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Living in a van for years to make it to the top
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5 things you never knew about Dustin Brown

The Rasta-headed German who beat Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon this week may have been knocked out of the competition today, but his past living off-grid in a Volkswagen is now a part of Tennis history.

For years Brown toured the tennis circuit in his battered van, living on handouts and free sandwiches in tennis clubs.

Here are a few other surprising facts about him:

Brown travelled in the camper van, which his parents bought for him in 2004, while on European tennis circuit. He broke into the top 100 for the first time in 2010 and this was also the year the last instalment on his camper van was paid!

Brown has not cut his hair for 19 years now. But Dreadlocks are not the only thing which sets this 30-year-old Jamaican apart from other tennis players. Brown has his tongue pierced and he has a tattoo of his father on left side of his torso!

“Where I grew up in the north of Germany, I experienced a lot of problems with racism,” said Brown recently. “The village next to my town, Celle, was infamous for being a Nazi stronghold. We were three or four coloured kids around and sometimes the other ones showed up with knives after school. That’s why I had some punch-ups in primary school.…

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Noam Chomsky supports off-grid film
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Please support our Kickstarter campaign to finance off-grid film

We have shot most of our film about the freedom to live off the grid with interviews with Noam Chomsky and other leading intellectuals.
Please spread the word about our film about an eco-village under threat.

Last month the residents of Runnymede Eco-village won the right to appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. See details Latest news on court battle

The film follows 40 activists living in woods next to historic Runnymede where the Magna Carta was signed. We see how they live, and watch them battling for their human rights to live off-grid under ancient laws protecting woodlands.

Please contact us via nick@off-grid.net if you want to help campaign, fundraise or make this film.

Follow this link to see the trailer and the appeal: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/off-grid/noam-chomskys-magna-carta-eco-village…

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What is “off-grid”?

“How can you be off-grid and be on the internet?”
“You use propane, that’s not off-grid…”
“You go to the grocery store to buy food, how is that off-grid?”

These are just some of the questions I have been asked from people, sometimes it’s an honest question, other times I feel the twang of jealousy or even hostility from people who don’t seem to know any better, certainly not from other off-gridders-no matter the “level” of off-grid’edness they live. Most of the time my reply is we don’t have to live in a cave, wear skins and eat worms to be considered off-grid :)

There are different levels of being “off-grid”, different people have different definitions of what off-grid means to them, personally I would not judge another person’s level of “off-grid”, especially when compared to how we live. It’s a very individual thing, for me-for us, I consider off-grid to mean we aren’t hooked up to any utility, ie we don’t have city water or sewer, we don’t have city gas, we don’t have a land line (phone), and most important to me, we aren’t hooked up to the electric grid.

We haul water, we are working toward getting a rain catchment system that would fill 2-3000 gallon water tanks, that would last us all year with no problems. We generate all of our own electricity (solar power), we do buy propane, we use the small BBQ grill size tanks that we take to town to fill, we cook and heat water with that.

We do have internet, it’s a wireless WIFI system that services our rural neighborhood, it’s our only source of communication and entertainment, we did live without internet for the first few years, I would go to my neighbor’s house once a week (+/-) to check my email, then a company brought in wireless WIFI internet, we decided it was an important service for us to have.

I just recently got a smart phone, only because of my job, honestly it doesn’t work at my house, it’s pretty much only used while I’m out on the road doing my job.

So that is my definition of living off-grid, we don’t have a utility pole on our property at all and as far as I’m concerned, we don’t plan on having one. The only monthly “bill” we have for anything resembling a utility bill is our internet and now, perhaps, the cell phone bill.

I am not in a competition to see how primitively we can live as compared to others, we chose to live at this level of “off-grid”, we are comfortable living this way. I think sometimes it’s all too easy to confuse living off-grid with being self sufficient. We are certainly MORE self sufficient that we were when we lived in town, but no one can claim to live 100% self sufficiently, we don’t …

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Cheap living, tightwad, saving money, cutting costs, living cheap, offthegridnews, off the grid, offthegrid, living off the grid
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The Bottom Line: Save Money by Living Off-Grid

Cheap living, tightwad, saving money, cutting costs, living cheap, offthegridnews, off the grid, offthegrid, living off the grid Everyone has their motives for moving off-grid. Mine can be boiled down to freedom – and saving money.

This post is a very dirty assessment of how off-grid living has saved me money and can help you do the same.

All my estimates will be for an average 4 person home in the United States. While the results will vary based on country, and locality, the overall premise will remain the same.

 

Alright, so my disclaimer: I’m not a scientist. I don’t pretend to be and I would rather never be one. I am an average, albeit hyper-logical, American so for my purposes, all of my numbers are very crude. I literally Google searched averages and I used the data from the most reputable looking website that came up. That said, we aren’t working on nuclear fusion, so I think crude logic is enough for our purposes here. Take all the averages with a grain of salt.

Also, I am using my home for the final calculations and comparisons. It is a 1400 sq ft earthbag construction open floorplan home, 50% bermed into a hill, with south-facing windows, and an energy efficient design.  Your home may be bigger or smaller, so again, your numbers will vary.

Land

I will start at the beginning. Land. For our purposes, I will assume both properties will be on the same land. While in real life, someone living off-grid has very different land needs than someone linked-in, land varies in price so much from place to place that we will leave it as a constant in this example.

So both our example houses are built on a $20,000 20-acre plot of land. Difference= $0

Construction of linked-in home: (US avg) $200 per sqft x1400sqft = $280,000

Construction of Off-Grid home: (mine) $36 per sqft x1400sqft = $50,000

Savings: Off-Grid $230,000

Mind you the construction process was much slower and I had to do almost all my work by hand, the savings from construction of a home made of dirt compared to one made of conventional wooden frame and insulation are obvious.

Next are the infrequent expenses.  Listed below are the appliances and expenses that one will have different than the other.

Linked-In Off-Grid
Toilet ea. (conventional) $200 Toilet  (homemade compost) $15
Oil Tank $700 Solar Electric System $10,000
Water Heater (elec) $600 Solar Water Heater $9,000
Space Heating $4,000 Radiant Flooring $5,000
Air Conditioner $750 Cisterns (13,000Gal) $6,400
Total $2,650 Total  $30,415

 

 

Difference: $27,765 in favor of conventional homes.  Ouch. The Linked-In setup has a much cheaper initial set-up price but if we look at the difference in cost of construction from above, I think we have this extra expense covered. Let’s see how we do when we look at our long term living expenses.

Linked-In (per year) Off-Grid (per year)
Water (non-toilet) $360 $0
Water (toilet) $109 $0
Space Heating
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The Process of Moving Off-Grid: How to Begin

coupleConsiderations:

  1. Is off-grid living right for me?
  2. What degree of off-grid living am I comfortable with?
  3. What are my options?
  4. How much money do I have to dedicate to moving off-grid?
  5. Can I cut down and downsize?
  6. Where do I want to live?
  7. What kind of lifestyle can I have there?
  8. What do I need to be careful of?
  9. What do I want to do on my land?
  10. What are my skillsets?
  11. What do I need to learn?
  12. How will I sustain myself over time?

 

The reason I am emphasizing the decision process so much is because it is the main bottleneck in the process.

People see the appeal of living off-grid and then hesitate because they don’t know how to proceed or even what kinds of things to worry about. My goal is to lay out all the questions and considerations ahead of time because, as a Marine, I firmly believe that the more prepared you are, the easier time you will have, and the more successful you will be.

Long live the prepared!

Read over the questions above. You don’t need to have answers for them just yet but those are ultimately things that you will need to consider over the course of this process. It is a journey, a marathon, not a sprint. It will take time and will be easier sometimes and harder at others. In the end it will be worth it.

 

The first question is: “Is Off-Grid living right for me”. As I stated previously, I believe everyone should live off-grid to a degree. I want to emphasize that. Some people have more know-how with tools than others. Some people may have responsibilities that keep them in the city or are allergic to sunshine. (It’s a real thing; look it up. I would be devastated.) Obviously these challenges may cause this process to be almost insurmountable. Think to yourself. What is holding you back? What keeps you from advancing? Is it flexible? Is there a way to adapt it to an off-grid lifestyle?

 

If you cannot adapt your circumstances to an Off-Grid life, then see question 2 above. What are you comfortable doing? Maybe you are in a wheelchair. If so, can you garden in your backyard? I found a video online of an inspiring guy who built raised beds the height of tables in a horseshoe design so he could wheel into his spot, put his chair in park, and spend the afternoon planting without leaving his chair. That’s super motivating for weirdos like me. I don’t know why but I very much enjoyed watching that. I am going to cater my advice towards full-blown off-grid living but I fully support you to do whatever it is that you are comfortable doing and to take things slowly.

 

Living off-grid means being independent. You no longer rely on others …

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And the pressure is on

Pressure cookers that is, yesterday while surfing the internet, I ran across an article on Mother Earth News about cooking with pressure cookers. It reminded me of how much I love mine, I have a 6 quart stainless steel Presto pressure cooker. Some of my favorite meals to cook in it are pinto beans, potatoes (baked potatoes), chicken soup, other soups, stews, rice, veggies… lots of different foods.

One of the benefits of using a pressure cooker, is it takes so much less time and fuel to cook with, the fuel factor is big with me since we have limited fuel (propane), I just can’t afford to let something simmer on the stovetop all day. Foods cook faster, retain more nutrients and just flat out taste better.

Some folks are afraid of pressure cookers, who hasn’t heard the horror stories of someone’s grandmother (or aunt, or neighbor, you fill in the blank) who was cooking in a pressure cooker and it exploded, beans all over the ceiling? Well I’m here to tell you the pressure cookers you buy today have many safety features built in, you’d have to try pretty hard to get one to actually blow on you. I had a “worst case scenario” happen to me when using a friend’s older aluminum pressure cooker. I was cooking chicken and didn’t put in enough water, it wouldn’t come up to pressure, then it made a loud BANG! Sounded like someone shot a gun off in the kitchen, I went over to it, the seal had blown out. No big deal, the pressure was relieved, so I opened it, reseated the seal, added more water, put the lid back on and continued cooking, lesson learned, make sure you add sufficient liquid for the time you will be cooking.

The other things you can do is make sure the vent hold is clear-not clogged, make sure the rubber parts are in good shape and properly placed, make sure you add enough liquid, don’t overload your pot, just use common sense and you will be perfectly safe using a pressure cooker.

One dish I love making in my pressure cooker is chicken soup, here is my (more or less) recipe…

2-4 raw chicken breasts
enough water to come up at least an inch or two in the pan
2-4 carrots, chopped
2-4 celery stalks, chopped
1 onion, chopped
seasoning

I put the chicken in the pot, add enough water to bring it up at least one or two inches, I bring it up to pressure then time it for about 15 minutes. I let the pressure off, remove the chicken, shred it and place it back into the pot, then I add the veggies, you add what you like, I put in enough water to bring it to the top of the veggies, replace the lid, bring it back to pressure …

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12X12 tiny home made of pallet wood

12x12-tiny-cabin01
I have handled my fair share of pallets over the years working in warehouses, the ones I’ve worked with were strong, but splintery, I suspect this (and any other pallet wood projects) would require lots of sand paper and elbow grease, but I’m also sure that they would make strong structures if you plan carefully.

This guy built his tiny home (almost) entirely out of pallet wood and other recycled materials. I love that he has the story behind every piece of material he used. Enjoy these two videos.




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Happy Fathers Day

Today is a bittersweet day for me, it’s Fathers Day AND it’s my mother’s birthday, both of my parents are deceased, my mother many years ago, she never got to see my life as I live it now but I know she’d be proud. My dad however did get to see the first few years of our off-grid life, he contributed to it as well, bringing lots of goodies each summer when he would come for his annual visit.

My father and I had the dream of going off-grid long before off-grid was a “thing”, I can remember as a little girl, my dad and I planning on moving to Alaska, building a cabin and living off the land, he was an amazing man, he could do anything, much like my PB does today.

Unfortunately like a lot of us, my dad wasn’t able to really live his dream, he had a family to raise, he worked in and retired from building aircraft (civilian then military), he waited too long and had too many ties to the city by the time he retired. He did live vicariously through us though, with his yearly visits, he would spend a good month out here, enjoying the quiet and fresh air, I also believe it helped his health, in his latter years, he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, coming up to our altitude, it was hard for him to breathe, and that was before hiking up the hill to get to the SkyCastle.

We would set up a couple of “rest stations” along the way so he could sit down and catch his breath before beginning the trip uphill. By the time the final week of his visit, he would be able to go all the way from the road to the SkyCastle in one go without having to stop or rest, I know he felt like a million bucks by the time a month had passed and he went back down in altitude.

I know he loved what we are doing here, I sincerely hope all you fathers out there have a great Fathers Day, I also sincerely hope you have a great relationship with your family (parents, kids…), if you don’t, maybe it’s time to re-examine that relationship, we are here but a short time, yesterday is gone and tomorrow isn’t promised, you have now to take care of business :)

Here are a few pictures of my dad and family.




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Join our Crowdfunding campaign

1x1placeholder (1)*Documentary in Production featuring Noam Chomsky
*Looking for volunteers to help us spread the word on social media
*80% already filmed but professional editors need money….
*Visit Kickstarter link below

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Battery desulfator review – update

“How many blinks do we have?”, “It’s time to change the panels…”, those are common phrases around here, if you hear these statements, we are talking about our solar system. It’s a small system, very small by most standards, but it’s just fine for us, of course I’d love to have a mega system, but don’t want the mega system headaches or the mega price tag.

The blinks are referring to our charge controller, a Xantrex C35, it blinks a green light to let us know how much of a charge we have on the batteries, it starts at 1 blink and goes to 5 blinks then to a solid green light when the batteries are full, it delights me to no end when I have a solid green light up there :)

When we talk about changing the panels, some of our panels (not all of them) are on a manual tracking system, we can tilt them to catch the morning and evening sunlight, the rest of our panels are fixed in place on the roof and get whatever they manage to get.

Our newest addition to the solar system is our permanently attached battery desulfator. I have had, used and reviewed other battery desulfators, and they worked but they were designed for use on one or two batteries at a time, this battery desulfator is the first of its kind designed for larger systems, for those of us who live off of our battery banks and need something that will desulfate all of our batteries at the same time, not just one or two.

This is the Battery Extra battery desulfator model “EX02 12-48-400“, this work for 12-48 volts up to 1500 Ah, there is one above this unit, it will handle up to 120 volts and 3000 Ah.

 

bes1

You can read more about this desulfator in the first part of my review here: https://off-grid.net/energy/i-finally-got-it

I have been using this for a few months now, one thing I really like about it is it shows me exactly how much of a charge my batteries have, the digital readout is clear and can be seen from across the room, day or night. Another thing I like about it is it’s quiet, the previous desulfator I had made a high pitched humming noise, it wasn’t loud but you could definitely hear it. It does have an internal cooling fan, I have never heard it make a sound, it either hasn’t been hot enough to come on, or it’s just that quiet. This unit is well made, sturdy, easy to hook up and set up.

Bottom line, I have very happy with this desulfator and this company, I recommend that you visit their page, even if you aren’t in the market for one of these desulfators though if you are using lead acid batteries in this capacity, …

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Summer is (almost) officially here

I say almost because it doesn’t officially begin until the 21st of this month, and the fact that I am sitting here with thermal pants on, it’s cold! Well not really COLD, but cool, too chilly for shorts that’s for sure! I love living in the high desert of far west Texas, no where else in Texas is it this cool in mid June!

That being said, it’s still hot during the day, OK it’s nothing like it was when I lived between Dallas and Fort Worth, but after being here for 8 years, I’m spoilt, our rainy season is just starting and this is our hottest part of the year, we don’t have air conditioning (electric or swamp coolers), we rely on opening all the windows and using fans, we also have a few places around the property that are cooler, under the trees and under the SkyCastle too.

I found this article on how to keep cool in the heat of summer, let me know if you use any of these and how they work for you, AND if you have any improvements on these or other ideas for keeping cool.


 

Sweat beads up on your forehead and then all over your body. The heat becomes heavy and you can barely breathe in the hazy conditions. As summer gets closer in Charlotte, we’re already on the verge of breaking records. Use these Pinterest search results to ease the pain.

Soda slushy!

To be fair we haven’t tried this one so test it with caution. Per this Tumblr account, shake an unsealed bottle of soda and pop it in the freezer for about three hours. Loosen the cap to release pressure, then flip the bottle upside down to get out the goodness.

dot-dot-dot-soda-slushy

Freeze aloe for sunburns

Pop it in an ice cube tray, then chill before gliding over your scorched skin.

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Lighten your locks

When chlorine turns it green, freshen up your hair with olive oil. Put it on before swimming.

54eeaaf0e4a2a_-_sev-beauty-hacks-blonde-chlorine-de

Build a homemade air conditioner

tmg-slideshow_xl

Thrillist

If you don’t want to run you the bill, get a bucket, a fan and a few more items to make your own ventilation. See how here.

Beach belongings

Clean out a sunscreen bottle and put your car keys or cell phone inside to trick a thief.

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Pickup truck pool, anyone?

When the real version is out of reach, grab a tarp and make your own “cold” tub.

truck-pool

Frozen food

If you like your wine chilled but sun is warming it up too quickly, lower the temp by dropping in some frozen grapes.

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Chill a beverage in minutes

Don’t worry if your forgot to put your drinks in the refrigerator. Wrap them in a wet paper towel and stick in the freezer for about 15 minutes. Voila!

smart-tips-to-make-life-easier-part2-3

Always have ice cold water

Fill your water bottle …

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