 This is electricity. Think about all the things you use electricity for every day. We don't have it, but that's about to change. We're installing a 48-volt electrical system with over 10,000 watts of solar to harvest the sun's energy and 28 kilowatt hours of battery storage. And with the help of Adam, our electrician, and his furry companion, Belu, it's time to get started. Right now, we've hooked up lithium battery charger as it's important to charge all your batteries to the correct voltage before you connect them to make sure they're all full. We have 24 batteries we need to charge, and we have no power where we live. So we are going to be running a generator in order to charge these batteries to give us off-grid power. I can't believe I'm saying those words out loud. I'm in shock. I just can't believe this is happening. For 598 days, we've been living without a reliable power source at our cabin in the woods. We constantly run out of power, leaving us in the dark. We just live off-grid and our battery system died. In the middle of dinner. We've been working hard to bring power to our off-grid cabin by taking back the walls to wire the cabin, trenching 500 feet around our land, installing solar array mounts and modules, framing a battery house and mounting off-grid components inside. Everything we've done has led us to this very moment of getting power at our cabin. We hope. As this has been the most complex project yet. Now that almost all of the components are hung on the wall in the battery house, we need to create custom wires to connect all of them. So today we are cutting the wire to size. We are pulling back the wire where we connect the lugs and then we are heat shrinking the connection. This is not our first time dabbling into electricity. Jasmine and I love and take pride in our electrical system in the van. We built it top to bottom and it's going to be awesome. We're excited to share this process with you. It means we're that much closer to connecting the whole thing and really having power. Okay, I'm back in the battery room. We have a lot of batteries to do though. So I'm going to be in here like all day constantly changing those two each batteries all along the wall. Inverters, VE panels, one solar charge controller for the pole mount, a second solar charger for the pole mount, the juice, main panel, and where all the wires come in from outside. Holy, look at all yours. Big, big energy. With all the cables cut and the ring terminals attached, we shift our focus on connecting the negative terminals. I am fairly well now, I am strong, I am goodbye, long way from home. I'm sorry to be bad. I mean, my first connection. I'm really happy right now. I am a mockingbird, I love to sing and I'm on a fly. Looking clean. So now all of the negatives are nicely connected. And what comes after negative? Positives, you guessed it. So now we need to take our eight foot lead positive cables and do the same thing and bring it to the links distributor on the top. Can we talk about this beautiful weather? What a gorgeous March day. It feels like spring is here, the sun is out, the sky is blue. Yeah, we have our mittens on and our hats on. We're out here in some pre-minimal layers and that feels amazing. I can't wait to spend more time outside. Look at that sun come in and warm the face. Here it comes. Crystal's off to see if our missing parts come in, while we still work on connecting the positive terminals. I'm really hoping the package is there. I'm on a fly. I really need this package to continue. Was it there? No. No? And it says it is online? On the lunch menu, rice and beans. I'm on for you and a bubbly for everyone. 13.2. Nice. Crystal, hello. Okay, thank you. Lunch is ready. Burritos. How many burritos have you had since being here? This is number four. Round two. Oh, burrito number five. Burrito number five, it's so good. That's so good, thank you so much. Crystal made such good burritos, you were going back for seconds. Let you know how our nap goes after this. You're gonna be a burrito. With our stomachs full and as we await our missing part, we focus on connecting our panel box. And as we head back towards the garage, Crystal goes for round two to the mailbox and we cross our fingers that we got our delivery. Okay, so panel box and the house is wired up. Now we're gonna wire panel box number two, which is this beautiful white one. Good pick. Do y'all remember how many trenches we dug in order to get the wires here? So all of those trenches that we dug and put the conduit in, those are the wires that are now coming up to make the final connections. Was it there? That's goodness. Super excited about that because of, actually just joking, it's just gonna protect their inverters from getting spiked really hard from the well pump. It's a surge limiter. So I wonder if there's anything of high voltage. It goes through that first so that way the inverters don't go. Okay, this beautiful 45 going right up to the panel box is from the cabin. And the other one is to the greenhouse. So today or tomorrow, whenever, all three buildings on the property are going to have power, which is incredible. It's crazy. I can't even think of it. I don't even know what to say. And then when we wired the garage all into this panel box, which then goes into the main system. There's so many parts and pieces. So many parts and pieces. And you live so far out. Yeah. We have been running the generator all day in order to charge these batteries. However, I'm testing them all. They all read 13.3. We need to get them to 14.6. And charging something at 15 amps is slow, very slow. So I think I'm sleeping in here tonight. We've been in that garage all day long. It's completely transformed. Wow. This morning it was just some batteries and some inverters. Now there are so many components and so many wires and everything is looking amazing. And the dogs have been outside all day enjoying the outdoors. But they're getting a little sad because they're missing their human. So they've been at the door scratching and crying. So I thought I might as well come out and take these three for a little stroll. Come on. Let's go for a walk. It's really nice to see that big, beautiful sun above the cabin for the first time this year. Another reminder that summer is just around the corner. Last positive, I'll have to make two more battery cables and that will be it for the links distributors. And then all we have to do is wire up the batteries and we have power. No. In the cabin. So basically the Victron app is telling me that it's at 14.6 but then I'm taking a multimeter to it and it's saying 13.6. Victron app is saying that it's at 14.6? Yeah. Do you want a battery or do you want to do the charger? Charger. Blue's the IP65. I wish I was having a sleepover with the batteries for a good reason but it's not. I'm actually pretty nervous to be honest. I'd be very unfortunate. It's been a long time coming for this week and this day so I just really want to make sure I can do everything I possibly can. The Victron app for the IP65 charger, it's saying that the battery is at 14.8. But then when we test it with the multimeter, the multimeter is reading 13.8, which makes zero sense. And you're probably thinking, just leave the charger on it. However, it's like a smart charger so it just stops charging. Negative, positive. And the multimeter is reading 13.77. However, like you just saw, I'm going to put it back on this battery. It's full. The heck. I hate that this is happening at night too because my brain honestly won't shut off. I need to figure it out. Hello? Coming for a sleepover? But we can't get them charged. Well, it's probably the charger, Jazz. It can't be the charger. It's not the batteries because not all the batteries are like that. It's got to be the charger. There's nothing. There's got to be something to do with the settings. I will have to check on the battery. 14.5. I think it worked. I would normally celebrate a lot right now, but my eyes look like they're crying because I'm so tired. But I'm so happy. A lot of troubleshooting, a lot of reading. Even took a nap, but it's working. 16 more batteries to go. Hopefully I stay up. If not, tomorrow. 7 in the morning. I wish I could tell you exactly what it was. It was just a bunch of reading of forums and settings. And then it worked. I don't really know. But it's working. And that's all that matters in my brain right now. Burritos. Rito number 7, firing the hole. We were in line when we said he was eating so many burritos yesterday. The charge controllers to the servo need two RJ45 ethernet cables. You said I need three B directs. So two. Yeah, there's 24 batteries. It's the first problem. So, and then the else. And it should just drop back down into the bulk. Drop back down to the bulk. L-O-L. We did so much reading everywhere, and nothing told us that. It was definitely too good to be true that we'd get power this week. We are so close. Literally so close. I don't know how much closer we could possibly get. Like as close as your hairs on your head, or the hairs in your nostrils, if you have those. I think everyone does. The reason why we don't have power right now is because we are one missing just a couple fuses, ethernet cables, VE direct cable. Not complicated, but we're missing them. You're leaving? Yeah. Bye, Adam. Thanks for everything. Yeah, I'll just go to any questions you may call. We could have got the batteries charged these last three days. However, this VE smart charger is so smart, it remembers the last battery setting. So this is going to sound so simple, but you have to completely reset the charger every battery. You can't just move your alligator clips to each battery. And that's what we've been doing for the last three days. AKA, it has not been working. Completely reset, attach. Which obviously makes sense in theory now. We called Guy today who runs an electrical store in Halifax, and he taught us. Imagine that. Every system is so different and unique, and this is the way you learn. So here we are. With every obstacle, we have a chance to learn. Although we are facing setbacks, we know that we're so close. We're continuing to charge and monitor our 24 batteries in preparation for the next install day. A few days later, we get a massive snowstorm. Big enough to cancel our installation day and delay delivery of our missing parts. But if you know us by now, we tried to make the most of it. Snowboarded in your life. Twice. It was so fun. It's like the best time of my life. I was like, why, we didn't blow? I'm excited to just make a day of it. Who wants to plow? Sometimes life's just like, no work today. No work today. All fun today. And I said, okay, life. Okay, life. Here we are. Here we are. Just to ride it on the road. I love it. Yeah, I'm not plowing. This is fun. This is great. The storm has finally stopped. Our packages have finally came in the mail. Crystal just went and got them. And Adam just arrived. Woo! I think we're gonna have power today. Adam is putting all the fuses into the links, which fuses every single battery bank here. While I am still charging batteries one year later. Don't know how she got in here, but the Velcro dog is back. She's a legendary little sneaker. She wants to be right here for the show. Come on, beer. I'm plugged. Back, back. Will you hire me as an apprentice? Oh yeah, I've hired both you and Crystal for the heartbeat. Both of us, if you know one scared of electricity. Today in the electrical build series, drama. We don't have some ring terminals, some simple ring terminals. We don't have them here. Liam is off to get the part. We've called in a special friend who's coming down the driveway right now. Actually? And Jasmine's wiring up some plugs in this house and they're looking good. Hello, stranger. We all haven't seen this stranger in so long. I for sure thought we would never see Porter until spring. Even though we've invited him over several times. Snow is flying and Porter's back. See you in a day. I didn't think I'd be here until like after the snow went. If you're all wondering what Porter is he doing here in the middle of winter. We're digging a hole. We need to ground our electrical system. Porter, Porter, hashtag Porter is back in town and we had to move the trailer that was right here so that we can dig a hole, a very small hole, right there. When Porter saw that Adam took 25 whacks with the pickaxe and got nowhere, he's even thinking that his exciter might not even break the ground. The stay, the heck out of the way because he's setting on ice. It is still winter after he stays the day. He's always a phone call away and he's right here. What a gem. That's a good hole. That's a good hole. That's a good hole. Took me a minute to like register that there was a real hole there. Wow. Good job. Look at this plate. Damn. Do a little dance. Hey, how's it going? Did they, did they have it? I've got every steep but copper wall first. Okay, I'm gonna have a look and see where it could, we could find them. And if I find a place, I'll call you back. That hole was attempted to be dug twice and it was a lot of work and it went a lot of nowhere. So calling Porter was a no brainer. The hole is dug. The grounding plate is in the ground and it's covered up in a matter of minutes. And I heard Porter, Porter told you he might not even be able to get in the ground and he never told anyone on the job site that. Oh. I'm very optimistic. What can I say? Well, let's be real. Porter's pretty good at what he's done. That's true. He's got the patience. Wow, Kitty Cat has never came so fast and left so fast in her life. Also, can we talk about how happy Izzy and Bella are? I know to see them, Porter. Thank you, Porter. Out of the 24 batteries, only one battery is not getting past 13.6. It will not move. We have been on the phone with BattleBorne all day. They are amazing. I don't know what we do with them. They have been such a great help answering our 20 million phone calls all the time. And they are sponsoring this entire cabin, electrical system. We have a worst case scenario, which isn't even a worst case scenario. We'll hook up five banks instead of six banks and then we'll commission the system and all that jazz and we'll still have power. So that's amazing. And that's all that matters. We'll still have, we'll still have power. I feel like I should feel all these emotions right now. Why? Why do you feel emotions? Because it's like the most exciting thing that we've been working towards, but my brain is honestly hurting right now. Parts are missing to getting all the batteries charged for like the last five million days, it feels like to getting poor to come out here and everything. It's just, my brain hurts. Back to the garage we go. 13.9? No, I'm measuring down 14.08. It just goes so fast and then it just shuts off. I think it's safe to say out of 24 batteries, we have one lemon. Due to one malfunctioning battery, this renders one entire bank of batteries unusable. Until we get a replacement in the future. So instead of going with six banks, we're gonna go with five banks. Time to call Bout of Warrant to commission our system. You ready? Oh yeah. Time to commission the system. As software goes, dot bus, quick configure software from Victron, you know, to Quattros, how did we want to program these and then we would just say. It sounds like there might be, I have a dead short here somewhere. It could be going through the inverter, it could be, what is going on? Crystal's not even in here because she's so scared, slash nervous of this entire system. She's just hanging it in the house. Yeah, so that's what it was. That was my issue. There we go. Oh! Do you want me to turn the second one on? Yes, we did. Honestly, didn't think we were gonna get power tonight. I was feeling a little bit down here and now I can't stop smiling. You think we're gonna get it? Yes, yes, yes. All right, we're gonna see if power goes on in the cabin. Oh my goodness. It does not feel real at all. That's a dead light. So if you hit that, this is probably the third game. Whoa! You have power! All there beside you. Yeah! How's that feel? I don't have words. Got power boarder! Got power! She has. It's amazing that you showed up today too because you've been here for the trenching, every single thing, and now you came with the lights! No, it's just crazy, it's been such a process. It's so amazing that we have it. It is emotional. I don't even know how to feel. It's kinda crazy, yeah. 603 days ago, we moved into this abandoned cabin with nothing but each other, our dogs, and a dream. A dream to make this place our home. A space to grow our roots while we embrace the next chapter of our lives. With the countless challenges while living off-grid, we are grateful for the support of our community and all of the devoted tradespeople. Every small step on this journey has led us to this point, to our biggest milestone yet. Thank you! Thanks Adam! You're welcome!