L16 for house batteries? Or would you recommend something else?

[H3Jim]

Its a good idea to determine how much power (amp hours) you need to have before you buy the batteries.  Its best to buy all the batteries at the same time, and of course of the same type.  Make a stab at estimating your requirements.  You can never be too rich or too thin or have too much battery capacity.

I boondock most of the time, and have 600 amp hours at 24 volts.  Rarely do I ever get close to 50% discharged.  I never try to run the air conditioners from the batteries, and I have a very efficient Sunfrost refrigerator.  My biggest draw would be in the am cooking eggs, making coffee, making toast listinening to music all at the same time.  Draws a lot, but then the solar puts it back the rest of the day.

[buswarrior]

These folks:

http://home.altenergystore.com/

Have a lot of reading under their "learn" tab at the top of the homepage.

All things alternate energy and living off the grid. A load calculator too.

I bought my Trace inverter from them a few years back.

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[Tony LEE]

"Can the hi-tech batteries, AGM etc be damaged by over dischargeing?"

Yes - as can all lead acid batteries.

AGMs are "happy" being discharged down to 40% on a regular basis vs 50% for regular flooded batteries, and this extra 20% of capacity helps to reduce the cost premium of the AGMs over flooded.