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Self-sufficient

desalination, potable, cheap drinking water
Water

DIY Desalination

Earth isn’t called the “Blue Planet” for nothing, but the majority is saltwater and therefore not immediately drinkable. Hence we need the desalination process which removes the salt from saline water so we can drink it.

One of the main hurdles living outside the system is having a reliable source of clean, fresh drinking water.  Dr Rahul Nair of Manchester University in the UK has just announced a breakthrough Graphene micromesh that will be on the market in 3 years time that will literally strain the salt out of water.  Meanwhile,  how about cheap DIY methods you can do at home?

Desalination can take advantage of evaporation. The dirty or saline water is heated and the water turns to steam, leaving the impurities (salt) behind. All that then needs to be done is capture the steam, condense it and voila clean drinkable water.

 

Below are some videos of easy and cheap methods of making your own DIY desalination devices!

The first is based on a whistling kettle, some pipe, a coolant around said piping and a collection tin – easy peasy!

 

Here is another version of a similar system using a pressure cooker instead – who said they are only good for canning!?

 

If you want to invest in some specific desalination kit, then check out this video which uses the non-electric distiller by Water Wise.

 

No camp fire or stove to hand? No problem! Check out these solar distillers – not exactly top tech, but proves you can capture the power of evaporation really easily. (Ignore the soil eating cat!)

 

And one using a plastic bottle!

Let’s face it we have all wanted to live by a golden beach in a sunny spot at some time in our lives. But with water at a dollar a pop for a 100cl plastic bottle, desalination has a definite cash benefit.

What do you think? Have you tried any of these methods? Let us know in the comments below!

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Tiny House, off-grid, build your own, retirees, retirement, small, mini, houses, homes, self sustaining
Community

Ten Tiny House Companies you NEED to know about

There’s no doubt about it, the tiny house movement has well and truly taken off. Please let us know your favorites (news@off-grid.net). Extreme downsizing has become very popular, with a smaller space offering easier upkeep and lower utility bills. The average tiny house is 186 square feet – truly tiny! With prices of building your own tiny home being around $23,000 on average (remember Joseph’s upcycled shipping container home?) it’s not hard to see why it’s so popular. Even having someone else build you a tiny house, prices start around the $45,000 mark. This is a great deal cheaper than the price of the average American home which runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Therefore, a good many tiny house owners do not have a mortgage, giving financial peace of mind.

A survey conducted in 2015 by TheTinyLife.com found that retirees are becoming a large proportion of tiny house owners. The results showed that 30% of just 2,000 respondents were aged between 51-70 years. Of course this makes sense, as people reach retirement age downsizing is common practice – and you can’t downsize much more than a tiny home! When looking for a tiny house when you’re not as young and nimble as you used to be, it is important to look out for certain features. These include: easy to reach storage to reduce awkward stooping and stretching; a single storey tiny house, or a main floor bedroom – avoid loft sleeping areas with ladders! Accessibility is also important; whether this be wide doorways, walk in showers, ramp access or building low to the ground.

Here are ten tiny house companies, offering retiree appropriate (and non-retiree) products which could very well seal the deal for you!

 

Zyl Vardos Inc – Washington State

Based out of the Squirrel Hut mini-office in Olympia, Washington, Zyl Vardos builds unique and customisable small structures. The tiny house products offered vary in price from $45,000 to above $96,000. Currently their website showcases 10 of the tiny houses offered, but if you fancy having one designed to your own specification, that is also possible.

Their “Little Bird” Basic option is one of build options available. Coming in at $68,000, with a  22 ft x 8 ft floor space, this home has a copper roof and cedar exterior. With a single French door, 6 windows and a kitchenette, this tiny house has everything you would need. The bed nook happily fits a queen mattress, with room to spare, and a flush or compost toilet can be fitted.

If you would like to upgrade to the “Advanced” option of the Little Bird you can – for an extra $10,000. This upgraded model includes a tiled bathroom floor, oak floors, double French doors, expanded kitchen storage amongst other features. Custom options for a retiree such as wider doorways and a raised toilet can be …

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Food

UNESCO Credits SOIL Course

Last month I outlined the Permaculture course available at the School of Integrated Living (SOIL) in the ecovillage Earthaven (see here).

Recently, this program has been certified by Gaia Education, a provider of sustainability education across the world. The Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) credential will be provided through the Permaculture Immersion program running between Jun 10 and August 11 2017 at Earthaven ecovillage in North Carolina. The program provides students with both the knowledge and practical skills needed to design a society which reaches sustainable development principles supported by the UNESCO Global Action Programme on Education for Sustainable Development.

The program has four main dimensions which are covered. The social element involves working towards a common vision, improving communication skills and the ability to deal with conflict and diversity within a society. The economic element includes assessing the impact of the global economy on local projects and coming up with ethical economic opportunities within projects. The ecological aspect is learning about permaculture principles, as well as designing water systems for projects and learning how to apply green building principles. Finally, the worldview aspect is about maintaining a healthy lifestyle whilst incorporating regular spiritual practice.

SOIL co-founder, Lee Walker Warren, said, “The program helps passionate people understand their impact on society and forge real connections with themselves and others. People who are deeply engaged in their local and global communities make the biggest impact, both on other individuals and the planet.”

Over 4,900 students have taken part in the Ecovillage Design Education program across the world, supported by Gaia. There are various locations where these programs take place including Estonia, Italy, Canada, Chile, South Korea, Thailand, India, Scotland, Switzerland, Japan and the Netherlands. However, SOIL is only one of two organisations in the US which offer the UNESCO recognised EDE course.

On completion of the course at Earthaven, both an EDE certificate and a Permaculture Design certificate will be awarded.

There is currently a $100 discount when booking through the SOIL website for the Permaculture Immersion program by using the promotional code: SOILPEI100.

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Community

Best Beats Unplugged

Music, Festival, Off-Grid

It is not often that large events can call themselves self sustaining. But two upcoming music festivals on two entirely different continents are bucking the trend and doing just that – going off-grid.

Introducing Off The Grid Melbourne Festival in OZ and Camphill Village Music Festival in South Africa. Two very different but self-sustaining events. Off The Grid Melbourne is taking place on 21/12/16 at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Arts in Melbourne and Camphill Village Music Festival on 25/02/17 at Camphill Village near Cape Town. This will be the third music festival for both events, which have been getting bigger and better each year.

The Melbourne festival will be powered entirely through solar energy. Panels will be connected to a battery bank, which is rigged up to the sound system. This ten hour event will have music, food and plenty of dancing, with not a single piece of waste going to landfill. The company behind this festival, Finding Infinity, aim to make Melbourne a completely sustainable city – one renewable event at a time. Artists playing at this event include home-grown Australian Andras Fox and the eclectic, high energy No Zu.

The Camphill Village Music festival is a slightly different affair, but no less energetic. This festival helps to raise funds for Camphill Village, a community home to 90 intellectually disabled adults who aim to live self-sustaining lives. The farm includes a dairy, bakery and cosmetics shop, whose products are sold in the Cape Town area. Partnering up with Rays of Hope helped Camphill take the first steps towards living with no reliance on the grid. The dairy is now entirely solar powered, taking the community one step further to complete self-reliance. The festival will bring the whole community together and create a great atmosphere, with the sounds of Rockers Bootleggers, Albert Frost and the soulful Majozi keeping everyone dancing long into the night. Being located approximately 40km from Cape Town, there is the option to camp overnight – so the party really can go on all night long.

 

Both events are set to be real showstoppers, proving that you don’t need to be on the grid to have a good night out.

 

More information for both events can be found here:

Off The Grid Melbourne               –              https://www.offthegrid.global/

Off The Grid Camphill Village      –              https://www.camphill.org.za/camphill-village-music-festival

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Community

Couple build dream home using recycled materials for only £27,000

 

 

 

Last week, a couple who dreamt of building their own eco family home and living off the land with their children appeared on the British TV show, Grand Designs. With only £500 in the bank, they started the project and didn’t give up.

Simon and Jasemine Dale later managed to save £27,000 after taking a few years out and working. Jasemine ran horticultural courses and sold produce whilst Simon did occasional consultancy work on low impact buildings. They did end up building the three-bedroom home for themselves and their children Elfie and Cosmo, in the sustainable Lammas community Pembrokeshire, UK. In order to move into the community, they first had to prove they could fulfill a strict planning condition and that they could be self-sufficient on their seven-acre plot – or be forced to move out.

 

They proved that they could though as well as proving that you can build your dream home with recycled materials for a fraction of the cost. Presenter of the Show, Kevin McCloud described it as “the cheapest house ever built in the Western Hemisphere”.

 

The floors were made of rammed earth, which was polished and hardened with linseed oil and structure of the home was made from timber polls, all grown, felled, prepared and sawn by Simon. But don’t feel sorry for him, he loved every minute of it. He told the show that:

 

“It’s been hard and I wasn’t asking for an easy life. I like a challenge. To put in a hard day’s graft and be tired at the end of the day. That exhaustion is a nice feeling.”

 

At the front of the house, they decided to install a greenhouse to preheat air for the house and grown food.

The couple used sheep wool and grass as insulation in the walls and the roof, reclaimed glass for the windows and kitchen fixtures and appliances from car boot sales and eBay.

 

 

The Dale’s have proved that a green lifestyle and living off the land can be cheap and still comfortable with their beautiful eco home.

 

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Community

Auroville, the Utopia next door

 

Imagine a place free from politics, religion and money. People from every background, of all ages, living in unity and self-sufficiency. The food that you all eat you grew together from scratch on organic farms. Utopia?

Auroville.

A small universal township, located in south India – on the border of Tamil Nadu state. The concept was birthed from an idea of a township devoted to an experiment in human unity in the 1930s.

It gets better- you can visit it. Yes, this isn’t just a place people may hear whispers about but never actually get to see — you can travel there quite easily, let us show you how.

It was set up officially on the 28th February 1968. 5,000 new occupants assembled at the centre of the township for a ceremony. They brought with them soil from their individual homelands to be mixed in with the new soil of Auroville and there is an urn in the middle containing all the mixed samples of Earth. It is said that the purpose of Auroville is “to realise human unity.”

There is the most beautiful Peace Area located in the middle of the town called the ‘Soul Of The City’ or the Matrimandir at the centre of the township. It helps to create an “atmosphere of calm and serenity” and serves as a groundwater recharge area. Many gather here at sundown.

 

The population is now 2,400 but it can hold up to 50,000 people. The inhabitants live sustained lives side by side in harmony, without money and politics (even though it is backed by the Govt. of India). It is self-sufficient with over 160 hectares of organic farms, cornfields and orchards. The city area was actually built with a radius of a 1.25km ‘Green Belt’ comprised of forests, dairies, wildlife areas. All of which provide habitats for wildlife and serve as sources of food, timber, medicine and so on.

 

They have stated on their website that they have planned a further extension of their Green Belt to transform ‘wasteland into a vibrant eco-system’. They say they are working towards adding an impressive 800 more hectares. Find out more on their website.

The nearest international and domestic airport is Chennai International Airport. If you are already in India and would prefer travelling leisurely by rail, Chennai Central Railway Station connects to all the major cities in India with its reliable express trains such as Tamil Nadu
Express and Rajdhani Express (fully air-conditioned).

 

You can watch someone’s personal experience of entering Auroville as the track how exactly they got there via a travel vlog they uploaded on YouTube. If you have liked what you’ve read, you can support the cause and donate to Auroville here.

It was backed by the Indian Government in 1960 and taken to the General Assembly of UNESCO. Six …

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Transitioning to the Off-Grid Mindset

greensignSo you’ve picked out the perfect land for your needs. You’ve looked at the climate over the last few years; you are aware of all covenants, restrictions, and local hurdles you will encounter. You know the political temperament both of the local area, the greater area, and your immediate neighbors. You know how you will get water, how far to the nearest hospital and store. You are ready to make that next step.

You are ready to start roughing it in the wild, right?

Not quite.

The more you bring the off-grid mindset into your life before you move, the easier the move will come. You will begin to live cheaper, healthier, and happier before you build a single thing. One day at a time. One step at a time.

While some people can easily just jump right in and embrace all the changes that come with a new lifestyle, the rest of us would like some sort of transition period to wade into before learning to swim.

Welcome to the Kiddie Pool where I will teach you the basic strokes that will keep you from drowning. So what is the key to transitioning from Linked-in living to Off-grid and the great outdoors?

In a word: Downsizing. If you want to be successful in living off the sweat of your brow, you’re going to have to make a few adjustments. For example: if you no longer rely on the power grid for electricity, you are going to be limited on how many appliances, and devices you can use each day. Maybe you’ll have to cook more things by hand. Maybe you can’t have all the new video game consoles and the big screen TV. Maybe you’ll just have to buy more solar panels. You have to weigh your own situation and separate everything all your dreams into needs and wants.

Do I need cable? Do I need central air? Can I live off 5-10 gallons of water per day instead of the US average of 100+? Can I switch to cooking only foods that I grow myself and only while they are in season?

When your goal is to provide everything for yourself, the most important question is: can I provide this for myself? If not and you need it, how else can you get it?

My rules are:

Rule #1: If it is non-essential, I can ditch it.

Rule #2: Everything is non-essential.

Obviously this is an exaggeration but if you think about the things you feel you need in your life, you don’t need nearly as many, or as frequently as you’ve convinced yourself that you do.

Living off-grid is a mindset. If you can’t provide for yourself while you are living connected to the grid with the supermarket available, how can you expect to provide for yourself when you live in the middle of nowhere and …

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Win a Tiny Home ($100 purchase necessary)

Social Entrepreneurs at SustainaFest have announced the Tiny House Essay Contest, which will make one person’s dream of sustainable living come true.

The winner of the prixe – its halfway between a competition and a very expensive lottery, will assume ownership of a 210-square-foot, hyper- efficient, off-grid home built by Maryland middle and high school students.

Contestants are required to submit $100 and an essay of 350 words or less answering the question, “What are your keys to living a sustainable lifestyle and how would owning a Tiny House help you realize your dream of living that lifestyle?”

Submissions must be entered by June 1 and will be evaluated by a panel of academics and so-called celebrity judges. A winner will be announced by June 15.

In 2014, sustainability experts and students from around Maryland engaged in a month-long exploration through SustainaFest’s Student Sustainability Lab, sponsored by a housebuilding company and an investment broker.

“The program allowed students, educators, professionals and military veterans to combine forces and build this tiny house – a fully habitable, hi-tech, mobile dwelling,” said George Chmael, director of SustainaFest.

“We now want to share the wonder of this construction marvel with a deserving recipient and spread the word about making more sustainable lifestyle choices,” said Chmael. “(The) contest is a far superior alternative to selling to the highest bidder and makes home ownership attainable for one fortunate person regardless of the size of their bank account.”

SustainaFest has now designed its own tiny house models, with an eye toward addressing the challenges faced by our community’s most needy members, including the homeless and struggling military veterans.

The organization will continue to build houses with students this year and beyond. All proceeds from the contest will support these efforts.

To learn more about SustainaFest, including complete contest rules and how to submit your essay, visit www.sustainafest.org or email info@sustainafest.org.

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Community

Let us film you and we will help find you an off-grid home

We are looking for people who have the skills and the resources and want to make the move from their existing lives inside mainstream society, leave their jobs and their mortgages and their high-spending consumer habits, and move to a low-stress, low-consumption life off the grid.

Of course there will still be a need for at least some to work and make money, still a need to generate power, wash, cook, have shelter. But we want to show the world all these things are possible in total comfort, with no stress, off the grid, if you arrange yourself cleverly.

There are many reasons why I have been trying to make a film or a web series about people who are making the move to live off-grid. The first is that the masses of material on TV at the moment never seems to reflect real people and their real lives.

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Land

Shed-dwellers evicted by planners to live on State benefits

A family’s dream of living off-grid is in tatters after they lost a four-year planning battle.

Daniel and Lora Newman, of Trelowen, Carharrack bid to become self sufficient. But last week they have been forced to demolish thei home in order to avoid jail.

At a hearing at Truro Magistrates Court, the couple were given a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay £1,500 towards Cornwall Council’s court costs.

Ahead of the court date, Mr Newman, with the help of family and friends, pulled down the house.which was built in a field in open countryside without planning permission.

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