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Originally Posted by kmb501
... I guess another part of me just likes the challenge. I feel like I know ways around not having working utilities. It makes life a little more interesting, but it's like camping, really. I guess I just like the thrill of saving money and being self-sufficient.
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I completely get what you're talking about. There's something insanely intriguing about "roughing" it, meeting a need in a non-conventional way with only salvage material and creativity.
Here's my 1 year experience living off grid in northwest Arkansas. I was on property that backed right up to a huge national forest. So every night I heard coyotes and other night creatures. It fit my need for a feeling of seclusion and a life outside of mainstream society.
It cost me about $8,000 (approximately) to get set up (the land wasn't mine, belonged to a friend). I bought a 1988 32ft camper that had a propane water heater and stove. I had no fridge. There was a well on the property and I used 2 100ft hoses to pipe the water to my camper. The well pump was 12v. It was powered by a 100 amp battery that was charged by a 50 watt solar panel.
In the camper I had a 200 amp battery that was charged by two 40 watt panels. I had a small charge controller that controlled the way the energy went into the battery, and a 95 watt pocket inverter to charge my laptop with.
I had no TV. My lights were car dome lights that we wired into off on switch, and the lights were wired into the charge controller.
My solar panels were wired up to be a 24v 40 watt system, and that was enough power to run my phone signal booster full time, charge my laptop once every 2 days, and run my lights.
I didn't have a septic tank. I used a saw dust toilet. I didn't drink the water from the well (I didn't trust it) so I went 2 miles down the road where an underground spring came up through the ground and I filled up jugs from that for my drinking and cooking water. Someone had attached a pvc pipe so that the water was easy to use. That water was the best water I've ever tasted.
It was like full time camping... only with a deeper meaning. Not being dependent on a utility company was freeing, it felt like I had a measure of control over my existence. Plus being so close to nature (I mean close, when you wake up because something's crawling on your arm, nature is as close as it can get) made me feel more in tune with my own spirit. Being away from society made me feel less influenced by the pressure of society to live according to the set standard. I was more in touch with me.
The nearest towns were about 30 minutes away and both of them were only about 4,000 people. Jobs weren't easy to find. Gas was a huge consideration living out there. You couldn't be in town with an 8th of a tank, and decide to go on home without getting gas. You had to make sure you had enough gas to get home, and then get back to town.
And living in the woods like that... I didn't crave all kinds of crappy food. I ate less and was satisfied. I made healthier food choices naturally. I think stress living in town makes me crave junk more. Plus constantly watching tv with food commercials... Living closer to nature, my focus was on other things rather than my next gorging meal. I didn't go rummage through the kitchen out of boredom or stress.
People will talk about septic tanks and needing a bunch of solar power... But it was very satisfying to me to live with the bare minimum. I didn't miss any of the comforts of an off grid home. Except refrigeration and temperature control at the moving of a switch. Well sometimes I missed a blow dryer.
The whole downfall, the reason I don't live there any more, is the lack of adequate cheap heat for the camper. If you're living in a cold atmosphere, and you don't have a 4 season camper with good insulation, and if you're not going to be able to put skirting on it, or find a way to add extra insulating to the roof or ceiling, you are going to pay out more trying to heat it than you would if you were in a cabin.
I lived in 256 sq ft of what felt like a cardboard container. There was rotting from previous leaking, and the windows didn't quite seal good, and I had no skirting and didn't know how to attach any. Last winter I went through at least 1 20lb propane tank a week. Doesn't sound bad right? It's not. Except that I used my heat so sparingly that it was a real hardship.
I kept the bathroom sliding door shut so I could try to heat only the bedroom and bathroom. I didn't run the heat at night. At night sleeping, I had 3 blankets over the top of me, and 3 under. Inside the blankets with me, and had a 45lb dog on either side. At night, I couldn't leave arms or my head out from under the blankets. In the mornings, my bedroom temp was anywhere from 30 to 40 degrees. It was about 10 degrees less than that in the front room. Water in bowls froze over night. My kitchen was just as cold inside as it was outside. I kept 2 layers of clothes and along with a coat and a hat most of the time.
I ran the heater for about 4 hours in the morning and 4 hours at night. (Luckily my camper was sitting straight out in the sun, and that area of Arkansas got really nice most days, up to 50 to 70 degrees.) But I felt like I never got toasty warm unless I went in my car and sat in it with the heat going. I was so used to being cold that when it was 50 degrees outside, I felt like it was 65. (The body really does learn to generate a little heat.)
When I did have the heater on, the warmest spot only, was sitting right in front of it. You could feel the heat radiating off it, the front of your body could get almost too hot, but then you stick your arm out, and your hand would hit chilly air. Needless to say showering was a *****. I hate to freeze with wet hair.
If I had gotten a second heater and ran them both enough to be toasty, I'm sure my propane cost would have been around $300 a month. THAT is not the cheaper way of living I was looking for.
In the spring, we moved the camper to a spot under trees. The temperature under trees is SO much cooler in the summer. But still it got hot in the camper because it did get sun beating on it during part of the afternoon.
Someone mentioned mold... The humidity was so high where I was, that in the summer, my pillow case was actually damp at night from absorbing water from the air. And in the winter, propane heaters add moisture to the air.
In my case, since my camper leaked, and I could just go tear out walls, I know I had mold growing in there.
For keeping cool in the summer, a swamp heater works in drier atmosphere's but not so much in humidity.
With a cabin, you have much better chance to have a little comfort temperature-wise. You can install a wood burning stove, (dries the air too), or a rocket mass heater (WAY efficient in use, but it takes a little labor to set up). Also you can use a little extra insulation. Plus I'd think if you have it made, you'd have a little more control over where you want your plumbing to go. With a camper if you have a gas or water leak (and I did), they can be in a tight spot to get to.
I was fine with washing clothes by hand except that the area was kind of high humidity and it took a long time for clothes to dry. So I ended up using a laundry mat.
Not having a fridge was a real pain. In the summer, in a 5 day cooler, my ice didn't last longer than 3 days. Even on the 3rd day I would have wondered if the meat was staying good. You couldn't cook up a whole big bunch of food to eat off for days unless you wanted to go into town every 3 days for ice.
An idea of keeping veggies cool would be to dig a hole in the ground, and put something in it to hold food. You might get the temp to stay about 60 degrees. But for meat (45 degrees)... either have a propane fridge (which there again you're dependent on propane), or have about 365 watts of solar power you can run a freezer off of. That was you could cycle frozen water between the cooler and the freezer.
I didn't mind using propane for my stove and water heater, but it might have been more efficient to have an on demand water heater. It took (in the winter) 1.5 hours for my water heater to heat my water. It was a waste to have my water heater running all the time (in the winter) because at nights I had to empty all the lines and turn off the pump. I think my tank for hot water held 3 gallons, not sure... so if I took a shower, washed some dishes, I could get done mostly before the new cold well water filled the tank, if I hurried really fast.
One way of having better temperatures cheaper is to build something that's partway in the ground, like an earthship. This way you can have average inside temps of 65 degrees even if the outside temp is 20, and 75 degrees or less inside in the summer even if the outside temp is 95.
Also with an earth ship, having a greenhouse that stays relatively warm means year round fresh veggies. To me that means that I wouldn't have to try to get a bunch of stuff grown and canned in the summer to last out the winter because some types of greens/fruits could be grown in the winter. I love the idea of a greenhouse going all year round, and they sometimes use fish water (have a tank with living fish) to water the greenhouse plants. Earthships are extremely efficient with rain water usage too.
A little about passive heat, a friend of mine made one that put out 140 degrees after being in the sun for about 40 minutes. During the day, it's awesome, but unless you can figure out a way to store that heat and have it radiate through the night, you're still stuck at night using some kind of fuel (unless you have an earthship - which can be made comparatively cheaply, but is labor intensive.)
I had to move in with my sister in GA because I couldn't handle another brutal winter, and I didn't have any help getting the camper winterized. (ps: don't consider putting a small wood burning stove in a camper unless you're hyper diligent about covering all the safety aspects. A camper can burn down completely in under 7 minutes in the right conditions.)
I miss living with the bugs. It's where I belong and I'm going to find a way to get back to it.
Also there's a lot to think about when you're buying land. You can make do with land that doesn't hae a well if it has some underground springs, or if the area gets so much rain that water catchment and filtration systems could be used. For me, I'd love land that's close to a reserve or forest... wild edibles (if the critters hadn't got to them) can be found. Wild garlic tastes great. Also think about how close to crops you'll be and try to decide if your soil will have a lot of pesticides from the neighboring properties.
Sorry this is so long, but I just wanted to give you the realistic view of my experience. There's a lot of levels of off-grid and mine was pretty minimal. It didn't take a lot of money to live that way, or to set up, but there were some issues that needed fixed. It's very doable, and the issues I had could be easily fixed with a little help in labor or a little extra cash.
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