User:Vincecate/Budget

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Revision as of 02:58, 31 March 2010 by Vincecate (talk | contribs) (Tradeoffs)
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I am trying to make some cost estimates for a single family seastead big enough and nice enough for my family (so this is not the minimal cost design). This does not include the raw structure but tries to get most of the things that we would need on it. I am thinking of something like a larger version of my my floating villa design. I expect to have an early seastead and have plenty of backups and redundancy so that when things break we will still be fine. I also expect to visit a lot of ports and do a lot of fishing.

My First Choice Budget - Solar with electric thrusters

Item Units Price/unit Total cost
Thrusters 3 $20,000 $60,000
Motor Controllers 3 $1,600 $4,800
Solar Panels 16,000 watts $3/watt $48,000
Batteries 100 kw-hours $145/1-kw-hour $14,500
Inverters 6 $1,200 $7,200
Backup Generator 1 $5,400 $5,400
300 Gal Diesel Tank 1 $2,000 $2,000
Diesel Fuel 300 $3.50/gal $1,050
Kite 2 $2,000 $4,000
Total $144,000



Living Area Budget Estimates
Item Units Price/unit Total cost
WaterMakers 2 $4,300 $8,600
Year Supply of Food 6 $2,500 $15,000
Liferaft 1 $5,000 $5,000
Total $28,600

Alternatives for Power/Propulsion

Diesel-Electric Seastead Budget Estimates
Item Units Price/unit Total cost
Thrusters 3 $20,000 $60,000
Motor Controllers 3 $1,600 $4,800
Backup Generators 2 $5,400 $10,800
1000 Gal Diesel Tank 1 $2,000 $4,000
Diesel Fuel 1000 $3.50/gal $3,500
Total $83,100


Kite Power Budget Estimates
Item Units Price/unit Total cost
300 Gal Diesel Tank 1 $2,000 $2,000
Diesel Fuel 300 $3.50/gal $1,050
Outboard 1 $5,000 $5,000
Kite 2 $2,000 $4,000
Total $12,050

Open Issues

  • Cost of living area and structure are not in here yet.
  • I like the "free fall life boats" but have yet to find any prices for them.

Tradeoffs

The main tradeoff I am making is to have solar power and electric thrusters so that I don't need to buy diesel every month, listen to the noise of a generator, or smell any exhaust. I really think kites will work out, so maybe diesel near port and kites in open ocean is the way to go, but I am not sure I want to count on kites yet. The other thing is that solar panels are very reliable. Batteries can be done so that single failures don't kill you, and they tend to degrade gradually over a couple years. Diesel engines can stop suddenly. I would want 2 or 3 generators if that was my main source of power. The solar/electric route is more costly up front but if oil goes up by a factor of 10 it won't bother you so much if you run on solar.