keanw141175 wrote:G'day, My wife's brother is going to build a new house on the family farm but has found that running power to it will be a 100k cost that they cannot support.
----Family of four, two young primary aged kids. ---Gas cooking, Wood fire heating,--
If you were going to start again and needed to power a new house totally off grid what would you do.
I would be expecting a normal houses power load with kids watching tv, and other devices etc.
Would they need a back -up geni?
------Many thanks Kean
Hi keanw

i do not live the bush living dream but here is my take on your question.
If I was building a new house anywhere I would make sure that the house incorporated all the design features necessary to reduce the power required. Simple attention to the details are important and can reduce the needs with none or minimal costs. There is plenty of "sustainable house" ideas available and even in your climate the possibility of allmost nil heating and cooling power needs is possible. Natural lighting ?? ETC. Look at another part of this Forum also.
Gas is passe and will be costly forever. Go all electric instead and save money forever. The sun will provide even if you do not put in a $50-60K system. Seems excessive to me !! Why not look into half of that for a start.
An inexpensive generator of mid size seems a reasonable backup that you can manually start if necessary in the occasional needy time.
Jaahn