Have any of you guys actually lived of grid?
It's not as fun as it sounds. When I was a kid we would often spend time in my grandparents summerhouse, with no electricity. You had to get up in the middle of the night to keep the fire going, you had to pump the water by hand, you had to heat the water on the fire, no shower, just a quick hand wash.
They later installed electricity and it was bliss, electric water pump and heating, and all that (but still no shower, they were the old generation who took a bath twice a week or so, the rest was hand wash).
I would love to live of grid, but you simply cant make enough electricity for electric heating, you would have to have a wood burner or oil burner for that. And that's not my cup of tea, except as a backup. Hopefully though, they will soon come up with some kind of high capacity battery that makes wind/solar possible as the only energy source.
Yes I have and the technology has come a long way.
A
modern catalytic stove will easily keep the fire all night, nearly 24 hours as a matter of fact. Personally I much prefer wood heat. I currently live in town and I miss having fire in my life.
Flat plate collectors on the roof coupled with a
heat exchanger on the stove for hot water, or
on demand propane if you are lazy.
DC pump and some solar to run it. It really isn't that hard.
I have like 5-6 hours of daylight right now, and overcast with rain, those collectors would collect absolutely nothing, and a wood stove, even a modern one, still need you to store huge amounts of firewood, that you would first have to chop. That's not living in comfort, that's more work than I do now on my regular job.
I actually live in a small cottage in the countryside with a wood stove as my backup for power outages and just enjoying a nice wood fire. (The heat from a nice wood fire beats everything else).
Solar just doesn't work in the north in the winter yet.
Having said that, when I reach my first cash out point, I will install solar panels and a small wind turbine to make myself self sufficient at least in the summer. I do have collectors to my water heater, but as I mentioned, they don't work in the winter.
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