Just a quick reference; we have a Marey Gas 10 Flow GA10FLP tankless water heater. It has one 'D' cell to spark the burner. Installed almost 3 years ago, still on the original battery. Our Stove came from Cabin Deport in Canada as an off-grid stove, propane, no power cord. It also uses a 'D' cell for the sparker and is also on the original battery. Only thing I might re-think is the water heater is a little skittish with the water flow. Our water system is on a pressure tank 20 - 40 psi which I think is at the low end of the water heater's sensor; I don't know if the flow 5 might have been a better choice but I never investigated. I could just kick up the heat a little before the water flow was insufficient but it turned out to be perfect just above minimum.
One of the hardest things I ran into recently was trying to help someone in a traditional suburban home who was financially forced to live without any utilities. This is a common experience for societies such as ours that are experiencing widespread employment or inflation issues.
You made comments on electric stoves - i do most of my cooking on a electric hot plate - When i was a kid if i was struck by a cotton mouth i would put spoon of a berry extract in my mouth and did not swallow it - Our gums will absorb the concentrated extracts from the black berrys - it neutralized the snake venum - my hand on knee would still swell a few days but the pain only lasted a little while - As a kid belt makers paid us in silver dollars for large poison snakes - We had the antidote for bites so it wasnt a big deal - if your picking black berrys - pick the ones on the groung first till you have a mouth full - if there wasp in a bush and your hand is stung several times put a hand full of black berrys in your mouth and chew them but try not to swallow them, in 5 to 10 minutes the stinging pain will be gone- the berrys nutralize the venom - If your making berry extract and you make it on a electric stove the magnetic field will nutralize the polyphenols in the extract - In that case its useless - store bougt blackberrys are radiated so they are of little to no value - My grate grandfather was a drugust and blackberry extracts were used for all kinds of bites - Comfrey extract is the only thingi know that works for poison spider bites - also for dogs struck on the snout -
I'm not a drinker but if your unsure of using extracts for severe bites the way the strength of an extract was tested - a none drinker would sip about one or two shots ( ozs) of whisky - If the extract juice is cooked down to 25 to 33% of its original.volume - If a 1/2 oz is swizzled in the mouth for 10 minutes with out swallowing - with in that 10 minutes if the extract is of the right strength you will become completely sober in that ten minutes - The extract should be water bath canned in small jars after your sure of it's strength - Carrots and spinach can also be used - also carrot extract was spoon fed to sick children on the may flower and they recovered -
Also with extracts there enemy is electrical fields - so you will want to store any canned jars away from any electrical appliances - A phone or monitor creates NIE that's a negative ion effect - John Nash Ott cought on to the NIE effect in the late 1970s and early 1980s - You can research him - In the early 1900s druggest learned that if extracts that were made on a electric burner, those extracts had no medicinal values - In the end always make medicinal extracts on a fire not an electric burner - The military during one of the gulf wars preheated field provisions in microwave oven - troops came down with malnutrition - The microwaves neutralized the polyphenols in the food - induction cookers do the same - If you use a electric stove cook at a low heat setting or use a 500 watt hot plate Amazon has them - I use them and gas out side Today they know far more - In my case I'll just test what I have now and then - It's easy enough to test it with alcohol - if you know some one in law enforcement that has a breathalyzer in a unit - You can blow in it and if it shows your sober the extract is good - You can also put dark chocolate between your gum and cheek and let it resolve with out swallowing - in ten minutes you can blow in a breathalyzer and it will show you are sober - With chocolate you have.to store it with oxygen absorbers and in a good vacuum ( dry charged) - Electrical fields or air in time will brake down the polyphenols in chocolate - At that point the bars become powder and others than eating them for taste it has no medicinal value if it become powder -
Its not hard at all to wash clothes by hand - I don't use a scrub board - what I do is I put my clothing in a tub of warm or hot water - I let my clothing soak some - then as I take each piece of clothing out the tub - I lay it on a table and rub any soiled areas with a bar of laundry soap - Then I scrub that area with a brush first then say rest of the pants or shirt - I found that to be far easier than a scrub board - also a lot faster - I also don't miss any spots of grease on my work shirts or pants - I use one of those Manuel washing funnels to rinse the soap and soil out the clothing - I don't ring the clothing out - if you ring them out and hang them up to dry they dry stiff - I hang them out in the evening and the water runs out them during the night - In the morning it will be as if they were rung out and will start drying - Once there dry they won't be stiff - Washing machines don't clean real dirty clothing that well compared to the way I do it - Also when you manually wash and hang to dry clothing will last 10 to 20 times longer - machines brake the fibers up - One bar of Zote laundry bar soap will last me a long long time -
I'll add this when washing clothing by hand with blue jeans use a slightly stiff. brush that will go down in the fibers of clothing - with softer clothing use a softer brush - Also if clothing is not heavenly soiled you can just put them in warm or hot water with laundry soap and push up and down with a hand wash funnel - The antique brass hand wash funnels don't work as well as the new plastic ones do - Another is never leave a fire on under a pot with clothing in it - after the water is hot if it's a wood fire scatter it or put it out - or turn the gas off - The heat on the bottom of the pot will fade coloring and destroy fiber - In my case I just fill a pot with hot water off my hot water heater - Yrs ago I asked the Lord for wisdom - it often comes from failure - I filled a old cast iron bath tub with soap and water and built a fire under it - the boiling water did resolve the dirt and grease and most of the color in my clothing and ruined my Dicky's T-shirts lol - So always put the fire out under a tub or pot
I have been using a blue plastic Lehman's non electric hard ware store Washer Plunger - I've used the plunger for over 20 yrs now - when I bought mine they came with a wood handle that did rot put over time - I found a brush used to scrub campers with a ridged aluminum handle and put it on the washer funnel and cut it shorter with a hacksaw - it's served me well over the yrs - I was tired of fixing or replacing washing machines and dryers over the yrs & it's just not that hard to wash clothing by hand - When my dad was a kid in the early 1900s it was the responsibility of each of the 10 family members to wash there own clothing - There mother his mother over saw the house chores -
I agree that it's important to "practice" being without power even when you are NOT without it... when we purchased our home in the country, we also bought a generator just in case the power were to go out... well, it DID go out for an extended amount of time in the WINTER!!! We got the generator out which, had been stored in the shed with a tank of gas and battery... BUT guess what?? It didn't work!! It was brand new and had only been started up twice just to see how it worked. but then it sat for several years... unfortunately many of the parts had rusted in areas that were not that visible... later the small engine repair guy said it was worthless! cheaper to start over.
I would add to explore solar ovens. Works well for cooking, baking, and dehydrating. The downside is that it only works when the sun is out, but otherwise a great back up option, and in the summer you can cook outside without having to heat the house.
With deep water wells you will need a tublar drop bucket or.a jack pump - Many jack pumps have a option of being manually operated if needed - All the old wind mills in the south west were set up on jack pumps - before electric submersible pumps were used - jack pumps were hooked up to electric motors or engines - There more efficent than submersible pumps - During droughts water tables on well water tables can drop quite a bit - Two times in my life i was cought in a spot were we were out of fresh water - if you ever experienced that your no longer the same - Make water your first priority -
If you have a well and it is your private well (not a community-owned well), then yes, you can put a hand pump on it as long as it meets the criteria for a hand pump (static water level less than 325', well casing preferably 6" but often possible with 4"), etc. If you are in a subdivision, my guess is that you probably do not have your own private well. But if your subdivision was on the outskirts of town when it was built and the lots are larger (like 1+ acres), then perhaps you do?
That was in reference to wood heat, because as long as you have timber on your property, you are growing your own fuel for heat and can harvest those trees if needed. If you don’t have a lot of land, it’s a good idea to source firewood from national forests (with a permit) or another source so you save your limited amount of trees for when it’s really needed and also for the privacy they bring to your property.
@@TheReadyLife Oh ok, thank you for the clarification. I thought you may have been referring to growing corn or some other vegetable and then using it as fuel.
I live in the deep South - my grandfather was born around 1880s when just about no one had electricity - My dad was born in 1912 - by 1900 my grandfather was working on engines and generators in town power plants and rural home light plants - Were I live at REA did not string power lines till about 1960 or so - those that had electricity in there homes had 6 volt or 32 volts DC in there home - With 6 volts they only could run lights, fans, and a radio - With the 32 volt farm light plant there were appliances sold in rural town that were 32 volts DC - fridges, electric pressure cookers ect - any appliances sold that ran on 120 volts AC was also sold in the 32 volts DC version - Most ran there house off a bank of battery's for 6 days and charged there battery's all day on Friday every week - Were I live at most burned wood as there primary heat up till 1990 or so - I still heat with wood and heat my hot water with wood -
That is fascinating! I had no idea! Never knew that running DC appliances was a thing before the AC grid came along. I guess we are going full circle with our off grid homes, although we are able to make our own AC. But we do have some DC appliances available, for instance we have a DC refrigerator. More efficient than the AC counterparts. Also, I've never heard of 32 volts being used, so that was really interesting to hear. Nowadays, it's either 12, 24, or 48 volts. Thanks again for sharing.
Yes my grandfather worked on rural home light plants for yrs - The house battery's were just large.high. Capacity two volt cells - Generally they were sized as to were the house would run off the battery's for 6 days and a DC generator was ran all day Friday to fully charge the batterys - There was a junior farm or rural light plant - it was 2, 6 or 12 volts and used a 150 watt 2 cycle generator - they had a limited amount of appliances they could use - They did make mechanical rotary brush converters and inverters to step up to a higher voltage - A converter was intermittent DC and could boost voltages from 6. 12 or 32 volts to 110 intermittent DC - those were very common - I see the vibrator type and mecanical brush type on ebay at times - A motor/ generator type was an inverter and generated pure sign wave 120/240 AC - the AC hd almost no IF it was cleaner than the best solidstate. Inverters today - Borns often had fluorescent lights and needed 110 internment DC or AC - I'll send more on a second text
My dad was a writer publisher and I was groomed to be a publisher - I went my grandfather and some of my uncle's route of power production an radio communications - there are well know writes that go back 500 yrs in my family on my dad's side - it's easy for me to share by words - If you look up farm or rural light plants and small rural town light plants - you will find tons of study's and write ups going back to the 1880s or so at the start of the conception of hybrid systems - You tube does have much info on 32 volt systems at all - you can find referbishing 32 volt belt drive fridges and freezers - also 6 volt and 32 volt farm radios - Many of those radios had Short. Wave bands - during WW2 there were live short wave broad cast via short wave at every battle line in Europe and the Pacific 24 hrs a day - you can here recordings of those broad cast on you tube - I grew up listening to SW radio - I still listen to SW - Many in that time were rural dwellers and used DC power - so much of America was listening to what was going on at the battle fronts as they stood on the word of God for the safety of there son's in different Campanian's -
I have read many comments on the net about were or how did 32 volts DC come to be a common voltage that was used in rural areas - Rail road mail cars were the first to use electric lights in there mail cars - Then the rail roads started lighting there passenger cars and locomotives with electric lights - Passenger cars had generators mounted. on there wheels - they had brushes that would shift to change the polarity of the generator with the direction that the passenger car traveled - Also it you look at pictures of old steam locomotives behind the stack is a rounded box - those were generally 32 volt DC 3000 watt steam turbine generators - when the passenger cars were at a stand still they were supplied power from the locomotive - The rail road found that 32 volts would travel some distance with out a major voltage drop - so the standard DC voltage for rail road cars and depot's became 32 volts in small town depot's were there was no 110 volts - the depot's had generators also to charge battery's - The passenger cars had a bank of Edison cell battery's - many refered to them as railroad battery's - Those were nickel-iron battery's - and we're in use from 1901 or so till about 1960 in railroad passenger cars - They can be 100% discharged to flat and 100% charged - there not damaged by over discharging or over charging - The down side is there very electrically inefficient and will self discharge in days - Sail boats and beach front homes used iron battery's because they used wind turbines for power - With Iron battery the plates have to be removed and scrubbed every 7 yrs then a new alkaline solution is added - During WW2 many used wood ash alkaline water for electrolyte solution in iron battery's when the plates had to be scrubbed - it's called demosing - They loose capacity in cold weather but are un harmed in freezing weather no matter the state of charge - they have a indefinite service life - you can see some 100 yr old iron battery's on you tube still in service - It took to much fuel to charge them in regular hybrid use were a gas or oil burning engines was used for charging - also they have to be charged almost daily - With wind the current is inconstant and sulfates lead battery's - so iron battery's were. used : 6 volt systems were the most commonly used on wind - Primarily for radios - The rail road made 32 volts the industry standard
Just a quick reference; we have a Marey Gas 10 Flow GA10FLP tankless water heater. It has one 'D' cell to spark the burner. Installed almost 3 years ago, still on the original battery. Our Stove came from Cabin Deport in Canada as an off-grid stove, propane, no power cord. It also uses a 'D' cell for the sparker and is also on the original battery. Only thing I might re-think is the water heater is a little skittish with the water flow. Our water system is on a pressure tank 20 - 40 psi which I think is at the low end of the water heater's sensor; I don't know if the flow 5 might have been a better choice but I never investigated. I could just kick up the heat a little before the water flow was insufficient but it turned out to be perfect just above minimum.
One of the hardest things I ran into recently was trying to help someone in a traditional suburban home who was financially forced to live without any utilities. This is a common experience for societies such as ours that are experiencing widespread employment or inflation issues.
You made comments on electric stoves - i do most of my cooking on a electric hot plate -
When i was a kid if i was struck by a cotton mouth i would put spoon of a berry extract in my mouth and did not swallow it -
Our gums will absorb the concentrated extracts from the black berrys - it neutralized the snake venum - my hand on knee would still swell a few days but the pain only lasted a little while -
As a kid belt makers paid us in silver dollars for large poison snakes -
We had the antidote for bites so it wasnt a big deal - if your picking black berrys - pick the ones on the groung first till you have a mouth full - if there wasp in a bush and your hand is stung several times put a hand full of black berrys in your mouth and chew them but try not to swallow them, in 5 to 10 minutes the stinging pain will be gone- the berrys nutralize the venom -
If your making berry extract and you make it on a electric stove the magnetic field will nutralize the polyphenols in the extract -
In that case its useless - store bougt blackberrys are radiated so they are of little to no value -
My grate grandfather was a drugust and blackberry extracts were used for all kinds of bites -
Comfrey extract is the only thingi know that works for poison spider bites - also for dogs struck on the snout -
I'm not a drinker but if your unsure of using extracts for severe bites the way the strength of an extract was tested - a none drinker would sip about one or two shots ( ozs) of whisky -
If the extract juice is cooked down to 25 to 33% of its original.volume -
If a 1/2 oz is swizzled in the mouth for 10 minutes with out swallowing - with in that 10 minutes if the extract is of the right strength you will become completely sober in that ten minutes -
The extract should be water bath canned in small jars after your sure of it's strength -
Carrots and spinach can also be used - also carrot extract was spoon fed to sick children on the may flower and they recovered -
Also with extracts there enemy is electrical fields - so you will want to store any canned jars away from any electrical appliances -
A phone or monitor creates NIE that's a negative ion effect -
John Nash Ott cought on to the NIE effect in the late 1970s and early 1980s -
You can research him -
In the early 1900s druggest learned that if extracts that were made on a electric burner, those extracts had no medicinal values -
In the end always make medicinal extracts on a fire not an electric burner -
The military during one of the gulf wars preheated field provisions in microwave oven - troops came down with malnutrition -
The microwaves neutralized the polyphenols in the food - induction cookers do the same -
If you use a electric stove cook at a low heat setting or use a 500 watt hot plate Amazon has them -
I use them and gas out side
Today they know far more -
In my case I'll just test what I have now and then -
It's easy enough to test it with alcohol - if you know some one in law enforcement that has a breathalyzer in a unit -
You can blow in it and if it shows your sober the extract is good -
You can also put dark chocolate between your gum and cheek and let it resolve with out swallowing - in ten minutes you can blow in a breathalyzer and it will show you are sober -
With chocolate you have.to store it with oxygen absorbers and in a good vacuum ( dry charged) -
Electrical fields or air in time will brake down the polyphenols in chocolate -
At that point the bars become powder and others than eating them for taste it has no medicinal value if it become powder -
Thank you ! It was very informative and caused us think about our back ups on our homestead and maybe some changes we need to make!
Its not hard at all to wash clothes by hand -
I don't use a scrub board - what I do is I put my clothing in a tub of warm or hot water - I let my clothing soak some - then as I take each piece of clothing out the tub - I lay it on a table and rub any soiled areas with a bar of laundry soap -
Then I scrub that area with a brush first then say rest of the pants or shirt -
I found that to be far easier than a scrub board - also a lot faster - I also don't miss any spots of grease on my work shirts or pants -
I use one of those Manuel washing funnels to rinse the soap and soil out the clothing -
I don't ring the clothing out - if you ring them out and hang them up to dry they dry stiff -
I hang them out in the evening and the water runs out them during the night -
In the morning it will be as if they were rung out and will start drying -
Once there dry they won't be stiff -
Washing machines don't clean real dirty clothing that well compared to the way I do it -
Also when you manually wash and hang to dry clothing will last 10 to 20 times longer - machines brake the fibers up -
One bar of Zote laundry bar soap will last me a long long time -
Great tips! Thanks for sharing😊
I'll add this when washing clothing by hand with blue jeans use a slightly stiff. brush that will go down in the fibers of clothing - with softer clothing use a softer brush -
Also if clothing is not heavenly soiled you can just put them in warm or hot water with laundry soap and push up and down with a hand wash funnel -
The antique brass hand wash funnels don't work as well as the new plastic ones do -
Another is never leave a fire on under a pot with clothing in it - after the water is hot if it's a wood fire scatter it or put it out - or turn the gas off -
The heat on the bottom of the pot will fade coloring and destroy fiber -
In my case I just fill a pot with hot water off my hot water heater -
Yrs ago I asked the Lord for wisdom - it often comes from failure - I filled a old cast iron bath tub with soap and water and built a fire under it - the boiling water did resolve the dirt and grease and most of the color in my clothing and ruined my Dicky's T-shirts lol -
So always put the fire out under a tub or pot
I have been using a blue plastic Lehman's non electric hard ware store Washer Plunger -
I've used the plunger for over 20 yrs now - when I bought mine they came with a wood handle that did rot put over time -
I found a brush used to scrub campers with a ridged aluminum handle and put it on the washer funnel and cut it shorter with a hacksaw - it's served me well over the yrs -
I was tired of fixing or replacing washing machines and dryers over the yrs & it's just not that hard to wash clothing by hand -
When my dad was a kid in the early 1900s it was the responsibility of each of the 10 family members to wash there own clothing -
There mother his mother over saw the house chores -
I agree that it's important to "practice" being without power even when you are NOT without it... when we purchased our home in the country, we also bought a generator just in case the power were to go out... well, it DID go out for an extended amount of time in the WINTER!!! We got the generator out which, had been stored in the shed with a tank of gas and battery... BUT guess what?? It didn't work!! It was brand new and had only been started up twice just to see how it worked. but then it sat for several years... unfortunately many of the parts had rusted in areas that were not that visible... later the small engine repair guy said it was worthless! cheaper to start over.
I would add to explore solar ovens. Works well for cooking, baking, and dehydrating. The downside is that it only works when the sun is out, but otherwise a great back up option, and in the summer you can cook outside without having to heat the house.
Yes, great point! Forgot to mention those. We actually have one and have used it a bit so we could pull that out if needed in the summer.
That is absolutely right. In North Carolina, though, it helps to adjust the oven's position every couple hours.
With deep water wells you will need a tublar drop bucket or.a jack pump -
Many jack pumps have a option of being manually operated if needed -
All the old wind mills in the south west were set up on jack pumps - before electric submersible pumps were used - jack pumps were hooked up to electric motors or engines -
There more efficent than submersible pumps -
During droughts water tables on well water tables can drop quite a bit -
Two times in my life i was cought in a spot were we were out of fresh water - if you ever experienced that your no longer the same -
Make water your first priority -
Don't forget the camping propane water heaters. Just hook up a hose and I think that they just use a battery.
Thanks!
Is it possible to install hand water pump living in the city like subdivision
If you have a well and it is your private well (not a community-owned well), then yes, you can put a hand pump on it as long as it meets the criteria for a hand pump (static water level less than 325', well casing preferably 6" but often possible with 4"), etc. If you are in a subdivision, my guess is that you probably do not have your own private well. But if your subdivision was on the outskirts of town when it was built and the lots are larger (like 1+ acres), then perhaps you do?
Where do you get a ram pump
RUclips has many videos on the subject
www.theramcompany.com is the last real company I know of.
How do you grow your own fuel?
That was in reference to wood heat, because as long as you have timber on your property, you are growing your own fuel for heat and can harvest those trees if needed. If you don’t have a lot of land, it’s a good idea to source firewood from national forests (with a permit) or another source so you save your limited amount of trees for when it’s really needed and also for the privacy they bring to your property.
@@TheReadyLife Oh ok, thank you for the clarification. I thought you may have been referring to growing corn or some other vegetable and then using it as fuel.
I live in the deep South - my grandfather was born around 1880s when just about no one had electricity -
My dad was born in 1912 - by 1900 my grandfather was working on engines and generators in town power plants and rural home light plants -
Were I live at REA did not string power lines till about 1960 or so -
those that had electricity in there homes had 6 volt or 32 volts DC in there home -
With 6 volts they only could run lights, fans, and a radio -
With the 32 volt farm light plant there were appliances sold in rural town that were 32 volts DC - fridges, electric pressure cookers ect - any appliances sold that ran on 120 volts AC was also sold in the 32 volts DC version -
Most ran there house off a bank of battery's for 6 days and charged there battery's all day on Friday every week -
Were I live at most burned wood as there primary heat up till 1990 or so - I still heat with wood and heat my hot water with wood -
That is fascinating! I had no idea! Never knew that running DC appliances was a thing before the AC grid came along. I guess we are going full circle with our off grid homes, although we are able to make our own AC. But we do have some DC appliances available, for instance we have a DC refrigerator. More efficient than the AC counterparts.
Also, I've never heard of 32 volts being used, so that was really interesting to hear. Nowadays, it's either 12, 24, or 48 volts.
Thanks again for sharing.
Yes my grandfather worked on rural home light plants for yrs -
The house battery's were just large.high. Capacity two volt cells -
Generally they were sized as to were the house would run off the battery's for 6 days and a DC generator was ran all day Friday to fully charge the batterys -
There was a junior farm or rural light plant - it was 2, 6 or 12 volts and used a 150 watt 2 cycle generator - they had a limited amount of appliances they could use -
They did make mechanical rotary brush converters and inverters to step up to a higher voltage -
A converter was intermittent DC and could boost voltages from 6. 12 or 32 volts to 110 intermittent DC - those were very common - I see the vibrator type and mecanical brush type on ebay at times -
A motor/ generator type was an inverter and generated pure sign wave 120/240 AC - the AC hd almost no IF it was cleaner than the best solidstate. Inverters today -
Borns often had fluorescent lights and needed 110 internment DC or AC -
I'll send more on a second text
My dad was a writer publisher and I was groomed to be a publisher - I went my grandfather and some of my uncle's route of power production an radio communications - there are well know writes that go back 500 yrs in my family on my dad's side - it's easy for me to share by words -
If you look up farm or rural light plants and small rural town light plants - you will find tons of study's and write ups going back to the 1880s or so at the start of the conception of hybrid systems -
You tube does have much info on 32 volt systems at all - you can find referbishing 32 volt belt drive fridges and freezers - also 6 volt and 32 volt farm radios -
Many of those radios had Short. Wave bands - during WW2 there were live short wave broad cast via short wave at every battle line in Europe and the Pacific 24 hrs a day - you can here recordings of those broad cast on you tube - I grew up listening to SW radio - I still listen to SW -
Many in that time were rural dwellers and used DC power - so much of America was listening to what was going on at the battle fronts as they stood on the word of God for the safety of there son's in different Campanian's -
I have read many comments on the net about were or how did 32 volts DC come to be a common voltage that was used in rural areas -
Rail road mail cars were the first to use electric lights in there mail cars -
Then the rail roads started lighting there passenger cars and locomotives with electric lights -
Passenger cars had generators mounted. on there wheels - they had brushes that would shift to change the polarity of the generator with the direction that the passenger car traveled -
Also it you look at pictures of old steam locomotives behind the stack is a rounded box - those were generally 32 volt DC 3000 watt steam turbine generators - when the passenger cars were at a stand still they were supplied power from the locomotive -
The rail road found that 32 volts would travel some distance with out a major voltage drop - so the standard DC voltage for rail road cars and depot's became 32 volts in small town depot's were there was no 110 volts - the depot's had generators also to charge battery's -
The passenger cars had a bank of Edison cell battery's - many refered to them as railroad battery's -
Those were nickel-iron battery's - and we're in use from 1901 or so till about 1960 in railroad passenger cars -
They can be 100% discharged to flat and 100% charged - there not damaged by over discharging or over charging -
The down side is there very electrically inefficient and will self discharge in days -
Sail boats and beach front homes used iron battery's because they used wind turbines for power -
With Iron battery the plates have to be removed and scrubbed every 7 yrs then a new alkaline solution is added -
During WW2 many used wood ash alkaline water for electrolyte solution in iron battery's when the plates had to be scrubbed - it's called demosing -
They loose capacity in cold weather but are un harmed in freezing weather no matter the state of charge - they have a indefinite service life - you can see some 100 yr old iron battery's on you tube still in service -
It took to much fuel to charge them in regular hybrid use were a gas or oil burning engines was used for charging - also they have to be charged almost daily -
With wind the current is inconstant and sulfates lead battery's - so iron battery's were. used : 6 volt systems were the most commonly used on wind -
Primarily for radios -
The rail road made 32 volts the industry standard
Look on you tube for vintage Delco Farm light plants and a old early 1900s video will come up -