Surely the best way to be “off-grid” is to find a place in an isolated area, as far away as possible from the spying eyes of those every intrusive CCTV eyes, cut up your credit cards, through away your mobile, smash your netbook/laptop/PDA/PC into a million pieces and live off the land…….only then will you be “off-grid”!

When we drive, which is not very often and not very far, we have a 69 VW Beetle, it works great out here in the high desert mountain roads, most of the other people drive so called better cars, newer, more expensive cars, their vehicles are torn up by the dirt roads out here, so even though it’s gasoline powered, it’s still a bargain for us to operate, the parts are readily available and cheap, we can work on it ourselves instead of having to take it to a dealership…

Might pick your brain later about wells though, our ground water out here is great, but drilling a well is expensive, my neighbor’s well went to 400 feet, but static for him is 200, that’s still pretty far for DIY drilling. We use a Berkey Light water purifier, it works great, it’s gravity fed, no power needed, the water directly from a well is fine to drink, but if you store it in a tank (which we do) I prefer running it through the Berkey Light before drinking it or cooking with it.

Maybe you need to start submitting articles here–sounds like you’re quite the expert!

Thanks for the book recommendation. I’ll have to keep an eye out for it. My hubby and I will be retiring soon (I hope) and I’ve been planning for the past several years on how we can live as sustainably as possible, to include searching for a piece of property with a home with a lot of potential. I’m constantly on the lookout for green alternatives that will save us big bucks in the long run.

TheMajor’sLady

I am surprised hot water heating (30% of most home’s energy) is not discussed in the questions or the answers. The home I built and designied used the back of the fireplace during the winter and active solar during the summer to heat the water. This was for a family of four (two adults and two children) and saved a chunk of change.
A custom designed mild steel steel (iron) fireplace with external air source with a plenum area behind the fireplace is required. The plenum area connected to the back up gas furnace fan (and thermostat). If I had not been so lazy and got up earlier enough every morning in the winter I would not have used any gas!

Yes, I know a wood stove, is more efficient than a fireplace but I like (and my wife) the fireplace appearance. With the external air source that entered through the front floor of the fireplace we could completely close the glass doors and stop all drafts that are created by fireplaces.

To be environmentally carbon (i.e. carbon dioxide ) neutral, I would also suggest everyone, if possible, use 100% biodiesal or anaerobic digestor created methane where fuel other than wood is required. This should definitely be used in any back up generator.

Personally, for transportation, I am looking at the electric/biodiesal XR3 from Riley. It’s a three wheeled small vehicle that suppsedly get 200 m/gal depending on how you calculate it. Lets not forget about the impact of gasoline or natural gas use on air pollution.

Everything I have read, unless you are in the deep south or a desert you will need a small stream or high tide with a microturbine to be truely “off-grid”. The reasons are discussed in detail in Kemp’s book.

My career has been water treatment so if you have any specfic questions about water well design, reuse or drinking water treatment please contact me.

Good luck everyone.

I don’t have satellite TV or internet, but everyone else who lives out here does, from what I understand the internet and TV satellite systems are two separate systems, you don’t get deals or breaks just because you have both, though this may be different where you live.

Wretha

Glad you like reading my stuff, I enjoy writing, never though I’d have such a great audience when I first started. :)

Wretha

Keep up the good work, I visited your site, very interesting indeed! :)

Wretha

I think I asked this once of you, but have you considered using the night sky for freezing water to keep food cold/frozen? On clear nights, you can concentrate the night sky using a reflective cone or even a solar oven with a concentrator on water to make ice. You can even use this principle with refrigerant at night (ie expose a refrigerator coil to the night sky using a concentrator, which will cool the refrigerant in the line exposed, causing the colder refrigerant to drop into the refrigerator/freezer to either cool or even freeze what’s there. This is based in part on the “Four-Mile Island Ice Box” I mentioned before as well as what I’ve read at HomePower magazine and various websites on “solar cooling”.

Keep writing–I love your stuff!

TheMajor’sLady

I am fairly new to this and I am starting small, but I have many of the same issues. Unfortunately, I cannot go completely off-grid (at least, yet). What my intent is would be to become as self-sufficient as possible and make the final leap a bit later (depending on the SHTF situations that seem to be very near at hand).

I take a slightly different tact. I want to make sure I can power my deep freeze (I live in the SE USA) and provide some other small current devices like a PC and LED lights, etc. It is full of last year’s garden veggies now. And the temp is too warm to just sit stuff outside. Problem is that freezers take a lot of power.

But, eventually, I want to go completely off grid. Knowing that I am not totally reliant on TVA makes me feel good.

Thanks for sharing this.