The 3 Things You Need To Live Off Grid: All You Need To Know
Everybody has their own idea of what a dream home looks like. For some, it’s a condo in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the city. For others, it’s a newly built home in the middle of nowhere. Luckily, there is no obstacle for anybody to do the latter.
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You can be connected to the internet just about anywhere and don’t need to be connected to the grid for everything else. All you need is to find the right piece of land and a custom home builder to build your off grid home exactly how you like. You just need to know a few things beforehand so you can understand what you’re getting into. In this article, we will go over the basics of what it takes to live off grid.
Heating
Usually, an off-grid property is situated somewhere that can get quite cold. This means that one of your first priorities is going to be on heating the house. There are a number of heating systems that will do a great job.
For instance, if you have a lot of trees on your property then you essentially have free fuel for heating if you use a fireplace or stove. If the house is small, then two fireplaces will likely heat the entire space. Since you are building from scratch then you can make sure to use materials that are good insulators so the heat remains.
Heat pumps are excellent heating systems that are extremely efficient. Since they use electricity and not gas, you can connect one to the solar system and get free heat this way.
Plumbing
Being off grid usually also means being off of the water and sewer services of the county or town. There are two ways to solve this problem. The first is to dig a well and get your drinking and domestic water that way. If you are lucky enough to have a lake, river, or other body of water on your property then you can pump water from there.
As far as sewer goes, you’ll need to use a greywater system for the runoff water from your sinks and showers. Then, have either a compost toilet which uses no water, or install a septic system.
A septic system works well, but does take some adjustment in habits since you have to be careful with what goes into it. It requires special septic safe toilet paper, for instance.
Electricity
Technically, getting electricity is the easiest part of the off-grid equation. There are a few options such as having solar panels and batteries, wind power, and possibly even water power.
The best solution would be to have all three if you can afford it or if you have high electrical demand. The property is going to determine which one is best suited to your situation. If the area is very windy but you are facing north, the solar should take a back seat to a windmill for power, for example.