Remote cabin Lighting

[bgosh]

Just wondering what you gentleman are using in your cabins without electricity for lighting and refrigerating? Thank You Stan

[CLETUS]

Back in the day we used Coleman lanterns for light.

Now, I'd either do that or LED of some sort.

Refrigeration is coolers, of course that depends on how long you're going to be out there.

[A Squared]

Depends on how elaborate you want to get. One option is to have a generator and wire it for electricity. Then you can have all the lights and refrigeration you want. Of course, generators are expensive and noisy. Another option is DC lighting. A friend has this in his cabin. He has a couple of huge "Cat batteries" (batteries for construction equipment) his cabin is wired for DC lights in various places. He has a smaller gasoline generator to recharge the batteries. Still noisy, but you can pick your times to run it, and have it quiet in the evening. He also has a couple of solar panels to recharge the battery.

Yet another option is propane lights. You can install light fixtures which run on propane. The lights burn thru a mantle, like in a Coleman lamp. They throw a similar amount of nice bright light, but are quiet, unlike the hissing Coleman lamps. This requires running propane lines to all the fixtures from a connection outside for a propane cylinder.

Another option for lights is Aladdin lamps. These are oil (kerosene) lamps which use a mantle. They throw a lot brighter light than a standard oil lamp wick, and a lot more of it.

As far as refrigeration, you can get propane powered refrigerators. Sounds kind of counter=intuitive, but they work. I know a number of folks who have them in their cabins off the grid. I believe a lot of RV's have them also.

Using propane is kind of nice, once the cabin is plumbed for it, and equipment installed, one cylinder of propane does it all, lights, cooking, refrigeration.

[atgcpaul]

My parents' cabin is connected to a generator that powers the lights, fans, well pump, microwave, and fridge. If it's a short stay--weekend--they usually just use a big cooler with ice and leave the generator off most of the day. if it's going to be a week, then they'll transfer stuff from the cooler to the mini fridge after it's had some time to cool down, but they typically just refresh the ice in the cooler because the fridge will be off at night when they turn off the generator.

There isn't much need for power during the day, but at night, they ran some auxiliary 12V LED lighting (I think from an RV store) in the bedrooms powered off a car battery (or something like it) connected to an AC to DC power inverter plugged into the wall outlet. When the generator is on, the battery gets charged. At night, you flip a switch on the light and it draws power from the battery and gives you plenty of light for reading, etc.

We've been thinking about doing something solar to charge the light battery (which is simple) but I want to be able to keep that 220V well pump going and microwave off of solar which might take more panels than they want to invest in for the number of times they get up there.

[fredhargis]

The ones I've been in used LP for both the lights and the fridge. Interesting, in this weeks Menard's ad I saw they had several dual fuel refrigerators advertised. Not sure I've ever seen that at a box store before.

[JohnRoscoe]

You might check out a Yeti cooler if only going for 2-3 days at a time.

[MarkSingleton]

I am rarely at my cabin. But I keep several old school oil lamps there, as well as a box of candles, etc. If I arrive after dark, with my ice chest(!), it's a flashlight till I can get em lit. If it's winter time the next chore is to light the wood stove! No power or water at the place. Maybe someday.

[EatenByLimestone]

bgosh said:

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Just wondering what you gentleman are using in your cabins without electricity for lighting and refrigerating? Thank You Stan

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My backup lights are kerosene lamps and candles.

I don't have backup refrigeration, but would go propane if I needed it.

[Cub_Cadet_GT]

bgosh said:

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Just wondering what you gentleman are using in your cabins without electricity for lighting and refrigerating? Thank You Stan

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Propane for both.

[MsNomer]

If you want 12v LEDs, don't waste money at the RV store. Just go to the Big Box and get something with a brick that converts 12v to 110. Cut off the brick and add a 12v plug. There' seven a TV or two that do this.