Off-Grid 101 Archives - Page 5 of 61 - Living Off the Grid: Free Yourself

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Get to know your property before you build

OK, you have purchased your land, you are all excited about getting your off-grid homestead going, but before you set your first post, before you lay your first board, there are some things you should do first, taking these steps will help to insure your place will be the best place it can be.

The first thing you should do is walk your land, especially if there is acreage concerned, you need to get to know your land as best you can, pick out more than one potential spot, then camp out on your land, as often as you can, for as many seasons as you can. Try to be there during rain, wind and such. The reason this is important is you NEED to know where the winds blow, the direction, you need to know how the drainage works, you don’t want to build where it’s going to flood.…

August 23, 2014 2 Comments

Community

Living and building off-grid on the cheap

Going off-grid on the cheap, it’s possible to do, but you should be creative and flexible, the property was the biggest expense, buying a property with “issues” made that expense much less than it could have been.

Our property’s issue was the access, it has a seasonal creek that runs across the front/bottom of the property, so driving up on the property is tricky if not impossible. We didn’t mind, the rest of the property was great.

One of the things we do to build cheap (sometimes free) is to constantly be on the lookout for free materials to recycle or re-purpose. It’s not the same as going to the lumber store and buying what we need, we often are gifted with material that would normally go to the dump at odd times, this material has its issues, the lumber is rough, has nails, screws and other hardware, sometimes ends of lumber are rotten, damaged or cut off, as I said, you need to be creative.…

August 16, 2014 4 Comments

Community

A bridge to Bobbage

Living here going on 8 years and we still have to hike up to the sky castle, the reason is because of a seasonal creek that runs in front of the property near the road, it can be navigated if you have 4 wheel drive and the creek isn’t running (which it isn’t most of the year). It isn’t the water that makes it difficult though, it’s the depth of the creek bed.…

July 20, 2014 1 Comment

Community

How to build your own water cistern system

What Is A Water Cistern System?

Those living in a municipality often take for granted utility services that many rural property dwellers are not privileged to enjoy. Many people living in rural regions are extremely fortunate if they are able to afford the huge expense to drill a water well and even more fortunate if the drill actually strikes good potable water. For those rural proprietors or tenants who are challenged by the absence of a drinkable water source on their property a cistern system is a practical and economical alternative.…

July 10, 2014 4 Comments

Off-Grid village planned for New South Wales

As Australian power prices rise and alternative-energy technologies progress, a growing number of Ozzies are opting to disconnect.

Retired scientist and businessman Doone Wyborn and his wife Carol are two of those people. Their vision is for twenty other couples to join them.

They bought an 800-acre parcel of land in rural northern New South Wales almost 10 years ago and plan to turn it into a self-sufficient rural cooperative community.…

July 8, 2014 6 Comments

Community

Short cycling? Problem solved :)

Short cycling, it makes me think of riding a bike a very small distance, or someone riding a really short bike…. actually it’s when a motor or compressor runs for a short period of time and is off for a short period of time. This will shorten the life of said motor or compressor.

We have had our current/new freezer to fridge conversion for a couple of months now, as the weather began warming up, I noticed the box ran more often than I thought it should, so I really started paying attention to the cycle. I didn’t officially time anything, but I estimated it was coming on for only a few minutes at a time every 5-10 minutes, that was definitely wrong. Of course this was during 100 degree days, it was also happening that way whether I opened the lid or not.…

June 13, 2014 No Comments

Community

Keeping it clean…

Hygiene while living off-grid, especially if you are living rough and/or just starting out, keeping clean can be one of the challenges. When PB and I first moved to our off-grid home, it was little more than a box on stilts, one room. We had a double sink on the “kitchen wall”, but it wasn’t hooked up to running water or even to a drain.…

May 30, 2014 3 Comments

Tiny home UK – £2500

A quiet corner of a farm near Birmingham has become a workplace for a busy mum-of-two.

Just 20 yards from her house is Paula Fallows’ office, inside what looks like a beach hut.

It took about three days for her and her husband to build it.

“It’s really good because it’s totally separate from the house,” she says. “You can go in there, work away and shut the door at the end of it. You don’t cross that line of having your work in your house.

“But you don’t have very far to go, it’s just across from the house, literally a 20 yard walk. For people who do work from home, the cost savings are enormous and the commuting time as well.”

Paula put the hut on wheels to avoid planning permission problems – and to make the most of the sun.

She designed the chassis and recycled other parts, including the wheels to cut expenses, with the finished hut costing £2,600.…

May 19, 2014 1 Comment

Willand Devin couple win court battle - go off the grid

Events

Devon smallholders win right to build home

A young family has won the right to live off the grid on their smallholding after a battle to get planning permission.

Dinah and Stig Mason were refused permission to build a house on the four-acre site in Willand, classified as open countryside.

Changes to planning laws mean the Masons can now convert an old barn on the site.

Mrs Mason said: “We’re ecstatic. We can finally live the life that we choose.”

We are going to have to spend a lot more money, but we have got our dream”…

May 14, 2014 3 Comments

Community

New golf cart batteries

gcb1

Today was the first full day on the new batteries, we had everything hooked up to them, including the new chest freezer to refrigerator conversion, about a month (or so) ago our old one smoked on us, fortunately it happened during the day and I was there to catch it, it might not have gone any further, but as far as I’m concerned, when you see smoke, fire usually comes next. I’ll do another writeup on the new fridge very soon, until then you can read about how I DIY’d the conversion here and here.

Our previous batteries were marine type deep cycle batteries, I’ve been told on more than one occasion that those types of batteries aren’t true deep cycle batteries, in fact the newer ones being sold have cold cranking ratings on them instead of amp hours, and that has little (or nothing) to do with being deep cycle, that has to do with starting motors and such. Those are a hybrid of regular and deep cycle batteries, more robust than a standard car or truck battery but not as heavy duty as a true deep cycle battery.…

April 20, 2014 2 Comments

Community

Off-Grid hiccups

empty

A while back my current deep cycle batteries began to get weak, they would charge up quickly and not hold much of a charge, unfortunately the batteries are the part of the off-grid system that need to be replaced on a semi-regular basis. I am hard on my batteries, that has never been a secret. This next week I plan on buying four 6-volt deep cycle golf cart batteries. In the past I have used marine type deep cycle batteries, they are more heavy duty than regular automotive batteries, but aren’t near as hearty as golf cart batteries.

As my current batteries began getting weaker and weaker, it began creating problems with my inverter, causing it to go into fault mode for a few seconds, meaning it would cut off the power during that time, it only did it during the day when the batteries were charging or fully charged, never at night, it took me a while to figure out where the problem was.…

April 13, 2014 8 Comments

Home Disaster Preparedness Guide – Part 2

Part 2 of our amazing series.…

March 24, 2014 No Comments

All you need to go off-grid

Off-Grid 101

Get to know your property before you build

Living and building off-grid on the cheap

A bridge to Bobbage

How to build your own water cistern system

Off-Grid village planned for New South Wales

Short cycling? Problem solved :)

Keeping it clean…

Tiny home UK – £2500

Devon smallholders win right to build home

New golf cart batteries

Off-Grid hiccups

Home Disaster Preparedness Guide – Part 2

How We Went Off-Grid

20 x 8 Ft. Outdoor Storage Shed, Desert Sand

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Off-Grid 101

How We Went Off-Grid

20 x 8 Ft. Outdoor Storage Shed, Desert Sand

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