All you need to go off-grid

OFG-HowToFreeYourself.svg
Search
Sign in / Sign up

Communities
Communities

Solar powered pyramid

Pyramid power

Ever see an off-grid pyramid? Well you are about to. This is the video story of Greg Grant, who began his off-grid existence slow and small.

He didn’t put a lot of money into his project. What he had was land, lots of natural materials, a great bunch of talented and helpful friends, and a unique vision. He chose to make his off-grid home out of short straw-bale walls, but with a steeply pitched, pyramid shaped roof.…

Read More »
October 27, 2013 2 Comments
Communities

The Pantry Primer: Stocking your supply of fruits and vegetables

The Pantry Primer

A major challenge when living from your stockpiled foods is getting enough fruits and vegetables.  Without produce, your family can be at risk for nutritional deficiency diseases like scurvy and their immune systems will be compromised.  A minimum of 5 servings per day is recommended, but during the long winter, how can you meet that goal with the contents of your pantry?

Supplying your family with produce that will provide the necessary nutrients that their bodies need to thrive is a twofold process.  Not only should you preserve the summer’s bounty for the winter ahead, but you should also come up with ways to add fresh greens outside of the growing season.…

Read More »
October 26, 2013 No Comments
Communities

More tiny homes, on wheels!

tinyhomeonwheelsWith the cost of living going up and up and our wages going down and down, one of the ways to cut back on living expenses is by going small with your home. I wrote about this a while back, https://off-grid.net/2013/10/06/tiny-homes-cheap/ one of the comments I saw was the fact that so many municipalities, even some rural ones, have restrictions on the size of homes, they have minimum requirements (boo!), personally I believe it’s all about being able to extract more tax money from the people. …

Read More »
October 20, 2013 No Comments
Communities

Marjory Wildcraft

 

marjroywildcraft

I just listened to a Coast to Coast am show featuring Marjory Wildcraft as a guest, I have heard her name before and probably watched a YouTube video or two about her, but after listening to her interview, I’m so much more impressed with her, if you aren’t familiar with her, I think you will be impressed too…  When I first heard about her, I thought she must be some kind of hippy tree hugger, not that there’s anything wrong with that :) it just wasn’t my cup of tea.  Turns out I was way wrong, well she may be a hippy tree hugger, but she is so much more than that!…

Read More »
October 13, 2013 No Comments
Communities

Could prepping become illegal here too? Venezuelan govt to detain “hoarders”

could-prepping-become-illegal

I’ve been talking a lot lately about prepping, getting ready for whatever is coming, whether it be a personal issue (job loss, cutting hours, illness or injury), to a local problem, a national or global problem, you need to be ready. Unfortunately our governments don’t tend to agree with this, it would seem that they would rather have us unprepared, reliant on them for everything. It’s easy to make people want to leave their homes voluntarily to go to FEMA camps when there is nothing to eat or drink at home. Some countries even have laws against so called “hoarding”, and believe me, this isn’t new, they can come into your home, search and confiscate your hard earned supplies if they believe you have too much. They can even do much worse than that……

Read More »
October 9, 2013 3 Comments
Communities

Tiny homes, cheap!

portablebuilding

I am starting to see more and more of these shed style homes, they remind me of Morgan buildings. They are a glorified shed that can be finished out to turn into a living space, perfect for the rural areas with fewer or no “codes”. I am seeing these cheap, really cheap and they will usually deliver them to just about anywhere. I see lots of potential, you could start out with one and add to it, or even have multiple units for the different parts of your living areas, living room/bedroom, kitchen/bathroom, guestroom/art studio… Many of these can be had for less than it cost to buy a car.…

Read More »
October 6, 2013 8 Comments
Communities

What’s wrong with my life?

PICT0017
Absolutely nothing! The sky castle, our fun little home, is fully off-grid, we have a fairly small system, turned out to be easier to start it from the ground rather than trying to convert an existing house to being off-grid…

Living in a small community, the things people say usually doesn’t take long to get around, I was talking to a friend and that friend told me that someone else had told him how they couldn’t understand how I could put up with living like this… honestly this isn’t the first time I’ve heard that sentiment. My reaction was “Put up with??? What am I “putting up with”???”…

Read More »
October 6, 2013 1 Comment

No pressure, cooking

No matter where I live, be it off-grid or in an apartment in a busy downtown area or anywhere in between, I would find my pressure cooker to be an indispensable piece of cooking equipment, in other words, I wouldn’t want to live without it! I use mine once or twice a week, sometimes more.…

Read More »
September 29, 2013 3 Comments

Rocket stove updates

I am really excited about the improvements people have been making on rocket stove ovens and thermal mass rocket stove heaters. All you need do is go to YouTube and do a search for rocket stoves and you will quickly see dozens of really great videos. With winter approaching, keeping warm and cooking efficiently is foremost on my mind.

This one is one of my favorites, I want to make a rocket stove oven like this
…

Read More »
September 22, 2013 No Comments

Former 10-term congressman Roscoe Bartlett living off the grid in West Virginia

Former Rep. Roscoe Bartlett lives tucked away on an off-the-grid swath of West Virginia woodland that serves as an implicit indictment of the inside-the-Beltway life he and so many others have led — a life reliant on the federal government.

At first glance, Bartlett is following a conventional post-politics path. After the 10-term congressman lost his bid for re-election in 2012, he began consulting for the defense industry, advising firms on how to pitch federal agencies, a part-time job that brings him to Washington occasionally.

…
Read More »
September 21, 2013 No Comments
Communities

Are you a jack (or jill) of all trades?

jacktrade

What are you good at? What do you know how to do? One thing I have found to be invaluable to being more independent and self sufficient is knowing how to do things.

I’m talking about being a jack of all trades, someone who can do most anything, and the things you don’t know how to do, you should be able to figure it out enough to get by, or at the very least, have enough other skills to trade/barter with someone else who can do that one thing you can’t.…

Read More »
September 15, 2013 4 Comments
Communities

How to create a root cellar for food storage

root-cellar

I ran across a book and an article all about making your own root cellar, this being the end of the summer, beginning of fall, having a cheap and easy to put together root cellar is the thing to have, both for budding homesteaders to seasoned off-gridders.…

Read More »
September 14, 2013 No Comments