Posts from — April 2009

What’s wrong with this picture? Off-Gridder Brenda Reed has money problems because her off-grid home can’t get financing. Does anyone know a good broker that can help?

My husband, Tom and I live in a rural area of Mendocino County, CA on 77 acres in the lower foothills, above a little town named Hopland. The town is so small that there is not a single traffic light and only 1 stop sign on the main road. The nearest power pole is about a mile away. (more…)

Dervaes: urban homesteaders USA Today was one of the first newspapers to spot the fast growth in off-grid living. Now it has identified a related trend which sparked a massive response on the paper’s web site.

Dubbed “21st century survivalism,” the story, filed in the “offbeat” section, is about a Michigan family that, under financial pressure, decided to give up credit cards, satellite television, high-tech toys and restaurant dining, and move from the city to live on a 40-acre farm and become more self-sufficient. They relearnt skills and live happily together and feed themselves.
People are asking, “Do I really want to be 100% vulnerable with no self-sufficiency skills if something happens to the economy?” says the story. (more…)

Low tech solutions Bangladesh biology prof Raj Hussein, reports  for Off-Grid from a dairy and poultry farm in his country that could be an inspiration to the whole of rural America —  and suburban America as well, come to that.

Advance Animal Science Co. Ltd. (AAS) is hooked up to the local grid,  but has its own arrangement to fill its electricity requirements.

While the rest of the country faces up to a mounting power crisis, AAS  has set an example for others to follow, generating bio-power from the gas from its animals’ droppings – cow dung and chicken litter. (more…)

Solar newbies beware

Don’t believe the awful ads which promise you “free power for $200″, or “build your own solar panel for $200″. Several of them appear on this site from time to time, despite that we are doing everything we can to stop them.  Many are from Chinese spammers, and a particular bunch of conmen called energy4free, or earth4energy or Get-Cheap-Solar-Panels.com, amongst many other aliases. These slimebags ask you to pay for an e-book which directs you to some other sites and offers to sell you components for a solar panel that will never work. Of course it would be quite wrong and immoral to suggest you should click repeatedly on their ads whenever you see the Earth4energy logo. We do not recommend that. (more…)

Has it made us happy? An off-grid subscriber writes: Once the Western world has forsaken the “American Dream” sales propaganda as its standard of achievement, the day we come back down from the “Magic Enchantment” Disney-like world sold to us by advertisers, once the propagandized “Ideal Lifestyle” from the commercial architecture magazines are recognized for the sales pitches they are, separated from realities of everyday North American life, we will build zero operating-cost, zero-maintenance, environmentally-friendly, practical, survival shelter-accented, realistically-sized homes.  (more…)

Cowardly suckup to bankers Unlike America, Britain is failing to meet the scale of the financial problems facing it.  A severe crash became more likely after last week’s dishonest, electioneering budget.  The Labour government’s love affair with the bankers is to blame for this sorry state, and anyone who has the means had better start preparing for rationing and blackouts as early as winter 2010.

The key problem is that Britain is handing huge sums of our money to the bankers, almost none of whom have been fired for incompetence. They can keep paying themselves excessively and unlike the US, the UK has not extracted any concessions or structural changes from the banks, other than a tiny share of the profits in the event of a (miraculous) recovery.  No major structural reform, no increase in lending, no investigations into falsely declared profits such as those at Lehman Brothers. (more…)

Family-friendly festival This August sees the first Off-Grid Sunrise Festival  somewhere in Somerset (location to be revealed).  The three night event will be entirely powered by renewable energy. This new camp is a deep exploration of community living, creativity and consciousness, with hands-on activities, talks, workshops, performance, music, art and celebration.

Its a spin-off from the annual Sunrise Celebration which is held in Somerset May 28th-30th this year. Off-Grid Editor Nick Rosen will be speaking at 3pm on May 29th, and again in the evening, in the Big Yurt.

The Off-Grid event in August will be participatory and family focused, exploring the emergent culture of environmental awareness and the ways in which everyone can create a sustainable future together.  ”We welcome this new addition to the annual Off-Grid Calendar” said Nick Rosen. Times are changing and knowledge is growing of the human impact on the natural world and upon each other. Off-grid will explore humanities potential to improve the lives of everyone on this planet.

“Creating a festival is like building and servicing a small town,” said Dan Hurring from Sunrise. “In the process we can explore solutions that can be applied in our everyday lives and throughout the world. For this event we will be moving away from using bio diesel generators, and working on micro generation of power from solar, wind, cycle and possibly hydro power.”

The Off-Grid festival is about creating a space for empowerment, where festival goers will have the opportunity to gain knowledge and experience on the steps that need to be taken to increase energy efficiency. There will be lots of practical information, from how to make a boiler use less fuel to installing a wind generator. Whether the dream is an inner city vegetable patch or living on the land, Off Grid will be a showcase of what is possible and available to everyone, no matter what their lifestyles.

As a family focused event Off Grid will have loads of activities for children, with a kids’ village and fun workshops especially tailored for them on how they can help their families help the environment.

So bring the family to eat from nature, sit in ceremony, design the future, walk on hot coals and move beyond your perceived limits.

Off-Grid will be powered by clean, renewable energy, with site wide organic food and drink, compostable packaging, plates and cutlery, and numerous other initiatives making this the Greenest event of the year. Sunrise Off Grid is run by a Community Interest Company, CIC’s invest their profits back into the community, building a world beyond monetary profit.

Tickets: Adults £75 in advance/Kids £25 Info: 0845 0094463 – off-grid@sunrisecelebration.com

I can’t believe it’s been a year since I received my Magic Jack.

For those who don’t know about this device, it’s an internet phone service, they send you a USB memory stick with a few extras, you plug this into your computer and then you plug your telephone into the other end. After a bit of a setup (it’s pretty simple), you pick out a phone number and viola, you have phone service anywhere you have a broadband connection and a computer.  Unfortunately MJ does not play well with satellite internet service, other than that, you should be good to go. (more…)

Wall Wart

OK, you are sitting in your home, you have replaced all of your incandescent light bulbs with more energy efficient bulbs, you have added more insulation to your home, you have double pane windows, you have caulked up every crack and crevice, you lower the thermostat in the winter and raise it in the summer, you have purchased energy efficient appliances, so now, is there anything else you can do to use less energy and save money? Yes there is!

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