Category — COMMUNITY

Off-Grid TV is casting for entertaining communities or families for our planned documentary series.

We are searching throughout North America and Europe for  committed, entertaining,  off-beat, unique, outgoing communities, families or couples living Off the Grid or about to start doing so. (more…)

A web site where readers around the world post large high-res pics of remote or abandoned cabins? Surely, it will never catch on? Yes it will – with 40,000 Facebook likes, and articles in The Times and Altantic Magazine, FreeCabinPorn has big arty photos – no ads and hundreds of reblogs. Check it out. Strange that the cabin pics rarely include any people – like a cautious publisher who does not want to risk turning off potential readers in the cover design, so this Web site is long on style and cannily short on content. (more…)

Boasting an outer shell made of stacked car tyres packed with earth, an Earthship claims to be a cutting-edge, sustainable green home made from recycled materials. In fact there are serious design flaws: from off-gas from the tyres to overheating in ultra-hot places like Australia. All in all, having an Earthship in your life is like having a particularly sensitive pet – which needs constant feeding and excercise.
But that has not stopped shameless American architect Michael Reynolds touring Australia’s North Coast, preaching his particular brand of Earthship.
In Melbourne, he is in league with the Ceres community in Brunswick East which has a small project where you can pay to experience Earthship construction techniques. The Group, which always relied on volunteers to build its empire, has now found a marvellous new idea – get people to pay $160 ozzie dollars for a weekend ramming earth into old tyres.

Reynolds, who did not invent the Earthship concept, says its “a vessel sailing on towards tomorrow.” (more…)

After two decades, a tiny Florida island where 43 households live off the grid may be forced to accept Utility power.

The lure of enhanced property prices has persuaded some residents of No Name Key to switch their allegiance.  Recent arrivals on the island have provided the main impetus, but strong support still exists for those wanting to remain off the grid.

“Why isn’t the (local) power utility supporting solar use?” asks Deb Curlee in a letter to her local paper, The Key West Citizen. (more…)

Residents of Taupo NZ are hoping to “lure…Americans” to settle there by building an off-grid community.

The government has already earmarked the spot for a “Biosphere of the 21st century” and it is home to the New Zealand Clean Energy Centre.
The proposed family-style homes would be heated via geothermal or biomass sources, and electricity supplied via solar or wind energy.
Wastewater would be drip irrigated to energy crops that would provide future fuel for the community. Water would be supplied via rainwater collection.
There will be wi-fi internet along with communal vegetable gardens and septic tanks. (more…)

Until now, this site has spent too little time reporting on the active off-grid community across the border in Canada. From Ontario to Vancouver, BC, the Canadians have been leading the way, doing what many of us dream of, and doing it in comfort and style.
Over the next few months we will be running regular stories and photos of Canadian off-grid men and women. Please send us your photos and videos. (more…)

As the Occupy LSX movement prepares for a legal battle over its encampment outside St Paul’s Cathedral, its presence down the road in Finsbury Square looks slightly more secure.
Public spending cuts have left the square’s owners, the Borough of Islington, with an overstretched legal team, and although it do not support the Occupy presence,  the Council is “reluctant” to devote potentially millions of pounds to evict the protesters. This news may arouse intense disappointment amongst Occupy’s many neighbours in the banking and financial sector. UBS bank, for example, has ordered its employees to keep the blinds closed in case residents in the nearby Bank of Ideas spy on their documents using long lenses.
Now the Occupy organisers are seeking help from the off-grid movement to turn the square into a model (albeit temporary) off-grid community. They need energy experts, water engineers, builders, mechanics, lawyers, fund-raisers, architects and planning consultants as they prepare for a residency of up to three years until the next local elections.

Finsbury Square and the Bank of Ideas are organising a one day seminar on the skills need to set up an off-grid community.  Anyone who wants to give a workshop on any of the relevant skills ( you know what they are) please email nick@off-grid.net.
Step one is to install composting toilets in the square, but the technical problem is that the soil is only 2 metres deep as the square sits atop an underground car park. Please send solutions or offers of help  as comments on this article. (more…)

CBS Evening News has reignited interest in Slab City – the off-grid community near Los Angeles. It is celebrating its 20^th anniversary and is growing steadily as a result of foreclosure victims looking for a place with few rules, where they can get on with life undisturbed.

The 2000 residents are gathered in the desert around concrete slabs placed there during WW2, living in tents, trailers, elderly mobile homes and other dwellings made from found materials. (more…)

If you live off-grid, why not share your knowledge with others?

One way is to write for this blog. But a more direct approach is to offer lessons in off-grid living to others in your area.

This week Bruce Johnson and Barbara Hagen will teach Oklahoma City area residents to live more cheaply and sustainably, with a few tricks they’ve learned in over 30 years of off-grid living. They are giving the course for free. (more…)