Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Off Grid Living

True confections time.

We have power on the farm and we use it for the big house where my daughter her three kids live. We shower with unlimited hot water thanks to an electric tankless water heater. We live in a small cabin we restored this summer. It is 13'X31' outside two rooms.


We have two wood stoves, one in the living/sleeping room

and a 1014 wood cook stove we found and restored. It has a six gallon water tank on the right side we use for hot water.


We carry water into the cabin but we are blessed with a great well that if left alone is artisian to approximately four feet AGL. We have a working hand pump for power failures.
We have a small solar/wind station we will move closer to the cabin this summer and use it for things like a radio for my wife, cell phone and laptop charging.
[img]http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/ww211/compassrosefarms/DSC_6076.jpg[/img][img]http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/ww211/compassrosefarms/DSC_6077.jpg[/img]

We like the quiet of off grid living. There and no fans running, furnaces blowing air around or refrigerators humming away. Living a little more simple than most is enjoyable but is not the easy life. There is water to carry, wood to cut, split and carry. Th stoves require stoking once in the middle of really cold nights, lamps to keep clean, trimmed and filled, and the list goes on forever.

Whenever we have someone over and they sit in the kitchen over coffee perked on the wood stove and some treat that has emerged from the oven they fall in love with the place. If it is cold and stormy and we are sitting in the living room it is often hard to get them to go home!

Nice palce. It'll be even nicer once the cabin is finished.

That assumes my wife will ever call it finished!

It is finished inside, the back has all new siding and all that is left on the outside is paint and that will happen this summer. Then next year there will be an addition on the back for the bedroom and bath.

I'd be interested in your wind turbine setup. Any more info on that thing?

Wish I had the energy to live like that, but is it more work than I can any longer handle, DAMMIT.

I cannot lay my hands on that information right now but I will get back to you.

That's a great lifestyle.

Great job Scott. Our story is very similar except we renovated an old farmhouse and we have a gas well which keeps our solar and other power needs at a minimum.

It's a different way of living for sure but we love the feeling that we're not beset to anyone and like you mentioned, it's very quiet.

We did it for 13 years ,propane fridge ,stove ,lights,and aventually instant hot water... supplamentary lite oil lamps ,candles.
had surface well that i dug out put in 3 cisterns ,1 covered 2 open for pumps,10 x20 side pocket filled with drain rock,covered with filter fabric ,than top soil,lawn ..2000 gals of storage..later on 15000 gal tank up hill for gravity system,with 5000 gal reserve for fire fighting,[never had to use it ]
wood heat in basement ,other part of basement seperated by concreat wall and steel fire door ,secure storage and cold room for veggies excetra ,hang deer ..
wood storage out side basement door 2000 gal diesel tank from service station with door cut in end. burried under 4 feet of soil for side yard. ineficent stove 10 cord firewood a year ,,heatalator fireplace on main floor.
bedrooms up in attic trusses.12in 12 pitch roof never had to shovel .
deer WT ,muly,elk ,bear in front and back yard,
MISS THAT PLACE< but not all the wood cutting.

I love the gas well thing! That is a great blessing.

Pictures of your place?

Hi Scott looks great. The house I grew up in had a pitch pump bolted to the drain board in the kitchen. Our heat was woodstove in living room and a cook stove in the kitchen. We had two bdr and a closed-in back porch that where we took our baths in a #3 wash tube hot water came pot at a time off the stove. We never did get the indoor toilet the outhouse was not much fun in the winter.

I'd like to hear what Scott says as well.

From what I know, the problem with the smaller wind turbines is they produce so little energy unless you have strong sustained winds.

From my research, these looked like the best ones.

http://store.solar-electric.com/tl500wawige.html

Here's a forum dedicated to solar that has a wind turbine section.

http://www.wind-sun.com/ForumVB/forumdisplay.php?f=13

Me too some days but it is like going swimming. You may not have the energy when you are standing on the beach but it is a whole different story when you are treading water and the sharks are circling right after the boat sunk!

You are an artist and have created a masterpiece. Well done. The "before" pictures are very much like the ones from our cottage project. It helps to be a visionary! Bev (Scott F's wife)

Thank you for the compliments.

If you have more before and after pictures of your cabin, I'd really enjoy seeing them. I love seeing a good reclamation project.

Yep it is real hard to remember you are there to drain the swamp when you are up to your azz in Alligators!

Scott, do you have a gas well also?

rrroae, what is the configuration of your gas well? How did you go about drilling it? Depth? Surface infrastructure?

looks like a great setup you have there Scott!
I've had a lot of interest in RE over the years, and started a subscription to HomePower magazine a couple of years ago. They cover everything about this stuff a-z. I'm hoping to get our second home in Canada completely self-sufficient with a combo of wind, PV, and hydropower.
Anyone interested in the off-grid or systems to suppplement your on-grid power should read this magazine. It also covers everything you need to know about solar water heating systems for domestic and heating, as well as wood. You have to wade through some rather 'green' and liberal leaning opinions and editorials in places, (some of it laughable) but for a techonolgy reference, it's invaluable.
www.homepower.com
Jim

Not sure of all that. Bought a piece of land that had a gas well and that usually means free gas as well as a royalty check. The equipment itself doesn't have a very big footprint. The big stuff is only there when drilling.

Not uncommon in Pa, western NY, Oh or WV to have a tract of land with a gas well on it. Usually doesn't add that much more to the price unless there are big royalties. Around these parts a well might add $15k to the price of land.