Livin off the Grid

[MD Dog]

I'd like to point out here that as time goes on, no matter where you live on this little blue marble, people need to be transitioning to self sufficiency. Whatever the future may hold with Armageddon, Global warming, Ice Ages, Terrorist attacks, earth quakes, tsunami's, hurricanes, super storms, volcanoes, super volcanoes, tornadoes. They are all what ifs, but not energy. We all know for a fact that energy will be in short supply, just like water and gold. When I was a kid, I n like most kids cared little for what ifs. As a teenager I joked about one day having to pay for air and water and trash. As an adult I see where we were and where were headed. Don't let these things sneak up on you or your likely to find out just how cruel this world can be.

 

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[DrJoePrime]

Nice Thread!!

Enjoyed Les Stroud's video.

It shows how hard this self sufficiency thing really is. Just look at all the technology required to put everything in place. AND..with just a minor problem he's got to call out the repairman.

My view is a bit more primitive...but I would sure hate to abandon all of life's modern niceties. I would really love to do it all myself however...where oh where do we draw the line. [How would I be able to post on here for example?]

Joe

 

[1960texan]

We're adding more wind turbines this next summer as well as a water turbine in the smaller stream.

Are you looking at any specific water turbines yet? My wife and I are buying a property with a year round creek on it, and that's one of the first things I thought about installing once I got my mind off of all the fish I'm going to catch!

I'm glad you started this thread. With the wealth of knowledge here on Treasurenet we are all bound to pick up a few valuable pointers.

1960Texan

 

[MD Dog]

Thanks 1960Texan, I haven't yet really done anything towards the hydro. I just recently decided to include hydro because of what I learned talking to one of the techies who installed my wind turbine. He says that wind turbines are only about 50 to 65% efficient because of the many variables. But hydro turbines are getting around 90% or better. Meaning they use 90% of the energy they capture with only a 10% or less spill off. He recommended a guy who I contacted, and we are meeting in July. As far as this thread being popular I don't know yet but so far it has been pretty slow. I like you, was hoping there'd be allot more interest and input. Oh well time will tell, I mean I'm sure if I looked around I'd fined a site with this being the main topic of discussion.

 

[rockhound]

Build you own wind Turbine, http://www.members.fortunecity.com/freeenergy2000/savonius.htm
solar Stirling engine. More efficient than solar panels, http:www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dTt2s6YwJ8

 

[WV Hillbilly]

I am fortunate enough to have free gas from a well on my property . Needless to say my heat ,
water heater , range and clothes dryer are all gas . My electric bill is fairly small . As far as living off
the grid , at one time my wife & I lived in a different part of the state & tried in our small way to do
what we could to be self sufficient .
We had milk goats , chickens , meat rabbits & honeybees . We planted several fruit trees , grape
vines , berry briars & a garden . We also turned off the electric heat & heated with wood which I cut & split
from our woodlot . One year my wife canned over 1000 jars of jams , jelleys , fruits , vegetables &
meat . She also made various cheeses from the goat milk & we drank the goat milk .
At the same time I owned my own buisness & worked 5-6 days a week at that buisness . My wife
was also my secretary & did most of the bookeeping . We worked hard , saved & managed to pay
our home & property off . I also made some lucky real estate investments .
I have a hundred or so magazines about homesteading , country living & being self sufficient .
I researched solar power , wind turbines , ect . Hydro was out of the question where we lived . When
it came down to nuts & bolts alternative energy was not cost effective . I did have full intentions of
building a solar water heater though .
Then I blew two discs out in my back & had to have back surgery . My back is still shot & I have
nerve damage in my left leg . Needless to say our lifestyle changed drastically . We bought the 73 acres
we live on now & have a few hives of honeybees & a small house dog . I take strong pain pills &
try to keep my bees & md when I can . My wife raises a small garden & sells pampered chef to keep
her busy .
Before my back problems we really enjoyed that lifestyle & hated to see it go as we were still
making plans , such as adding a greenhouse and other things . The best advice I could give to any
one would be to get out of debt & there's endless little things you can do to be more self sufficient .

Best WV Hillibilly

 

[diggemall]

A few years back, when I was building my house, I wanted to look into one of the whole-house fireplace furnaces. The mfg I was considering didn't have any reps in the area, but they did have a customer that had one that was willing to let me visit to see it. Well, the fireplace was impressive enough that I bought one and heated my home with it for about 10 years, altough I eventually replaced it with an outdoor boiler, but that's another story.

This guy with the fireplace had something like 160 acres in the middle of nowhere Michigan and on it was an 80 acre pond with a 19 foot drop to a stream it drained into. This guy had the MOST impressive mini-hydro plant I have ever seen: 55Kw main generator with a 10Kw back-up on a bypass loop, all controlled to hold at a steady 60Hz. Turns out he had some retired hydro engineer from the local utility design it for him. SWEEEET !

The only thing he had that most folks don't is complete access to sufficient flow AND drop.

I've given the whole self-sufficiency thing a LOT of thought as I hope to build again in a few years:

Quite frankly, as far as heat goes, the most important thing is to START with an energy efficient structure that makes the most practical use of solar gain; The sun is the best source of free heat and the less you need the easier it is to fill in the gaps where the sun doesn't do the job. Insulation, insulation, insulation.

As for electrical energy, that depends a LOT on where you live; The sunny southwest is a much better place for solar than northern lattitudes where sunlight is scarce, especially in the winter (and pay-backs are proprtionatly longer). Windmills require wind, on a fairly steady basis and not everywhere is well-suited to this either. Hydro is obviously limited to an extremely small number of locations, and permitting can be rough. The day is coming when small-scale fuel cell generators will be available, but unfortunately it looks like they will first really become available through local utilities and run on LPG (so much for independence). If somebody developes a safe, small-scale, renewable energy driven hydrogen generation and storage system THEN dependable fuel-cell based electrical independence will be a reality.

Diggem'

 

[WV Hillbilly]

Diggemall
I noticed you said you installed an outside boiler . Is it wood fired ? In the area I used to live in ,
several , actually a lot of people installed outside wood burning boilers . Almost all of them said
it took an awful lot of wood to use them . These boilers all had large water tanks that was kept
at about 180 degrees . They also wouldn't work without electricty .

 

[diggemall]

Yup. A 400 gallon wood-fired boiler it is. I go through a little over a semi trailer load of wood every winter (about 14 full cords) but its still a LOT cheaper than heating with LP was. I am heating a 2700 SF house AND 1600 SF of shop with the boiler for about 2/3 the cost of the LP to heat the shop alone for one winter. I have almost always heated the house with wood so it's hard for me to judge a comparison on that one. The wood fireplace / furnace really did the job in the house, but it did it TOO well. At a rating of 250K BTU/Hr it swamped the downstairs with heat, and satisfied the thermostat so that air never got circulated to the upstairs rooms. Regulating the heat output by trying to control the fire size was difficult at best.

And you're right - the circulator pumps require electricity to operate.

Diggem'

 

[WV Hillbilly]

As you probably noticed in my previous posts , I've said I have free gas . I'd like to build a gas fired
water distiller . Anybody know how or know where I might find some plans for one ? Thanks

 

[MD Dog]

As you probably noticed in my previous posts , I've said I have free gas . I'd like to build a gas fired
water distiller . Anybody know how or know where I might find some plans for one ? Thanks

Wouldn't that just require boiling the water off till it evaporates into a collector system ?

 

[WV Hillbilly]

I think it should be fairly simple . I was thinking of using something like a pressure cooker with the little
nozzle on the lid . A copper or stainless steel tube could be connected to the nozzle for the steam to escape
out of & into the catch basin . Some type of float switch would be necessary to keep the pressure cooker
from boiling dry . It also should have some type of safety switch to shut it off in case of a malfunction , such as a stuck float , loss of water pressure ect . Just started thinking about building one & haven't worked out all the details yet . Thought maybe someone had built one , seen plans for one or could give me some input & save me some time & money .

 

[Kas]

I think it's great that you want to be free of the system.

The only thing I wish I could free myself from is people bothering me. I'd just as soon live in the mountains, alone, forever. There's still time. Society sucks. Go Green, be a cave man.

 

[WV Hillbilly]

Well , my driveway is 1/2 mile long & the nearest neighbor is 1/2 mile away . Just me & the wife &
the dog living on 73 acres back in the woods . We love it this way . If you see a vehicle coming up the
road you know someone really wants to see you . I have a game feeder that runs twice a day & every
day there is deer , turkeys , squirrels & other animals that come to feed . The feeder is in my yard & I
can sit in my recliner & watch it out of my large living room window . WV is pretty mountainous . Kas ,
if you was being serious you'd love it here .

 

[Kas]

I'm serious all right. But a 1/2 mile is about 40 miles too close. They only way you could come to my cave is by hoist basket, and you don't want to be in the basket half way up with me on the business end of the rope.

WV is a pretty state. All those mountains and trees and.... There I go dreaming again.

 

[MD Dog]

My son lives in Ghent WV. Works at a ski shop there. Says he's gonna head to geargia to work as a white water rafting co. there this summer. He's 19 and enjoying his freedom while he can. Sooner or later some womans bound to catch him and tie him up in knots. Then suck the freedom right outta that boy.
Probably remain free till he goes to college this next fall. He's gonna be a Anesteseaologist (SP) :P

 

[EDDE]

a site call backwoodshome.com has a lot of good stuff on it ,check some of the links

the forum sucks

 

[E59]

This is a really great thread. I am going to look into the solar panels and talk to my cave man again about cutting our own firewood. His dad owns around a 1000 acres so we wouldn't have a problem getting the wood! It's right at our back yard.
How about the composting toilets? We plan on building a shop this spring and I really don't want to worry about frozen plumbing. Would one of those stink up his garage? Yes, we would build a seperate little room so maybe with a vent there wouldn't be a problem?
Keep all those ideas coming!

 

[MD Dog]

We installed a whole house composting toilet system last year Sara and so far the only real draw back has been that you have to add a drying agent as they told me to call it. We were told it could be anything from wood ash to compost, kitchen scraps, dead leaves, etc... We use some commercial peat moss that comes in big bags. But I also have another guy I met at an Alternative energy convention in Chicago this last year that told me about Methane generation. If I go this way we could possibly tie our household plumbing into this system since it is a wet system vs a dry composting one. This would actually allow us to return to a all water flush system, plus generate methane to run a generatore for our stables at least if not more. Plus I here the discharge from this sytem is clean enough to fertilize our garden. We also plan on adding allot of animals which we don't have yet like goats and sheep and chicken, beef cattle. The additional manure combined with our horses will fuel the system.

 

[E59]

My father-in-law uses manure from his hogs to fertilize his crops.
I love goats, they are such fun to have around and they make good meat too. I know that may sound barbaric to some but I come from a farming family. I feel really good when we eat meat that our family processes.
I hope to shoot my own doe next fall to put up.