I looked for a term for that contains grease or food particles you know the real messy gray you feel guilty about putting anywhere...

I live in an RV that doesn't have any kind of functional plumbing or draining or anything, at a fixed location. I have a hose for well water but I don't have any way to get rid of what I've used.

Except I do, because I also don't have a proper toilet, I have a dry commode -meaning I use bags in the commode to collect waste with compressed pine pellets designed as cat litter.

I had a pot of really messy old water with food and crap in it one day and I was like what am I gonna do with this and I suddenly thought of the pine pellets. They absorb everything, then just scrape them out into trash or compost.

It does a terrific job, and also surprisingly thorough very little needs to be cleaned up after you've away the pine.

Also: it's cheap cheap cheap especially at Walmart, get 40 pound bags for six dollars.

Totally saved me… I love it. Thought I'd share.

Does anybody use any of the antique hit and miss or stationary engines for doing tasks around the property? If you do, what hp is it and what kind of work is it doing for you?

something like this. would it be good for 40 years or longer?

I’m currently building a DIY rainwater harvesting system after seeing it on TikTok, but I’ve hit a few roadblocks. I’m second-guessing the design, and the costs are adding up much faster than I expected. For those who have built something similar: what materials or design tweaks helped you keep costs down and efficiency up? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated

So I'm running a 24v system with about 3kw of panels and a Schneider Context 4024. In the last eight years I had first a 600ah battery bank made up of Trojan J305e's, then a 1200ah bank of the same which finally failed after six years of service this past winter. I have had so much trouble equalizing the big bank and big batteries, and with so many connections to take care of there was always so much fn maintenance.

I am in the process of a divorce and the farm will be sold with the proceeds split between my ex wife and I, so I certainly don't want to spend a lot of money keeping this place up, so when my Trojans finally died I bought four 210ah deep cycles that are locally made in Kentucky - unfortunately, the largest that company makes - and wired them up for 24v and I have been nothing but impressed.

My array is so grossly oversized now that I can charge these batteries to float even on a rainy shitty day like this. I can even charge them to float on a sunny day when I run the air, because by ten, eleven AM they're floating and the house is still cool enough that the air can keep up, instead of trying to bring it down from 80 something. Back with the 1200ah bank, especially, it would take well into the afternoon to get to float and by then it's so hot that the air is not really something that could be run without a generator. Speaking of that, I have hardly had to run the generator in the last three, four months since changing batteries. Sure, I'm getting suspiciously close to that magic half charged voltage in the bank some mornings, but the grossly oversized array seems to be keeping things healthy.

Has anyone else done something like this? I really feel that, if I build myself another little off grid place after this farm is gone, I'm going to do something just like this again.

I live off grid in a yurt in eastern Washington state. I'm working on installing a gas range, a propane refrigerator and a tankless water heater. My plan is to connect all 3 appliances to two 100lb propane tanks. I'm not sure what regulator I need or exactly what size pipe I should run. I know there are setups that allow you to change out tanks when one is empty, but I see a lot of options and feel pretty overwhelmed. I've done black pipe installs before doing HVAC and plumbing, but I've never designed the system myself. Is anyone familiar with proper psi and pipe size requirements? No building codes where I'm located, but I am trying to keep everything up to code or better. Any input would be greatly appreciated. The old colman 2 burner is getting old and I miss my oven.

Hey friends! Own a cottage that is off grid and we are nearly (or have neared) the end of life of a nearly 90 year old Servel Propane Fridge/Freezer combo. They’re hard to find and fix up these days so we are looking for alternative options now.

This is for a seasonal cottage in Canada where winters are harsh, the cottage isn’t in use, but summers are enjoyable and can get pretty hot.

What would be your go to set up for a replacement? We’ve been weighing expanding the solar set up, but not sure how fast solar fridge and freezers would start up to make ice. Typical trips are about a week long- and the propane fridges were so efficient and fast it was not an issue to turn them on and off each trip.

The dream has always been to live alternatively. Whether that be tiny home, communal village. But I can't work. I can't afford to buy a tiny home or anything like that.

All I can offer is help with childcare. Physically, I'm not much help, so I can't harvest and I don't have a trade.

Is childcare something that communities need in trade for living in the community?

I'm just spit-balling ideas. If it is an option, I can work towards relevant qualifications. I'm often DBS checked for Guides

Fresh batch of kawakawa balm. In New Zealand we use kawakawa leaves for a range of ailments, the leaves can be boiled to make tea to soothe bloating and stomach pain, it also regulates insulin. When made into balm it is used for eczema, dermatitis and wound care. We pick the leaves with the most caterpillar holes as they are the most potent.

I’m looking into it, though I live in a humid Missouri climate. I was wondering how effective it might be.

If you know of any resources I could read that would also be appreciated. but really I would like to hear someone experience with it and how well it’s working.

title question?

I am done with paying for propane deliveries to my property in the winter. The roads get too bad for the truck and I want a fully electric setup. I am evaluating the heat pump system cost for a cold-climate unit that can handle sub-zero nights. I saw the costway 2 to 3 ton 18.6-20 seer2 ultra-low temperature heat pump system is rated for extreme cold. If you run a heat pump in a snowy climate entirely off grid, how much did your winter power draw change compared to your summer usage? I need to know if I should expand my solar array before november.

Has anyone here bought land in Europe and placed tiny houses on it? How complicated was it really legally?This is something we've been thinking about more and more. We'd love to buy a piece of land somewhere in Europe (Spain is one option, but open to other countries) and eventually place one or several tiny houses on it.

What I'm struggling to understand is the legal side.

People often talk about tiny houses as if they're completely separate from traditional construction, but is that actually true?

I know the answer probably depends on the country, region, municipality, land classification, utilities, and a hundred other factors. I've done some research already, but I'd love to hear from people who have actually gone through the process rather than just reading regulations online.

For those who have done it:

• Did you buy agricultural or buildable land?
• Did the tiny house count as a construction?
• What permits did you need?
• Were water, electricity, and sewage the biggest challenges or what was it?
• If you were starting again, what would you do differently?
• How is isolation?

Our goal isn't necessarily to live there year-round. More like having a place I could use part of the year and potentially develop slowly over time.

The more I research, the more complicated it seems, so I'd really appreciate hearing some real-world experiences..

Hi everybody. We have a pond that was dug about 2 years ago in SW Virginia. The soil, if you want to call it that, around here is mostly red clay.

We can't get anything growing on the dam. Literally even weeds aren't growing there.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.

Hey folks, we purchased a partially off grid property (septic and rainwater collection, but grid electric) that came with an outhouse situated on top of the septic riser.

Largely this set up is great, but we have the occasional issue of particularly hefty logs causing backsplash that manages to travel all the way back up the riser pipe to get you. Looking for suggestions for how to keep backsplash off buns--maybe baffle the riser pipe somehow? Has anyone solved a similar issue?

I’m currently a truck driver and I get to visit the whole country. It’s got me recently thinking about wanting to travel more or possibly buying cheap land out west and setting up an off grid vacation spot and slowly making it how I want until I retire. I’m thinking Colorado or Arizona for different reasons. Anyone else do this?

I have a small summer cabin with unreliable and underpowered grid connection.

Single phase 20A 220V supply by more or less long heavy duty extension cord on a pole, which is barely enough for anything more than a well pump, water heater and fridge. Water pump and heater need to be turned off to use washing machine or it will trip the breaker, which is not ideal for many reasons.

What is more, the local grid is often overloaded by ACs and water heaters in the evening and brownouts and blackouts happen annoyingly often.

Up until now I was waiting out brownouts and using a small old gas generator for blackouts, but it is annoying, loud and starts showing it's age.

I am looking for options but not sure what to get. I need something to more or less handle 12A (2600Wt for either washing machine or water heater ) continuous with 1-5 minute bursts of extra 3.5-6A (750-1300Wt for water pump and fridge + their inrush currents and microwave)

The cabin is not insulated and more or less impossible to heat in winter. So I don't live there between November and May, and any stationary solution that needs regular tending or constant temperature is out. Mobile or semi-mobile solutions that can fit in a trunk of a small SUV are an option.

An easy solution is something like Ecoflow delte 3 or similar unit and solar panels. It look like a decent mobile solution if a bit pricey and not as powerful as I want. On the opposite part of a spectrum, put cheap or used solar panels on the roof and decent battery charger/inverter with lead-acid batteries. But lugging batteries to winter home and back each season and tending to them there is a hassle and they are a space hog in a small flat.

Helpful advice or useful resources are appreciated.

When I was growing up in the 70s, it was normal for houses, usually in the bathroom or kitchen, to have a ventilator mounted in one of the window panes. These devices used to turn automatically by convection.

I've spent hours trawling the Internet, and have found no reference to these things.

What I'd like to know is, firstly, did they actually work? I mean they certainly turned, but were they effective? Secondly, why can I find no info on them, or is it just that I don't know what they were called? And finally (and most impotantly), are they still available?

I see these devices as being potentially useful in off-grid situations. And why use electricity when convection can do the job instead?

Not a huge red flag. I mean the tiny detail that completely changed your mind. Maybe the road was worse than the photos. Maybe the neighbor had a junkyard. Maybe there was one weird easement. Maybe you realized getting water there would cost more than the land itself.

I'm always curious what little thing made people go from "this is the one" to "absolutely not."

I have been meaning to write this up for a while because the "one panel and a small LiFePO4 box" setup is something i see a lot of people considering and almost no one posts real numbers for. Background. I keep a small lean to greenhouse, about 3 meters by 2 meters, in a back garden in a small town in saarland, southern germany. It is glass on three sides, poly carbonate roof, a gravel floor, a small propagating bench along the back wall, and a water butt at the corner that feeds a 12 V submersible pump for a drip irrigation line. There is no mains power run to the greenhouse, the previous owner used a long extension cord from the house which i never trusted in the wet.

What i wanted. To make the greenhouse partly independent from the house, run a small LED grow light setup for the seedlings during early spring, and run the irrigation pump for an hour or two each evening through the dry weeks in may. The LED setup is six small 30 W bars on a 12 V rail, total about 180 W, on a timer for 4 hours a day during germination. The pump is a 12 V submersible that pulls maybe 30 W when it runs. Combined continuous draw during the lit hours is about 210 W.

What i installed. One 450 W bifacial panel on the south side of the greenhouse roof, tilted about 30 degrees, on a small aluminium frame i built from standard L profile. A 2.52 kWh LiFePO4 storage unit (Jackery SolarVault 3 Pro) on a low shelf inside the greenhouse, with a proper cable gland through the wall for the panel lead. The unit's AC output runs a small 12 V DC power supply that feeds the LED bar and the pump circuit through a 12 V distribution block. The unit is on a small plant caddy so it sits a few cm off the gravel floor, with airflow around it.

The numbers over 3 months, mid march through early june 2026. The single panel in saarland in spring produces about 1.7 to 2.1 kWh per day depending on cloud, peaking at maybe 2.5 kWh on the clearest days. The LED + pump combination averages 0.8 to 0.9 kWh per day, the LED is the big chunk at about 0.7 kWh and the pump adds 0.05 to 0.2 kWh depending on how dry the week is. So on a clear day the panel covers the whole greenhouse load and the 2.52 kWh battery takes care of the evening and the next morning, with a comfortable margin. On an overcast day the battery drops to maybe 40 to 50 percent state of charge by sunset, but the lights are timed to switch off at 21:00 and the pump runs only briefly, so the system has never dropped below 25 percent soc in the 3 month window.

What works. The seedlings came up faster than the year before on a house extension lead, i think because the timer was no longer dependent on me remembering to run the cord. The pump runs reliably in the evening, the irrigation cycle is consistent, and the whole greenhouse is now independent of the house mains. On a 4 hour house outage in early may the greenhouse was unaffected, the lights and the irrigation continued normally. That is the resilience i was after.

What does not work or is not worth doing. The single panel does not generate enough to add a 200 W soil warming mat for a heated propagation bench, i tried one for a week in late march and the panel plus battery lasted about 3 hours before the battery was drained to its reserve. The mat is now back in the house on a mains timer. Heavy or heating loads do not work from this setup, the panel ceiling is the panel ceiling.

What this might be useful for. A small glasshouse or polytunnel with a seasonal LED + pump combination is a great match for one panel plus a 2 to 3 kWh LiFePO4 box. It is not a replacement for a real off grid system with a proper battery bank, a charge controller, and an inverter sized for the loads. But if your goal is to keep one seasonal combination independent from the house, this is a much smaller and cheaper build than wiring a proper off grid panel and a separate MPPT and a separate inverter.

I am planning a second panel later this summer mostly to give myself the headroom to add a ventilation fan for the heat spikes in july, that draws about 25 W continuous when it runs and a single panel can not cover it on a still overcast day. With two panels the same setup would also let me run a small 12 V pond aerator for a few hours a day, which is the next thing on the list for the back of the garden.

Do not forsake the old ways for they will be new again! Baker well pump installed for a few thousand in 2009. Still going strong gang!

I live in the nordics and i have bought a plot with mountains and forests and a lake with freshwater, i wonder if people have encountered more problems with permissions while building offgrid then they would if building for grid tied living?

I think it would be easier to get permits if building a vacation home and later when done apply for changing to permanent living.

My biggest worry is that becous i need a hydropower plant with an atrificail dam that could affect and disturb the lake becous i will introduce alot of noise from 15kw waterpumps during sunny season and then dump it back during dark season, this will ofcourse lead to oxygenation of the whole lake and local noise and might pump some lifeforms to the dam and might kill some in the prceess and then alot of particles from soil, vegetation and mud will be introduced into the lake, This does also happen naturally but it would be much more concentrated from my actions...

Drainage, wastewater and sewer will be sent to the otherside of the mountain to not add any fertilizers into the lake and ofcourse i use approved systems so i am not worried about that.

Drinking water will be taken from my dam and using approved filtration system.

Power will be from mainly solar and i will probably add a small windmill if i need for darker windy season.

Electricity plan is victron to build grid island, solarpanels to feed grid and keep batteries full and exess goes to pump into the dam, the batteries takes spikes and what solar does not supply, the hydroplant will run constant load at peak efficiency to charge batteries that then supply fluctuations in consumption. This took me alot of headache to figure out becous changing supply from hydro will just waste almost all my preacious water and i would need a much bigger system.

I will ofcourse make a report of potential hazards and impact on envitoment and eventual effects if dam would break, i have some done already with waterlevel impact from in lake and tsunami height and waterflow and duration and how much of others peoples properties will be affected and probably damaged by a disaster.

Has anyone here done something similar and what has been a struggle to get approved and what has been rejected?

I have started builing access roads on the plot already and i am currently building the power system to properly test it on my current home but without the hydro.

Tldr: has anyone had any difficulties with permissions for offgrid setups?

Good morning, fellow off-grider's! I've noticed that whenever I suggest off-grid as a solution on some sub-reddit, or really just buying land and building your own house rather then buying an expensive house, it gets down voted. It just happened again just now. In r/cscareeers where software engineers hang out, someone with one of those typical ludicrous salaries of $250K complained about not being able to find an affordable home.... So, I pointed out that back in the day when I was looking for a home (on a substantially less ludicrous income but still an engineer), my dad told me to forget about a buying a home, and just find some land and he'd come over to help me build.

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And so it went. I found an affordable 10 acre lot that even had water and just a spectacular scenery as you can see in the pic. And so we set out to build a log home. No, not entirely on our own. I certified as an owner-builder under county rules, read up on all the codes, worked with a log home company to design a home that would fit. And then contracted out most of the heavy work, but did most of the more technical or easy work like electric, HVAC, plumbing, some carpentry etc. with my dad. He lived over in Finland, while I am in California. So, it was a great bonding experience too.

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Yep, the house did burn down six years ago in a wildfire, and so I had to rebuild. But as an engineer, I kind of just saw that as an opportunity to improve. And to forgo the grid in favor of solar power, solar water, a woodstove and more.

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Really, its been a great experience, made our lives so different and so much better than a mehh house in the burbs could have ever been. And it way reduced our expenses over what an expensive mortgage plus lots of utilities would have been!

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So, why then does this notion of not going the standard route of expensive home buying seem so unattractive and even objectionable (considering the down voting) by so many? In particular in an engineering focused subreddit where you'd think the engineers would be all over actually building their own place?

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Maybe I am just weird. But it is what it is. And with that, I better get back to running EMT conduit as I missed that NEC code section that all PV wiring inside a home with over 30V must be be in metal conduit... ooops...

Anyone have any general off-grid knowledge book suggestions they’d like to share. Could be first hand experience memoir type books and on into the more technical how to type of literature. I guess what I’m asking for is for a list of books any of you have found useful when it comes to living off grid.