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Any off grid people in here?

Lilyota

RIP 7/22/2023
Joined
May 19, 2020
Member Number
26
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1,221
Loc
Bolivar MO
I stumbled upon a property in one of my other searches today.

And yes...It's definitely off grid:laughing:


If I/we do this it would start out as a get outta town type thing with a couple of small cabins or an RV of sorts and a generator or two.


But as time goes on and if we decide to make this the final home is it more of a pain in the neck than not. I know there would be solar involved.


I don't want to go into a bunch of details on the property, but it's definitely remote, not a power line for miles it does have water and just my luck I am a water treatment guy so that part is easy.


It's a big project I'm sure. But I am so tired of the people driving up and down the street to the local tweaker broads place for drugs and whatever else happens there.


Any advice will help.


Thanks
 
Lil said:
It's a big project I'm sure. But I am so tired of the people driving up and down the street to the local tweaker broads place for drugs and whatever else happens there.


Any advice will help.


Thanks

Burn her place to the ground. With her and as many tweakers inside as possible.
 
You say it has water, is it running with any substantial change in elevation?
 
Where is remote? Different remotes have different challenges. I'm guessing several hours north east of you?
 
I'm on the grid, but I don't have any neighbors. That count? :flipoff2:
 
Our farm has some remote wells that are ran by solar. 2hp pump around 600' for around 100 head +/- is our biggest solar system. Going off memory, 9 x 250 watt panels and 7K watts of inverter and an absurd amount of battery, plus a charger controller. I think we have 12 of the 8v golf cart batteries. What we found was that cows really prefer to drink in the evening/overnight times during the summer, so we had to double our battery as in the original design, it was half the batteries expecting those bitches to use the water over the whole 24 hour period.

We could have pumped to a larger tank during the day, and it would have been acceptable, but infrastructure and ease of ease of installation, more batteries made sense.

Low frequency inverters are way more affordable now, when this inverter goes, I will go that direction. MOSFETs don't care for maxing their capacity starting an inductive load. Planning a cabin, I would split loads between inductive and and electronic. Use MOSFET inverter for electronic loads and LF inverter for inductive. Get the biggest battery bank you can afford and add a genset with autostart to bridge the gap as needed.
 
I have lived offgrid near the top of Storm Mountain Colorado for over 3 years now. Offgrid meaning no utilities, no power, no water, etc. 8500 feet in elevation. 235" of snow last season.

What do you want to know?
 
I use to be romanticized by off the grid living, but I have learned, I like conveniences.

A. How is the cell phone reception in this remote property? (because on remote sites, this is your only means of communication, phone, text, and access to the internet, Netflix, etc.)

B. How far to the hardware store? (when you need a saw blade and it's an hour each way, it gets old)

C. How far to a grocery store?

D. Any emergency services? (and how old are you)?

E. Is this desert or mountains? (because a solar array good enough to cool a house is a different thing).

F. Do you cook? ( I like restaurants, and I eat garbage, and an hour each way to get a McDonalds sausage biscuit for breakfast or steak some place for dinner SUCKS)

G. Do you have kids or a wife? (because if you want to meet a woman, you gotta kinda be where there are people. and if you already have one, she may not love the situation)

H. Do you ever need a hand, just for little things that are kind of a pain to do by yourself? Because everything out there will be YOU, No help. The people who are caught up in the excitement of the dream and swear they will be there to help you, WON'T. Oh they mean to be, but they have families and lives, and they won't actually be anywhere close to dependable

You realize there is a medium right?I have 10 acres, I NEVER see my neighbors, I haven't peed inside in years, and I'm 35 minutes from down town Houston. You don't have to move to BFE to get privacy.

Edit: I know one person who did a off the grid yert in the desert and found coyotes to be more of a problem than they thought. They tried to have chickens and eventually just gave up, as well as losing a small dog or 2.
 
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We watch Homestead Rescue and yes I know the producer overly dramatizes everything, but still it is sad to see the number of people on there that figure all they have to do is spend their life saving on a piece of marginal ground, with no idea how grow food, defend against animals, build a weather tight shelter...
 
I use to be romanticized by off the grid living, but I have learned, I like conveniences.

A. How is the cell phone reception in this remote property?

B. How far to the hardware store? (when you need a saw blade and it's an hour each way, it gets old)

C. How far to a grocery store?

D. Any emergency services? (and how old are you)?

E. Is this desert or mountains? (because a solar array good enough to cool a house is a different thing).

F. Do you cook? ( I like restaurants, and I eat garbage, and an hour each way to get a McDonalds sausage biscuit for breakfast or steak some place for dinner SUCKS)

G. Do you have kids or a wife? (because if you want to meet a woman, you gotta kinda be where there are people. and if you already have one, she may not love the situation)

H. Do you ever need a hand, just for little things that are kind of a pain to do by yourself? Because everything out there will be YOU, No help. The people who are caught up in the excitement of the dream and swear they will be there to help you, WON'T. Oh they mean to be, but they have families and lives, and they won't actually be anywhere close to dependable

You realize there is a medium right?I have 10 acres, I NEVER see my neighbors, I haven't peed inside in years, and I'm 35 minutes from down town Houston. You don't have to move to BFE to get privacy.

Edit: I know one person who did a off the grid yert in the desert and found coyotes to be more of a problem than they thought. They tried to have chickens and eventually just gave up, as well as losing a small dog or 2.

All valid points. Too many people look at "off the grid" through rose colored glasses. We're looking to move in about a year and we've considered many of the points grumpy made. We want some land, but not a huge amount to take care of. We also want electric and phone service. A 15 minute drive to stores is also a plus. Lots of places like that where we're looking at that still offer privacy.
 
I use to be romanticized by off the grid living, but I have learned, I like conveniences.

A. How is the cell phone reception in this remote property?

B. How far to the hardware store? (when you need a saw blade and it's an hour each way, it gets old)

C. How far to a grocery store?

D. Any emergency services? (and how old are you)?

E. Is this desert or mountains? (because a solar array good enough to cool a house is a different thing).

F. Do you cook? ( I like restaurants, and I eat garbage, and an hour each way to get a McDonalds sausage biscuit for breakfast or steak some place for dinner SUCKS)

G. Do you have kids or a wife? (because if you want to meet a woman, you gotta kinda be where there are people. and if you already have one, she may not love the situation)

H. Do you ever need a hand, just for little things that are kind of a pain to do by yourself? Because everything out there will be YOU, No help. The people who are caught up in the excitement of the dream and swear they will be there to help you, WON'T. Oh they mean to be, but they have families and lives, and they won't actually be anywhere close to dependable

You realize there is a medium right?I have 10 acres, I NEVER see my neighbors, I haven't peed inside in years, and I'm 35 minutes from down town Houston. You don't have to move to BFE to get privacy.

Edit: I know one person who did a off the grid yert in the desert and found coyotes to be more of a problem than they thought. They tried to have chickens and eventually just gave up, as well as losing a small dog or 2.

I'm 55 y.o. and have realized your points.


At aged 20 to 45 y.o.; I was a studmuffin. :flipoff2:

But after my 2nd neck surgery ('11) and subsequent lower back surgery ('16); my whole world changed forever.



My compromise is extended backcountry camping.

Stay out for a week to a month+, and then return.
 
My wife and I are in the process of buying some remote off-the-grid land. For the immediate future we are planning on just using it for camping; for the not so immediate future, we are looking at putting some monolithic domes on it, just shells at first, someplace to sleep that isn't a tent and adding plumbing/electrical later.

We're planning on using an "eco-shell" (an inflatable shell that doesn't have pockets for windows/doors). From my research, if you are careful, you can reuse the same air-form over and over again. https://www.monolithic.org/homes

An added benefit of a monolithic dome is that it is easy to turn one (or two) into a faraday cage.
 
Battery technology is the biggest limiting factor in solar and electric cars right now.

One or two more battery improvements and I think they will be viable to replace fossil fuels, but they are just not there yet (IMO).
Plan on spending about 20K for a small to medium sized house for panels and battery if you go to with an off the shelf from Tesla.

I have had friends who just had generators for their sole source of power. They say it gets old having to deal with after a while, one would have had to pay several hundred thousand to get power to his property just in the poles and wire, not to mention the cost in getting easments. He liked biodiesel over regular diesel, said it burned cleaner and required less maintinence.

I will be happy when the technology gets better on batteries, would love to not have a self sufficient electrical system so no matter what is going on around me, I have electricity.
 
We moved about a year and a half ago from a neighborhood, to a "rural" neighborhood, and although I really like not living in <1/4 acre lots. There are some challenges, stuff I kinda knew, but never realized how much of a pain it could be. We live on the end of a dirt road, basically surrounded by woods. We're far from off grid, but it is definitely different than in town.

I use to be romanticized by off the grid living, but I have learned, I like conveniences.

A. How is the cell phone reception in this remote property? (because on remote sites, this is your only means of communication, phone, text, and access to the internet, Netflix, etc.)

This is much more of a pain than I realized, there is always sat internet, but it's terrible and a total rip off. We have zero cell at our place.

B. How far to the hardware store? (when you need a saw blade and it's an hour each way, it gets old)

This is another one that I didn't think about much, I always knew we'd have to stick up on groceries a little more being out away from town. But when you need 1 bolt, or a fitting to fix your broken toilet, and hour round trip, or more sucks.

C. How far to a grocery store?

This isn't too bad for us, and honestly, we have gotten used to shopping for longer periods of time.

D. Any emergency services? (and how old are you)?

OP, is pretty old, does life alert work off grid? :flipoff2:

E. Is this desert or mountains? (because a solar array good enough to cool a house is a different thing).

On the other hand, solar doesn't do a lot when you are surrounded by 100' trees.

F. Do you cook? ( I like restaurants, and I eat garbage, and an hour each way to get a McDonalds sausage biscuit for breakfast or steak some place for dinner SUCKS)

That's probably a good thing though.

G. Do you have kids or a wife? (because if you want to meet a woman, you gotta kinda be where there are people. and if you already have one, she may not love the situation)

H. Do you ever need a hand, just for little things that are kind of a pain to do by yourself? Because everything out there will be YOU, No help. The people who are caught up in the excitement of the dream and swear they will be there to help you, WON'T. Oh they mean to be, but they have families and lives, and they won't actually be anywhere close to dependable

Dick head friends won't come help me anyway, just have to be more resourceful. Like the cherry picker I welded 2" tube to so I could stick it in my receiver to move shit around the yard :laughing:

You realize there is a medium right?I have 10 acres, I NEVER see my neighbors, I haven't peed inside in years, and I'm 35 minutes from down town Houston. You don't have to move to BFE to get privacy.

It's hard to get large parcels in CA that aren't in bfe, they're either all bought up, or way too expensive.

Edit: I know one person who did a off the grid yert in the desert and found coyotes to be more of a problem than they thought. They tried to have chickens and eventually just gave up, as well as losing a small dog or 2.

Small dogs off grid? Sounds like they were asking for trouble. We have basically every predador found in CA at our place. The bears mostly just are annoying and fuck with the trash. We did loose a cat, probably to a fox or Bob cat. All our neighbors have seen Mt lions on there place, but our cameras haven't caught one yet, the smell of our dogs may keep them away? I've seen a Bob cat and it's prints in the snow, but never close to the house, again, I think our dogs keep them away. We got a GP puppy to help keep shit away.

We had a rattlesnake in the yard the other day. But where the op lives now, I'm sure he's delt with those.

One thing I didn't anticipate was the GOD DAMN MOSQUITOS! it was so bad last year that they were out all day basically all spring and summer. We have called the county vector control to come fog and it helps, not something you can do off grid.

Another thing is fires, it really sucks to have all your stuff burn. Being off grid, you might be able to have more control over your surroundings and keep the fuels knocked down, but if you're one house in the middle of nowhere, you might not be a big priority for cal fire when a big fire hits.

Wells can also be a bit of a pain fwiw.
 
my place in Colorado is off grid, we haul in water. that sucks, i'm putting together a drilling rig. in the summer, days are long enough to not care. winter it get pretty dark at 4 in the shade of the Mountain. so power is wanted. but we usually play games by gas light. but i am still working so we don't spend as much time as we would like to. a solar set up is in the works. some of the solar powered wells have really impressed me.
 
my log cabin offgrid on Storm Mountain.

We haul in our water 450 or 200 gallons at a time (depending on what truck we take). It's not a big deal and we have two county sources to choose from. I simply don't understand the issue that folks have with water. I see it all the time: folks will spend 100K to dig a well that nets them like 1 quart of water per minute. I can haul water for the rest of my life, build rigs to do it, maintenance on those trucks, etc and never even come close to spending that kind of money to dig a well.


Another thing that I think folks simply don't understand the amount of work involved. We have been up here for over 3 years and it's a TON of work. Cutting firewood, clearing land, building the cabin, etc. Not to mention vehicle maintenance. We are on a 6 mile dirt road. The road is graded by the county, but it still takes a toll on trucks. I have like 7 vehicles, plus heavy equipment, so I guess I get what I deserve.

I also don't understand why folks are so intent on power sources other than solar. Everyone seems to focus on hydro/wind/etc but solar is cheap and works every day. I bet I have around 6 or 7k invested in all my solar and during the summer, I rarely run a generator. If I were to spend another few thousand on batteries/solar, I wouldn't have to run a generator during the winter either.

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What about mail? I use the shit out of Amazon or similar so I don't have to run to town as much. I'm guessing pretty much any off grid place will not have mail service?
 
my log cabin offgrid on Storm Mountain.

We haul in our water 450 or 200 gallons at a time (depending on what truck we take). It's not a big deal and we have two county sources to choose from. I simply don't understand the issue that folks have with water. I see it all the time: folks will spend 100K to dig a well that nets them like 1 quart of water per minute. I can haul water for the rest of my life, build rigs to do it, maintenance on those trucks, etc and never even come close to spending that kind of money to dig a well.


Another thing that I think folks simply don't understand the amount of work involved. We have been up here for over 3 years and it's a TON of work. Cutting firewood, clearing land, building the cabin, etc. Not to mention vehicle maintenance. We are on a 6 mile dirt road. The road is graded by the county, but it still takes a toll on trucks. I have like 7 vehicles, plus heavy equipment, so I guess I get what I deserve.

I also don't understand why folks are so intent on power sources other than solar. Everyone seems to focus on hydro/wind/etc but solar is cheap and works every day. I bet I have around 6 or 7k invested in all my solar and during the summer, I rarely run a generator. If I were to spend another few thousand on batteries/solar, I wouldn't have to run a generator during the winter either.

Impressive! Geo-therm or 15 cords of firewood?
 
What about mail? I use the shit out of Amazon or similar so I don't have to run to town as much. I'm guessing pretty much any off grid place will not have mail service?

Hell, we live in a small town outside San Diego (Ramona) and our mailbox is over 1/2 mile away at the nearest paved road. UPS, FedEx, & Amazon do deliver to the house though.
 
:laughing: I was going to point you to my thread in PBB:GCC that covers some of my more detailed questions and some good answers from several folks, realsquash in particular, but since GCC is now a hidden forum I can't google search it

it was titled something like "battery powered house"

biggest thing about power is figuring out how much you need and sizing the batteries around that, then figuring out the best way to charge the batteries.
 
It's in southern Oregon.

And yes...I'm not young anymore.


But not as old as you think asshole:flipoff2:

I did have a small heart attack at the begining if the year.

We haven't seen the property yet just talked with the current owner.

I still have a week if work before I can even think of making it up there

I am told its not far from Bly...Half hour or so.

There is absolutely no cell service in the area. I'm ok with that though the only person that contacts me anymore is YotaAietoo looking for parts.:flipoff2:


I dunno, nothing may come of it and maybe something will.

Don't get me wrong either...This is not any kind of dream of mine...Just something that popped up
 
It's in southern Oregon.

And yes...I'm not young anymore.


But not as old as you think asshole:flipoff2:

I did have a small heart attack at the begining if the year.

We haven't seen the property yet just talked with the current owner.

I still have a week if work before I can even think of making it up there

I am told its not far from Bly...Half hour or so.

There is absolutely no cell service in the area. I'm ok with that though the only person that contacts me anymore is YotaAietoo looking for parts.:flipoff2:


I dunno, nothing may come of it and maybe something will.

Don't get me wrong either...This is not any kind of dream of mine...Just something that popped up

I really like southern Oregon, east or west side?

if you already own the property it is easier to get some things done regarding permits and such, otherwise as a new property owner it can certainly be a hassle to stay legal.

Check out the county codes, hell I also had a thread in GCC about that something like "eastern Oregon" or "southeastern Oregon" where I pulled up a bunch of the codes and such.

the long and short of it was, not really worth it for what I was trying to do, out there. if you don't mind staying in CA, lassen/modoc county and the like are pretty good options. the CA fines are high as all hell, but otherwise the area is awesome.
 
:laughing: I was going to point you to my thread in PBB:GCC that covers some of my more detailed questions and some good answers from several folks, realsquash in particular, but since GCC is now a hidden forum I can't google search it

it was titled something like "battery powered house"

biggest thing about power is figuring out how much you need and sizing the batteries around that, then figuring out the best way to charge the batteries.






If this did happen to take off I would have to buy a generator big enough to run all if my tools.

Im sure they could be run with solar but a 3 phase generator would be a better fit for the shop.

I suppose it could be split off all together from a house


Lots of thoughts.
 
It's in southern Oregon.

And yes...I'm not young anymore.


But not as old as you think asshole:flipoff2:

I did have a small heart attack at the begining if the year.

We haven't seen the property yet just talked with the current owner.

I still have a week if work before I can even think of making it up there

I am told its not far from Bly...Half hour or so.

There is absolutely no cell service in the area. I'm ok with that though the only person that contacts me anymore is YotaAietoo looking for parts.:flipoff2:


I dunno, nothing may come of it and maybe something will.

Don't get me wrong either...This is not any kind of dream of mine...Just something that popped up

bly not hardly a spot to stop at :rasta: that area is awesome but do check into the zoning laws as the proper permitting process is a big hurdle if you own less than 240 acre contiguous or 320(?) in total.

Oregon is also kind of shitty about what you can do with the water. does it have a well or a creek or a pond for the existing water?
 
If this did happen to take off I would have to buy a generator big enough to run all if my tools.

Im sure they could be run with solar but a 3 phase generator would be a better fit for the shop.

I suppose it could be split off all together from a house


Lots of thoughts.

that's my plan. 3ph gen for shop stuff use and also as backup power for the house as needed. gen power is fairly expensive (~$0.80/kwh) so it isn't a great long term sole source. biggest thing is limiting general power consumption which is pretty easy to do.

if you can avoid an A/C for the house, which should be readily doable out there, you can save a massive amount of load.
 
I have lived offgrid near the top of Storm Mountain Colorado for over 3 years now. Offgrid meaning no utilities, no power, no water, etc. 8500 feet in elevation. 235" of snow last season.

What do you want to know?

How da fuq you do eet? LOL that's a high elevation and a LOT of snow.....wow
 
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