Prep office/shed ideas.

[Meta]

Have done something similar with my shed.

Its an office/bike shed/store room

Simple 10 by 10 garden shed, that I have dry lined and insulated, the walls are chipboard, LED strip light, and a solar panel on the roof. It does have mains and CAT5 in there also so I can work from my 'cave'

[Appin]

You mentioned a 1 kW PV system with grid tie in.

I have been told that if there is a power cut these shut down so they do not either electrocute any repair worker and second won't try to back feed the whole area with the risk of damaging electronics over a wide area.

Does anyone know if this is true?


If your 1 kW tries to supply several houses and will give spiky erratic voltage so to prevent damage the whole tie cuts off until it senses mains voltage again I looked at a PV system with a storage battery recently. interesting but the costing was very optimistic. They missed out in their 25 yr plan that the battery would need replacing twice at a cost of 10 - 15k .

Regards

Appin

[womble]

You mentioned a 1 kW PV system with grid tie in.

I have been told that if there is a power cut these shut down so they do not either electrocute any repair worker and second won't try to back feed the whole area with the risk of damaging electronics over a wide area.

Does anyone know if this is true?


If your 1 kW tries to supply several houses and will give spiky erratic voltage so to prevent damage the whole tie cuts off until it senses mains voltage again I looked at a PV system with a storage battery recently. interesting but the costing was very optimistic. They missed out in their 25 yr plan that the battery would need replacing twice at a cost of 10 - 15k .

Regards

Appin

Good point, there. I'm not microgeneration-qualified, but that does make sense: your PV/turbine is connected to the same copper that everyone else is. To make it safe outside your building, you'd probably have to isolate from the mains, though there should be an isolator installed before your meter, if you've got a microgeneration installation, I think. One way that you could manage the issue is to have a genny to hook up to your mains in order to provide that 230V "background". Again, you'd want to have your whole installation isolated from the grid, else you're trying to power the whole street, and you better employ someone who knows what they're doing to create the connection to the genny, or harm may result.

[prepperG]

A good idea, would love to do the same but garden is to small.
For a toilet a camping chemical toilet or composting one with air vent would work well.
I have been looking at metal sheds as they are more secure, but a good quality wood cabin is quite secure and would be great with a wood burning stove in.
it takes a lot of fuel to keep even a small house warm so moving into a single room or cabin would be a good move.
under a shed is also a possible storage area for preps, but would take some building skills.

[Deeps]

A good idea, would love to do the same but garden is to small.
For a toilet a camping chemical toilet or composting one with air vent would work well.
I have been looking at metal sheds as they are more secure, but a good quality wood cabin is quite secure and would be great with a wood burning stove in.
it takes a lot of fuel to keep even a small house warm so moving into a single room or cabin would be a good move.
under a shed is also a possible storage area for preps, but would take some building skills.

More as a mental exercise than from any real plans, I've considered this and depending on how serious you were about it it might be a good place to put a root cellar. I'd considered using an old fridge 'lid up' and you'd need to have a pretty large access through the shed deck. It shouldn't be too hard to arrange but while you're digging a fridge into your back garden might get a few questions from the neighbours, never mind why you're then putting a shed on top of it. Like I said, more of an idea than an ambition.

[grenfell]

In my old house I had a fairly large pond which was also the ideal spot for a shed. So I built the shed over the drained pond with a large hinged section in the floor. I didn't use it for what I now call preps , more for things like a scaffold tower , acrow props and all those useful but frankly not the prettiest things to look at. It worked a treat as a store and as it had been designed and built to hold water it naturally didn't let water in. In fact the only disadvantage was that for a few years frogs that had spawned in the pond would come back "home" and sit waiting for the water. Luckily I'm not too far from some ponds so I ended up re homing them.

[Deeps]

In my old house I had a fairly large pond which was also the ideal spot for a shed. So I built the shed over the drained pond with a large hinged section in the floor. I didn't use it for what I now call preps , more for things like a scaffold tower , acrow props and all those useful but frankly not the prettiest things to look at. It worked a treat as a store and as it had been designed and built to hold water it naturally didn't let water in. In fact the only disadvantage was that for a few years frogs that had spawned in the pond would come back "home" and sit waiting for the water. Luckily I'm not too far from some ponds so I ended up re homing them.

A bit off topic but my old pond (10 year old) sprung a leak, I suspect from a tree root from next door, my bloody pond was there first. Anyhoo, built a new one and spend ages getting the dozen fish and about a hundred and fifty frogs as it turned out transferred. Unfortunately it was 'rumpy pumpy' time which made it rush hour but between putting them in the new pond (which they vacated by the next morning) and a nearby bit of water we've got rid but I'm dreading them coming back to the new pond next year as its about 15 foot away from their old stomping ground. Both the dogs and the cat were VERY interested although Her Maj has told me that the cat at least now turns his nose up at frog meat, to be fair we didn't realise we had that many until I was dredging them out of the old one and until then it wasn't an issue. The new pond is (touch wood) as far away from tree roots as I can make it so if we are infested we'll be as blissfully ignorant as we were prior to the move.

Anyway, sheds........