Essentials for Building Off-Grid Houses

I have a wonderful guest post today from the folks over at Survivopedia. I really liked this and wanted to share it with you guys. I’ll be back tomorrow with a Huge announcement. Stay tuned punk preppers.

Survivopedia Off grid house

Between high energy costs (which are expected to keep rising) and the uncertainty in the world today, the idea of going “off-grid” is gaining popularity. Preppers aren’t the only ones who are thinking in these terms, as others are seeing the potential benefits of getting off-grid and not having to pay their monthly utility bills.

Those that do end up saving a bundle on their monthly budget, as well as gaining the security of not having to depend upon our aging infrastructure.

Of course, going off-grid has different meanings to different people. Some merely think of it as becoming self-sufficient in energy requirements, while other think of totally eliminating their dependency on utility services and becoming self-sufficient in all areas of life.

A lot of this depends on where a home is located, as it has always been much easier and more acceptable to have an off-grid lifestyle if one is living in a rural environment, rather than an urban one. Farmers have always been somewhat self-sufficient, so it’s no surprise when they pull the plug.

Going off-grid is a major project which requires lots of planning and preparation. Making the transition to living off-grid isn’t easy for any of us, especially if our home isn’t designed and built for it. While it is possible to convert pretty much any home to an off-grid home, it is much easier for a home that was designed with that in mind.

Electrical Power

 

For most people, the biggest consideration is electrical power. We are a society that is driven by electricity.

 

Pretty much everything we do requires the use of electricity in one way or another.

While it is possible to forgo electricity and return to the ways of our great-grandparents, most of us don’t really want to do that. While we want to go off-grid, we still want our modern conveniences.

Basically, there are two different attitudes we can have about electricity. Either we can adopt the idea of living without electricity all together and returning to the ways of the 1800s, or we can reduce our electrical consumption, so that we can live off of the electricity that we produce ourselves with our own power generating equipment.

With that in mind, the first thing to do is to design a home that is energy efficient in all ways. The more energy efficient it is, the less energy that we need to create.

So, what are the biggest energy users in the average home?

  • Heating and cooling
  • Hot water heating
  • Refrigeration
  • Lighting
  • Television and computers
  • Clothes dryer
  • Electric range
  • Microwave oven

If we look at that list, we can find lots of ways of reducing electrical usage. For example, building an underground home with passive solar heating will go a long way towards reducing both heating and cooling costs. While we’re working on solar, we can also put in a solar hot water heater and eliminate the electricity we’re spending on that.

Survivopedia off grid

The second area we might want to look at is the kitchen. Three of our top energy users are in the kitchen; the refrigerator, the stove and the microwave oven. While refrigeration may be difficult to do without, we can easily eliminate the electric range and microwave, cooking over gas or wood.

While it won’t totally eliminate the refrigerator, it’s possible to get away from much of our dependency on refrigeration by building a root cellar. That can pretty much replace most of our use for the refrigerator.

A deep freeze for the frozen food will save money as well, as they are more energy efficient, especially if it is installed in the already cool root cellar. Of course, we want to make sure that we buy the most energy efficient model we can.

A clothes dryer is an unnecessary luxury, as clothing dries just fine when it is hung out on the line. We’ve gotten used to using a clothes dryer, simply because it saves us from having to walk outside to hang up the clothes and take them back down again.

The two most common means of producing electricity for an off-grid home are solar and wind. I would recommend using both, unless you are living in an area where one of them won’t work at all.

Some places don’t have enough wind to operate a wind generator, making it a waste of money to buy one. Always use a battery backup system with any power generation you do at home, so that you can have electrical power even in those times when your system can’t produce any.

Water

The second major area to consider is water and sewage; or we could say incoming and outgoing water. Water is essential for survival, so we can’t just say that we won’t use any. However, we can reduce the amount of water that we use.

The average American household uses 100 gallons of water per person per day. Of that, about 30% is used for watering the lawn, 25% for flushing the toilet, 17% for bathing and 37% for other cleaning.

By comparison, the average African family uses 5 gallons of water per person per day. While I don’t think that we all want to change our lifestyles that drastically, I think it’s safe to say that we aren’t all that efficient in our water usage.

By putting in water efficient appliances and learning water efficient ways of doing things, we can greatly reduce our water consumption, without having to make major lifestyle changes. That will allow us to use our off-grid water much more efficiently, reducing our risk of running out of water.

There are only two basic off-grid ways of getting water; from a stream or from a well. Since most of us don’t have a stream on our property, that means drilling a well. The nice thing about having a well is that if it is properly drilled, you’ll always have a good source of water. You can augment this by putting in a rainwater collection system.

Sewage

The other problem is getting rid of the waste water from our homes. If you have a septic system, you’re already off-grid in that regard. However, if you don’t have a septic tank, there are still ways of going off-grid with your water disposal.

First of all, your waste water can be divided into two parts; grey water and black water. The grey water is the waste water from your bathtubs, showers and sinks. This doesn’t necessarily have to be disposed of; it can be used for flushing toilets and watering your garden. By using it in this manner, you’ll reduce your overall water consumption.

That leaves the black water to take care of. The best and easiest way of making use of this is to put in a composting toilet or to capture this waste and put it into your compost bin, composting it along with your kitchen scraps, weeds and grass clippings. In this way, the waste becomes fertilizer to help your vegetable garden grow better next year.

Conclusion

While all that may seem like a lot of work, it’s doable. The average person with some basic carpentry and mechanical skills can do all of that themselves, making their home energy and water efficient and making it possible to go totally off the grid.

Don’t try to go off-grid without making your home more efficient, you’ll wear yourself out trying. Start with making things more efficient and then work on generating your own power and water.

That way, you’ll be able to make the conversion much more effectively and efficiently. The high cost of energy and water efficient appliances will be more than offset by the savings you will have in installing your energy producing equipment. Less energy needs means a smaller, less expensive system.

Find out more about living off the grid on “Darkest Days”.

This article has been written by Bill White for Survivopedia.

 

Also please enter our Reader appreciation contest and help spread the word about our blog.

 

Looking for the best prices and best customer service in buying Silver and Gold online? Look no further than JM Bullion for all your precious metal needs!

 

 For all your Survival and prepping needs and bags to hold your gear check out Survival Gear Bags

Compound Bow

Bow Hunting Part II: Picking Out Equipment

Today I present to you the second part in Roberts Bow Hunting series. I am loving this series and learning so much. Let’s just get right to it then. -James

 

Picking Out Equipment

The first thing you have to consider, when picking out equipment, is your budget. You can easily find really nice used equipment for 1/3 the price of brand new equipment. When I decided to try out archery hunting I found a good used cross bow, I paid $200 with bolts and it was already sighted in, so it was ready to hunt. In Wyoming it is legal to hunt with a crossbow, in some states it is not, so check your laws before buying one. The next thing to consider is what type of bow you want to shoot. Your choices are, “traditional” recurve and long bow or “new age” compound and crossbow, there are traditional style crossbows, but I am speaking of crossbows with cams.

Traditional bows are built with a certain draw length and draw weight such as a Bear Grizzly

grizzly bear

or a Turkish long bow.

Turkish Long Bow
Turkish Long Bow

These style bows are very simple and very trust worthy. You can get a couple extra strings and a dozen arrows and you will be set up for years to come. They make recurve backpack (takedown) bows, which are very good to add to your preps because of how small you can break them down and how light they are. They are very versatile and you can take all sorts of game with them .

Read More

How to Purify Water with Iodine for Survival

Today I have a guest post from the good people over at survivopedia. I think that iodine %2 tincture is great for water purification, better for you than bleach, and should be a survival prep you stock up on.

How to Purify Water with Iodine for Survival

Survivopedia Purifying water with iodine

Without a doubt, water should be your number one priority after personal safety in a survival situation. The problem, though, is that water sources may be contaminated. In order to ensure that your water is safe to drink, you’ll need to filter and purify it. There are a few different ways to do this, but today we’re going to tell you how to purify your water with iodine for survival.

First and foremost, you need to know that, even under ideal circumstances, you can only survive about 3 days without water. The time may be shorter or just a bit longer depending upon your physical condition.

If you feel thirsty, you’re already in the beginning stages of dehydration. Don’t wait any longer to start looking for a water source if you haven’t already stockpiled your own or located a safe source. That should be the first thing that you do as soon as you know that it’s safe to venture out.

Whatever you do, DO NOT succumb to your thirst and drink from any water source that you’re not positive is safe prior to purifying it; pathogens in water can quite literally kill you.

 

Read More

Hadzabe Hunters

Archery Hunting: New Age With An Old Twist

Today I have a guest post from friend Robert Rice on archery hunting. It’s a subject I’m very interested in and have no had a chance to do yet. You can find more of Roberts work on his Facebook page Here and his website Here. So lets all go learn about it.  -James

Archery Hunting :

New Age with an old age twist

Hadzabe Hunters
Hadzabe Hunters

Well the first thing I should tell you is I’m from Wyoming, I’m 30 years old and have been archery hunting for 8 years now, but I have been hunting since I was 4. I remember one of the keys to hunting, at least when I was a kid, is to always think ahead of your game. Whatever you might be hunting you have to be thinking ahead of him thinking about where he is going not where he is, thinking about what he is going to do not what he is doing.

Now that being said there are some components out there today that can make your day in the field a lot more productive than the days of old. First thing is if you have a bow made in the 5 years you have quite an advantage over an older bow, because the bows they make now are built almost entirely for speed, and if you practice right you can take advantage of that speed by not having to get as close and not having to think as far ahead of him, and make not as true shots and still do just as much damage.

You can still buy bows that are made for more kinetic energy but they are few and far between anymore, but they are out there. My biggest piece of advice to any archery hunter is ….. You need to know the animal you are hunting, Im not talking about the type simply I am talking about the specific animal, you need to learn his habits, his patterns where he sleeps, eats, where he hangs out with the boys, where he goes chasing women. All of that will make you more aware of what he is going to do next, and more able to make the shot you have been working towards.

This post will be broken into 3 more parts because this subject is very broad hopefully I can hit the main points and help you guys out on your adventure.

 

  1. Picking out equipment: In this part I will go through some tips and ideas for you to get the most bang for your buck. Equipment is expensive so making your dollar go as far as you can is important.
  1. Practice : In this section we will go through a variety ways you can practice. I will even include a couple ideas you might like for making your own archery target.
  1. Scouting : In this section we will visit some reasons why you cant beat a weeks worth of scouting when archery hunting. We will also visit how learning how to archery hunt could be one of your most vital preps!

 

Also please enter our Reader appreciation contest and help spread the word about our blog.

 

Looking for the best prices and best customer service in buying Silver and Gold online? Look no further than JM Bullion for all your precious metal needs!

 

 For all your Survival and prepping needs and bags to hold your gear check out Survival Gear Bags

Lessons Learned From The Tough Mudder

This past Saturday I ran in the Nashville Tough Mudder with some Crossfit friends. This was the first race I had ever ran and by far the longest I’ve ever ran. I surprised myself on some things and disappointing myself on others, but mostly I had a blast. I highly recommend running one at least once. If they come back next year I’ll run again and do even better.  This article isn’t just about the fitness aspects but survival lessons learned from the race. So let’s jump right into this like a mud puddle.

 

1525005_10152152886242790_340672841_n

Read More