables now feeds an AC subpanel on the far side of the house, to run loads I never imagined I'd have when the cable was laid.

Likewise, if you have an attic or basement, leave a couple runs of empty conduit from your wiring closet to the open space. Twenty years ago I though I had covered all possibilities by running a single RG59 (RF video) to most rooms. Since then there has been the need for RG6 (satellite) and RG59 (thin Ethernet bus) and CAT5 (twisted-pair ethernet with home runs) and S-Video... Wireless is nice, but it eats power 24/7...

Loren

"I used number 12 in my cottage and wish it was larger"

This is not unusual. If you run #10, you will have a better compromise and no problem switching a circuit to 120VAC. Its a bit tougher to connect to common wall switches and outlets. Using deep duplex boxes can make the wiring / re-wiring (as needed) easier to accomplish.

HOME RUNS are another idea folks wish they'd employed - especially for telephone, coax and Ethernet.

Plan ahead; don't spare the plumbing / wiring during construction!

Those little pumps that circulate between Water Heater and Tub, Sink, Shower are also something to consider up front. Saves running cold down the drain 'till the hot reaches the outlet.

And, switches (3-way / four-way, etc) at every entry point to a room make conserving and lighting easier.

I switch all the bottom outlets so I can employ those little plug-in transformers that don't need to run 24/7. Turning off the lights (at any one of four points in my shop), for instance, shuts down all those little power suckers I may have left plugged in and shuts down power to the compressor as well (hate when it decides to start at 3AM, don't you?)

Actually if you do it right, you don't need the pump because you can use convection circulation. The trick is to run the supply pipe high and the return pipe down under the floor. That said, those systems may save water, but they COST energy because you have much higher heat loss from your constantly-hot pipes. Myself, I would rather have my hot water stored in the tank where it is nicely insulated, I can wait a few seconds for it to make the trip to my tap.

Vaughn

return

most energy efficient option is to have a circuit that doesnt circulate usually, but will when youre about to demand hot water. This can be controlled by press switch, pir detector, touch plate, sensing tap drip, etc.

NT

return

is

Or, you could insulate your pipes.

Cheers! Rich

ime, insulation helps, but not that much. For instance, our bathroom is only used first thing in the morning and last thing at night - no matter how well insulated the pipes, they'll _always_ be cold when the hot water is run again.

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derek