Backup house battery
 

Interested in hearing from anyone who has installed a house, or partial house, battery as a electricity backup.

I don’t think I’m interested in solar panels (pay off is too long even with incentives). Had a gas powered Generac generator up north that ran off natural gas and kicked in automatically when power went off — but don’t have access to natural gas in our village and don’t want to go the propane route.

I understand that power doesn’t go out very often here but I store some important medicine in our refrigerator and need to protect.

Was thinking that the batteries (Tesla, Panasonic, Enpulse, Generac) that store power from solar might be the answer. Would need to charge from our electric line instead of solar panels. Anyone have any experience with this sort of backup? If so, any input regarding cost, installation, etc would be welcomed. Thanks

Why not just buy a portable gasoline generator for about $1,000?

Not sure what you have.in mind. Generac not only makes gas powered generators but they also make ones that run on gasoline and others that run on diesel. They make generators that will power your whole house and smaller one that will power just your refrigerator. Should not be at all difficult to find a place that sells generators and can go over the options. If, the only concern is drugs, there are some better quality ice chests.
If, you keep ice on hand, they will stay cold for several days. There are large quality thermoses . There are also small ice chests that will run off your car cigarette lighter jack. I expect you buy them at camping supplies. NO SHORTAGE OF OPTIONS

An interesting problem. As done in an old twilight zone where a guy built a fallout shelter. Neighbors laughed and called him a fool. Then came a reported bomb threat and those same neighbors all wanted to get into his locked fallout shelter

I have a 2000watt power inverter can be run off car battery cost is less than $200.
Never had to use it during power failure.
I have tried it out and will run a frig and freezer.
It has 3 110v outlets along with 2 usb charging ports.
Yes you must run vehicle to keep sustained power.

Twilght Zone, "The Shelter", 1961. The lesson learned is that, if you are going to build a bomb shelter, don't tell anyone. By the way, I am not building one.

You'd still need gas so he may as well get a small gas generator. Your inverter runs off the car battery which is being charged by your alternator. I don't think your car battery which is being charged from your alternator will keep the inverter running under full load for long anyway plus you might have to store gas somewhere to keep your car running in case you don't happen to have a full tank. You might also have to drive away to get gas rendering the inverter moot assuming the gas stations have electric which many in some areas did not after the last real hurricane passed through. That all plus 2000 watts even if the spec is accurate isn't much and may not handle the startup surge from a refrigerator which can pull a lot of current to start. Not sure if those inverters are rated for a motors or motor startup.

Look at dometic portable freezer, I keep one in my suv and run it off a 12v deep cell that I charge when parked in my garage
Runs 3-4 days without charging

Very efficient

Route 66
 

Road trip. Wait for text saying " all' s. Well"

Yep

Push button start..........easy, easy, easy.

I second the vote for a portable 12 volt refrigerator freezer. They are extremely reliable and like the person above says you plug it into your car and you can always run your car if you have to. If you're worried about the medicine make sure you keep a lot of ice in bags or freezer and have one or two styrofoam chests. Most power outages have been in seconds but we did have one time a transformer explode . It did take 23 hours to fix as this was during hurricanes

Get the new Ford F-150 electric truck - it can double as a backup power source for your house. You’ll need Ford’s wall-mount transfer switch too.

We considered solar for our insulin and precious cold things. We finally went with a small Fridgidaire refrigerator, which we keep in the garage and a small gas generator that will run it. We do have to store gas onsite.
If you choose solar, you will be storing several large, heavy batteries on-site, a couple of panels and a charge controller. It is nice and quiet, but we figured less space is taken up by our compact frig and gen w gas. We can also use the gasoline in the cars.

At full 2000 watt output, your battery will last less than an hour, as you will need to pull over 150 amps (at 12 vdc) to get the 2000 watts at 120 volts AC. Yes, it will run the appliances for a short period, but not for hours. Also, the typical automotive alternator and WIRING will not support this type of loading either. Please be very careful with this setup.

2000 Watt inverter
 

Would it be possible to run the inverter off a 48 Volt SLA or 48 Volt Lithium Ion battery golf cart connection?

You can get one cheaper than that on Amazon or most big-box stores. We got a 3500 watt—big enough to run a portable A/C, fridge, and TV—for about $400, but that was a couple of years ago.