Off the Grid Thread

[MagicForDummies]

It has been a personal dream of mine to one day be able to be self-sustainable and not having to rely on parents for money government for services.

This involves making my own electricity, rainwater harvesting, aquaponic gardening and other things that make life comfortable, while abandoning the superfast lifestyle of things that involve suits and ties. And for once I'll actually have a neighbor to talk to.

Share your thoughts on this. Know any one who actually lives off the grid?

 

[Wooty]

Every time I hear about something like this, it always sounds like a lot of work to overcome a problem that doesn't exist.

You don't need to abandon the luxuries of living in the 21st century just because you don't want to live in the world of "suits and ties." Figure out a way to get a job you enjoy, then use that money to pay for the relatively cheap infrastructure we have available to us. No need to reinvent the wheel here.

 

[MotorKat]

It has been a personal dream of mine to one day be able to be self-sustainable and not having to rely on parents for money government for services.

This involves making my own electricity, rainwater harvesting, aquaponic gardening and other things that make life comfortable, while abandoning the superfast lifestyle of things that involve suits and ties. And for once I'll actually have a neighbor to talk to.

Share your thoughts on this. Know any one who actually lives off the grid?

one of my friends live off the grid with her family since they wanted a place where they could grow crops and raise chickens... so far, they've got a solar-powered watering system for the farmland that pumps water strait from a nearby stream. I'll be going up there to help some more for part of this weekend.

Every time I hear about something like this, it always sounds like a lot of work to overcome a problem that doesn't exist.

You don't need to abandon the luxuries of living in the 21st century just because you don't want to live in the world of "suits and ties." Figure out a way to get a job you enjoy, then use that money to pay for the relatively cheap infrastructure we have available to us. No need to reinvent the wheel here.

for many people who go that path of living off the grid, its a matter of enjoying a sometimes more antiquated way of life through self-sustainability and creative resource management. (Like owning a retro console and still playing the games you've collected - there's better technology out there, but some people prefer the older hardware for games) Yes, modern technology is fine and dandy, but its not the same as feeling accomplished after putting time and effort into making your own house, growing and hunting for your own food and enjoying the fruits of said labor - the life you enjoy without any societal tethers or dues.

Plus, some people incorporate modern technology to make their sustainable method of staying off the grid even more efficient, like my friend I mentioned earlier.

 

[JHawk]

It's something that's crossed my mind, certainly, though I doubt I'd go through with it. Everything in modern society is always moneymoneyjobsrecessionpoliticswarterroristsmoremoney. You'd be solely responsible for, like Motor said, building, farming, cooking, maintaining, clean water, etc.

It'd be cool to try living like that for a month or two. If only we had more efficient solar panels :/

 

[JMAL77]

Magic I don't know where you're from but it's a dream of mine to be Platinum LEED certified with a house I build from scratch. I'm planning modern technology, with off the grid living. Really I'd need to be attached for internet/phone, but that's the only thing. I've found a lot of homes that are like that to be truly beautiful beyond what a typical home is. So I'd just like to extend a thumbs up to ya and good luck mate.

 

[MagicForDummies]

Magic I don't know where you're from but it's a dream of mine to be Platinum LEED certified with a house I build from scratch. I'm planning modern technology, with off the grid living. Really I'd need to be attached for internet/phone, but that's the only thing. I've found a lot of homes that are like that to be truly beautiful beyond what a typical home is. So I'd just like to extend a thumbs up to ya and good luck mate.

Theree are many off grid communities popping up over America because people want a slower pace of life and abandoning hyper-consumerism. It's happening around the western world (Australia is a western world too, apparently). Being in a community is easier and more manageable than being alone which is what I'm looking for.

 

[JMAL77]

Gotchya... me personally I'd rather have neighbors, but have distance between us ya know...

 

[Ekatski]

I've always dreamed about being off-the-grid. I guess you could call me a "hippie". I care ALOT about the environment, and I love the idea of simple life, instead of buying the newest gadgets every second they come out. I don't like being a creature of consumerism, where happiness is materialistic, and if you don't have those materials, you are looked down upon as a depressed POS. Where my grandparents and aunt's family live, It's almost like that. On the outskirts of Taos, NM. There seems to be solar panels everywhere you look. Not only that, but Taos also has strong ties in Native culture. As well as Asian cultures. The atmosphere is creative and diverse, with much of a spiritual sense. My spine is just shivering thinking about it. I'm so lucky to visit every year

:Enage Picture Spam:

Spoiler

One of the plaza 'alley' ways in town

Some pictures of the Millicent Rogers Museum, where my aunt works

Back to other pictures...

Don't like the desert? Go to the ski valley. It's amazing.

Found a good video.

:End-Spam:

Ok...

 

[oozinator]

Every time I hear about something like this, it always sounds like a lot of work to overcome a problem that doesn't exist.

You don't need to abandon the luxuries of living in the 21st century just because you don't want to live in the world of "suits and ties." Figure out a way to get a job you enjoy, then use that money to pay for the relatively cheap infrastructure we have available to us. No need to reinvent the wheel here.

From a practical standpoint, there are benefits. Decentralization of electricity, food, and water sources means that it'd be very difficult for a an act of terrorism to endanger a large populace. It also wouldn't hurt to go a little green.

On the other hand, the environmental and practical benefits would drop off as scale and population density increases. Having a huge community of 'off-grid' homesteaders sequestering rainwater in a formerly remote area would definitely have some local environmental impact, despite its green claims.

Going completely off-grid is awesome, but only if a small number of homes do it. Having an entire off-grid city on the scale of a major metropolitan city is just downright ludicrous and probably counter-productive.

That's not to say that a major city attempting to be partially off-grid (ex. having certain sectors be off-grid or having certain utilities be locally sourced) would be a bad idea. That'd be something up to urban planners to quantitatively and qualitatively figure out.

 

[JMAL77]

ooz I can slightly agree. I believe that if you are careful and efficient about what you do even a large populace could, in theory, go off the grid. One of the biggest things would be making full use of the various Thermal/Geothermal tech's that are out there. Such as generating electricity from heat... in a large city there's loads of heat just wasted...

 

[Patchouli]

ooz I can slightly agree. I believe that if you are careful and efficient about what you do even a large populace could, in theory, go off the grid. One of the biggest things would be making full use of the various Thermal/Geothermal tech's that are out there. Such as generating electricity from heat... in a large city there's loads of heat just wasted...

The problem about trying to generate electricity from heat in a city is that...the heat is not centralized. If you could somehow transfer all that heat to one place, that could work. But you just simply can't move that heat to one spot.

 

[oozinator]

The problem about trying to generate electricity from heat in a city is that...the heat is not centralized. If you could somehow transfer all that heat to one place, that could work. But you just simply can't move that heat to one spot.

Wholely agree. Capturing heat is pretty damn hard.

You could have insulated piping transferring heat via medium (ie. water, oil, air) from traditional sources of waste heat (like a coal-fired electrical plant) but even then, there will still be heat loss with distance.

If the area is not under a geothermal hotspot, one of the best things you can do with non-electrical temperature regulation is passive cooling.

 

[Creeper]

I've always dreamed about being off-the-grid. I guess you could call me a "hippie". I care ALOT about the environment, and I love the idea of simple life, instead of buying the newest gadgets every second they come out. I don't like being a creature of consumerism, where happiness is materialistic, and if you don't have those materials, you are looked down upon as a depressed POS. Where my grandparents and aunt's family live, It's almost like that. On the outskirts of Taos, NM. There seems to be solar panels everywhere you look. Not only that, but Taos also has strong ties in Native culture. As well as Asian cultures. The atmosphere is creative and diverse, with much of a spiritual sense. My spine is just shivering thinking about it. I'm so lucky to visit every year

:Enage Picture Spam:

Spoiler

One of the plaza 'alley' ways in town

Some pictures of the Millicent Rogers Museum, where my aunt works

Back to other pictures...

Don't like the desert? Go to the ski valley. It's amazing.

Found a good video.

:End-Spam:

Ok...

NM is so pretty. I visited a month ago, it's probably the most "different" place in the US I've been to.

 

[MagicForDummies]

These guys have it made. If you like to live in semi-perpetual vacation mode.

However, these guys are the post apocalyptic punks we all love and automatically side with the protagonist on every game.

 

[TheGurw]

For the sake of simplicity in describing the mechanics of this, I'll solely discuss electricity. However, I also have fully-fleshed-out plans for other utilities and resources - with the sole exclusion of communication utilities (internet, phone lines, etc).

So here we go. My dream is not to go off-grid. Quite the opposite, in fact. As a young adult who's grown up being counter-culture (much to the disdain of his parents until recently), living in a net-zero world has always been a dream of mine. In relatively recent years, I pursued the construction industries, working for companies that only care about a green image because of political and public pressure. I still work for those companies, but I'm about to begin my own full-package (own the land, build the land, sell the completed development - all in-house; this sort of company is pretty much unheard of) development firm with a few forward-thinking friends and partners, who, like me, are tired of the existing companies' slow progress in the world of net-zero life.

However, like I said, I'm not pursuing an off-the-grid experience. Net zero simply isn't good enough for me. I'm tired of utility companies altogether, and want to see their role reduced to transmitting power and the associated infrastructure. I want to build a consumer/producer mindset that turns the same people who use the power into the people who produce it. I'm about to begin a proof-of-concept home that is what I call a "negative consumer", or "less-than-zero". It's a home that, quite simply, uses so little energy relative to its production abilities that it feeds into the grid, and essentially powers its neighbours as well. With homes like this and a bit of knowledge of human psychology, I can reasonably expect other homes in the area would catch on and also increase their self-production - eventually reducing the total consumption of the neighbourhood to zero and below. The community would then have legal grounds to force the power supply companies to no longer charge for production to any of the homes in the area, regardless of the individual homes' net-zero status, effectively reducing the bills to maintenance and transmission fees (which in my area are around $0.30/month/household).

Neighbouring communities also begin similar projects much the same way . Any new developments I'm involved in (which, considering there are no net-zero development companies anywhere near me, is going to be a fair number - government officials like the good PR) will be completely built from the less-than-zero perspective, essentially replacing the power supply companies in that region. Entire cities will begin to rely less and less on the wholesale production of the major power companies. It may not happen in my lifetime, but I feel it is a reasonable goal that the entirety of Edmonton, Alberta will be completely net-zero within 100 years.

Picture solar panels, geothermal generators, wind turbines dominating the view of the city as you fly into the international airport. This is my dream. And I can make it happen.

 

[MagicForDummies]

For the sake of simplicity in describing the mechanics of this, I'll solely discuss electricity. However, I also have fully-fleshed-out plans for other utilities and resources - with the sole exclusion of communication utilities (internet, phone lines, etc).

So here we go. My dream is not to go off-grid. Quite the opposite, in fact. As a young adult who's grown up being counter-culture (much to the disdain of his parents until recently), living in a net-zero world has always been a dream of mine. In relatively recent years, I pursued the construction industries, working for companies that only care about a green image because of political and public pressure. I still work for those companies, but I'm about to begin my own full-package (own the land, build the land, sell the completed development - all in-house; this sort of company is pretty much unheard of) development firm with a few forward-thinking friends and partners, who, like me, are tired of the existing companies' slow progress in the world of net-zero life.

However, like I said, I'm not pursuing an off-the-grid experience. Net zero simply isn't good enough for me. I'm tired of utility companies altogether, and want to see their role reduced to transmitting power and the associated infrastructure. I want to build a consumer/producer mindset that turns the same people who use the power into the people who produce it. I'm about to begin a proof-of-concept home that is what I call a "negative consumer", or "less-than-zero". It's a home that, quite simply, uses so little energy relative to its production abilities that it feeds into the grid, and essentially powers its neighbours as well. With homes like this and a bit of knowledge of human psychology, I can reasonably expect other homes in the area would catch on and also increase their self-production - eventually reducing the total consumption of the neighbourhood to zero and below. The community would then have legal grounds to force the power supply companies to no longer charge for production to any of the homes in the area, regardless of the individual homes' net-zero status, effectively reducing the bills to maintenance and transmission fees (which in my area are around $0.30/month/household).

Neighbouring communities also begin similar projects much the same way . Any new developments I'm involved in (which, considering there are no net-zero development companies anywhere near me, is going to be a fair number - government officials like the good PR) will be completely built from the less-than-zero perspective, essentially replacing the power supply companies in that region. Entire cities will begin to rely less and less on the wholesale production of the major power companies. It may not happen in my lifetime, but I feel it is a reasonable goal that the entirety of Edmonton, Alberta will be completely net-zero within 100 years.

Picture solar panels, geothermal generators, wind turbines dominating the view of the city as you fly into the international airport. This is my dream. And I can make it happen.

The main obstacle isn't producing the energy itself, but overcoming bureaucracy (depending where you live ) but i know for a fact that Australia actually pays you for producing surplus electricity back into the grid (but you can't own batteries for some reason.)

But there are already existing negative-carbon houses out there. It's good that you're thinking about pursuing a sustainable future that isn't capitalized by Tony Stark Industries.

 

[Audi]

i know for a fact that Australia actually pays you for producing surplus electricity back into the grid (but you can't own batteries for some reason.)

True - I've got solar cells on my house and whatever we generate and don't use gets cycled back into the grid,
Although you get paid a measly sum for your contribution.

Also I don't understand what you mean by batteries.

 

[MagicForDummies]

True - I've got solar cells on my house and whatever we generate and don't use gets cycled back into the grid,
Although you get paid a measly sum for your contribution.

Also I don't understand what you mean by batteries.

I talked to a fella selling solar cells, he said it's illegal to store electricity.

 

[JMAL77]

For the sake of simplicity in describing the mechanics of this, I'll solely discuss electricity. However, I also have fully-fleshed-out plans for other utilities and resources - with the sole exclusion of communication utilities (internet, phone lines, etc).

So here we go. My dream is not to go off-grid. Quite the opposite, in fact. As a young adult who's grown up being counter-culture (much to the disdain of his parents until recently), living in a net-zero world has always been a dream of mine. In relatively recent years, I pursued the construction industries, working for companies that only care about a green image because of political and public pressure. I still work for those companies, but I'm about to begin my own full-package (own the land, build the land, sell the completed development - all in-house; this sort of company is pretty much unheard of) development firm with a few forward-thinking friends and partners, who, like me, are tired of the existing companies' slow progress in the world of net-zero life.

However, like I said, I'm not pursuing an off-the-grid experience. Net zero simply isn't good enough for me. I'm tired of utility companies altogether, and want to see their role reduced to transmitting power and the associated infrastructure. I want to build a consumer/producer mindset that turns the same people who use the power into the people who produce it. I'm about to begin a proof-of-concept home that is what I call a "negative consumer", or "less-than-zero". It's a home that, quite simply, uses so little energy relative to its production abilities that it feeds into the grid, and essentially powers its neighbours as well. With homes like this and a bit of knowledge of human psychology, I can reasonably expect other homes in the area would catch on and also increase their self-production - eventually reducing the total consumption of the neighbourhood to zero and below. The community would then have legal grounds to force the power supply companies to no longer charge for production to any of the homes in the area, regardless of the individual homes' net-zero status, effectively reducing the bills to maintenance and transmission fees (which in my area are around $0.30/month/household).

Neighbouring communities also begin similar projects much the same way . Any new developments I'm involved in (which, considering there are no net-zero development companies anywhere near me, is going to be a fair number - government officials like the good PR) will be completely built from the less-than-zero perspective, essentially replacing the power supply companies in that region. Entire cities will begin to rely less and less on the wholesale production of the major power companies. It may not happen in my lifetime, but I feel it is a reasonable goal that the entirety of Edmonton, Alberta will be completely net-zero within 100 years.

Picture solar panels, geothermal generators, wind turbines dominating the view of the city as you fly into the international airport. This is my dream. And I can make it happen.

I just thought that i'd mention that I love this idea and I'd love to be a part of it. The theory in my mind is like "Man in the Mirror" by MIchael Jackson. Also I'd like to mention that in America a lot of the homes that are Platinum LEED Certified end up making money for the home owner because they sell their excess back to the power companies. Also I was just going to mention that an idea that you might be interested in is Hydroelectricity. Could be something that helps make a bit more energy and add something for the natural resources also by having a water source.

 

[TheGurw]

I just thought that i'd mention that I love this idea and I'd love to be a part of it. The theory in my mind is like "Man in the Mirror" by MIchael Jackson. Also I'd like to mention that in America a lot of the homes that are Platinum LEED Certified end up making money for the home owner because they sell their excess back to the power companies. Also I was just going to mention that an idea that you might be interested in is Hydroelectricity. Could be something that helps make a bit more energy and add something for the natural resources also by having a water source.

Where I live the two primary sources of electricity would be solar and geothermal - which will double as climate control for the homes. Wind power would be primary in the southern portion of my province, followed by solar. Unfortunately hydroelectric energy isn't widely viable on the scale of individual production where I live. Nor are the rivers near my city viable for large-scale hydroelectricity. Maybe out east.

And while the measly sum we make for producing (about 25 cents to the dollar relative to what the power company charges) isn't much, that's offset by never - ever - paying a power bill again.