
Living Off the Grid Under the Sun - x0054
http://sdbr.net/post/Living-Off-the-Grid-Under-the-Sun/
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fanquake
I'm somewhat curious as to why he's not collecting rainwater and using that
rather than getting water trucked in; especially since he mentions it rains "a
LOT". A quick Google suggests that area receives 200-300mm of rain a year,
that would be enough to sustain two people.

As for being off the grid; I grew up on a cropping farm which was fairly
isolated, ~100km from the nearest large (>1000 people) town. Pretty similar
weather conditions 45-50C max in summer and 200 - 300mm of rain per year. We
had a family of 4, a few dogs and 2 workmen during seeding/harvest (4 months).
We lived completely off rainwater, except for drought years, then we'd have to
truck water from bores either on our farm, or somewhere nearby.

Power was from the grid, except for outages (which could last a few days) or
when poles caught fire and burnt down.. then we were looking for more than
drinking water, as you have to fight your own fires. If the power wasn't back
on after a decent chunk of time we'd get a generator running.

Currently we're using solar panels, and hopefully we can start using something
like a Powerwall fairly soon.

We had dialup internet for quite a while. That only changed when a mobile
tower was built nearby (5 years ago?). Then we had slow internet with a fairly
bad cap. It used to be 10GB/month, it's 20GB/month now.

The most off the grid I remember being was when we would sometimes have no
power, internet, mobile or home phone. If you got into an accident/emergency
during that you could be in a bit trouble.

~~~
x0054
OP here: Hi there. Yes, I agree, I am not sure why the house wasn't built for
collecting rainwater. It is something we have considered doing right away when
we moved here, but at that moment we couldn't afford the investment. Long term
it will be a valuable investment. On average it rains here for 10 days a year
or so, but when it rains, it's really coming down. So all of the 200mm or so
of rainfall come down within a period of about 2 weeks, usually around May and
some times in August. So, the collection tank would have to be really large,
3,000+ gallons, to be useful.

As for the internet, take a look at Satellite as a secondary connection, if
you need it. I know Exede has some unlimited plans, but only in some parts of
the country, the parts that are exposed to their newer beam. We are still on
the old satellite, so we aren't that lucky.

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mike-cardwell
"Completely off the grid"

"Water is delivered to us on a truck every 6 weeks or so"

I always thought "off the grid" meant that you were completely self
sufficient. What's the difference in relying on water being delivered by pipe
and water being delivered by truck?

[edit] Yeah. You know somebody is being very liberal with the usage of
"Completely off the grid" when they have Internet access.

~~~
profsnuggles
What is your definition of off the grid? I can't help but think you are being
pedantic here. He mentions he could dig a well, but it's more cost effective
to have water shipped in. As far as Internet access I'm sure that he needs it
for his job so he can afford to purchase things like water or pay property
taxes.

At some point you have to interface with the rest of society, it is impossible
for an individual to be 100% self sufficient.

~~~
mike-cardwell
I don't think I'm being pedantic when he says he is "completely" off the grid.
If you're going to claim to be "completely" off the grid, then you should be
completely self sufficient.

Re digging a well. Is your definition of "off the grid" related to how much
something costs? If it costs too much, we'll just pretend it's not included in
the definition?

~~~
profsnuggles
How would he be completely self sufficient?

He needs water and food at least. How do you dig a 200 foot well by yourself?
Farming at the level actually needed to sustain someone year round is going to
take more technology than my backyard garden.

Is paying someone to come dig a well really that different than buying water?
What if he was hypothetically able to purchase and store the amount of water
that would be required to live the rest of his life? What happens when the
well dries up? He gets someone that is on the grid to drill a new one? Doesn't
that put him by proxy back on the grid?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Well, with this line of reasoning I do live completely off the grid already. I
could build a water turbine or even a hand crank, but buying power from
utilities is cheaper. I could start a farm, but going to grocery store every
other day is cheaper as well. I could move far from civilization, but living
in a 1M city is much more fun.

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adsche
Google cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:mQPgnfO...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:mQPgnfOug8sJ:sdbr.net/post/Living-
Off-the-Grid-Under-the-Sun/&strip=1&vwsrc=0)

~~~
joosters
Well at least the website is apparently off the grid :)

~~~
x0054
Yep :( Another server, a victim of HN. Actually this is just my private tiny
VPN. Never expected it to get any meaningful traffic, so it was running a very
restricting Apache setup. I am going to migrate over to Nginx, it's about time
any way.

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cnvogel
While I found the article quite interesting, the stuff he writes about his
electrical work makes me think that he shouldn't really do electrical work in
the first place: <quote> But when you are pumping 30 AMPS of current through
an extension cord, you can’t just use any extension cord, you have to use the
heavy duty, 8 gauge, super thick type. (...) But those who know me well, know
that I am a cheap bastard, and I wasn’t about to spend $150 on what amounts to
a bunch of wire.</quote>

So to save money, he just parallels three cheap cables off Walmart using a
splitter.

 _Please_ _don 't_ _do_ _this_ _without_ _putting_ _fuses_ _in_ _each_
_individual_ _cable_ to make sure the rating is not exceeded.

~~~
x0054
OP here: I tested this system with a IR thermometer. Unplugging 2 out of 3
cables does make the remaining cable get warm after an hour of operation, but
it doesn't burn, melt, or smoke. Running with just 2 cables, the system
remains nice and cool, the third one is there for backup. In case of failure,
if resistance on one of the cables goes up, the electricity will naturally
flow through the other 2 cables with less resistance. Any short in any of the
3 wires will instantly trip the 30 amp fuse. If, for some reason, 2 out of 3
cables get unplugged, but not shorted, for some reason. The last remaining
cable does have a potential to overheat after hours of operation, but the fuse
should blow way before any significant problem could occur. It's just as
unlikely that someone will come and neatly disconnect 2/3 extension cords as
it is that 2/3 of the strands in the thick extension cord will be damaged,
causing it to also overheat.

~~~
cnvogel
I really salute your diligent testing and the thought you've put into it, most
people won't do that much. Then again, I also don't want to scare you by
suggesting that your solution might burn down the house and kill the dog, and
personally I might as well do the same if it's urgent and a one-off job for a
day or two.

But for what you describe, a semi-permanent solution expected to be put to use
a few times a year, I personally would try to find the proper parts, used off
eBay if necessary, and make a pretty cable run to the garage with the mobile
home/generator, wiring boxes and properly rated sockets on both sides. Makes
me sleep better, makes me not hunt for 1 of the 3 cables which I've misplaced
because I've used them for mowing the lawn, and in the case of the very
unlikely freak accident happening makes the electrician called to clean up the
mess not ask stupid questions.

~~~
x0054
I think that's going to be the plan at some time in the future, maybe this
winter. What I really want to do is run a conduit under ground to where the RV
is parked and connect an 8 gauge wire through it, and also an ethernet cable.
This way I can wire the RV generator's start button directly to the electrical
system. The control unit has an auto start function, so when the batteries get
to critical level, rather then shutting down, it automatically starts the
generator and charges the battery until they reach ~ 80% capacity. This way I
don't have to worry about it and have to turn it on manually. I already found
all the manuals and figured out the connections, just have not gotten around
to implementing it yet.

The 3 extension cords were a temporary workable solution, something I could
implement that day, when we run out of electricity for the first time. I had
the tools, and tested it with one cord, and 2 and 3, it worked well enough to
where I could sleep at night, not that you can really sleep at night with the
generator running, that thing is loud. :) Now, with more resources, and more
time to plan it out, I think I am going to make a more permanent solution. But
you know how what they say about temporary solutions: "There is nothing more
permanent then a temporary solution" :)

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ilaksh
Sounds awesome but I am wondering since you say you need 2,500 gallons of
water every month and a half, is there a way to save some water?

I always imagined an off-grid home making some minor sacrifices or adjustments
to be more conservative in water and energy usage.

Props for making the investment in the off-grid thing and actually doing it.

But this is far from my sort of ideal when I think of off-grid. Although easy
for me to talk when I take long showers and flush the toilet 4 or 5 times a
day.

The minimum you guys would need to survive would probably be like 3 gallons of
water per day right? So you're using like 1600 gallons per month, versus the
sort of 'ultra-conserve' minimum of no showers or toilet flushing etc. which
might be 100 gallons per month (I know no one does that, but if they only use
the bare minimum for drinking and cooking it is possible).

So question is, do you have low-flow toilets and showerheads? Have you
considered a composting toilet like Nature's Head or another one with peat or
wood shavings delivery?

Also as far as heating/cooling, that is probably the biggest energy usage. But
my understanding is construction techniques (earth-ship, 'passive house' etc.)
can reduce heating/cooling energy requirements by a massive amount, like 75%
or more.

To what degree is your house constructed using these energy saving techniques
(number of windows, window placement, thick/insulated walls, thermal mass,
airtight construction with heat recovery ventilator, etc.) and what percentage
of your energy usage goes to air conditioning?

Anyway congratulations on the conservation and efforts you are making for
sustainability.. its easy for me to be critical and compare it to some fantasy
idea I had.

~~~
x0054
OP Here: All of those are really good ideas. It's an experiment me and my wife
are living, I wouldn't claim we got everything right. We do use a fair bit of
water, it works out to ~35 gallons a day. Google claims that an average family
in US uses 300 gallons, just looked it up. So I guess we aren't doing too bad.

All of our water features are low flow, of course. There are a few
improvements which could really improve water usage. Our 2 biggest uses are
showers and the toilet. If we could collect the shower water, and use it as
gray water to flash with, it could be a good saving. We also wouldn't really
need to go to a composting toilet. For instance, our RV toilet uses tiny
amount of water to flash with, and it works just fine. Unfortunately, the way
this house was designed, it makes it very difficult (basically impossible) to
make plumbing changes. The entire house sits on a concrete slab, and all of
the plumbing pipes are cemented in. The best way to go is to start collecting
rain water, which just requires a big (2000 gallon or so) tank. We would need
to place it below the house level, in the canyon to the right of the house.
It's something we investigated, and intend to do as soon as we have the budget
for it.

Drilling a well would be an option, and I didn't want to give an impression
that we are not doing it simply because of the money. The other issue is that
all of our neighbors wells are drying out at the moment, and it's not clear
what's going to happen to them in a year.

As for the heating and cooling, this house is really good in that regard. The
walls are very thick, and very insulated. They are at least 80% thicker than
what I used to have in San Diego. The house maintains heat very well. In the
summer time we use a swamp cooler (another water using device). We do not have
an air conditioner. The swamp cooler does the trick by blowing outside air
through a water impregnated paper membrane. It's basically a huge humidifier.
Electrically it's very efficient, only using around 150-200 watts. It can
bring the temperature down by 15° - 20° F. We also have fans all over the
place. The roof top solar panels also add to the cooling of the house by
blocking some of the direct sunlight.

The house has lot's of windows, with wooden shutters to block out the sun. All
of the windows are double panel, insulated, with aluminum frames, so there
isn't much heat leaking out there. The doors do need upgrading however, and
that's what we are doing now.

I really love some of the ideas that I have seen when googling "earth-ship."
Thanks for the reference! In any way, it's an experiment in progress, we are
about 1 year into it. If we were designing this house from scratch, we would
have made different design decisions. Such as gray water system, 12V DC as a
secondary electrical system around the house, a rain water collection system,
permanently installed backup propane generator, a green house, etc. For now we
will work with what we have, and slowly upgrade some of these things, as
possible.

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imauld
> Even though we do live in the desert, it is the high desert, and to my
> surprise, it rains a LOT out here

Unless the climate has drastically changed since I was stationed in Twentynine
Palms (about an hour away), it barely ever rained there. And it rarely snowed,
it snowed one time in the 3.5 years I was there and it was quite a shock to
people that had been there for far longer than myself. It did hail fairly
often though even though it never stayed on the ground for very long (if at
all).

~~~
x0054
I have been to 29 Palms a few times, and the climate does differ quite a bit.
It doesn't rain in Yucca a lot of the time, only about 10 days a year, I would
say, but when it rains, it pores. Those pictures in the snow were taken in
Joshua Tree National Park, about 5-8 miles from 29 Palms. But I do have to say
that crossing into 29 Palms, you can feel the temperature going up. Not sure
why, maybe it's lower.

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adsche
As someone who does not enjoy city life: Congrats, awesome.

Why did you do it?

