Are you thinking about moving “off grid”? Dreaming of escaping the city to live a more fulfilling life growing your own food? Perhaps you even imagine this life will be less expensive, less stressful and above all, more free than the life you live now. Perhaps you are right – The answer lies in how ready you really are to go off grid.
Hi. I’m Eva. I moved off grid in 2019 knowing next to nothing about how to live this lifestyle. And to say I am still learning would be a massive understatement. If you’re like me, you’re eager to jump in and get started, but you don’t want to regret your decision later. The internet is replete with stories about people who tried to go off grid and failed. While I am still relatively new to the off grid lifestyle, I hope sharing my experience will help others who have been on the fence about going off grid.
Consider the Three Ws
Water: No human is going to make it very long without water. Clean water. So think about water before anything else when you go off grid. I am speaking from experience, here, because I bought a cheap, mountain side property with no water source to speak of, and it has made everything much harder as a result. Currently, we are hauling our water to the property. We put a 275 gallon tote on the back of the truck, we go to town, we fill the tote with municipal water, then haul it back and drain it into another tank for use at home. Don’t make this your plan for water.
Hauling water to your property is a stop-gap measure, at best, that will force you to spend your time maintaining livability rather than growing and building your dream. It is an incredibly inefficient way to get water to any property. It also severely limits the water we can use on the property for things like gardening. Municipal water is treated with chemicals I’d rather not put on my garden, but also, we have to prioritize showers and getting the dishes done when the water is limited. It breaks my heart every spring when I start to plan my garden expansion and then inevitably I realize I don’t have the water to support the dream.
The worst part about hauling your water from some off-site source is the glaring fact that it contradicts self-sufficiency.
In the absence of natural, treatable surface water like a spring or stream, rain collection is an awesome option for an off grid water solution. However, you need to appreciate the math that comes into play here. How much rain you get annually determines what size tank or storage option you go with and so on. In our case, we get so little annual rain fall that putting in a well appears to be the only option.
Winter: Where are you from? Where are you moving to? I am from San Diego and I moved to Idaho. Hello winter! Allegedly, I am in a more temperate part of Idaho compared to the rest of the state, but it’s been hard to convince me of that because I am a sissy (or so I’m told).
It’s not that I was unaware that winter was on its way, it’s just that I had no idea what to do in preparation. When we decided to jump into this “adventure” we got a trailer. The property was totally raw land, so a house on wheels made the most sense… In July. Then November rolls around and we had to start using the furnace for heat. For those who are unfamiliar, trailers are generally heated with propane. Trailers also, no matter whether they claim to be “all season” trailers or not, leak heated air right through all their many seams and slide-outs. Not only do you have to buy propane to run the furnace, you have to keep your trailer’s batteries charged or the furnace won’t run anyway. Solar panels cannot help you with this task through the night. Therefore, you will likely find yourself using gasoline as well, since you’ll need to plug the trailer into a generator. In our first winter month off grid we spent over $500 to stay warm. I emphasize: that’s in one month. So we ended up abandoning ship, so to speak, by bringing our trailer into town and living in my sister’s driveway for the season.
Talk about a contradiction to self-sufficiency! Requiring TWO external inputs, both gasoline and propane, just to survive.
If you are going to live truly off grid in a camper (also known as dry camping) in areas with cold winters, be aware and prepared to either spend big on fuels or to have an alternative source of heat to the camper’s inefficient furnace. There are some very good indoor wall mount or free standing propane heaters that are far more efficient. There are also small wood stoves suitable, but they will probably require cutting through the wall or roof of the camper which may compromise what is already typically marginal “RV Grade” construction.
Winter is the reason we ended up building a tiny cabin rather than trying to make the trailer work somehow. Burning wood, especially if you acquire your own, is a much more affordable way to stay warm off grid. It’s also more enjoyable to listen to a roaring, crackling fire rather than the constant blowing of a furnace and clicking of a thermostat.
Work Load: Work load has got to be the most miscalculated part of living off grid. When you picture yourself building a cute little cabin in the woods or you envision abundant food forests springing to life under your care, but what you end up with is constant trips to the gas station because you’re running on a generator and every day is a battle just to function almost at the level those on the grid – you really start to wonder if any of this is worth it. Especially when grid power costs significantly less than gasoline and propane!
Building an off grid property is a lot of work, no question about it, but spending all of your available time on work that is required for surviving, rather than growing, will burn you out. What gets me through these times is a solid plan for improving the situation.
One big challenge for us is time management. If you, like me, have to work a day job, then there are very few day time hours to dedicate to building the property. This is a big challenge, but not insurmountable. Time management and discipline can be your saving grace if you want to build an off grid property while working a job. Efficient processes are the name of the game here. So- sure, haul water if you have to, but formulate a plan for the future that removes this task from your weekly chores, eventually. Then you can whistle while you work knowing the situation is going to get better.