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Congrats on your purchase! Having 4G internet is a very nice addition to your infrastructure, and critical in this day and age. Even if you want to disconnect for extended periods of time, you still have to pay your bills and taxes. Speaking from experience, solar panels and car batteries work very well to supply a minimal amount of power for daily use (LED lights, charging cell phones and laptops, etc), but a generator will likely be needed for the occasional heavy equipment use. I'm less of a fan of windmills, but they have their place. Water is indeed the most important infrastructure element to get right, but the solution you go with often depends heavily with your power choices. It's one thing to leave a desalinization system running 24x7 and maintain it, but it's a whole different story if you need something that can be shut down and restarted several months later. Maintenance and long-term reliability become important factors. Maybe you'll get lucky and find you can drill a well for fresh water, but the size of your island makes me think that is unlikely. Other fun things to think about: plumbing, septic systems, waste disposal, hot water systems, lights, cooking, and refrigeration. Then there is always the debate of redundancy vs. simplicity. and the real cost of maintaining an often fragile infrastructure. I am very curious to hear more about your progresses in building out your island infrastructure and have subscribed to your blog. |
I haven't done enough research into desalination-- I had no idea that shutting it down for a while is a problem. Why is that?
We may also do rainwater recovery + filtration for drinking/cooking, and salt for showering. Worst case we have to bring water over every time and shower in salt.
Planning on doing propane or wood to heat water, propane for refrigeration and cooking.
Thanks for subscribing! We'll be going out in the spring to do some more work and will definitely keep people updated on progress.