US edition · prices & math dated August 2026
Backup → hybrid → true off-grid
Be the house with the lights on.
1.28 million homes went dark over the July 4th weekend, next to generators that wouldn’t start. Size a battery-first backup or a full off-grid build to your actual loads, every figure shown with its method — then buy against your own numbers from the maker-direct gear lists — or hand the spec to any builder you trust.
Free: your loads become a written spec you can buy against — calculators first, then the gear lists, makers linked direct. 50 field guides · eleven calculators · no email gate before the value.
Six calculators that size the whole system
Six calculators run the whole chain — loads, array, bank, generator, tanks. Out the other end comes a finished spec: array watts, battery kilowatt-hours, inverter surge, tank gallons. Free, live, no sign-up.
Can I run my house off-grid?
Tick the appliances you actually run — daily kWh, peak load and a ballpark system, updating live.
Solar sizing
Array and bank from your real loads — sized to January’s sun, not the brochure’s.
Home backup
Pick the circuits you keep alive; get generator kW, battery kWh and transfer-switch amps.
Battery bank
Days of autonomy into usable kilowatt-hours — the line item everyone wishes they’d doubled.
Power station
Which size unit actually carries your loads — and when only split-phase 240V will do.
Water & rain
Roof, rainfall and household draw into tank gallons — priced before the panels.
For calibration: in August 2026, about $5,000 of hardware buys a 6 kW-class inverter and 13 kWh of rack battery if you do the wiring yourself. The calculators tell you whether that’s your number, or half of it.
- Split-phase 120/240 checked before the parts list exists — the well pump and dryer don’t care about your feelings.
- Surge loads and idle draw counted; 50–60 W of inverter idle will eat a small bank overnight.
- Sized for the worst month, because undersizing is the community’s most-repeated regret.
- Every result shows its working — re-run it, argue with it, screenshot it for the thread.
Gear the guides keep coming back to
Size first, then buy against your own numbers. Every link goes straight to the maker — no marketplace middlemen. Rated for the United States: 120/240V split phase, UL listing, and a dealer network you can reach.
1.28M
customers dark over the July 4th heat wave, while PJM brushed its all-time demand record.
Method
utility outage trackers, July 2–5, 2026 — Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Jersey worst hit.
10.1%
the implied winter reserve — ERCOT’s firm output vs peak demand heading into January 2026, down from 17.5% before Uri — quoted in Texas threads like a countdown.
Method
computed from ERCOT Monthly Outlook for Resource Adequacy firm-capacity and peak-demand data (Jan 2026 ed.). ERCOT’s own summer planning margin reads more comfortable — the winter math is the one Texans argue about.
+$0.15/W
roughly what installed-solar quotes rose after the credit died — while panel hardware got 15–20% cheaper.
Method
2026 quote reports vs distributor price lists. The gap is the finding.
field guides in the library, across power, water, heat, land and the county — each showing its math, not just its verdict.
Method
count them. Then re-run any number you doubt — we want you to.
The longer read: State of the street — the July dispatch: the outages, the rate anger, and the year the quotes stopped being believed.
No spreadsheet required
Don’t want to run numbers? Get asked instead.
Become the Grid is a short assessment across four dimensions — your situation, your loads, your budget, and how much wiring you actually want to do. It ends in a named archetype and a Grid Blueprint: what to read, what to run, and what to buy first, in order. Four smaller quizzes settle single questions — energy source, water source, what land suits you, where you should live.
Ten minutes. The blueprint points at the same guides and calculators — just in your order.
One problem wearing eleven disguises
Power gets the headlines, but water is the harder half, heat is the biggest load, and the county has opinions about all of it. Each area is a full field of its own on the solutions pages — and they have to agree with each other before anything gets bought.
The next step
Size it first. Then buy it once.
Run your loads through the free calculators, then take the result to the gear lists — makers linked direct, no forms, no sales calls.
Eight reads before you buy anything
For installers
Install off-grid systems? Get vetted leads.
The homeowners here arrive with a finished spec — loads, array, battery, budget. Take the ones in your territory: buy a lead at a flat price or bid to own it exclusively, and only ever pay for the ones you win.