r/OffGridLiving

Huge fan of the idea of living off-grid. But, how do you make a living? Do you just grow all your own food and use solar? I suppose that's probably the end goal, zero reliance on society, but how feasible is this... for instance what happens if you hurt yourself and need to go to the hospital... it's not like you can trade produce for it.

Hi! I’m hoping for a bit of advice if possible - one of my great friends has recently moved off grid in Wales, UK. I am in full support of this decision and it seems to have been the best thing for her. I would quite like to send the odd thing over to her, and was wondering what people would find the most useful? She has one tap with running water, one solar panel, a small garden/vegetable patch, and a stove/small kitchenette with sink. She doesn’t have a fridge but uses a cool box to keep things cooler when needed.

If this were you, what would you want? I also don’t want to overstep by spending obvious amounts of money or going super extravagant, but just trying to think of small but effective things. So far I am thinking of small solar panels, seeds and small gardening supplies, biodegradable cleaning/personal hygiene things, cooking utensils, a tarp to put out the front of her abode to serve as a temporary porch. Storage is also limited, so want to avoid bulky items unless they have a huge benefit.

Thank you for any help you can provide!

Purchasing a Motorhome that comes standard with a 12V system, 660W of solar panels, 600aH lithium battery. Looking for guidance for how much more solar power and or battery I need. Also, I know I need a converter charger, just not sure which one. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!! Any other tips and tricks are welcome!

We have a small weekend place a couple of hours out, no grid connection, and i spent the first month worrying about the wrong thing. I was obsessing over whether the panel and battery could handle a weekend of lights and charging and a bit of streaming, which it can, easily. The real problem was what happened to the battery between sunday afternoon and the next friday evening.

Setup is dead simple. One 400 W panel leaned against the south wall, a battery box of about 2.5 kWh, and a small satellite dish with a travel router that we only power on in the evenings. Friday to sunday we run LED lights, charge phones and a camera, a little USB fan, and maybe two hours of the dish in the evening. The panel refills the battery during saturday and we never dropped below about 40 percent. That part was fine from day one.

The surprise came after the first weekend we left everything connected. Got back the following friday to find the battery at 12 percent. I had left the router plugged in, not even on, just in standby, and a small 12 V DC timer for a water pump that was not running but had a phantom draw. The whole stretch was grey and drizzly, the kind of week where the panel barely puts out a couple hundred watt hours a day if you are lucky, so those two little loads ate nearly the whole battery. Fifteen watts continuous sounds like nothing when you are there, but over a hundred and twenty hours of rain and cloud it adds up to almost two kilowatt hours, basically the whole usable capacity.

So now i have a proper disconnect routine. Sunday before we leave i unplug the router and the timer from the small distribution block, panel stays connected, and the battery just sits at whatever state of charge it ended the weekend at. The panel tops it back up on the first clear day after we leave and it holds fine until friday. Last three weekends i have arrived to a battery at 80 to 90 percent instead of limping in at 12.

The battery is a Jackery unit, nothing fancy, and it does not have a low power storage mode or a remote disconnect, so i do it manually. If i was building this from scratch i would probably add a master switch on the DC side rather than unplugging things every sunday, but the unplugging takes thirty seconds and it works. For anyone setting up a weekend cabin, the question is not whether your panel and battery can handle the weekend, they can. The question is what you leave connected when you lock the door.

Had it running in UPS mode on the fridge for a week now. Went through one 14 hour outage and a couple breaker tests.

Idle draw is genuinely low. Kill-a-watt shows 5-7W between compressor cycles vs 20W+ on my old station. That's the main reason this thing lasts so much longer on a fridge.

After the 14 hour outage the battery still had 45% left. At that rate I'd get about 30 hours total on my Samsung 28 cu ft with the kitchen around 76-78F. Slightly under the 35 hour claim but their test conditions use a cooler room and smaller fridge so the numbers make sense.

UPS switchover is invisible. Tested it 4 times by killing the breaker and the fridge compressor never once hiccupped. The app logs every switchover event which is a nice touch.

Only minor note: the fan runs while charging which is audible from the next room. Goes completely silent once it's charged and sitting in UPS mode.

In the USA, I'm wondering how long someone could live off 250k, maybe in a campervan or something? Off grid would be an option too.

I was never really a fan of the rat race. Now, hitting 40 years old I think about what I want to do with my life and why I really want to make money. How long could a couple 100k last? I'm not planning on having kids and don't want to live to 100. I've fantasized about this for years.

Hello all. Over the past few years I have lost everything and I am having to rebuild from scratch. I am currently living in temporary accommodation and out of work, however hopefully I will be working again with some income soon. So with that in mind if you have to be negative please do it gently, I'm a kind sole and struggling to look on the bright side at the moment.

The dream as such is to buy 1-3 acres of land in Lincolnshire which is close to my family. The plan will then be to start a tree/plant nursery to grow saplings selling onto larger nurseries or rewilding projects etc.

I would also like to build a timber cabin on the land to live in long term.

I understand that £35k isn't going to cover all my costs and it will be an uphill battle. However I would be building everything myself. I have horticulture experience, I have built off grid solar systems before and I am a competent DIY'r. I would need to brush up on my carpentry skills but learning isn't an issue for me.

I am aware that it may be possible to get planning permission to build the cabin on agricultural land once I can prove the tree nursery is viable.

Has anyone else started with a similar budget and managed to make it happen?

Looking forward to hearing peoples feedback.

Thank you :)

I've got a bunch of used oil (100gallons) but don't particularly want to use it directly in the home to heat the place because I'm really just there to sleep and I don't want to get carbon monoxide poisoning in my sleep from a bad flute job or accidentally set the place on fire diying a oil heater. I'm thinking use the oil outside but to heat up some rocks or something then drag those into the house so I can sleep without worrying the place is going to burn down.

Any recommendations? Is this a problem a medieval peasant figured out and I'm just to big for my britches to figure it out?

edit: a key piece of information I forgot to add was I need to be able to prevent the pipes from freezing in the basement. last year my house got down to 20° Fahrenheit at some points before I got my emergency heater "fixed"

Hi,

I'm currently staying in an off grid stone shed and I'm looking to find the best spot to place a 12v fan (originally from a computer) and another very small 12v fan.

It's an odd construction and there's much to improve (roofing especially) but that'll be for later, so I'm just looking to make the heat more bearable. Of course, stone keeps cool but unfortunately the roof is made of metal plates and the old carpentry only allows for a make shift insulation.

It's about 3-5m large and 7m long, the ceiling is about 2m high. There are windows on the east side, the door is on the south side. On the west side, there is a cooling chamber that can be filled with water. It is just next to the bed.

In the morning, the windows are covered, in the afternoon they are opened.

In the morning, the house is cooler than the outside, in the afternoon a bit but the air is stuffy.

Having lived in cold places all my life, I'm a bit puzzled of how to go about the fan installation.

Ideally, the two would interact and bring the air from the cooling chamber into the whole space.

How would you go about that?

I'm planning to connect both and test a few settings but it would be great to get some advice beforehand.

Maybe my question is dumb but I really don't have any experience in this field..

I would much appreciate your help!

Thanks!!

Hey me and my wife are young and in our 20s and looking for anyone that own land for off grid living or anyone looking for buddy's for offgrid

We live in Florida and we can't seem to find a job every job near us no job is not hiring unfortunately bills dont wait so we decided to go off grid sadly we don't got money but we friendly and loving we invested into offgrid accessories we will build our own stuff if needed we will love to join you we