Let me guess.

Air 403-x… 🙂

CJ,
Thank you, thank you for your reply. It clears up a lot. RE: Your “…husband, who became a plumber mid life. “ Tell him BRAVO! Basic infrastructure skills will never go out of need and he can be of great value as long as he’s willing and able. As he approaches the not able, there’s always an apprentice or neighbor that he can pass skills on to. I’ve learned enough to do most things from my plumber brother-in-law in helping with just a couple of moderate projects. I do however hate plumbing (grin) and would much rather do electrical even when it’s sometimes a little shocking if I rush too much.

Speaking of electrical, here’s a futurecast that is about as truthy as these things get and even so much more important to you all living off grid: This is the century of electrical and electronics when exited electrons take over eventually all of our assisted work. Brute force, dirty fossil energy is very much on it’s way out as it becomes increasing hard to find and get without ecological damage and rapidly growing real cash expense. I don’t care what the denying, Wallstreet, bubble chimera of energy independence fossil fools say, we all need to get some basic understanding of electrical/electronics under our hats so that we can monitor and repair simple problems. It’ll do us in as good stead as will permaculture knowledge, unless the 17th century life is your goal.

I’m going to make some suggestions based on what you wrote above, and said or wrote elsewhere. But…, take the suggestions with a grain of salt because most (not all) of them come from heavy duty book and net learning not direct, practical experience.

RE: “…untapped hydro potential…” Yes, yes, particularly if it’s year round, don’t waste a minute getting on that one so that you can have base load electrical for the 24/7 stuff like refrigeration, lights and computers. If you can get more than that all the better as you’ll find great ways to use it later on. Practically nothing’s more wasteful than a fossil fuel generator on a small scale that you have to run frequently. Hydro potential is golden since only a smaller percentage of homesteaders will have it.

RE: “…fridge doesn’t work except for the small freezer and we’re having trouble deciding the best way to resolve that situation. ” Turn the fridge into a planter ASAP as its sucking your limited power more than anything on your house grid, perhaps twice as much as everything else combined. I’ve got a small but powerful suggestion, find out with exactitude where your electricity is going and all it takes is a $25 meter that will measure each draw over any length of time. There is a specific brand called a “kill-o-watt” that most folks use to measure current draw from any device that is rated at 15 amps or less.
The biggest electron eater in any house other than heat or AC is the refrigerator, way more than the freezer. Every time the door is opened, most of the cold air drops out on the floor and the fridge works overtime to get the cool back. I’ll bet it gets opened a lot at your house with teenagers around.

So…, don’t replace it! Once you’re through screaming that I’m out of my mind, check this thought out. Purchase a $3-400, 7 or 8 CF chest freezer and run it as a refrigerator. Freezers are insulated far better than any fridge and a chest freezer opens at the top spilling little cold on the floor. It may be a little more hassle to dig items out of a chest freezer, but your refrigerator energy usage will drop from 1/5 to 1/10th of before, you’ll have to fire up that stinky, noisy generator a lot less often, and your batteries will be less stressed and last longer. All it takes is a $50 external device that has a thermostat sensor that goes in the freezer to run a freezer as a refrigerator. This is a standard, reliable off-grid and beer making solution, not anything new. There’s more here in this link, as well as links to the thermostat device and the kill-o-watt meter mentioned above:

http://www.aselfsufficientlife.com/chest-freezer-to-fridge-conversion-the-most-energy-efficient-fridge-ever.html

RE: “…we’re planning a rocket stove this year which could be fueled with coppiced sticks.” I’d heard of coppice before but didn’t understand what it was. It turned out to be a fascinating way to manage forests for some things. Once I understood what you were talking about my first reaction was rocket stove, yes; coppice sticks to feed it, no. Feeding sticks into a rocket stove every couple of hours sounds like a total PITA. I’ve seen a guy who devised a hopper feed for a rocket stove that fed it wood pellets for up to several days unattended. Then I read about your wonderful tight house and wondered whether a rocket stove was such a good idea. Have you talked with the builders about that? I’m speculating that a rocket stove is a solution to a problem that you don’t have with such an efficient house. It might be great for a workshop.

RE: “More trees need to come down to open up the canopy though…” I’m just guessing here but is your land situation too much forest and not enough pasture/fields? Just a thought here, but if you have a wood pellet facility in the area you might work out a trade whereby they clear out land that you want cleared and supply you with pellets for the winter so that your husband can leave the chain saw and axes in the shed and you gradually get more cleared acreage. Wood pellet stoves aren’t quite as efficient as rocket stoves but much more so than regular wood stoves. Keep your current wood stove as a prepper back up.

I’m burnt out. I hope something here was of help.

Thank for your reply CJ.

I have checked out Meremma Community and I am very impressed with the level of advice on the site. Thanks for letting me know of this great source of information.