Anyone here live "off the grid"?

[Rusty_Old_F250]

I've been looking for cheap cabin in eastern Skagit County Washington lately, partly because I've always wanted a cabin, partly because that desire has been fueled by TLD, mostly because I'm a shade-tree mechanic and welder and I need space to do what I need to do. 

The ideal property would be at least 1/2 acre with an existing cabin with about 400sq ft. Basically, something just a bit bigger than the little cabins on Mystery Lake. A large garage would also be nice, but I can build one if need be (google shipping container garage for some ideas of what I'm thinking)

Now the main idea here is to live "off grid" I.E. no utility company providing power/water/sewer. Has anyone here done it? Or plan to do it?

Water isn't much of a concern in the area, annual rainfall is around 80 inches, so a rainwater collection setup should provide more water than I'll ever need.

Fire wood is plentiful and cheap, so my main source of heat for heating and cooking will be a wood burning cook stove (just the one in the abandoned farm house) I'lll have a small propane stove for the summer months.

Now for electricity... My garage will have to be wired for standard 110v AC current (and maybe 220v), and I'll run a generator to power it. Electric lighting and power tools are a necessity if you want to get anything done. Now for the cabin, I'm think of installing a very limited 12v system with a couple solar panels and a small bank of deep cycle batteries. It'll just be there to charge my laptop and phone, and have a few exterior lights for those "what was that outside???" moments. 

That's the plan at least, I'll update more over the coming months. In the mean time, feel free to post any comments or ideas you've got!

Sam

[hauteecolerider]

There's been some advancements not only on the solar panel front but also in the wind turbine area. There are now small wind turbines available for smaller installations (i.e. residential), and if the location you choose has periods of high winds (like we do here, living on the eastern edge of the great prairie country), you might be able to use a wind turbine to supplement that solar panel setup. Especially in the winter . . .

Never lived off the grid, but have dreamed of generating enough of my own electricity to sell some back to the local utility. Payback time for those rate hikes!

[Rusty_Old_F250]

Heh heh heh "how about I send YOU guys a bill for a change? And please, raise the rates!"

I've though about a wind turbine setup, I could build one for almost free with an old truck radiator fan and an alternator, only issue is Skagit County doesn't get much wind.

Kittitas County on the other hand... I could probably live off the money from wind power over there. Stuff will blow away if it isn't tied down

A mini hydro power setup would be pretty cool too, not sure how the EPA or whoever would feel about that though.

.
Sam

[hauteecolerider]

When I was in the Pacific NW in 2009, I was hearing a lot of angst about the hydroplants in the area causing problems with the salmon runs - and if salmon can't return to their spawning grounds, they can't breed on. So several hydroplants were being decommissioned and removed and salmon streams were being restored. I don't know if Skagit County is close enough to the coast for this to be an issue, but it might be worth talking it over with EPA or Fish&Wildlife . . .

Just a thought. 

[Rusty_Old_F250]

It has been a pretty big issue the last few years, and just a few miles east of skagit county are Gorge, Diablo and Ross dams. The catch is, they provide a ton of clean energy to Seattle (just those three are 20% of the city's power) and Seattle is definitely concerned with it's green image. Kind of a catch 22. 

Sam

[hauteecolerider]

Such things usually are! 

[exeexe]

U can watch the series ice lake rebels for inspiration

[TheRealNFK]

Not really off the grid, but I've recently had to set up a cabin for the vacation rental market, and because it used well water, there was an issue with a lot of sediment clouding the water. In the end, we had to install a fairly expensive filtration system (not a good chance of return guests when the bathtub fills with cloudy water). Of course, the well pump and the filtration system all need electricity to function.

In an off-grid situation, how do you power a system like this? If you are running a small wind/solar setup, is there a lower limit to how much electricity you can draw for appliances compared to a utility hookup?

[Rusty_Old_F250]

Most setups i have seen use a battery bank charged by the solar panel and or windmill.

Sam

[illanthropist]

Often dreamed of it but space in the UK is at such a premium even if you get the chance to purchase rural land, particularly woodland, it usually comes with a covenant prohibiting residential use.

Photovoltaics have advanced since I first started looking years ago but they are location specific and not really a full time solution, haven't looked at the return on investment numbers for some time, similar case with small domestic wind turbines.

In terms of harvesting rain water I think I'd prefer to take it from a more natural source, I'm no expert but I imagine doing it on a larger scale than hooking up a barrel to your downpipes for watering the garden could have health risks.

I guess first and foremost you have to look at the location and see what could work best, be it geothermal, reed bed filtrations or even a wood pellet fuelled generator if there's ample supply of resources, there's no hard and fast on what works and what doesn't.

 

[Jolan]

the only time I lived off the grid we had a well - hand pumping can be a bit of a nuisance, and since it was a dug well in drought years we had to be careful, but it worked reasonably well.  At my family's cabin, a cistern was put in about 125 years ago, also with a hand pump and electric pump both.  The cistern/well combo works fairly well too. If you're somewhere without the well option you're going to probably want to go with a slow filter sand bed - but the sand needs to be cleaned and it does diddly about bacteria.  So maybe a combo of slow sand filter with sun purifier.  The biggest pain was making sure we collected enough wood for winter early enough to season - since we were only collecting deadfall.  Oh, and the toilet.  Though maybe with the new composting toilets that would be less of a nightmare.

 

[Diamondz]

On 3/27/2016 at 0:39 PM, Rusty_Old_F250 said:

Heh heh heh "how about I send YOU guys a bill for a change? And please, raise the rates!"

I've though about a wind turbine setup, I could build one for almost free with an old truck radiator fan and an alternator, only issue is Skagit County doesn't get much wind.

Kittitas County on the other hand... I could probably live off the money from wind power over there. Stuff will blow away if it isn't tied down

A mini hydro power setup would be pretty cool too, not sure how the EPA or whoever would feel about that though.

.
Sam

I've been through Kittitas County a number of times, primarily to go to the Roslyn-Suncadia area for vacation. Really rustic feel to the area, there use to be coal mining operations throughout the Western portion on the county, now its primary agriculture and recreational activities. They also have a bunch of shops and even an ammunition store to buy ammo loading equipment in nearby Cle Elum.

[Diamondz]

On 3/27/2016 at 2:13 PM, Rusty_Old_F250 said:

It has been a pretty big issue the last few years, and just a few miles east of skagit county are Gorge, Diablo and Ross dams. The catch is, they provide a ton of clean energy to Seattle (just those three are 20% of the city's power) and Seattle is definitely concerned with it's green image. Kind of a catch 22. 

Sam

Ah yes, the infamous city of green policy and common tree huggers, I know it all too well...

[cowboymrh]

My wife and I will be retiring October 1st, 2016 and we plan to travel the US and Canada with our F-250 7.3 Diesel, and 30 foot Keystone travel trailer.

I guess that's about as off grid as you can get. We will be setup for passive solar as well as a couple of Honda 2000 watt inversion generators.

We plan to live 2 or 3 days at a time camping off grid on National Forest, and Bureau of Land Management land, and then every 4th or 5th day, find an RV camp with hookups to re-charge, do laundry, and shopping.

We have a business we can do from the road, so we'll be blessed to be not only traveling full time, but putting money in savings every month as well.

We're really looking forward to this adventure and plan to do it while we're still relatively young and healthy!!

When the time comes that it gets too hard to travel, (because of our age) we'll probably settle down and find a home near family.

I'll keep you posted!!

[hauteecolerider]

@cowboymrh: sounds like a dream! I've often thought about wandering the country in a caravan - going where the mood strikes me, and stopping someplace as long as the mood holds me. 

While I love home ownership, it does feel burdensome at times. Especially around property tax time! 

Maybe if I can work from home, it might be a cool way to segue into this kind of a lifestyle. 

[Rusty_Old_F250]

@cowboymrh That sounds like a great way to start your retirement, please, do keep us posted!

By the way, that is the truck to do it with, the old 7.3 diesels, IDI or Powerstroke, were just about the most reliable engine Ford ever had! I think the the 300 inline 6 takes the cake though, you can kill them, but they will fight every inch of the way! 

Sam

[Rusty_Old_F250]

14 hours ago, Diamondz said:

Ah yes, the infamous city of green policy and common tree huggers, I know it all too well...

Heh heh, yup, as far as cities go though, Seattle is pretty nice. Anyone from Philly, NYC or any of the other big cities would laugh at our "ghetto" parts of town, "you call this the ghetto?? Let me tell you about the ghetto!"

Currently I am looking at property in Oakanogan county, it's way out there, but its cheap! 20 acres for 20 grand kinda cheap!

Sam

[cowboymrh]

Here's our home for the next several years!!   99 F-250 7.3 IDI  + 29.9 Keystone Sprinter   October can't get here fast enough!!

[hauteecolerider]

How's the interior?

I remember staying in a smallish trailer a couple of weeks at a time at the railroad museum up in Wisconsin while my Dad was off firing the Steamers. It was parked across the yard from the passenger depot, and I remember playing in the "purple sand" there. The area had a quartzite quarry at the end of the line, until very recently it was the source of the purple quartz ballast found all up and down the old C&NW mainlines through the Midwest. A lot of the sand around there was purple because of the quartz. It was cool!

[TheRealNFK]

If I ever go motorized nomad, I'd like to do it in a Fleetwood Bounder, but that's probably because I watched too much Breaking Bad.

[cowboymrh]

My wife and I love our travel trailer. Queen bed in the front, walk through bathroom with door on each side (wives loves that guys!!) and 12 foot slide out in the living area. We have a ton of room for living and mobile office.

Will be taking it up to Eugene (Oregon) to get it fitted with solar panels later in the summer. Just need to find a person to put in the gun turrets and plated armor!! 

Wife and I will be getting our passports soon. We're pretty good at Spanish, but we do need work on our Canadian!!  he  he!

[hauteecolerider]

Ah, but Canadian accents are easy! Just remember to say "eh?" at the end of every sentence!

*Ducks and runs*

[Rusty_Old_F250]

3 hours ago, cowboymrh said:

Just need to find a person to put in the gun turrets and plated armor!! 

Well i can't help with the gun turrets, but steel prices are pretty good right now, and I've got a welder that should be good for up to 4" plate...  Just to warn you though, the 7.3 may not have the to pull it around once we're done!

Oh and my Canadian is fine, eh? (also ducks and runs)

Sam

[MizTen]

On 3/25/2016 at 1:16 PM, Rusty_Old_F250 said:

I've been looking for cheap cabin in eastern Skagit County Washington lately, partly because I've always wanted a cabin, partly because that desire has been fueled by TLD, mostly because I'm a shade-tree mechanic and welder and I need space to do what I need to do. 

The ideal property would be at least 1/2 acre with an existing cabin with about 400sq ft. Basically, something just a bit bigger than the little cabins on Mystery Lake. A large garage would also be nice, but I can build one if need be (google shipping container garage for some ideas of what I'm thinking)

Now the main idea here is to live "off grid" I.E. no utility company providing power/water/sewer. Has anyone here done it? Or plan to do it?

Water isn't much of a concern in the area, annual rainfall is around 80 inches, so a rainwater collection setup should provide more water than I'll ever need.

Fire wood is plentiful and cheap, so my main source of heat for heating and cooking will be a wood burning cook stove (just the one in the abandoned farm house) I'lll have a small propane stove for the summer months.

Now for electricity... My garage will have to be wired for standard 110v AC current (and maybe 220v), and I'll run a generator to power it. Electric lighting and power tools are a necessity if you want to get anything done. Now for the cabin, I'm think of installing a very limited 12v system with a couple solar panels and a small bank of deep cycle batteries. It'll just be there to charge my laptop and phone, and have a few exterior lights for those "what was that outside???" moments. 

That's the plan at least, I'll update more over the coming months. In the mean time, feel free to post any comments or ideas you've got!

Sam

I have lived off the grid. It was fine as a few months adventure for a healthy single person. Not so much if sick, or with sick children or livestock or pets, alone and lonely, or pregnant. In WA, mudslides, wildfires and violent crazy neighbors are also to be considered. While building a stick and mortar house I can see doing it if you have a social support system and a job. Don't mean to rain on your parade. I do believe anything good is possible. Just a matter of your risk readiness...