Author Topic: Anyone here gone off-grid  (Read 5376 times)

force majeure

  • Stubble
  • **
  • Posts: 193
  • Age: 48
Anyone here gone off-grid
« on: December 09, 2021, 03:36:09 PM »
I mean cutting all utilities, and property tax.
It might attract the feds or internal revenue maybe.
Govt want people working, consuming, paying tax.
Thats the hamster wheel most people are on.

SailingOnASmallSailboat

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 695
  • Location: Somewhere where the water is at least 5 feet deep.
Re: Anyone here gone off-grid
« Reply #1 on: December 09, 2021, 05:11:12 PM »
How could you not pay property tax? Other than just er, not paying it. It's not like utilities, though, which you could conceivably figure out how to bypass. Except internet. That's not officially a utility but it IMO should be.

We're pretty much there on our sailboat. No property tax (legally), self-sufficient in terms of water and power and even sewer. Yep, we have to hit a dock every now and then to fuel up and get propane, pump out if we've not been offshore in a while. If we're at a dock, then we pay the dockage fees.

ixtap

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 4561
  • Age: 51
  • Location: SoCal
    • Our Sea Story
Re: Anyone here gone off-grid
« Reply #2 on: December 09, 2021, 10:54:45 PM »
Not sure why the feds would care, but your state probably would.

In many states, property taxes do apply to RVs and/or boats, but localities often have restrictions. It is getting harder and harder to live at anchor in many coastal states.

JoePublic3.14

  • Bristles
  • ***
  • Posts: 257
Re: Anyone here gone off-grid
« Reply #3 on: December 14, 2021, 08:47:48 AM »
How could you not pay property tax? Other than just er, not paying it. It's not like utilities, though, which you could conceivably figure out how to bypass. Except internet. That's not officially a utility but it IMO should be.

We're pretty much there on our sailboat. No property tax (legally), self-sufficient in terms of water and power and even sewer. Yep, we have to hit a dock every now and then to fuel up and get propane, pump out if we've not been offshore in a while. If we're at a dock, then we pay the dockage fees.

Semantics of course, but getting propane is pretty similar to paying a gas utility company. And dock fees…paying money to someone who uses part of it to pay property taxes is not unlike renting an apartment. And around and around the circle we go, since it is always possible to poke holes at things.

Full off grid is a pretty tough concept. A sailboat as you described is certainly way closer than most other things.

SailingOnASmallSailboat

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 695
  • Location: Somewhere where the water is at least 5 feet deep.
Re: Anyone here gone off-grid
« Reply #4 on: December 14, 2021, 08:54:59 AM »
Agreed that even on the boat we've got equivalents to many land-based utilities. If the idea of off-grid is "never having to pay someone else for basics", I'd argue that's hard to manage.

You said it best that "fully off-grid is a pretty tough concept."

And @ixtap - yes, property tax applies to boats and cars and RVs in a lot of states. There's also registration and documentation.

JoePublic3.14

  • Bristles
  • ***
  • Posts: 257
Re: Anyone here gone off-grid
« Reply #5 on: December 15, 2021, 09:54:32 AM »
Maybe a new term is needed. Something like optimally-gridded. In some instances that may mean a nice acreage with wind, solar, and a nice food source. In other instances, that might mean a high density apartment building within walking of work, community garden, and so on. But that pesky property tax tends to follow you.

The income tax angle would take a whole different thread…

affordablehousing

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 778
Re: Anyone here gone off-grid
« Reply #6 on: December 16, 2021, 10:47:24 PM »
You mean the movie "Leave No Trace?" That was interesting to see. The closest I can imagine coming to it is having a friend with land who lets you build a small hut and live there in exchange for a bit of property maintenance.

DoneFSO

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 80
Re: Anyone here gone off-grid
« Reply #7 on: December 18, 2021, 01:52:51 PM »
I have concluded that truly going off grid is impossible for the modern, 21st century American.  I went “off grid” for a year living in my RV, and I spent most of 2019-2020 in the desert in off grid communities.  I am not any sort of off grid expert, but I have spent periods of my life off grid.  In my opinion, it is difficult and expensive to go off grid if you want to “do it right,” i.e. to be comfortable with the results in the long run.  The upfront cost of solar, for example, is enormous, if done right, and doesn’t “pay for itself” for decades.  Electricity is much cheaper at the utility hookup.  One must also dispose of black water, i.e. toilet waste, in an environmentally-sound way (for one’s own health, as well as that of mother nature and – if you don’t care about her – her nominal guardians in the government).  This is a problem because most people who want to go off grid aren’t prepared to use outhouses every day, but they would also balk at the cost of an approved septic system (at least $30,000 where I live). 

Along the same vein, self-sufficiency in food is very difficult and hard to justify; there is little advantage in growing corn from seed, harvesting it, drying it, shucking it, shelling it, and grinding it when you can order a bag of high-quality cornmeal for a few bucks from Amazon and have it on your doorstep the next day.  I do believe that there is pride in doing it oneself… but really -- how much pride?  At some point, one will have spent an entire day shucking and shelling corn, all while realizing that a few bucks and a click would have cornmeal on one’s doorstep the next morning.  That is not to say that some level of self-sufficiency is not a good thing.  More on that in a moment, but true self-sufficiency is nearly impossible in this day and age.  More on that in a moment, as well.

The result of the above-mentioned difficulty and inefficiency in going off grid is that there are very few people living off grid in any meaningful way in American in the 21st century.  I think there are essentially two ways to successfully go off grid in America in the 21st century:  1) to grow up in a real off grid community (i.e., an Amish or Mennonite community), or 2) to do it “lite,” i.e. to grow your own garden crops, have a little solar, have a few animals, and to have a separate income stream (i.e. retirement, separate business, or job), but to not imagine that one can grow everything his family eats or that one can (cheaply and easily) power everything with the sun and avoid all government scrutiny and intervention… and certainly to not entertain the notion that a hobby-farm-sized homestead can generate income and food that will completely support a family. 

I am not sure if I am inclined to believe anyone claiming a third way -- especially if they are attempting to make it look easy and attractive for social media.  I am more inclined to believe the people attempting it in earnest but looking mighty sorry while doing it.  In the many cases I have read about, watched about, and observed in person with my own eyes, a lack of skills and funds mean many of those who attempt true self-sufficiency never even get set up correctly and thus suffer mightily from the get-go.  I have followed blogs of couples who bought land sight-unseen in Alaska and moved there with a few thousand dollars and a dream.  The blog always dies a few years later when the couple leaves Alaska, having nearly frozen to death two winters in a row because they could never gather enough wood or properly insulate their homes or find a way to efficiently bring water to the home every day, which meant they dragged ugly plastic water jugs from a lake every morning -- romantic for only the first two weeks of their off grid experiment – until by the end of the second winter, the chore of going out to break the ice and clear a path in the snow just to have water for the day broke their dream.

Consider the premise -- a couple goes off to Alaska to survive forever.  Or a couple buys land in Missouri and decides to try self-sufficiency on a three-acre plot nestled between two commercial farms.  Think of how ridiculous that is (once you get over the romanticism of the thing).  For one, no self-sufficient peoples in history were loners in that way.  Based on what I have understood, community is everything to self-sufficient populations.  The fact that going “off grid” and being “self-sufficient” have been mixed with some sort of 21st century individualist “seeker” ethos of folks trying to beat nature and themselves by hewing out their own self-sufficient bubble is like a bad sci-fi plot from a 1960’s dime store book.  There are many accounts in history where even someone who grew up in a self-sufficient community would be marked as a dead man walking if he had to be completely on his own.  Banishment was, at times, a kinder form of capital punishment.  It would have been damned hard for a young Iroquois couple who had grown up “self-sufficient” to survive a winter in New England in the 1700’s.  So even people like that would struggle alone.  A modern couple in 2021 attempting the same thing, with zero understanding of the forest, its animals, and its plants? 

This leads me back to the Amish.  I mention the Amish because I think it is important to acknowledge that there are indeed people living completely off grid, successfully and happily.  But they are not like us, at all, and that is deliberate; they even dress distinctively to emphasize this difference.  They are very conservative, very religious, and highly gender-segregated.  They are choosing to do things the hard way out of religious conviction.  They also have a substantial support network in the form of their communities, as well as experienced people who have been living that lifestyle for generations –communities being the key word.  These characteristics of their society seem to apply to all self-sufficient cultures of which I am aware; whether we are talking about the Amish, Mennonites, San bushmen in Africa, or tribes in Amazonia, we are talking about powerful communities, not groups of “individuals” as we understand the notion the developed West, and they all practice extreme conformism and rigid social hierarchies and gender segregation.  In other words, self-sufficiency and individualism are almost incompatible notions, in my view.  People survive in nature in community or they don’t survive.  We are not snakes or mountain lions. At least the evidence I have observed in nature and in the human societies I have visited has led me to that conclusion. 

We, as modern people in America in the 21st century -- trying to go off grid as adults with zero experience and no one with whom to form community -- are, in my opinion, doomed to failure.  But that is not to say that we cannot have a fulfilling, off grid “lite” lifestyle.  I think we just have to be realistic about the true cost of “doing it right” and the limitations of what we as individuals can do, physically and mentally. 

I think I would be happiest if I didn’t attempt complete self-sufficiency, but rather tried to integrate self-sufficiency and off grid principals into a life connected with society.  That means choosing to tie my fate to society, but I don’t think that is really avoidable or even necessarily a bad thing.  I have my problems with society, but I think I prefer it to any alternative.  Having a well and goats and chickens and a garden is incredibly appealing to me.

OP, I am aware that you might not have intended to encompass this sort of discussion in your questions, but you did -- in your concision -- provide the space for it.

Roland of Gilead

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 2454
Re: Anyone here gone off-grid
« Reply #8 on: December 18, 2021, 06:25:42 PM »
We lived in a homebuilt RV for about six months on some forest land we purchased (taxes were $28 a year for 30 acres because it was timber land).

I guess that is pretty close to off grid.  All of our electricity came from solar and we captured and filtered rain water.

But we still went to town to buy food and supplies, and we used a cell phone for sort of internet (didn't always get good reception)


I think it is a viable thing when you are younger, but as you get older and aches and pains abound, it doesn't seem to make sense.

joenorm

  • Stubble
  • **
  • Posts: 237
Re: Anyone here gone off-grid
« Reply #9 on: December 18, 2021, 06:57:48 PM »
I have concluded that truly going off grid is impossible for the modern, 21st century American.  I went “off grid” for a year living in my RV, and I spent most of 2019-2020 in the desert in off grid communities.  I am not any sort of off grid expert, but I have spent periods of my life off grid.  In my opinion, it is difficult and expensive to go off grid if you want to “do it right,” i.e. to be comfortable with the results in the long run.  The upfront cost of solar, for example, is enormous, if done right, and doesn’t “pay for itself” for decades.  Electricity is much cheaper at the utility hookup.  One must also dispose of black water, i.e. toilet waste, in an environmentally-sound way (for one’s own health, as well as that of mother nature and – if you don’t care about her – her nominal guardians in the government).  This is a problem because most people who want to go off grid aren’t prepared to use outhouses every day, but they would also balk at the cost of an approved septic system (at least $30,000 where I live). 

Along the same vein, self-sufficiency in food is very difficult and hard to justify; there is little advantage in growing corn from seed, harvesting it, drying it, shucking it, shelling it, and grinding it when you can order a bag of high-quality cornmeal for a few bucks from Amazon and have it on your doorstep the next day.  I do believe that there is pride in doing it oneself… but really -- how much pride?  At some point, one will have spent an entire day shucking and shelling corn, all while realizing that a few bucks and a click would have cornmeal on one’s doorstep the next morning.  That is not to say that some level of self-sufficiency is not a good thing.  More on that in a moment, but true self-sufficiency is nearly impossible in this day and age.  More on that in a moment, as well.

The result of the above-mentioned difficulty and inefficiency in going off grid is that there are very few people living off grid in any meaningful way in American in the 21st century.  I think there are essentially two ways to successfully go off grid in America in the 21st century:  1) to grow up in a real off grid community (i.e., an Amish or Mennonite community), or 2) to do it “lite,” i.e. to grow your own garden crops, have a little solar, have a few animals, and to have a separate income stream (i.e. retirement, separate business, or job), but to not imagine that one can grow everything his family eats or that one can (cheaply and easily) power everything with the sun and avoid all government scrutiny and intervention… and certainly to not entertain the notion that a hobby-farm-sized homestead can generate income and food that will completely support a family. 

I am not sure if I am inclined to believe anyone claiming a third way -- especially if they are attempting to make it look easy and attractive for social media.  I am more inclined to believe the people attempting it in earnest but looking mighty sorry while doing it.  In the many cases I have read about, watched about, and observed in person with my own eyes, a lack of skills and funds mean many of those who attempt true self-sufficiency never even get set up correctly and thus suffer mightily from the get-go.  I have followed blogs of couples who bought land sight-unseen in Alaska and moved there with a few thousand dollars and a dream.  The blog always dies a few years later when the couple leaves Alaska, having nearly frozen to death two winters in a row because they could never gather enough wood or properly insulate their homes or find a way to efficiently bring water to the home every day, which meant they dragged ugly plastic water jugs from a lake every morning -- romantic for only the first two weeks of their off grid experiment – until by the end of the second winter, the chore of going out to break the ice and clear a path in the snow just to have water for the day broke their dream.

Consider the premise -- a couple goes off to Alaska to survive forever.  Or a couple buys land in Missouri and decides to try self-sufficiency on a three-acre plot nestled between two commercial farms.  Think of how ridiculous that is (once you get over the romanticism of the thing).  For one, no self-sufficient peoples in history were loners in that way.  Based on what I have understood, community is everything to self-sufficient populations.  The fact that going “off grid” and being “self-sufficient” have been mixed with some sort of 21st century individualist “seeker” ethos of folks trying to beat nature and themselves by hewing out their own self-sufficient bubble is like a bad sci-fi plot from a 1960’s dime store book.  There are many accounts in history where even someone who grew up in a self-sufficient community would be marked as a dead man walking if he had to be completely on his own.  Banishment was, at times, a kinder form of capital punishment.  It would have been damned hard for a young Iroquois couple who had grown up “self-sufficient” to survive a winter in New England in the 1700’s.  So even people like that would struggle alone.  A modern couple in 2021 attempting the same thing, with zero understanding of the forest, its animals, and its plants? 

This leads me back to the Amish.  I mention the Amish because I think it is important to acknowledge that there are indeed people living completely off grid, successfully and happily.  But they are not like us, at all, and that is deliberate; they even dress distinctively to emphasize this difference.  They are very conservative, very religious, and highly gender-segregated.  They are choosing to do things the hard way out of religious conviction.  They also have a substantial support network in the form of their communities, as well as experienced people who have been living that lifestyle for generations –communities being the key word.  These characteristics of their society seem to apply to all self-sufficient cultures of which I am aware; whether we are talking about the Amish, Mennonites, San bushmen in Africa, or tribes in Amazonia, we are talking about powerful communities, not groups of “individuals” as we understand the notion the developed West, and they all practice extreme conformism and rigid social hierarchies and gender segregation.  In other words, self-sufficiency and individualism are almost incompatible notions, in my view.  People survive in nature in community or they don’t survive.  We are not snakes or mountain lions. At least the evidence I have observed in nature and in the human societies I have visited has led me to that conclusion. 

We, as modern people in America in the 21st century -- trying to go off grid as adults with zero experience and no one with whom to form community -- are, in my opinion, doomed to failure.  But that is not to say that we cannot have a fulfilling, off grid “lite” lifestyle.  I think we just have to be realistic about the true cost of “doing it right” and the limitations of what we as individuals can do, physically and mentally. 

I think I would be happiest if I didn’t attempt complete self-sufficiency, but rather tried to integrate self-sufficiency and off grid principals into a life connected with society.  That means choosing to tie my fate to society, but I don’t think that is really avoidable or even necessarily a bad thing.  I have my problems with society, but I think I prefer it to any alternative.  Having a well and goats and chickens and a garden is incredibly appealing to me.

OP, I am aware that you might not have intended to encompass this sort of discussion in your questions, but you did -- in your concision -- provide the space for it.

Well said and interesting read. Thanks for sharing.

Linea_Norway

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 8569
  • Location: Norway
Re: Anyone here gone off-grid
« Reply #10 on: December 19, 2021, 02:01:48 AM »
I mean cutting all utilities, and property tax.
It might attract the feds or internal revenue maybe.
Govt want people working, consuming, paying tax.
Thats the hamster wheel most people are on.

Still, those taxes are meant to be good for something. In my country cheap healthcare, cheap schooling, free libraries etc.
Living a life where you don't accept these goods, would mean you cannot get glasses when your eyes get bad, you cannot get advanced medical help. You might stroke at the first aggressive virus, without a vaccin.

But I think you can save utilities by not having public electricity. And save a lot of money on groceries by growing your own. By living in the smallest house, you won't pay much taxes. If you live frugally, you don't need a high income to make a living that way. Which gives you more time for your gardening and preservation of food.

BikeLover

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 35
Re: Anyone here gone off-grid
« Reply #11 on: December 19, 2021, 08:46:39 AM »
I agree with DoneFSO well written post, can however imagine three fairly different scenarios:

1. Complete self-sufficiency. This may be more or less possible (as long as you don't have medical conditions that require modern medicine to survive), but for the reasons DoneFSO points out, not a particularly desirable form of life. Here is an article of a family that lived entirely on its own for 40 years; the life they had sounds pretty unappealing.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-40-years-this-russian-family-was-cut-off-from-all-human-contact-unaware-of-world-war-ii-7354256/

2. Self-sufficiency for most matters -- offgrid "lite". Grow your own food, raise your own chickens, but go into the next town to purchase materials for repairs, clothes, maybe soap, salt, etc.

3. Complete self-sufficiency for a limited period, such as a few years (barring medical issues or the like). Most of the items that a single individual or small group needs but can't readily provide on its own, can be stocked up on.

I personally could imagine enjoying the third form, less sure about the second, and definitely wouldn't want to try the first, complete and permanent self-sufficiency.

maizefolk

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 7400
Re: Anyone here gone off-grid
« Reply #12 on: December 19, 2021, 09:11:10 AM »
Thank you @DoneFSO for a fascinating post.

One recommendation I'd make for people thinking about the feasibility of living totally removed from other humans is reading An Island to Oneself Tom Neale who lived alone on Suwarrow atoll for a number of multi-year periods. There are usually digital copies floating around the internet if you just search for the title.

I enjoyed reading it, his writing makes the appeal of living alone by ones one resourcefulness really clear, but his description of throwing his back out on an island while living alone and with no way to contact the outside world convinced me that as asocial as I sometimes feel I'm not cut out for the lifestyle.

Quote
I find it impossible to now describe how, or exactly why, I brought myself to make a final effort. I was horribly, almost petrifyingly aware of the desperate fix I was in. Here I was, virtually paralysed, two hundred miles away from the nearest human being. Nor was there any reason why a boat should unexpectedly call at Suvarov. Entirely alone, I would die on One Tree like a dog, gasping in the sun, unless I made some supreme effort to help myself. At this moment, it struck me I was probably likely to die anyway, but looking back at the moment now, I am sure that what fired me into agonising effort was not so much an instinctive sense of self-preservation, as a desperate craving to reach my shack. It was my only home and I had to reach it. And even if I were doomed to die in total isolation, at least it would be in my own bed.

BZB

  • Bristles
  • ***
  • Posts: 409
  • Location: Houston, Texas
Re: Anyone here gone off-grid
« Reply #13 on: December 19, 2021, 09:29:00 AM »
I haven't, but I agree with @DoneFSO that living in a community could make it more feasible. I will be moving into a cohousing community that will have some features you might have in "off-grid" living: geothermal heat pump and solar panels. However, this is in an urban setting and while I hope the features will save me some money in the long-term, I will definitely still be paying for utilities and taxes. I couldn't dream of going it alone to build those features on a single family property because I don't have the knowledge or money to do it myself. Architects designed it, and the cost is shared by the community. But in general, I'm not the right audience for OP's question - I'm not at all interested in living "off-grid". I like being able to go to a doctor, dentist and a grocery store, I like public transportation and bike lanes, and I like having law enforcement and regulations for food safety, medications and transportation, etc., so I pay the taxes for that. I dearly wish Texas didn't have an isolated energy grid to avoid regulation and repairs and would join the rest of the US so we don't have a repeat of what happened in February 2021, which could have been much, much worse.

FINate

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 3114
Re: Anyone here gone off-grid
« Reply #14 on: December 19, 2021, 09:52:24 AM »
I mean cutting all utilities, and property tax.
It might attract the feds or internal revenue maybe.
Govt want people working, consuming, paying tax.
Thats the hamster wheel most people are on.

Still, those taxes are meant to be good for something. In my country cheap healthcare, cheap schooling, free libraries etc.
Living a life where you don't accept these goods, would mean you cannot get glasses when your eyes get bad, you cannot get advanced medical help. You might stroke at the first aggressive virus, without a vaccin.

...

Many Americans want these things, but expect someone else to pay for it. My neighbors are lovely people, we get along very well, and they would describe themselves as liberal or left. Yet they are livid about paying their property tax. When I've pointed out that the money to pay for services has to come from somewhere, they respond that the "rich" should pay more... uh, we're in one of the richest neighborhoods in ID and their house is worth more than $1M. This is not a one-off example, I encounter it enough to believe it's a somewhat common attitude.

Paying taxes isn't my favorite thing, but it's necessary so ultimately I don't mind. What does bother me is when the money isn't used efficiently (hello CA High Speed Rail!) or the system is grossly unfair (e.g. CA Prop 13).

Finntastic

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 84
Re: Anyone here gone off-grid
« Reply #15 on: December 22, 2021, 03:23:55 AM »
Here is a short video of our off-grid house in Thailand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6A9z4J6x2k&t=1s

yachi

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1141
Re: Anyone here gone off-grid
« Reply #16 on: December 22, 2021, 06:43:49 AM »
One must also dispose of black water, i.e. toilet waste, in an environmentally-sound way (for one’s own health, as well as that of mother nature and – if you don’t care about her – her nominal guardians in the government).  This is a problem because most people who want to go off grid aren’t prepared to use outhouses every day, but they would also balk at the cost of an approved septic system (at least $30,000 where I live). 

You can't legally go putting a septic system on land you don't own either, so now you're talking property ownership with its corresponding taxes.  Some states require periodic septic system pumping, like every 3 years, so you're also signing up for a period expense.

DoneFSO

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 80
Re: Anyone here gone off-grid
« Reply #17 on: December 22, 2021, 08:02:39 AM »
Here is a short video of our off-grid house in Thailand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6A9z4J6x2k&t=1s

Fascinating video.  Thank you!  I like the cut of this Finnish man’s jib!  There isn’t any waste in his design, nor superfluous elements in his home or land.  Nothing looks cheap, and yet nothing looks excessive.  I am very impressed.

Did he say he lived there full-time?  He seemed to state that he is gone from the property for months at a time.  I noticed that he has a flush toilet in the home.  I assume it is pumped from the rainwater reservoirs, but where does the black water drain to?

I’d be interested also to know if he had to pay for any part of the road and property improvements prior to having a buildable plot, but even if he did, I believe his claim of $30k in total due to the remote location.  $10 a year in total cost of operation seems low to me; it may only cost him $10 a year to run the home as he currently uses it, but propane gas for heating and cooking would cost more than that for an entire year – as well as vehicle-related costs due to the location (gas and repairs in an area of hilly dirt roads).  He would almost certainly occasionally have to run a generator if he lived there full-time, too, I would think.  Lithium batteries are an excellent choice – and it was a shrewd and smart decision to get more panels on the roof and to rely on the ability of lithium to discharge lower and to charge faster – but he does not have a lot of capacity.  That much wattage on the roof, however, probably keeps the batteries full in all but sunless weather.  An interesting fellow and a beautiful property!
« Last Edit: December 22, 2021, 08:04:42 AM by DoneFSO »

Finntastic

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 84
Re: Anyone here gone off-grid
« Reply #18 on: December 26, 2021, 08:49:01 PM »
Here is a short video of our off-grid house in Thailand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6A9z4J6x2k&t=1s

Fascinating video.  Thank you!  I like the cut of this Finnish man’s jib!  There isn’t any waste in his design, nor superfluous elements in his home or land.  Nothing looks cheap, and yet nothing looks excessive.  I am very impressed.

Did he say he lived there full-time?  He seemed to state that he is gone from the property for months at a time.  I noticed that he has a flush toilet in the home.  I assume it is pumped from the rainwater reservoirs, but where does the black water drain to?

I’d be interested also to know if he had to pay for any part of the road and property improvements prior to having a buildable plot, but even if he did, I believe his claim of $30k in total due to the remote location.  $10 a year in total cost of operation seems low to me; it may only cost him $10 a year to run the home as he currently uses it, but propane gas for heating and cooking would cost more than that for an entire year – as well as vehicle-related costs due to the location (gas and repairs in an area of hilly dirt roads).  He would almost certainly occasionally have to run a generator if he lived there full-time, too, I would think.  Lithium batteries are an excellent choice – and it was a shrewd and smart decision to get more panels on the roof and to rely on the ability of lithium to discharge lower and to charge faster – but he does not have a lot of capacity.  That much wattage on the roof, however, probably keeps the batteries full in all but sunless weather.  An interesting fellow and a beautiful property!

Thanks you very much for your kind words and here's some answers to your questions.

Yes we live here full-time, as we both basicly just FIRE(d) so we don't have to go to any office to work. This was our holiday home for 6 years and 4 months ago we rented out our house in the city and moved to this cabin.

Regarding the toilet, we have septic tanks outside, the way it was built we should not need to empty it in 10 years or so, when it comes down to that we will figure it out as it would be tricky to get service car but perhaps not impossible as the locals are pretty used to shitty roads.

So we paid about 13k$ for the land and that included the bulldosed dirt road, we did pay another extra 3k$ later to concrete the steepiest bit of the road that is on our land and yes the land here was super cheap partly due to location but mainly because the access that just wasn't there, however I'm off-road enthusiast both dirt bikes and 4x4 so it wasn't a big issue for me.

Regarding the 10$/year, that is actually the cost of the gas, we do not heat nor cool the house and as we do mainly cold showers the gas is only for cooking. The bottle is 20kg bottle and that last us roughly a year. We also have airfried, blender and coffee machine but they only run with electricity. We don't have generator and no need for it either as the panels give a lot more energy than we need. I didn't involve the cost of car into the housing cost as it's not strictly living related and that for sure would pump the cost much higher, our car (Subaru Forester) actually cost more than the house.

Yeah the batteries are the weakest link of the system and if I would like to have AC at night I would have to add probably 2 more batteries and they are pricey over 1k$ each. As we live in sunny Thailand there isn't really sunless days, there are some foggy days but even those days we collect more than we use.


Cranky

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 3842
Re: Anyone here gone off-grid
« Reply #19 on: December 27, 2021, 05:35:26 AM »
I think it depends on your goal - do you want to be unfindable? Do you want to be completely out of the financial system?

I am going to dispute that the Amish are really off the grid, though. Having lived in an area with lots of Amish, they pay taxes, they buy propane, they run businesses, they pay people to drive them to work.

SotI

  • Bristles
  • ***
  • Posts: 340
Re: Anyone here gone off-grid
« Reply #20 on: December 27, 2021, 05:48:55 AM »
@Finntastic : great video/setup! Never been to Thailand, but currently looking at such options within Europe. I guess this rules out the pure solar setup (or looking at the mediterranean zone).

Also interesting comments by @DoneFSO - thanks for that perspective.

Highbeam

  • Stubble
  • **
  • Posts: 133
  • Location: Wet side of Washington
Re: Anyone here gone off-grid
« Reply #21 on: February 10, 2022, 04:27:03 PM »
I think it's reasonably easy to be off grid as in not connected to the actual grid with wires or pipes but we are all dependent on civilization for supplies. I also believe that this is what most people mean when they plan to live off-grid. Huge propane tank, genset, solar, well, travel to town for supplies, etc.

 

DoneFSO

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 80
Re: Anyone here gone off-grid
« Reply #22 on: March 22, 2022, 11:18:49 PM »
I recently visited Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts, and I was amazed to learn that in the late 18th century, villagers 100 miles from the coast were able to buy things like lemons, English tableware, and [salted and dried] ocean fish.  The world was connected enough at that point that you could buy tools, fruit, cookware, and fish from another country if your local general store had a catalogue from a Boston merchant. 

So it has been a long time since people have had to set off into the wilderness, completely independent of any manufactured or imported goods.  That wasn’t even the case in the late 18th century in America (at least for white settlers).  In this day and age, “off grid” means not being directly tied to a utility (the cutting of which would leave one immediately without power/water/etc.) and not necessarily being completely independent of manufactured goods -- a standard, as mentioned above, that has never applied to the post-independence United States, anyway.  I would therefore absolutely consider it “off grid” to have a solar array and batteries for electricity, a diesel generator to charge batteries in the winter and to run the A/C in the summer, a diesel water heater and vented heater (for backup heat), a wood stove, a propane tank for cooking and clothes-drying, and a well on the property. 

If you had 500 gallons of diesel stored on the property and another 250 gallons of propane, zombies could take over the rest of the country, and you could hunker down on your property for a year or longer.  That’s simplified, but if you were also able to grow much of your own food and had ample stores of long-lasting consumables and tools… well, you could be very self-sufficient for quite a long time indeed (again, as long as you were living in community with others… because if you were alone, all it would take is an incapacitating illness or injury to bring your off grid existence to an immediate end).

I am going to dispute that the Amish are really off the grid, though. Having lived in an area with lots of Amish, they pay taxes, they buy propane, they run businesses, they pay people to drive them to work.

The tie of the Amish to our modern “English” world strikes me as more of a toehold.  I think that they could give up telephones and car rides if the “English” society around them collapsed because the only reason they ever needed those things in the first place was to facilitate business with the “English.”  The risk to the Amish of a collapse of “English” society is not – in my opinion – the loss of revenue from selling cheese to tourists or building cabins, but rather the hell that would surely follow because the Amish, being pacifists, would be extremely vulnerable.

I have visited places in Afghanistan where, before the invasion in 2001, they hadn’t seen a “modern” person or a motorized vehicle since the time of the king, and I have visited places in Eastern Europe where people still traveled mainly by horse and buggy.  Like the Amish, they had phones and electricity and regular access to motorized transportation for trips to the city, but they were fundamentally pastoralists, and there were many older people in their communities who still knew how to live without modern conveniences.  In many of those communities, I believe they would simply adapt -- and perhaps quickly -- to the removal of modern conveniences like automobiles and telephones.