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Living off-grid is almost a job by itself. You are responsible for maintaining all the systems that provide you with creature comforts. You want to watch a show or just listen to the radio in the winter after dark? Better have a good battery bank ready or you'll have to fire up a generator. The generator sort of defeats the green living idea.
What about sewer? Get ready to dig and put in a septic and that isn't free either. Water? Dig your well and find out it has high iron and other things in it and now you are into filters and treatments to make it usable for many things.
Then comes income. Nice if you have a steady source that doesn't require you to maintain a commute of any length because otherwise you're going to be close to higher density population centers and with that come codes.
A tiny house doesn't really save much money compared to a well designed home much larger. Once a house is well insulated, retaining heat and effecting cooling is about the same no matter what you're living in. Furthermore, tiny houses are just that, tiny. That means you're probably going to need storage sheds to keep those things you'd usually have in the home. Now you're going outside every time you need something not in the tiny space of the tiny house.
Some people can adapt and are comfortable in a small space for extended period when bad weather hits. Great but eventually, you get tired of it and want to be able to just walk around inside the house, because for no other reason than perhaps bad weather or you don't want to sit at one table all the time, the same table you eat at, do paperwork at, read a book at and so on.
Many of the systems you will need to live in a tiny home in more than a long term camping out style will end up costing the same or even more than what it costs to put those same things into a house twice or even three times the size.
You're still going to need a vacuum cleaner unless you do the dirt floor thing. Even if you do wood floors, you can do that in any house too. Then comes the food disposal. You won't use one but will compost? Okay, you can do that in any house too.
Basically, you are giving up space and not really getting too much for the loss. The costs aren't that much lower that you can't go up to about 600 sq/ft and even more for about the same money. The design and engineering should be the same for both homes, you build stairs a certain way for safety, not because one house is smaller or bigger than another.
If you get insects, mice or rats, they won't care that you are in a tiny house, they like small and bigger houses just the same.
Mold, wood rot and all the bad things that can happen in the larger house can happen in a tiny house too. The difference is that if you have a problem in the tiny house, you have no other room to go into unless you consider a tent another room.
Then we have guests. Do they bring their sleeping bags and a cot or do they sleep in one of the storage sheds?
That said, tiny houses can work, lot of people live in them and many thousands upon thousands live in RVs that are small too but it isn't the answer to some global problem. Tiny house living isn't going to save the planet from anything.
Living off-grid is almost a job by itself. You are responsible for maintaining all the systems that provide you with creature comforts. You want to watch a show or just listen to the radio in the winter after dark? Better have a good battery bank ready or you'll have to fire up a generator. The generator sort of defeats the green living idea.
What about sewer? Get ready to dig and put in a septic and that isn't free either. Water? Dig your well and find out it has high iron and other things in it and now you are into filters and treatments to make it usable for many things.
Wells and septic systems are not unique to off-grid living.
I have a well and septic system, yet I am still on-grid [for now].
'Treatment' is only needed for a minority of wells.
Quote:
... A tiny house doesn't really save much money compared to a well designed home much larger. Once a house is well insulated, retaining heat and effecting cooling is about the same no matter what you're living in. Furthermore, tiny houses are just that, tiny. That means you're probably going to need storage sheds to keep those things you'd usually have in the home. Now you're going outside every time you need something not in the tiny space of the tiny house.
I agree.
Quote:
... That said, tiny houses can work, lot of people live in them and many thousands upon thousands live in RVs that are small too but it isn't the answer to some global problem. Tiny house living isn't going to save the planet from anything.
Living off-grid is almost a job by itself. You are responsible for maintaining all the systems that provide you with creature comforts. You want to watch a show or just listen to the radio in the winter after dark? Better have a good battery bank ready or you'll have to fire up a generator. The generator sort of defeats the green living idea.
What about sewer? Get ready to dig and put in a septic and that isn't free either. Water? Dig your well and find out it has high iron and other things in it and now you are into filters and treatments to make it usable for many things.
Then comes income. Nice if you have a steady source that doesn't require you to maintain a commute of any length because otherwise you're going to be close to higher density population centers and with that come codes.
A tiny house doesn't really save much money compared to a well designed home much larger. Once a house is well insulated, retaining heat and effecting cooling is about the same no matter what you're living in. Furthermore, tiny houses are just that, tiny. That means you're probably going to need storage sheds to keep those things you'd usually have in the home. Now you're going outside every time you need something not in the tiny space of the tiny house.
Some people can adapt and are comfortable in a small space for extended period when bad weather hits. Great but eventually, you get tired of it and want to be able to just walk around inside the house, because for no other reason than perhaps bad weather or you don't want to sit at one table all the time, the same table you eat at, do paperwork at, read a book at and so on.
Many of the systems you will need to live in a tiny home in more than a long term camping out style will end up costing the same or even more than what it costs to put those same things into a house twice or even three times the size.
You're still going to need a vacuum cleaner unless you do the dirt floor thing. Even if you do wood floors, you can do that in any house too. Then comes the food disposal. You won't use one but will compost? Okay, you can do that in any house too.
Basically, you are giving up space and not really getting too much for the loss. The costs aren't that much lower that you can't go up to about 600 sq/ft and even more for about the same money. The design and engineering should be the same for both homes, you build stairs a certain way for safety, not because one house is smaller or bigger than another.
If you get insects, mice or rats, they won't care that you are in a tiny house, they like small and bigger houses just the same.
Mold, wood rot and all the bad things that can happen in the larger house can happen in a tiny house too. The difference is that if you have a problem in the tiny house, you have no other room to go into unless you consider a tent another room.
Then we have guests. Do they bring their sleeping bags and a cot or do they sleep in one of the storage sheds?
That said, tiny houses can work, lot of people live in them and many thousands upon thousands live in RVs that are small too but it isn't the answer to some global problem. Tiny house living isn't going to save the planet from anything.
I could handle 600 sf, just a hundred smaller than what I have right now. I'd want a good storage building, where I could find things rather than have them piled, but thats what I use for the larger bedroom except its piled at the moment. The tiny ones? I can see for a visit, but not living. A 600 sf house isn't that large, but you have space to move.
I think it would be of a benefit to the world if people went back to the 600 to 8OO sf houses of yesteryear and made the big ones multi family. You'd still have enough space to take a walk and there could be a storage for those things people pile in the basement or attic or garage for later uses and seasonal reasons. But while they look neat, I'd suggest borrowing a camper and living in it for a while before building a tinyhouse lest you find the walls can indeed close in on you.
But if its yours, there is still this sense of home. When I was renting rooms, with barely any space on the floor with my stuff, it still felt like *home* when I came in the door and shut it. But just the same, when they had someone move out of the big room I was happy to move.
600sqft is considered HUGE in NYC by the way. A lot of people live with 2-4 people in such a space! It's not claustrophobic if you know how to be highly organized, and all of your furniture is convertible or offers multiple functions in one - no chair, bed, or bathtub should ever not double as storage, for instance. Murphy beds. Stove/table. Stuff like that. If you spend most of your time outdoors or at work, which is what most people in small spaces do, it's not really that noticeable. Unless of course one has an actual severe phobia.
Many people here seem not to know very much about off-grid living. Depending on where you set up, you may never need electric, sewer, septic, or water. You can buy a composting toilet, and as long as you know what you are doing and get a good one, that is plenty. [Never, ever, ever use the remnants of a composting toilet for gardening. Human waste needs to be buried underneath the ground because it can contain bacteria, pathogens, and viruses that can get into plants and the local water sources and hurt or kill a whole bunch of people or other living things! No joke, this is not safe unless you have the knowledge of a sewage treatment expert. So get ready to do a lot of digging just to be safe.] For water, you may be able to use rain catchment and water treatment/distillation methods - in a hot climate, you can use sun distillation, but in a cold climate you'll need filtration/distiller, which can get expensive. You may also need to employ things like organic mosquito dunks to keep the water collection free of disease-spreading critters, purification tablets, or special filters to prevent disease - all the more so if you try to use local ground water. A sunny climate can provide plenty of solar power, or you might be able to use wind power - but you need the money for panels or a generator. Water power is even possible if you're next to a powerful stream. Usually when you combine all these things, you can get all that you need to survive. Apparently the person who mentioned a vacuum as a necessity forget about the miraculous inventions of the broom and mop! Wow... Somehow people survived for thousands of years without vacuums existing...*roll eyes*
Living off grid is not for the unknowledgeable. You need to be an expert in survival, and in the systems you are using. You also need to know local law - living in a friend's yard in a shed-like structure is illegal in most towns, and neighbors might report you and your friend for code violations. But in some places it's allowed. It might also be dangerous if the area is prone to flooding or any type of severe storm. Building codes are there for a very good reason - they prevent thousands, if not millions, of deaths.
One thing that can be a major concern in off-grid living, if not living in the desert, is mold. Without standard heating and A/C, which are hard to accomplish with something like a solar generator, moisture has a tendency to collect in corners - especially of a small home not built to any kind of code - and breathing that in can make one severely and chronically ill. So you have to be really careful to scrub down surfaces like walls, ceilings, and floor corners, and especially any type of bathroom/shower area if you have one, with something like a white vinegar solution regularly to try to prevent mold from growing. You don't always see it or smell it before it becomes a hazard to your health. If your home does not have insulation, this will be even more important, because anyone who has stayed in a tent will know how the condensation builds up from the difference in temps between inside and outside... a house without insulation and without the drying systems of heat and A/C will have this happen almost every night.
This is not an impossible dream, but one needs some start-up capital, and a lot of research to make sure one does not accidentally put oneself in danger!
And a note, for those considering living totally off-grid including food production, farming is crazy hard and can get kind of expensive! You can lose all your crops that you put months into with a single pest wipe-out, and before you even identified what the pest is you're completely out of food. It is a lot harder than I pictured it to be before I tried to rely on it!
Many towns have existing small WWII era homes of 600 sq ft or so. In many cases they are very affordable and easy to maintain. In fact many will cost less than many of the tiny portable homes.
Thanks for the replies. Although I'm not a survival expert, I do know a thing or two about camping and country living. I did pretty well in an RV parked on a neighbor's land while I was in college, and before I moved into the RV, I lived for a few months in a mobile home that was not hooked up to any utilities. Years before I did that I went camping on a ranch with my dad for two weeks and had a really great time. We only had a large tent and some blow-up mattresses; we lived quite happily. Dad even managed to rig up a solar shower. Later, we upgraded to a school bus, put in bunk beds, and stayed another six months. We used a cheap composting system, well water, and a solar shower for several months before we got anything officially installed, and we still found ways to enjoy creature comforts like computers and satellite TV.
I wish it were easier to find and afford unrestricted land around here and that everyone wasn't so squeamish about non-traditional green living. With all of the rain down here, I wouldn't need a well; I could just set up rain collection barrels and use that for cooking, cleaning, and watering plants. I could install a small dry septic system / composter for about the cost of installing an above-ground swimming pool and use that to store, process, and dispose of organic waste (or if I really wanted to go the cheapskate route, I could make my own out of wood litter and a large bucket with a lid). If they allowed burning, I wouldn't have to worry about paying for waste collection services. I could also either generate electricity using solar and wind (the systems are expensive if individuals purchase them, but if the whole neighborhood / community used them to produce electricity and rationed their electricity consumption, it could save money. There might even be a way to charge a battery off of lightning strikes, since thunderstorms are a normal occurrence around here.) or I could just use systems that don't require electricity or require very little electricity. Someone should start a community with no zoning or land restrictions whatsoever for the purpose of helping people save money and practice their green living skills! Right now, if I tried this stuff I would most likely be putting myself in danger of getting fines, even though it's not at all a threat to health and safety.
BTW, you still have people responding to you on your thread about wanting to move to NYC, it would be polite to tell them you're not coming back. It's quite a leap to want to move to NYC one week, and live off the grid in a tiny home in nowhereland the next.I don't want to embarrass you, but you flit around from one extreme and unrealistic idea to the other 10x a week, but you ignore the doable things people advise you to try to improve your life in favor of fantasy solutions. I say this because I feel for you, but again, IMO you need real guidance, fro professionals, you do not understand the way the world works enough to make decisions on your own, said out of care and concern.
Just a bit judgmental..... OP's waying options, young and not tied to anyone or place. I agree though, either require planning and ability to live in a small space and some start up money. One with career possibilities in a fabulous city with roommates, or settling for lower wages in economical housing.
Making use of an education isn't unrealistic nor a fantasy. Apparently, you've never been to NYC, nothing else like it.
Just a bit judgmental..... OP's waying options, young and not tied to anyone or place. I agree though, either require planning and ability to live in a small space and some start up money. One with career possibilities in a fabulous city with roommates, or settling for lower wages in economical housing.
Making use of an education isn't unrealistic nor a fantasy. Apparently, you've never been to NYC, nothing else like it.
Right!
It's not unrealistic. I'm still thinking about visiting, maybe even moving to NYC, but I want to have a place I can retreat to if any of my plans don't go as expected. A nice off-grid haven where I don't have to worry about expenses and can just enjoy nature and make more plans would give me many more options. Finding a place like that close to NYC, now that would be a dream.
It's not unrealistic. I'm still thinking about visiting, maybe even moving to NYC, but I want to have a place I can retreat to if any of my plans don't go as expected. A nice off-grid haven where I don't have to worry about expenses and can just enjoy nature and make more plans would give me many more options. Finding a place like that close to NYC, now that would be a dream.
Nothing wrong with that, live your dream. NYC is quite an experience. Even if you decide at a latter time its not for you, nothing that can't be corrected. People there rent out their homes and apartments for a week, for less than a days hotel accommodations.
It's not unrealistic. I'm still thinking about visiting, maybe even moving to NYC, but I want to have a place I can retreat to if any of my plans don't go as expected. A nice off-grid haven where I don't have to worry about expenses and can just enjoy nature and make more plans would give me many more options. Finding a place like that close to NYC, now that would be a dream.
I have owned four homes before this one, and my career had me transferring a lot. Often to places for only short periods of time so really settling in was not always possible.
One of the observations I have made has been that Cost-Of-Living and the crime experience commonly go up with population-density.
Crime is often indexed by population. You may think that one murder per 100,000 people is not bad. But if that 100,000 equals every city block, then it means right where you live. Or if that 100,000 people means the area of four counties, then how you experience the crime is entirely different.
Cost-Of-Living and how you experience crime tend to go way down as you shift more rural.
Things like 'self-sufficiency' and 'economic independence' are a lot easier to achieve in rural locations, far removed from cities.
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