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Actually it means not relying on "the man" for your electricity, water and other daily requirements
Quote:
Originally Posted by Linda_d
Which is a fantasy. Do you grow all your own food? Raise all the animals needed to produce fibers for clothing, then spin it into thread and weave it into fabric before finally sewing your own clothes? Do you produce your own leather, tan it, and then make your own footwear? Do you mine your own metals, process them, and turn them into tools? Moreover, will you produce your own computer/smart phone/internet so that you won't have to rely on "the man" for your daily shot of Twitter?
Linda_d, I think you are mistaken. When someone is on a water utility they are paying for the water that enters their house everyday, same thing with electricity. They are true daily requirements from a purchasing POV. I may get billed by the electric or water utility monthly but I am incurring the purchased cost of the water or electricity daily.
Like Annuvin says above, I am also in the early stages of finding alternatives to help ween myself off of these shared systems.
You seem to be confusing daily purchasing with daily use. I don't purchase food everyday. I eat food everyday but I only purchase it weekly at most. I don't purchase clothing everyday. I wear it everyday but I only require new clothing items a handful of times per year. Most of my clothing items provide months or even years of use. Same thing with shoes, I wear them almost every day but I only purchase at most one pair a year. I alternate several pairs depending on my activities that day (athletics versus a day at the office versus yardwork versus a casual activity) and I receive multiple years of use from most of my footwear. Same thing with tools and electronics. I don't purchase them daily like water or electricity and most of them give me years of intensive use.
It's so eerie. I posted last night about my great grandpa, and how he lives slightly isolated and takes care of himself, and how he nearly died of a heart attack over 10 years ago, and today I found out he died this morning of a heart attack near the pig pen, while doing farm work.
I know some people with off grid second homes. Beautiful locations, but expensive, a lot of work to maintain, and weather can totally isolate you. To die for views.
It can be more work then most people want seeing that we want to possibly do a community to help & carry the load as much like a village would do. It might sound nuts to some but to work together for ( for us anyhow) is the way to go. I see many people going this route as well even homeschooling & passing trades down to their children. If the world ever goes to pot they might be the key to getting it right next time.
Dozens of people will offer dozens of opinions. If you want to be thoroughly confused, ask a question on an internet forum. I think some posters just want to irritate other posters via direct confrontation and absolute disagreements.
I live off the grid. The grid is the utility infrastructure found in cities and extending outwards a finite amount. The grid includes water, sewer, power, and often gas. People that are off the grid either have a well, a cistern (to hold water), or a tough time with water. They have their own septic system or an outhouse type arrangement. They make their own power via solar or wind or extensive use of a generator. They tend to use wood or propane for heat. Many simply learn to live in a cold environment when the days are short and dark. It is a more difficult life to be sure. It also costs a substantial amount to get set up unless you plan on roughing it. The air is much cleaner. Noise pollution is usually far lower. Fewer neighbors to turn you in for letting your kids out of the house. Well water may be better, it may be worse. Good paying jobs are very hard to come by outside of the larger cities. Cell phone service is often very poor at best. Same with internet service. Trips to town can be somewhat expensive and small town stores are quite likely to be out of what you just spent 1/2 day trying to get. UPS/Fed Ex may act like they are trying to find Mars.
The post office services have often been shut down so we can transfer more wealth to the rich and eventually privatize the post office for our next billionaires.
If the grid goes down due to the "perfect" solar flare, city dwellers can kiss their ass good-bye. Some country/off grid folks may have a chance. Solar flares have and will continue to hit civilization. Study the 1859 Carrington Event: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859
....................Good paying jobs are very hard to come by outside of the larger cities. Cell phone service is often very poor at best. Same with internet service. Trips to town can be somewhat expensive and small town stores are quite likely to be out of what you just spent 1/2 day trying to get. UPS/Fed Ex may act like they are trying to find Mars..................
The post office services have often been shut down so we can transfer more wealth to the rich and eventually privatize the post office for our next billionaires. If the grid goes down due to the "perfect" solar flare, city dwellers can kiss their ass good-bye. Some country/off grid folks may have a chance. Solar flares have and will continue to hit civilization. Study the 1859 Carrington Event: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859
Everything is a trade-off.
On your first point. Yes, jobs are hard to come by.....unless you have a profession that can be practiced in rural areas. Then you are miles ahead of any urban resident.
Got 4 bars on my cell service. Fiber optic lines to my house for telephone, internet, and cable TV.
Stores...? What do you NEED that you can't get at a Super Wal-Mart. Amazon delivers in a day, if you don't like WalMart.
but............................................... ..........................my real question....and it is serious..................GIVEN a Carrington EVENT....will your inverter and solar system stay up??
Don't know. Depends on many variables. It is very expensive to prepare for virtually all possibilities...
The point is that many country folks may have a chance. The cities would be hellish without power.
Perfect solar flare may not happen for hundreds of years. But it is our greatest threat in my estimation.
That and an 18 trillion dollar debt with Evil Town DC thinking that money grows on trees.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 509
On your first point. Yes, jobs are hard to come by.....unless you have a profession that can be practiced in rural areas. Then you are miles ahead of any urban resident.
Got 4 bars on my cell service. Fiber optic lines to my house for telephone, internet, and cable TV.
Stores...? What do you NEED that you can't get at a Super Wal-Mart. Amazon delivers in a day, if you don't like WalMart.
but............................................... ..........................my real question....and it is serious..................GIVEN a Carrington EVENT....will your inverter and solar system stay up??
but............................................... ..........................my real question....and it is serious..................GIVEN a Carrington EVENT....will your inverter and solar system stay up??
It is generally thought that home systems will survive okay.
It takes many miles of wire to induct the current from such an event to be able to blow-up transformers and circuitry. The nation-wide grid is extremely susceptible to such an event due to the quantity of wire strung out over many miles.
When Sandy hit Jersey, a lot of my friends and family probably wished they were off the grid. One of my friends didn't have power for 2 weeks. She's been talking about getting solar panels ever since.
If power is all that they needed, wouldn’t a $500 gas generator been enough? After Sandy I had the house wired for generator hook up. Been waiting ever since to use it for the first time.
Test it....some found their gensets didn't work. Modern gensets are generally built to last 500 hours....
A lot of reasons that I kind of dropped out of modern living.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyRider
If power is all that they needed, wouldn’t a $500 gas generator been enough? After Sandy I had the house wired for generator hook up. Been waiting ever since to use it for the first time.
If power is all that they needed, wouldn’t a $500 gas generator been enough? After Sandy I had the house wired for generator hook up. Been waiting ever since to use it for the first time.
Around here, every home has a generator. Most homes use two generators. They will have one large generator and one small generator.
The big one can power every thing, the small one can only power lighting and PCs.
For one hour each day, they run the big generator. With the well pump going the toilet gets flushed a few times, laundry is done and showers are taken. The chest freezers and refrigerator run to keep their temps down. During that one hour that big generator will consume a gallon of fuel.
Then they shift to the small generator, with it you still have lighting and everyone can go online to communicate and to watch movies, etc. But the small generator will only consume one gallon of fuel every 8 hours.
One of my neighbors has a store-front, that he has setup with a big automatic generator. He typically consumes $100 to $150 of generator fuel every month.
He was telling me that we had a power outage 2 weeks that included some big surges. Before his generator triggered to start-up, the surges from the grid fried a half dozen CFL light-bulbs, three power-strips and his home stereo. Once his generator kicks-in everything is fine, but during the 5-second time delay the surges knocked out a lot of his stuff.
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