Power

Backup Power: Solar, Batteries, Generators and Light

Backup power starts with one number: how many watt-hours your critical loads use in a day. Everything else, from the battery to the panel to the inverter, is sized from it.

These guides cover small, safe systems a homeowner can build and maintain: solar charging stations, 12 V LiFePO4 battery boxes, charge controllers, inverters, lighting that works in the first minute of an outage, and the rules that keep a portable generator from becoming the most dangerous thing on the property.

All power guides

At night, a woman pulls the starter cord of a portable generator on open gravel, far from a dark farmhouse in the background

Power Running a generator in the garage with the door open: why it is never safe Where a portable generator belongs, how far from the house, and the only safe way to connect it to your circuits.

A plug-in energy meter in a wall outlet above a wooden desk, with a spiral notebook titled Energy Audit, a pen and hand tools

Power What size solar generator do I need? Start with a one-hour watt-hour audit Before you compare boxes, spend one honest hour with a plug-in meter and find the number every backup power decision starts with.

A pure sine wave inverter mounted on pegboard in a dim garage, red and black cables running to a 12 V battery on the floor, a lit table lamp plugged in beside it

Power What size inverter do I need? Your largest load plus 25%, in pure sine wave Most households need a smaller inverter than they expect, mounted closer to the battery than they expect.

A solar charge controller with a blue display mounted on a plywood board on a workbench, red and black cables clipped neatly beneath it

Power MPPT vs PWM charge controller: which one your solar setup needs The traffic cop between panel and battery, chosen in one paragraph and sized so it never becomes a fire question.

A translucent plastic battery box on a garage workbench, its lid fitted with a fuse block, a round voltmeter and USB and 12 V outlets, red cables along the side

Power DIY LiFePO4 battery box: a 12 V power box you can build in an afternoon The reservoir of a home backup power system, built in a sealed box with every circuit on its own fuse.

Two 12 V batteries joined with red and black cables on a shelf under a garage workbench, a conduit above them labeled Auxiliary Power, Parallel 12V

Power How to connect batteries in parallel without building in a weak link Parallel banks add capacity; sloppy parallel banks add failure modes.

A 100-watt solar panel leaning inside a workshop doorway, wired to a charge controller and a white battery box on the concrete floor, with two phones charging on the workbench

Power How to build a DIY solar charging station that refills itself every sunny day One panel, one controller and one small battery make the power project that keeps phones, radios and headlamps charged for as long as the sun comes up.

A solar panel on a wooden A-frame ground mount built from 2x4s, standing on concrete blocks in a backyard with bare trees, a wooden fence and buckets behind it

Power DIY solar panel ground mount: a hinged A-frame you can build in three hours A panel leaning on a wall dies in the first windstorm. A simple A-frame holds it at the right angle, survives the weather and lets you follow the seasons.

Two lit LED lanterns, a row of headlamps, plug-in night lights and packs of spare batteries on a wooden shelf by a window, with coats hanging on the wall beside it

Power The best lighting for a power outage: headlamps, lanterns, and lights that turn themselves on The first five minutes of any outage are decided by where the lights physically are. Stage them so nobody hunts in the dark, ever.

A parked sedan in a gravel driveway with a small inverter on the dashboard and an extension cord running through the cracked window to a tablet on a workbench inside an open shed

Power Using your car as a generator during a power outage: what it can run and how to stay safe A car with fuel is a generator you already own. A 12 V socket, a small inverter and ten minutes of setup make it the household's mobile backup.

A red hand-crank emergency radio with its antenna extended, two black power banks and a folding solar charger laid out on a wooden workbench by a window

Power Hand crank emergency radio: what to buy, how to test it, and what the crank can't do Some power tools are bought, not built. The crank radio is one of them, and it works best as part of a small kit that is tested and staged.

A cabin kitchen at dusk lit by warm LED strips under the wall cabinets and above a doorway, with a man in a fleece jacket standing in the doorway

Power A 12V LED lighting system for off-grid rooms: layout, wire gauge and fusing Lighting straight off the battery, with no inverter and no conversion loss. A 12 V LED circuit lights the core of the house for a handful of watts.

The book behind the Journal

The Off-Grid Handbook

Every guide in the Journal is built on one project from a single printed book: 75 projects across water, power, food, heat and readiness, each one built, tested and photographed by hand by Garrett Dalton, former U.S. Navy SEAL, before it earned a page.

Cost, time and difficulty at the top of every project. A photograph for every step.

See the Handbook

Free shipping · 30-day money-back guarantee