How To Power A Restroom That’s Off The Grid
If you are looking to provide a real restroom experience, then you’ll need to have a building that is powered by electricity.
Electrical power provides heating, lighting for night use, water pumping, air ventilation, and extra features such as hand dryers. Whether or not you have power available at the site, solar power can potentially provide all these comforts, even in the most remote areas.
Is solar appropriate for you?
Now that we’ve established why power is so important to a restroom building, when or where is it appropriate to use grid power, solar power, or both?
Generally speaking, if your planned building expects to have access to grid power utilities, we recommend using grid power, as it is consistent and fuss free.
In some cases, our customers have chosen to use a combination of grid power utilities and solar. Solar power can’t always be put back on the grid, so to make use of both we assign solar to power certain features (usually lighting and water pumping) and grid power to the others. This way of using solar doesn’t save enough money to pay for itself, however it does reduce the building’s carbon footprint.
Where we do firmly recommend solar are situations where grid power is either impossible or extremely expensive due to being too far removed from your building. Solar isn’t perfect, but it will allow you to have a real restroom experience where it normally wouldn’t be possible without grid power.
With all this in mind, here are the solar packages offered by Green Flush:
Basic Solar Package
- 12-volt solar power system
- Powers lights and water pumps
Medium Solar Package
- 120-volt solar power with increased storage capacity
- Powers lights and water pumps
- Option to power either ERV/fan ventilation or a water heater
Super Solar Package
- 120-volt solar power with maximum storage capacity
- Powers lights, water pumps, ERV/fan ventilation, water heater, and hand dryers
- Air warmers (grid powered or propane heaters will be needed for reliably keeping a restroom operational in below freezing weather)
The package chosen will depend on your needs, something that can be decided during the planning stages while talking to a Green Flush restroom planner.
As you can see, solar isn’t just a feel-good environmental move, but a legitimate problem solver for situations where grid power isn’t feasible or is cost prohibitive. If you can’t get standard grid power but still want to spoil your visitors with a real restroom experience, go with solar.