Not to burst your bubble here but more and more cities are charging for water in Quebec. I live in village in a rural area on the south shore of Montreal and we've had a water bill for the last then years I lived here I think they have it since 1997 or so.
Real reason for my reply is how did you set up your french drain water meter I'd love to do that.
Also POWER WALL Wow Being in a rural area we have shortages every other day that is awesome !!
How hard / expensive would you put it on a scale on one through ten compared on a bought solution?
Thanks
About water, I feel right about it: I probably consume less water than a lot of people here. I'm coming from Europe and I know how to spare water and energy
About the drain, I hooked a solar 12V battery bank (independance) to a set of 2x 12V bilge pumps (the main slow 750gpm pump and a high flow 3700gpm emergency-floods pump).
A set of electrofloaters connected to a standalone plc to send me the info (node-red) to HE.
If the water reaches a level, the first pump will run and add 1 to a counter. 1 "flush" means about 10 liters. The result is there. I collect data along the months. In case of emergency (floods), the second pump will run and drain everything in a quick...
For the showers/toilets, I hooked flowmeters to the plc and measure the flow. Nothing fancy but the autonomous drain system help me a lot in case of power outage: always working !
My son had one flood years ago and his sunk pump didn't work because of the induced power outage... So, the reason of the full 12V system with 12V bilge pumps.
About commercial solutions, they are very expensive and no communication (except some wifi that does work only if there is... no power outage)
Thanks for the quick Reply ! I lived in the south of france for a couple of years (My wife's from there) So I know a lot about water and power savings It's not cheap over there. I too have all water saving features in our house we probably use less than half my neighbors. It'S not only about $$ it also doesn't make sense to use it just because. At least to me. I never understood the guys washing their driveways every other day in plain sun. Had a neighbor like that he would stand in is driveway hose in one hand beer in the other and just water the asphalt for ours (I thing he might have been trying to grow a new car).
Seriously for your power wall is it hooked only to the drain system or are you using it as a really big whole house UPS. I've been looking in a generator / ups combo for our house but something like that might be more doable for me as I do not need electric heating in case of shortages.
In fact, I'm in the way to swap the systems. Was waiting for BMS to manage the LiFePO4 battery bank (1000 batteries...). I had (still have) a set of 4xTrojan Pb batteries that was powering :
drain pumps: in fact, it doesn't draw a lot of energy. about 50 minutes/day for the regular pump and the battery is mostly always full (and hooked to 200w solar panels for replenishing)
"Domoroom" electronics: fanless computer, HE, Caseta, Alarm, DVR, POE switches, plc's, etc: not a lot of amps under 12/24/48V
emergency lamps: in case of power outage, some of my 12V led ceiling lamps are powered directly with my bank and not from the main.
The old Trojan will then moved to my garage to:
power my drain pumps and some related automation (switches, cams, led lights)
stay as a standby power station for a freezer ready to be converted as a fridge. Because of the heavy insulation, a chest freezer will be converted as a low temp fridge to keep food safe in case of power outage. Idea is coming from here:
Next projects in my mind (and standing by in my basement): vacuum solar tubes (waiting for years) to heat my water (showers) and use my electrical car batteries as a backup (EV2grid) in case of power outage:
About the limitations, I'm studying them (it's an idea) and yes, I can disconnect my house from the grid to avoid cross-returns and legal/technical/insurance problems:
