Blog

Ever have one of those moments where you’re basking in the glory of your own accomplishment and all of a sudden things begin to crumble right before your very eyes? Learning to homestead off grid provides these moments often. If life off grid was campfires and gardening all the time, this would be a very different blog – Or I’d probably just be playing in the garden rather than writing this. But the reality of living off the grid is that you have to design systems. And they have to work.

We recently had a hard rain followed by a cold snap which exposed design flaws (aka will cost us more money) in the electrical, plumbing and construction of our cabin. During the winter months we rely on a generator primarily for two things: first, to keep our battery bank charged up; and second, to run a small electric heater in our utility shed. The heater is a critical component because it keeps our entire water system from freezing. By entire water system, I mean the water tank, the in-line filter, the water pump, the water heater and the lines into the cabin are all housed in the utility shed.

So this torrential downpour occurs and water gets into the cord that connects the cabin to the generator. *Flaw #1: The power cord is not adequately shielded from rain.* Suddenly, the generator stops producing power. *Flaw #2: Failure to observe the law of one is none – we have no spare generator or power cord available* It is winter and the water lines will freeze without the help of the electric heater. Therefore, we have to shut down, and drain, the water system or risk losing the water pump and the water heater to freezing. Here is where the greatest design flaw and oversight in our system revealed itself – eventually.

Living in the middle of nowhere makes everything a multi-day project. So we shut off the water pump, drain the water heater, and purge the lines in the cabin so that nothing is damaged while we work on replacing the generator and getting a new power cord (these cords are harder to find than we assumed, and even with Amazon Prime, everything takes a week to ship here). The cold snap passed and everything began to thaw. After a week of limping by with no running water in the cabin we finally had a replacement generator and a new power cord. Eager to get the system back up and running, we open the door to the utility shed to find our half-full water tank is now empty! Yes, 125 gallons of water leaked all over the floor. *Oversight/Flaw #3: The water tank was not closed during the shut-down-the-water-system process*

It seems obvious, I know, but honestly it hadn’t occurred to us to shut the main valve on the tank. We focused on protecting the parts of our system that call for winterizing when not in use. Presumably that covered everything that could be damaged from freezing – with one exception: the in-line filter, which sits between the water tank and the water pump (diagram below). It’s a simple filter that screws onto a garden hose which we replace roughly every other month. Filled with water, that filter froze and cracked. Since the tank valve was open and the filter was cracked, nothing stopped all the water in our tank from leaking out onto the floor, then through it, and then freezing into an utterly destructive mess.

It is still winter, so we are currently waiting to clear out the entire utility room to assess the full damage. We believe we will have to replace the floor, at the very least. There are so many points along this narrative where better design could have spared us from suffering and additional cost. The problem is that we didn’t know what we didn’t know. And that is really the moral of this story. When you’re trying to build a functional off grid system you should absolutely aim for flawless design, but be ready for the flaws to reveal themselves in merciless fashion anyway.

The importance of having a spare (or two) of every critical component in your system cannot be overstated. I have learned to keep spare water pumps, even a spare water heater, but failing to have a spare generator when you live off grid – big time fail. On a positive note, we did properly winterize and drain the rest of the system, so with the water tank refilled and a new filter in place, we are back up and running. With many lessons learned, we proceed on to the next adventure.

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.

Bad Design Leads to Cascade of Failure

Are you ready to go off grid?