Self-Sufficiency Archives - Page 5 of 24 - Living Off the Grid: Free Yourself

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Updates on the SkyCastle

Building up and across is what PB (Primitive Bob) likes to do, here is an update on 2 of his projects, works in progress, or Bobbage as we like to call it around here.

The first of the two is the bridge, it had been put on hold for most of the winter, the plan is to eventually be able to drive across it, for now it’s a walking bridge. To recap, the frame of the bridge was made from the frame/chassis of a defunct mobile home that was being dismantled up the road from us. It was pulled across the seasonal creekbed, PB added some plywood decking so we could walk across it. The support beneath is concrete that is dug down quite far into the creekbed, it has already withstood some heavy storms and the accompanying water deluge.

We had a shorter trailer that was used to bring the last load of our stuff from the DFW area of TX to our west TX home, PB hauled that frame over the bridge and extended the bridge quite a bit. As you can see from the pictures he didn’t have any room for mistakes, the wheels were only touching the edges of the bridge by a few inches. But in true Bobbage he did it, all by himself, he tends to wait until I’m gone to work to do these things.

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You can read more about the bridge here
https://off-grid.net/a-bridge-to-bobbage/
https://off-grid.net/bobbage-bridge-update/
The second project is hardening the front door, making it even more castle like. PB wanted the stairs to draw up and by golly, he has done it. Not only do they draw up, you can do it one handed thanks to the counter weight. Of course, like everything else, this is a work in progress. There are essentially two doors, one glass door, then the stairs then a heavy wooden gate, the stairs-once raised become sandwiched between the two doors.

Here are PB’s own words describing this feat of engineering
“This was a test to see if I could raise the steps and film it all without falling off the porch. Success! A little refinement and clean up and it’ll be in the history books. The chain and sheave blocks will be replaced with a streamlined counter weight soon, probly a 4 inch pipe stub,12 inches long filled with sand. The ‘C’ clip came loose in one bearing. The glass door in the video is dirty/foggy, so that birds and dogs and old white guys can see it. I’ll try to get a better video soon. (the glass door must be closed to raise the steps)”

Watch the video and enjoy, I especially love the sound of the stairs moving up and down, sounds like a creepy old scary movie :)
https://youtu.be/4xjEDz2d52k

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April 30, 2016 No Comments

Community

Living underground? It’s complicated

Going underground using 2 shipping containers, sure you could just dig a hole, plop them in and backfill, but that isn’t going to last very long, but Steve Rees did things right. The only “regret” I heard them express is that next time they will use 3 shipping containers instead of 2.

He went to the local officials to get a permit, they told him they didn’t have a permit for underground containers, so he went ahead and built, seems it was no problem for anyone. Rees did hire a large excavator to dig out the space, once the 2 containers were placed, they used thick foam on the outside to help insulate and keep the moisture away. Gravel was also used next to the containers so water will run off.

I like how he finished the inside, preferring not to put any holes in the skin of the container that might start rusting, you can see how he has done all of this in the video below.
https://youtu.be/Z0oFJ2jbkDI

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April 18, 2016 1 Comment

Community

Tiny home for less than $500

Here is one of the tiniest tiny homes I’ve seen to date, coming in at 83 square feet, it’s 8X12 feet, but the high ceiling gives it the feel of a bigger space. Scott is a big guy as you can see in the video, even he feels like this is a roomy situation for him.

I thought he might sleep on his couch, it appears to be a futon style, but his bed is actually a Murphy style bed right above the couch, it stays folded up when not in use, but once folded down, there is plenty of room for Scott to stretch out, and those high ceilings really come in handy here, I’ve seen many tiny homes with nearly no head room when in the loft, this isn’t an issue here.

Scott has a living room space with a couch, a bed above his couch, he even has a kitchen area of sorts built in to the end of the table/desk that runs nearly the length of the front of the house. It’s clear he keeps his clothing hung up in the entryway. What he is missing in the cabin is a bathroom and running water.

Of course being a guy, I suspect he waters the trees when he feels the need, he has an outhouse and shower facility on the property to take care of his other needs.

The home looks like it still needs some finishing touches, especially on the outside, but it’s a good start, and definitely livable, kudos to you Scott for what you have built and how you live.

https://scottsnextadventure.blogspot.com/2015/01/life-in-83-square-feet-my-transforming.html

https://youtu.be/92ppQNuMqeI

Update, it seems that Scott moved out of his tiny home, you can read more about him at his blog (link above).

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March 15, 2016 No Comments

Community

Gravel vac Bobbage

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I seriously considered using a title that said something like “my hubby sucks”, but honestly I don’t need to hype what he does, he is a Macgyver’s Macgyver! I quit doubting the things he says he is going to do, I just listen, put aside my skepticism and wait for the magic to happen. We like to call it Bobbage :)

As you may or may not know, PB uses concrete (soilcrete) for building around here, Portland cement is inexpensive, read cheap, all he has to add is the gravel and water, we have an abundant supply of gravel that restocks itself each time we get a good rain, the problem is the location of this gravel is at the bottom of the creek bed, down at the front part of the property, and “down” is the key word here.

In the past, he has used 5 gallon buckets to haul the gravel, on occasion we have bartered with neighbors and friends to get the use of earth moving equipment, but that doesn’t happen very often, and since he’s put in the bridge, it’s near impossible to drive down into the creek to load up on gravel.

PB began working out a way he could vacuum the gravel to the upper part of the property, he used an old shop vac, a metal 55 gallon drum, the sidewall of a tire and a long piece of 3 inch black poly pipe along with some duct tape to seal things up. It’s quiet, it’s efficient, it’s quick and it works great. Here is a video, actually 4 quick videos showing the gravel vac in action, along with some pictures.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnjG-ZmtxGQgGH4sFFDxoxKuXUh6XRiEX

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February 28, 2016 No Comments

Community

Is it too late?

toolate

What are your skills? Everyone has something they can do and do well, something that you enjoy doing, hopefully you are making your living doing it.

If TEOTWAWKI were to happen, assuming you have your food, water, shelter and other necessities taken care of, (you do, don’t you?), if we were to go back to a life like yesteryear, what could you contribute to your society? Unfortunately, all too many are skilled in spending money, or using technologic gadgets, that just will not get it if the power were to go out for an extended amount of time.

For me, I know how to cook from scratch, I can cook on a woodstove, I am familiar with our local plantlife for medicinal purposes. I can also cut hair, it’s funny that in the olden days, barbers were also the local medicine folk, you went to the barber to get minor, and sometimes major medical help.

I am well practiced at living in more primitive ways, choosing to live this way on purpose. PB is well versed at taking junk and turning it into useful things, he has a knowledge of electricity, gas (propane and other cooking & heating gas), engine repair, welding, building, he is an all around handy man.

Between the two of us, we have the skills to survive and the things we don’t have or can’t do, we can barter our skills with other people who have skills we don’t have. You don’t have to know how to do everything, but the more skills you do have, the better off you will be, both in this life, and in a potentially radically different world.

A neighbor and friend up the street is versed in leathercraft, another friend is a plumber, yet another is an EMT so can take care of medical issues, our small community is far ahead of many other towns because of the diverse knowledge and we all know each other.

As I asked in the title, is it too late? If you are reading this and you are still upright & breathing, it’s not too late, figure out what you are good at, what you enjoy doing, and learn more about it, get some practical experience, figure out what sorts of things that might be handy to know and do it.

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February 16, 2016 No Comments

Community

Half track, full genius

The last couple of weeks, PB has been watching lots of track wheel vehicle videos on YouTube, I just thought he was on another rabbit trail, he travels those quite often, and sometimes something really interesting comes of it.

Let me backtrack just a bit, about 3 years ago, we were gifted an old (but still working) Craftsman lawn tractor, a very small tractor with 4 wheels, it has been sitting in our shed waiting to become useful.

PB wants to turn it into a half-track to make it easier to get up and down the hill and do as little damage to the land as possible. Here is a mock up of what he plans to do. More to come :)
half track

Here is a video showing what someone else did
https://youtu.be/jQs25GH-hTw

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February 12, 2016 2 Comments

Off-Grid crock pot

I love the idea of cooking low and slow, but being off-grid means I don’t have the electricity to spare to run an electric crock pot, nor do I want to cook on my propane stove for hours and hours even on a low flame, I do use a pressure cooker to make things such as soup, stew and the such.

Today I ran across this video showing how you can use tea lights (small candles) to create an off-grid crock pot or slow cooker. I was intrigued and watched, I can see how it can be a really good thing, I can also see where some improvements can be made to make it safer, I would use metal to line where the candles touch the base, that way there would be little chance of the wood there getting hot enough to combust and if the candle wax were to escape, it would be less likely to catch anything on fire. I would perhaps want to line the entire thing with metal to keep things safer.

He said the meal took about 2 hours to cook, different tea lights last different amounts of time, from 2 hours up to 4 hours, you would have to check it as time went by to know if you would need to add fresh tea lights.

Watch and let me know what you think?
https://youtu.be/3aVKYFT14Ro

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January 26, 2016 1 Comment

What does your wood stove say?

If your wood burning stove could talk, what would it say to you? Is it happy with the way you load it? Is it happy with the amount and type of wood you use?

Most off-gridders are using wood to heat our homes, open fireplaces are pretty to look at, but aren’t efficient. We prefer to use a wood burning stove, a metal box that contains the wood and fire, they use much less wood and give off much more heat.

I found this video with lots of tips and tricks to help you use your wood stove more efficiently, the biggest tip I got from this video is to learn your wood stove, they each have their own personality and burn differently, some like being filled, others prefer less wood more often, experiment and learn what your stove likes best and what works best.

https://youtu.be/su6znyIVxBA

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January 24, 2016 No Comments

Community

What’s your backup plan?

backup
It used to be that big storms caught us by surprise, now it seems that more and more we have several days up to a week’s warning, but even with these longer lead times, it’s still a good idea to have a backup plan, a way to survive, at least for the short term while the emergency plays itself out.

It has to be very disheartening to be greeted with empty shelves at the stores when weather emergencies happen, whether local or regional or even statewide. Most, if not all grocery stores have, on average, a 3 day supply of food & stock, that is if there isn’t a run on food, when that happens, the shelves will be stripped in hours, not days.

If you were stuck in your home right now, if you couldn’t leave, how long would you be able to survive with the food you have in your home now? How many days before you are in real trouble? Most of us are living paycheck to paycheck, some of us live in small apartments with not much storage space for extra food.

It’s possible to put up extra food on even the tightest of budgets, you might have to give up some “extras” for a while, but it’s possible to have some extra money to spend on buying foods for emergency backup. What do you do that costs money you don’t have to spend? Maybe downgrade your entertainment bills, things like your TV (cable & satellite), your internet, save that money you would spend on eating out or going to Starbucks… Drop your gym membership for a couple of months and sock that money into extra food to put back.

Curtail your driving, that is money you are putting into the gas tank, only drive when you absolutely have to, combine trips and stop joyriding, carpool to work if you can.

Now that you have a few extra dollars put aside, what kinds of food should you get? That all depends on what you will eat, there is no point in buying cans of baked beans if you hate baked beans. Buy what you will eat, but make sure it’s food that will last, especially without refrigeration, a freezer full of food is of no use if the power goes out. Buy dry foods, canned foods, you can get those foil packs of food like tuna, rice, chicken, even milk that doesn’t need refrigeration.

Your ability to cook may be curtailed because of the power going out, if you are really thinking ahead, you will have alternative ways to cook, propane is good for that. You can get food that doesn’t need to be cooked or needs very little in the way of cooking. Recently I saw quick cooking dry rice in the dollar store, it’s precooked and only needs to have water added to it, …

January 24, 2016 No Comments

Living in a greenhouse

I’m sure I’m not the only person who ever wondered how it would be to build a greenhouse around your house, these folk in Stockholm Sweden did just that. It looks quite ingenious, and even pretty. I love the plants they have growing, the fig tree for example, there is no way they could grow that without it being inside a greenhouse, and the tomatoes look fabulous! Most people don’t know this, but tomatoes can be an perennial plant if the weather is mild enough in the winter.

The area where they live is normally just a summer getaway for most, but with the greenhouse around their home, they can stay there year round in comfort. I imagine it was not a cheap venture, but the money they save on heating in the winter will eventually pay for itself, and the fact that they are more self sufficient with growing food (plants) year round, it must all add up.

Here is a video showing this home, enjoy!

https://youtu.be/30ghnDOFbNQ
https://faircompanies.com/videos/view/family-wraps-home-in-greenhouse-to-warm-up-stockholm-weather/

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January 18, 2016 No Comments

Iron age reality show

The original reality show, filmed in 1978, 12 adults and 3 children were chosen from around 1000 volunteers to live in the “iron age”, they lived this way for 1 year, fully immersed and living the life.

The nice thing is they weren’t in competition with each other, no one was “voted” off, they lived and worked together as if it were the iron age. It also interviewed the people some 30 years later and how it affected their lives.

Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/2e7ZLWz3UMw?list=PL7DFEDEB464886B9D

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January 11, 2016 No Comments

Community

No debt

No Debt

As I watched this video, listening to Karen and Bob describing their life in the home they built themselves, the one phrase that really jumped out at me was “no debt”. That was their main motivation. I know (from personal experience building our own place) that they did most if not all of the work themselves, which is one of the biggest money eating parts of building, you would have to buy the materials anyhow, but doing the work yourself means YOU know what is in your place, no one else has cut corners unknown to you, I think it’s great!

I love the look and style of their home, it is warm and inviting. Watch and enjoy.

(ADDED Jan 21, 2016)
I received a message from Karen, it’s in the comments below, but I thought it best to add it here:
How cool our video got shared to this great channel! feel free to share our email and phone number if people want some more info. karenk@usa.com 520-366-1984 We are also open to visitors. There is a off-grid,alternative building get together the first sunday of every month from about 10:30 am to1pm at a friend of ours who did and earthbag dome. for directions email m_m_gibbons@yahoo.com all are welcome!!!!

https://youtu.be/EBN4R2XhU6c

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January 9, 2016 7 Comments

All you need to go off-grid

Self-Sufficiency

Updates on the SkyCastle

Living underground? It’s complicated

Tiny home for less than $500

Gravel vac Bobbage

Is it too late?

Half track, full genius

Off-Grid crock pot

What does your wood stove say?

What’s your backup plan?

Living in a greenhouse

Iron age reality show

No debt

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