Off Grid Living

How to Plan and Execute Living off the Grid

(Shelter, Water, Energy, Heat, and More)

By: Barton Press

Copyright © 2020 by Barton Press
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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 Table of Contents
Introduction
What We Know
The Popularity of Off-Grid Living
PART ONE: Planning
CHAPTER 1: PUTTING THE IDEA IN WRITING
TABLE 1
The Rough Sketch
Do Not Rush to Purchase Floor Plans
CHAPTER 2: Back of the Napkin Math - Does it Make Sense?
Cost of the Land
Square Footage of Building
Power Generation
Solar Power
Wind Power
Administrative Costs
Total the Big-Ticket Items
CHAPTER 3 - Finalizing the Playbook by Putting Together the
Running Task List
TABLE 2
PART TWO - Execution
CHAPTER 4 - Get That Money Down! Cash or Financing?
Interest Rates
Down Payment
Bank Locally? Or With a Chain?
Preparing for Initial Bank Meeting
The Pre-Commitment Process
What Closing Costs Mean
What is Title Insurance and Why am I Required to Pay for it?
CHAPTER 5 - Getting Legal: Permits: Deeds, Rights of Way, and
Contracts
The Purchase and Sale Contract
Seeking Permission to Build
Building Permit
The Hearing Before the Local Commission
Do I come with an Attorney?
Wastewater Permit
What is a Wastewater Permit?
Understand your Home State’s Regulations Before Consulting with an Attorney
Understanding the Deed - Devil in the Details
The Warranty Deed - the Gold Standard in Property Transfers
The Quitclaim Deeds - Buyers Beware!
Administrator or Executor’s Deed
Rights-of-Way Define Who Else Can Access the Property
PART THREE: Building
CHAPTER 6: Construction - What Can You Do to Maximize
Efficiency?
Find a Builder Who Will Also Act as a Teacher
Timber
Straw Bale Homes
Cob/Wattle and Daub
Stone
Recycled materials
Shipping Containers
Types of Homes on Wheels
Campers
Trailers
Conversions
CHAPTER 7: The Pros and Cons of a Tiny House
Financing
Adapting to Smaller Spaces
Storage
Taxes and Living Expenses. Are Tiny Homes Cheaper?
 Property Taxes
Water, Sewer, and Electricity
Heating and cooling
Groceries
Laundry
Appliances
PART FOUR - Completion
CHAPTER 8 - Water Supply
Step One - Determine Your Water Requirements
Rainfall
Low-Flow Appliances
Change You Usage Habits
Choosing the Right Water Supply
Natural Spring
Test Before You Consider
Do You Need a Water Filtration System?
Where is the Spring Located?
Installing the Water Line
How Deep Does the Water Line Need to Be?
Well
CHAPTER 9: The Bathroom - Where and What You Need
A Discussion About Outhouses
Blow the Stench Away
Down the Hill
The Outhouse Does Not Need to be Ugly
Water Hookup?
Composting Toilet
Systemic composting
Self-composting toilet
Composting Toilets Do Not Need to Be Outhouses
Conventional Toilet
Low flow
Shower, Tub or Both?
Why a Shower Stall Makes Sense
 Outdoor Showers
The Permanent Outdoor Shower
Camping/Portable Outdoor Showers
Saving Water with a Bathtub
Completing the Water Saving Project with the Right Sink
Small is Best
Wall-Mounted Sink
Vessel Above-Counter Sink
Corner Wall Mounted Sink
CHAPTER 10: Deciding on a Power System
First-Weigh the Cost Versus the Incentives
What Programs Exist to Reduce the Cost?
Tax Credits
State Tax Incentives/Rebates
Local/Municipal Incentives
Solar
Do I Cut Tree Down or Remove Limbs?
Does the Ground Need to Be Modified to Capture More Sun?
Wind
What Role Do I Want Wind Power to Play in Power Generation?
Matching Cost with Power Output
Determining Benefits Versus Negatives
What About Zoning Regulations?
Wind Feasibility Study
Size of Turbine
Is the Site Really Worth It?
CHAPTER 11: Heat Sources - Options
Wood Heat - The Age-Old Classic
Finding the Source
Do It Yourself? Are You Sure You Can?
What wood are you cutting?
How much wood do you need?
How quickly can I burn wood that has been cut?
After You Have Committed to Wood, Choose a Stove
Stove Choices
 Open Fireplace
Potbelly Stove
Traditional Cookstove
Masonry Stove
Modern Day Woodstove
Wood Pellet Stoves
Now the Negative
Never Stop Looking to Close Up Outdoor Leaks
Geothermal Heating and Cooling
Take note!
Vertical closed-loop systems
Horizontal closed-loop systems
Open-loop systems
Chapter 12: Putting It All Together
 Introduction

Barry was a Vietnam veteran who had come home after fighting for his
country and wanted to get away from it all. After moving back to central
Vermont, he and his wife, Martha, found 30 acres of land located in the
heart of the Vermont Green Mountains. The land, which was a mixture of
forest and rundown pastures, was serviced by a winding dirt road that was
a little more than a glorified four-wheeler trail.
Just five years prior, the local power company had offered to build power
lines to service the farms located on the mountain. The largest landowner,
a small-scale cow farmer, declined, questioning why he needed to be
indebted to someone else when he could provide the necessities he and his
family needed with his own two hands.
The barn for Martha and Barry came first. It was a necessity, as it would
house their chickens and goats. They were to be a primary food source for
the first year. The cabin came next, a 1000 square foot 3-bedroom home
with a self-composting toilet and a trickle of running water that fed the
kitchen sink. There was no blender, no microwave, and no television. They
lived with only a battery-powered radio that could pick up three local
stations to serve as the nighttime entertainment for them each evening
after work and chores.
For the early years, Martha and Barry's off-grid home was functional and
nothing more. It was not easy; it took a great deal of commitment. There
were times they wondered if they had made the right decision because it
was not an easy life. In the end, it was the peace, privacy, and feelings of
self-sufficiency that were their reward.
For Martha and Barry, their Green Mountain log cabin started a 30-year
story of living off-grid. In that home, they raised six children, built three
additions to their home, harvested thousands of board feet of timber, and
drank gallons of fresh goat milk.
Their off-grid home represented more than a place to rest their heads - it
was a symbol of how they wished to live their lives; to model, for their
children, and it served as an example of what self-sustenance was. They
hoped to instill these basic tenets of living life to its fullest if their
children would like to grow up and continue the tradition.
The idea of living off-grid can sound like a romantic utopia. Frankly, if
you are looking for a comfortable life with plenty of idle time, then living
off-grid may not be for you. However, for those who are interested in a
self-sustained, enriching experience where you are less reliant on others
and more independent, providing for yourself and your family, living off-
grid is an excellent choice to help lead you to this goal.

What We Know
The basic premise of living off-grid is to construct a residence free of any
reliance on a utility company for generating its power. As has been well
documented, the mass production of energy has fueled growing concerns
regarding the fossil fuels burned to generate such power.
The carbon emissions from these power generators are a major component
in the rapidly evolving global climate change crisis that has taken center
stage for most countries as they grapple with rising sea levels and
increasingly unpredictable and severe weather patterns. In 2020, during
the writing of this book, we surpassed the entire alphabet and began using
Greek alphabet for names of hurricanes and tropical storms in the Atlantic
and Gulf of Mexico.
The Pacific Northwest of the United States is on fire again, and the map
overview looks like an inferno as five states burn out of control. This is
also a climate issue that can be directly blamed on global warming, which
is a result of burning fossil fuels and releasing carbon emissions into our
atmosphere.
As further motivation for enacting change to our current way of life, the
recent public health crisis brought on by COVID-19, has provided
additional incentive as it continues to reveal national infrastructure
vulnerabilities.
As deliveries were slowed, most of the United States experienced
shortages of food items and dry goods. Toilet paper became a commodity
that was hoarded, and would-be profiteers attempted to sell Americans a
single roll of toilet paper for as much as $40 on sites like Amazon and
eBay. Fines were levied, and arrests were made in some cases, such as
when a man was found to have a garage full of hand sanitizer.
Brothers, Matt and Noah Calvin, drove around their local area in
Tennessee and hoarded hand sanitizer and other sanitation supplies that
people were seeking during the pandemic.
After stockpiling over 17,000 bottles of hand sanitizer in a garage, they
began selling bottles of dollar store hand sanitizer for as much as $70 per
bottle on the internet. Desperate people were paying the prices out of fear.
Ultimately, the men were shut down and charged with price gouging, but it
is a prime example of how the world can be turned on end when you least
expect it. Those who were desperate were victims. Many have had their
eyes opened very wide during these times of living in an epidemic.
In response to the rising level of concern, individuals and families have
begun to look for ways to separate themselves from the chaos. Even more
people believe that we could see issues with the national power grids.
These grids have not only placed an increased strain on the earth but also
have created a higher risk of widespread power failure. As people turn the
air conditioning down in summer and heat up during winter, the power
grids are pushed to the point of rolling brown-outs, and total black-outs in
some areas.
There is no better example of the volatility of the national power grid than
Hurricane Sandy, which caused power outages to 8.1 million homes along
the east coast in 2012. Even more recently, in 2016, Hurricane Harvey
dumped more than 40 inches of rain on the Houston, Texas area. Thirty-
thousand Americans were displaced, and more than 17,000 rescues were
necessary after Harvey hit Texas and 336,000 people in Texas were left
without power.
This power outage crippled millions of people trying to perform their
daily routines and resulted in billions of dollars in damages and weeks of
outages while ensuring that power was back up and running.
While this band-aide has temporarily fixed the immediate issue, it has in
no way solved it. Instead, what remains is the same infrastructure as
before, which is just as susceptible to failure. The risk of natural disasters
continues to rise due to climate change, leaving us in the classic catch-22
of relying on a system that continues to put us at increased risk.
Some of the most hardcore off-grid residents have chosen to combat the
grid dilemma by creating homes that have no power at all. Historically for
generations, families made-do with kerosene lights and wood fireplaces;
some families still live this way today.
When Barry and Martha moved to their log cabin in central Vermont, for
the first two years, they relied solely on fire energy. It was hard, so
eventually they turned to a small solar panel and a generator for
supplemental power use in the mid-1990s. For the sake of survival, it met
their needs.
There remain some people that are fully committed to living with no
power. A settlement outside Albuquerque, New Mexico is home to over
300 citizens who elected to purchase cheap land with no access to any
public utilities, such as running water and electricity.
These people are called ‘preppers’ because they are prepping for a time
when the grid could go down permanently. They believe that it is
inevitable that we’ll lose the power grid entirely, whether it be from
sabotage of a foreign influencer’s doing or a major catastrophic weather
event.
Some preppers are ‘end of timers’ who believe in the resurrection and that
the planet will be in the ‘end of days,’ which will result in total
devastation. Others will come to steal your things because the
infrastructure will completely fall apart. Humans and animals will starve,
and only those who have hoarded supplies and prepared will survive this
apocalypse.
Others have come to believe that anything is possible, and we should
simply be prepared. The pandemic in 2020 has solidified this desire to be
prepared for anything. If 2020 has taught us anything, it surely is that
those who are prepared will not have to fight over a package of toilet paper
when the day of shortage arrives. The off-grid preppers have barely
blinked at all over our chaos and uncertainty.
More Americans are beginning to think that living off-grid and being more
prepared for any situation is the way to live. Living off-grid means you are
nearly unaffected by the chaos of the world around you. Can you imagine
how wonderful your life could be without a commute each morning and
not needing to go to the grocery store or pay another electric bill as long as
you live?
For those who wish to live the most natural off-grid lifestyle, the planning
and building of the home might be a little less complex. Instead of
focusing on the right power generation from natural resources, the focus
will center on the construction of the home. This cuts down on the
usefulness of this book, but it requires a lot of the same planning because
the requirements for construction remain the same.
It is clear, however, that a majority of people who have committed to off-
gridliving do not wish to abstain fully from electric power in finding a
suitable way to fuel their homes. Most are simply seeking to buck the
national trend, be more environmentally conscious, and wish to bring a
level of self-reliance that will survive the unpredictable variations and
risks that come with being hooked to a national power grid.
There is also the consideration that you may live very cheaply when there
are no utility bills coming to your mailbox every month that threaten to
cut you off from the things you use in your daily lives. Electricity and
water can both be harvested and used, completely free from monthly
obligations.

The Popularity of Off-Grid Living

The interest in off-grid living has exploded in the last 10 years. New data
from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has reported
that 115 million people globally depend on solar for generating power.
Another 25 million have utilized solar to create their mini-grid to generate
all of their power. Additionally, some 6 million people have used
hydropower as their main electric source. There are also other methods of
harnessing energy, and we’ll cover those, so continue reading.
What was in recent history identified as an alternative lifestyle, the
evolution of the alternative energy market has made off-grid living much
more obtainable to a wider range of people. According to a study
conducted by IRENA, Solar PV module prices have fallen by around 80%
since the end of 2009, while wind turbine prices have fallen by 30–40%.
The dramatic drop in cost for solar and wind, have increased the overall
consumer demand for these products, which in turn has fueled numerous
startup companies who are looking to capitalize on this rising trend by
offering financing and installation of power systems to consumers.
What the rising interest in natural and localized power generation has
shown is that there is an increased drive by the global community to
change how power is generated, which in turn will provide further
independence to control more aspects of their lives.
There has also been a relatively new market opening in recent years. Solar
panels that were some of the earlier installations have begun to wear out
and need to be replaced. These used panels are being recycled by after
some necessary upgrades and being sold as used for discounted prices.
This is opening a market for DIY projects, allowing some people to gain
access to entry-level prices with bigger panels that have traditionally been
exclusively installed by contractors.
The purpose of this book is to provide the reader with three major
takeaways:
1. To spark interest in off-the-grid living.
2. To stimulate contemplation of how off-grid living can be
accomplished.
3. To motivate you with the keys to put your plan into
action.
Each reader needs to seek independent professional advice on the planning
and building process. Living off-grid is not a cookie-cutter process.
Indeed, it is meant to be quite the opposite of that. It is filled with unique
scenarios that will need to be independently reviewed and planned for. It is
a way of life that allows you to weave your own creativeness into your
home and the way you live.
Living off-grid is a challenge that can allow you to unleash your ingenuity
and learn new ways of doing things that integrate modern twists on the old
ways of doing things. It is a combination of the old ways of doing things
with the technology that we’ve come to learn from.
Many new off-grid homes are in a hybrid style that incorporates many of
the old ways, with modern twists that make off-grid homes into works of
art that are mind-bogglingly superior in how they can use sunlight and
passive heating and cooling with such efficiency.
Despite the disclaimer, off- grid living’s primary requirements are
motivation and initiative. Although the task of creating an off-grid home
may be daunting at first, seeing through the trees to an ultimate goal can
fuel endless opportunity.
 PART ONE: Planning

CHAPTER 1: PUTTING THE IDEA IN

WRITING

Great ideas can come from a wide range of inspiration. To find this
inspiration, you must first wade through many irrelevant thoughts. By
wading through the good and the bad, you will, through utter
determination, reach the ideas that yield the highest chance of being
productive. There is no greater way to start the inspirational process than
to commit your thoughts to paper.
This brainstorming will not be organized at first. Instead, it will come in
more of a stream of consciousness that you can spew out onto the paper. It
doesn’t need to be pretty at this stage. Just get it out on paper.
It is important at this stage not to be self-conscious about what you write.
It may be nearly illegible, poetic, or complete nonsense. It may be in
drawings -- whatever makes sense to you.
The only important thing is that you keep writing it. Sooner or later, ideas
will emerge from the chicken scratch that will rise to the top of your brain
as you digest your initial thoughts on off-grid living.
After you have sifted through enough words to fill an entire notebook
page, circle back, and grab a highlighter to mark the relevant ideas for
your off-grid project. Then, be sure to put these onto a separate sheet of
paper or type them into a chart on your computer. They may simply be
keywords, research ideas, or trade names of materials you have used
before.
After you have completed the initial transfer of ideas, continue the stream
of thoughts by continuing the process of documenting all your thoughts on
paper. After you have started to create the keywords, your rambling will
become more concise, and each subsequent page, after the first, will
generate an increased number of keywords.
After you feel you have written enough, it is then time to take your
highlights and organize them into categories. An example of this charting
could look something like this:

TABLE 1
Planning Land Home Power
Permits required Need more than 1 1,000, 2,000, Solar,
acre or 3,000 sq Wind...Geo-
feet? Thermal?
Organizational Mountains? Fields? How do you Local
professionals? Who Where is the best for maximize companies,
to hire and when? power exposure efficiency? are they
worth it?
Ballpark costs to The money is the key Bank Do they
retain experts. financing? finance?
Private
financing?
As you can see, these ideas are not fully developed; they are simply placed
into categories to allow you to develop them further as your thoughts
become clearer.

The Rough Sketch

Beyond describing the type of off-grid home you wish to build in words, it
is also important to start putting these ideas into the form of a rough
sketch. Sketching a floor plan or layout of the property will allow you to
begin analyzing the feasibility of your idea. By reducing an idea into a
drawing, you have begun to bring the idea to life. Putting anything onto
paper changes it from a dream to a goal. You’ve created a mission with an
action plan.
There is a wide range of floor plan drawing applications that can be found
online. Programs such as Smartdraw offer a free 7-day trial and are very
user friendly. Although the technology available is seemingly endless, in
the early sketching process, there is no substitute for the graph paper and
pencil. You may have some great ideas but also remember that when you
find your property, some of your sketches will change with the lay of the
land, the terrain, and water that is or isn’t on the property.
Using your hands to create on paper instead of typing buttons on your
computer or dragging your mouse on a desk will stimulate further ideas. It
has been extensively studied that putting pencil to paper stimulates a
different cognitive process than typing. This especially applies to
generating creative ideas, such as a rough sketch of your future off-grid
home.
Keep in mind that this sketch does not have to be exact; it does not even
need to have straight lines. It is a continuation of the thought stimulation
process that will help you open up and think outside of the box you’ve
been in until now. By connecting your stream of consciousness with a
sketch, you are starting to piece together a cognizant idea that you can
then begin to break down into obtainable steps.
After coming up with a sketch and a narrative, you can further enhance
your planning by seeking the inspiration of others. A good start is to
search for off-grid images that may catch your eye and provide you with
ideas that you had not thought of before. Pinterest is a perfect way to find
photos of fencing ideas, cabin ideas, water collection ideas, and so much
more.
A prime example of inspiration searching is the shipping container off-
grid home. Many, including this author, had not even considered a
shipping container to be an acceptable idea for an off-grid home until a
few photos emerged during an internet search. When looking at some of
the designs and what these homes look like as finished products, it became
easy to see why a shipping container might make sense for some off-grid
homeowners.
The shipping container is just one of many examples of why it is
important to research the farthest corners of design ideas early in the
process. Going through this process expands your thinking, opens your
mind to new possibilities, and allows you to continue your thought
process.
Remember, it is not the quality of ideas at this early stage; it is the
quantity. As with most brainstorming, there is strength in the number of
ideas you can reduce to writing. At this point, it doesn’t matter how many
ideas turn out to be viable. It is more important to simply keep the
momentum going than to evaluate feasibility in this early stage. Simply
put, keep writing, no matter what product comes out. You can evaluate the
fruits of your thought processes later.

Do Not Rush to Purchase Floor Plans

Many who are interested in an off-grid home will commit financial
resources too early in the process. At the information spewing part of your
planning, building plans are a waste of money.
These plans provide way too much detail. By committing money, you are
running the risk of being boxed into an idea before you have fully vetted
it. This premature action will only limit the creative process, which may
block great ideas from coming to the surface.
Utilize other free ideas, but do not spend money unnecessarily. Once you
have completed further research and have come to a solid plan, you can
always circle back to building plans to see if they still fit your goals and
are now worth the investment.
The odds are in your favor that you won’t need the plans, and you’ll be
better off to wait until you are standing on your property, investigating the
lay of the land, the slope, and where the sun moves across the sky from
sunrise to sunset.
In fact, I strongly encourage you not to place your solar panels
permanently until you’ve lived through all four seasons and determined
where your panels will get optimum sunlight during all four seasons. The
position of the sun changes, and having panels that can be positioned
differently is a huge positive step. Mounting them on a roof is not always
the best choice, so don’t make assumptions about such things until you are
firm with feet on terra firma.
 CHAPTER 2: Back of the Napkin Math -
Does it Make Sense?

Now that you have begun to formulate an idea for your off-grid home, the
next step in the process is to start the calculation process on what the
project will cost. Keep in mind that this early calculation is not meant to
be a formal budget; it is intended to merely be a ballpark. You should
know what your budget is and how to stay within that budget. In this
chapter, we’ll show you what to do to keep your project on point.
One important aspect of ballpark math is to round your calculations up by
adding %10% to your estimate as a variable fee. There are always
expenses that you cannot foresee in the planning process. Instead of
guessing at what these variables will be, add 10%% to each rough
estimate. This will allow you to further enhance your ballpark figure while
not going too deep into detail.
Remember, costs are not cemented at this time. They are only meant to
stimulate further motivation in the planning process when it becomes clear
by your rough math that the project may be feasible.
It will open your mind to what you are capable of and what is completely
out of reach. When it comes to off-grid living, there are homes for all
budgets, including tiny pallet homes entirely built from free pallet wood.
Free pallets can be used for counters, wall covering, and much more.
It is always better to overestimate and be pleasantly surprised when the
cost to build your home is lower, rather than be surprised at the cost,
which could mean you do not have enough money to complete the project.
You can always use the savings to put toward another pet project on your
homesteads, such as gardens, chicken coops, or goat sheds.
We will go through the back of the napkin math using a standard 2000
square foot, 3 bed, and 2-bathroom home. This example will give you a
baseline that you can easily adjust to fit your roughly sketched outline.
This scenario is just another step in the conceptualization process. We are
simply taking one small step forward in gathering ideas by applying
numbers to our rough sketches.

Cost of the Land

As the old market analogy goes, real estate is all about location. When it
comes to off-grid living, the value of the land is all about its exposure to
the natural resources that will make up its power generation. A running
water source can supply you with generated hydropower and provide you
with a source of water at the same time. That property is worth more than
a desert plot with no water and little rainfall. This explains why an acre in
the California desert is $300, and an acre in the lush green areas across the
mid-west are several thousand dollars.
It is impossible to know exactly what the cost of land will be at this stage
in the calculation. However, it is easy enough to find the cost of land that
is currently on the market that may be in the area which you desire for
your home.
Again, you’re looking for a ballpark figure. A quick look at Realtor.com or
Zillow will allow you to break down your searches into location, cost, and
acreage. A little more research, and you'll be able to get a rough estimate
of what land is selling per acre on average.
For our example, we searched parcels ranging between 5 and 10 acres that
have been listed for sale in two southern Vermont counties. The average
cost for vacant land was between $5,000 and $10,000 per acre. For our
back of the napkin math, we used $7,500 per acre and multiplied it by 7.5
acres, a modest but certainly usable acreage for an off-the-grid home.
Cost of Land: $7,500 x 7.5 acres = $56,250 + 10%% variable fee =
$61,875.
Now you have a general budget for the land that you’re looking for. You've
got a list of things written down that should help you with a checklist to
determine which property hits all your desires and dreams for your off-
grid hideaway.

Square Footage of Building

For our example, we calculate that the house is going to be built, not
purchased. It is certainly a possibility for an existing home to be converted
into an off-the-grid home.
However, since there are so many variables that go into purchasing an
existing home -- such as the condition of the electric power, the home’s
location, and how close it is located to the existing power grid -- that
would cause our already rough estimates to be even tougher.
Square footage of the living space of your home is one of the easiest ways
to calculate the cost to build it. Depending on the quality of materials and
the design, the cost to build the home will range between $100 and $155
per square foot.
Again, don’t be discouraged if this seems too high for your personal
budget. Remember that depending on the type and size of the home, you
can save a lot on materials by recycling and upcycling building materials.
If you plan on building a 2,000 square foot home, you should plan for at
least $200,000 and upwards of $310,000 for the construction costs alone.
For our example, we used the middle of the road cost per square foot of
$125.
Ballpark Cost for Construction of Home: $250,000 + 10%% variable fee =
$275,000

Power Generation
The first step in estimating the cost to install a power generation system is
to determine precisely how much energy you will need monthly. The
energy usage is largely tied to the size of the home as well as the number
of occupants. A general estimate for our 2,000 square foot home is that it
will require 1,000 kWh per month.
Calculating the cost of power generation is where costs can be wildly
miscalculated. At this point in the planning, you likely have a rough idea
as to what type of electrical system you want. It is also likely that you will
be able to roughly articulate the type of heating system that is desirable.
You will be able to get into the details later, but for the rough math, here
are a couple of estimates that can put you in the ballpark.
Solar Power
There is no better tool for initial research on the cost of a solar system for
your home than the solar estimator located at
https://news.energysage.com . This tool allows you to receive estimates
for solar systems that are geared towards your exact location.
Although there is no substitute for contacting solar installation companies
directly and receiving a quote, you are not at that stage yet with your back
of the napkin math. Thus, this tool will suffice for the initial math.
For our example, we will calculate the cost based on an estimate generated
for southern Vermont, and we will use the higher end of the tool to
generate our back of the napkin math. Continuing with an estimate for a
2,000 square foot house, a rough cost for the system needed would be 10
kWh.
This ballparks the cost for the solar power system at $24,000 +
10%%variable fee = $26,400.

Wind Power
It is harder to find an accurate tool for generating estimates for wind-
generated systems. The best estimate for wind is based on per kilowatt-
hour produced. Rough estimates show that the cost per kWh is between
$3,000 and $8,000.
For a large house, the desired output of electricity is 10 kWh, which on the
high end equates to an $80,000 investment in power generation. For our
example of a 2,000 square foot home, we will use the middle of the road
estimate of $60,000 + 10%%variable fee = $66,000 for a fully installed
system.
Geothermal
It should be noted that, before making any geothermal calculations, it is
not as commonly available when compared to solar and wind power.
Before getting too far into the math for a potential geothermal power
system, you should first research some of the frequently asked questions
about the availability of these systems by visiting the Department of
Energy (https://www.energy.gov) to ensure that geothermal is available in
your area.
This initial research will either eliminate the idea of geothermal or will
allow you to take the next step in researching its viability for your project.
Regardless, you will have saved a lot of time by answering these questions
early in the process.
Although geothermal energy production is not as well-known as wind and
solar power, mostly due to its limited availability, it can be a practical off-
grid energy source in certain areas. The best estimate for creating a
localized geothermal power generating plant is $2,500 per installed kWh.
Using our example for the 8 kWh system that we calculated for solar and
wind, the ballpark cost to install a geothermal system would be $20,000 +
10% variable fee = $22,000.

Administrative Costs
One of the least planned for costs in building an off-grid home, is the
administrative costs required to receive permits and the closing costs on
any bank financing. The details of these costs will be discussed further
within this text.
For this exercise, however, it is safe to assume that it should be budgeted
that administrative costs will fall in the ballpark of $7,500 with again a
10% markup allowing for the final cost.
Administrative Costs: $7,500 + 10% variable fee = $8,250

Total the Big-Ticket Items

Now that you have calculated the big-ticket items, you’ll need to add the
totals up to give yourself a running total for the project cost.
With the variables in energy production, we will see that in our 2,000
square foot home concept, the cost to build the home and to install an off-
grid electrical service would come with a rough price tag of:
Solar : $366,425
Wind: $405,625
Geothermal : $361,625
Once the rough numbers have been run, the off-grid vision becomes
clearer. If you are fortunate enough to have the ballpark amount of cash
handy, you are a few steps ahead.
However, for most people, the costs merely give them further tasks to
complete regarding the availability of financing. At least now, with some
numbers to work with, the tasks are getting simpler and the target is far
closer to achieving them. You can begin to see things happening now.
 CHAPTER 3 - Finalizing the Playbook by
Putting Together the Running Task List

Now that you have brainstormed and performed some rough calculations,
it is time to put some detail into your planning by constructing a
modifiable checklist, also known as the running task list. This will be your
game plan. It can be modified as necessary, but it will be your guide to
ensure that you’ve taken care of all the details.
It is at this point in the process where your ideas begin to take shape, and
you can further develop your ideas by adding comprehensive concepts to
what were generalizations beforehand. You can begin thinking about the
way your kitchen will look, the type of walls you’ll be installing, and what
color your paint will be. Your vision is taking shape, and you’re on a path
that is clearly before you and on paper.
To begin construction of the running task list, you need to have in front of
you; the refined stream of consciousness or chart of keywords, your rough
calculations, your rough sketch of your home, and access to the internet.
Sit down at a table and begin to break down your notes into achievable
steps. As simple as it seems, your #1 task on the list, should be to make
this list itself. Writing down the task gets the ball rolling and, while you
are applying your hand to paper, your brain will start to conceptualize the
task in front of you, which will further your progress.
While coming up with tasks, be as concise as possible. If you need to
contact your local bank to inquire about financing, be sure to put the bank
and the phone number on the list.
When you go back to this list to execute the tasks, getting the details you
need to cross it off your list can make it easier to perform while still
battling the temptation to come up with an excuse not to take action now
(such as not having a handy number).
The best way to ensure your list is completed timely, is to not only make it
easy to access the information, but also to give yourself reasonable
deadlines to complete each task. Don't think you should perform a huge
number of tasks every day.
Give yourself reasonable space in between deadlines to ensure that you
take the time needed to fully complete one task before moving on to
another. It will be better to take the proper time to do these things so that
all is done properly.
It is also important to develop your task list in chronological order: the
lower the number, the more immediate the task. By constructing the task
list in chronological order, you are not only organizing your thoughts, but
you are also building the instruction manual for completion. By adhering
to a step-by-step process that follows a specific timeline, you are making
the tasks that much easier to complete.
Sit down and take your time; the list does not need to be completed all in
one day. Give yourself a reasonable amount of time each day but make
sure that it is solely dedicated to developing the list. You might also wish
to use a pencil so that you can make changes and erase some things as you
work on the details and prioritization of tasks.
Do not allow yourself to be distracted by other things while you are
constructing your list. Limiting the risk of outside interference will ensure
that whatever time you have allotted for the generation of your tasks will
be productive. It is not about the amount of time that you dedicate to the
process, but the efficiency in which you utilize that time.
For our 2,000 square foot example, the beginning of a good running task
list may look something along the following lines:

TABLE 2
5 Task Deadlin Not
e es
1 Construct a running task list 5/15/20
20
2 Call bank to inquire about financing - Bob, bank 5/15/20
 manager 802-257-1133 20
3 Complete mortgage application. 5/25/20
20
4 Schedule meeting with a contractor for building-Peter 6/1/202
at Klien Builders. 802-767-4431 0
5 Research the best locations for solar and wind 6/5/202
generation, are there any maps to show the best 0
areas? Contact Efficiency Vermont (802-885-1478) to
begin the research process.
6 Is Geo-Thermal an option for power generation? 6/10/20
Call VT Agency of Energy 20
802-885-0056
7 Meet with the realtor (Sarah 802-777-9834) regarding 6/15/20
vacant land for sale. 20
8 Get 3 quotes for energy production: 6/30/20
Catamount Solar-802-257-8761 20
King’s Wind Generation: 603-999-7676
Geo-Thermal?
9 Follow up with the Bank to ensure mortgage 7/5/202
application is processing. Bob, bank manager 802- 0
257-1133
1 Find 3 plots of land that meet energy production 8/1/202
0 needs. 0
1 Consult with an attorney (Sam: 802-275-4327) to 8/15/20
1 inquire about how to make an offer on land. 20
1 Meet with Klein Construction to visit prospective land 8/25/20
2 purchases 20
1 Schedule site visits with solar, wind, and Geo- 9/1/202
3 Thermal (if feasible) on potential land purchases. 0
1 Make Offer on land 9/10/20
4 20
1 Close land deal 10/1/20
5 20
1 Break Ground and begin construction. 11/1/20
6 20
The above running task list is in no way a fully comprehensive list. There
will likely be other tasks that come up along the way that will change the
deadlines. Embrace this change as it will ensure that you are continuing
the brainstorming process and further refining your ideas to ensure that
you are completing each task as thoroughly as possible before you move
on to the next one.
 PART TWO - Execution

CHAPTER 4 - Get That Money Down!

Cash or Financing?

Now that you have constructed your marching orders, it is time to put your
money where your mouth is and seek out the financing you need to bring
the project to life. The initial question you must answer is how to access
the cash you need, which will ultimately come from financing or cash.
If you are fortunate enough to have saved a significant amount of cash for
the project, this part of the planning may seem like a no-brainer; why pay
someone else to borrow their money when you can pay for it yourself?
However, even for those with a substantial amount of cash, using it to
finance the house may not be the best idea. To answer this initial question,
you should look at the following:

Interest Rates
One of the important things to consider in construction loans is that they
customarily hold significantly higher interest rates than conventional
mortgages.
The reason behind this is that the construction process brings increased
risk to the bank, as when the money is provided, the project is nothing
more than a hole in the ground. Thus, if the construction project fails, they
are not left with the full value of the anticipated collateral to collect their
debt, which ultimately means they can lose significant money.
As a result, banks are less willing to finance construction loans without
significant guarantees, and their mortgage rates are upwards of twice the
rate of a standard mortgage. As of May 9, 2020, the average construction
loan rate was 9.75%.
The standard strategy on construction financing is to finance the
construction for the short term, normally 2 years or less. When you have a
finished product, pay off the construction loan with a conventional 15- or
30-year mortgage. This allows you flexibility and the ability to lower your
interest rate when rates being offered are good.
Ultimately, this means that you will pay more in the short term, but if
interest rates for standard mortgages remain at their current historic lows
(3.15% for 15 years and 3.51% for 30 years as of May 9, 2020), you will
have reasonable monthly payments. You can use that stashed cash for
other purposes such as infrastructure upgrades or to serve as a rainy-day
fund.

Down Payment
If you choose to go through the financing route, you will still be under an
obligation to come up with a substantial down payment on the loan. Most
banks require between 10 and 20% of the total loan to be paid by the
debtor in cash.
The main reason for this is to reassure the bank that you have taken the
process seriously enough, and you can save a substantial amount of money
to put towards the project. The less down payment you can provide, the
less likely a bank is willing to take a chance on you to finance the project.

Bank Locally? Or With a Chain?

This book is not meant to question an individual's financial decisions on
who they bank with. However, for the sake of efficiency and the sake of
your local community, you should apply for financing locally.
Most local banks and credit unions make their loan decisions in house.
This means that you will receive a quicker response than if you sought
financing at a national chain.
Despite the press headlines some national banks have made in recent
years, there is also a practical side to using a local bank. Decisions for
financing for national chains normally start locally, but the actual decision
making for the financing is made either at a regional headquarters or even
the national office.
This means that your application, along with the supporting documents,
will be reviewed locally, and then sent to another office where it will be
pooled with the other applications in that region. The banker who makes
the decision does not know you any more than any of the other applicants.
You are merely a series of numbers.
Meanwhile, if you have developed a relationship with a local bank, they
don’t only know you from the numbers you provide, but also as a person.
They know about the company you work for, the side hustles you perform,
and the organizations you are involved in. In small towns, it is likely that
your kids may have gone to the same schools or that they played on the
same little league team.
This local knowledge allows for character-based lending to be more of a
factor in their overall decision. The local banker will be able to look at you
as a person and will be able to better analyze whether you are someone
who is trustworthy. Even if the numbers don’t quite add up, whether you
are worth taking the risk on, based on your personal and professional
history, a local bank can be more flexible than a big bank will be.

Preparing for Initial Bank Meeting

Before making any decision on cash or financing, an initial meeting with
your prospective banker will allow you to shed some light on the decision-
making process. To maximize this initial meeting, you should go in armed
with the following:

1. Bids from all construction contractors from foundation to

finish
2. Bids from energy producers
3. Two years of income tax returns
4. A personal finance sheet showing your current assets and
liabilities
 5. Appraisals of any other properties you own, showing the
market value
6. Copies of your most recent mortgage statements for other
properties owned.

The purpose of this meeting is to start gathering specifics of what type of

financing may be available to you and what undertaking it will require to
secure this financing. It is never a good idea to commit to a proposal in the
first meeting, and customarily, the banker you will be meeting will need to
go back to his boss before they issue any type of commitment to you to
finance your project.
Efficiency in this process is important. If at all possible, the first bank
meeting you have should be with the bank where you usually bank. This
will provide a more direct route to approval because the bank will already
have a substantial amount of information about you in their files. They
will easily be able to analyze your ability to stay current on financial
obligations without having to send inquiries to other financial institutions.

The Pre-Commitment Process

After you have provided sufficient information along with your
application, the bank will likely make an initial determination on your
credit worthiness by offering you a “Pre-Commitment” letter. This letter
essentially means that the bank is interested in financing your project but
has not fully committed to the idea yet. It’s essentially a ‘maybe’ letter.
It is important not to treat this pre-commitment as an actual commitment,
as there is still a reasonable possibility that after the bank runs all the
numbers, they may still back out of the financing. It is only through the
formal commitment process, where you sign on the dotted line, that you
can be certain that you have secured the financing to begin the project.
Don’t make any offers on a property or start any work until you’ve got
those papers, signed and in order.
One of the major errors overly enthusiastic off-grid purveyors may make,
is to tell their contractors too early in the process that they have secured
the financing for their project.
Many contractors will require a deposit before beginning work; however,
some will simply move forward based on the homeowner's word. As you
might imagine, this could be a big problem if you do not, in fact, secure
the financing and now owe a contractor for work they’ve begun, but you
have no way to pay for.
This process can be a recipe for disaster if, after further vetting, the bank
comes back and states that they cannot proceed with the financing due to
additional information that came to light after the pre-commitment letter
had been issued.
If your contractor has put a month’s worth of work in and now it is
determined that the cash is not handy to complete the project, this could
lead to the ultimate failure of your project and a wide range of potential
lawsuits to follow. The contractor will expect payment in full, and you
cannot blame him. They have employees to pay for the hours worked, after
all.
BOTTOM LINE: DO NOT ALLOW YOUR CONTRACTOR TO
BREAK GROUND UNTIL THE BANK HAS ISSUED YOU THE
CHECK!

What Closing Costs Mean

One of the most common misconceptions in the financing process is the
cost to close the loan. If you have ever financed a home before, you may
be familiar with the HUD settlement statement that outlines all the costs
associated with the loan.
This, in most cases, will include real estate taxes for an entire year,
attorney’s fees, homeowner’s or builder’s insurance, as well as any other
fees that may not be so obvious, such as loan generation fees and copying
costs.
Ultimately, closing costs can add thousands of dollars to the loan, which
will either be required to be paid out of pocket at closing or will be added
to the principal, which you will be required to pay back over time.
At upwards of 10% annual interest on construction loans, baking closing
costs into the loan itself can create significant increases in the overall
bottom line.
To best preview the anticipated costs, most banks are required to provide
good faith estimates of what the closing costs will be before a
commitment is agreed between the homeowner and bank.
As was illustrated with the initial estimate in Chapter 2, it is important to
add a 10% variable to the estimated closing costs so you can be properly
prepared when it is time to sign documents at the closing table.

What is Title Insurance and Why am I Required

to Pay for it?
Title insurance, in real estate financing, ensures that, if there are any
issues with the actual title of the property, the title insurer can step in to
defend against the claim.
These types of claims are most often based on a mistake in the title quest
or failure to notify the purchaser of the interest of a third party in all or
part of the property. This can happen if a lien is imposed on a property
while the former owner has been sued for a debt, and the debtor has sought
relief in the courts by having a lien on the property. Until this lien is paid
in full and the lien is released, it will remain.
Most banks require that an attorney write a title policy for the property.
The premium on this policy is based on the purchase price of the property.
In order to minimize risk, title insurance companies require a title report
to be issued by the attorney writing the policy.
This will inform both the potential owner of the property as well as the
bank of any potential issues that will need to be resolved by the seller
before the closing, such as liens mentioned above. There could also be
second mortgages that were not disclosed.
In order to get a rough idea of what title insurance will cost, a useful
calculator can be found at https://facc.firstam.com
Understanding what language is contained in the deed and what to look for
in other records that arise as a result of a title search on the proper is
further explained in Chapter 5. If you don’t understand your contract, do
not sign it.
That is the best advice anyone will ever give you. Never be in a hurry to
want something so bad that you are willing to sign your life away without
understanding the details in full. This can cause you a great deal of
heartache if you are unlucky.
 CHAPTER 5 - Getting Legal: Permits:
Deeds, Rights of Way, and Contracts

If you are fortunate enough to have secured a commitment from a bank at

terms that are reasonable enough for your budget, you are still far from
closing the deal until you have looked into the fine print of the transaction.
Although this book should not serve as a ringing endorsement for
attorneys, hiring an experienced real estate attorney for this transaction is
vital to ensure that your investment is protected. This chapter will explain
all the different aspects of the purchase and building process that will
require an attorney’s assistance and why trying to avoid the cost of one in
this process will only likely to cost you more down the road.

The Purchase and Sale Contract

No one should agree to purchase real estate without the benefit of a
contract that outlines each party’s obligations and rights. Although real
estate agents may offer a boilerplate contract, nothing substitutes for your
attorney’s ability to modify the contract to fit your individual needs.
When the contract is offered after a purchase price has been agreed to, the
first step in protecting your rights is to ensure that there is an agreed-upon
attorney review period. This period, usually somewhere between 5-10
days, allows for the buyer’s and seller’s attorneys to review the contract
and make changes. Only after the period has passed will the contract be
enforceable.
This means that if any of the clauses adversely affect your rights under the
contract, your attorney can either remove those provisions or advise you to
withdraw from the contract without any legal repercussions for doing so.
Often, it will be a process of negotiation to have amendments to the
contract made as well as revisions to the way things are written. Anything
is possible when both parties are amicable.
The bottom line, when a contract is offered, do not sign until your attorney
has reviewed it, or, if you have signed, ensure the real estate agent adds an
addendum for an attorney review period. Hopefully, by this time (as
provided in your running checklist), you will have made initial contact
with the attorney who will represent you in this transaction
Having this professional lined up before the contract is transmitted is
crucial in ensuring the overall efficiency of completing this step of the
project.
In evaluating the contract with your attorney, some of the key components
of the contract should include:
● Inspection Contingency : This allows the buyer to inspect the
property and, if there is a serious defect, allows them to withdraw
from the contract within a prescribed time. This can be especially
important if it is determined that the property contains chemical
waste that will need to be cleaned up before the building process
begins. This cost could be high and time-consuming. However, if
you have the right to withdraw based on this discovery, you can
move on to another property, or you can negotiate a lower purchase
price to compensate you for paying for the cleanup yourself.

● Financing Contingency : Although you may have secured a

commitment from a bank at the time you have been handed the
proposed purchase and sale contract, this does not mean that the
bank is required to go through with the deal if they find issues
regarding the property's value or condition. Be sure to read all the
fine print of the loan acceptance and also be sure that there is a way
for you to back out of a contract if the bank gets cold feet.

● Title Inspection Contingency: In some cases, an attorney title

search will review significant defects in the marketability of the
title of the property. Liens, judgments, civil complaints, as well as a
wide range of other potential encumbrances can all have a
significant impact on you being able to secure the title at closing. It
 is important that your contract contains a title search provision that
allows you to identify and force the seller to remedy defects that are
discovered during the title search. If the seller cannot do so, this
gives you the right to withdraw from the contract.

● Permit Contingency: A less common but equally important

provision in the contract for the purchase of land is a permit
contingency. If you intend to build your off-grid home on vacant
land, you need to first ensure that the state and local agencies will
allow you to do so. Wastewater permits for a septic system, as well
as local requirements, which may hinder or outright eliminate the
possibility that you can build the home in the area which you desire.
It is important to understand these permitting issues before you
follow through with the deal. Therefore, a contingency that allows
you to withdraw from the contract if a permit is determined not to
be issued is an important safety net to have.

Seeking Permission to Build

One of the biggest variables in the real estate development process is
seeking and receiving local and state approval to build on the site you
propose. Each town has different regulations and requirements that must
be met before building. Some of the most important parts of the process
are seeking approval to build your septic, which requires a state-issued
permit.
Due to the varying regulations in each state that apply to off-grid homes,
you must enlist the services of a knowledgeable real estate attorney early
in the process so that they may advise and assist you in dealing with
applying for securing the proper permits from the proper agencies.
Although the descriptions are meant to assist you in understanding the
permit process and the requirement you may need to fulfill before
breaking ground, they should not be considered an exclusive list. This
again reinforces the need to consult with an attorney to ensure that there
are no missed steps in this vital process.
Building Permit
Regardless of whether you are starting new construction or remodeling an
existing structure, a local building permit will be required before starting
construction. The building permit serves as general oversight over all
facets of the construction. Most permits come with stipulations that
require the builder to seek other permits as a contingency on the approval
of the building permit (such as wastewater).
Depending on each municipality's requirements, they may require a
professional site and building plan to be produced before they rule on the
permit application. This may entail an engineering study, landscape, or
building architect to construct the actual plans for the construction, while
others merely require a rough sketch of what the building will look like.
To ensure you are saving money, visit the town or city planning division
website before filling out the application. The information in the
application, as well as the regulations that go along with the process,
should sufficiently educate you to determine exactly what the application
process will entail with regards to site plans.
Is there ambiguity in the application and regulations that have you
guessing? Simply call the planning commissioner or clerk to clarify. It
may be the best call you make all week if it resolves any lingering
questions that you cannot answer on your own.

The Hearing Before the Local Commission

After the application has been submitted, there is likely to be a hearing
held before the board issuing a decision. This is an opportunity for
abutting property owners as well as general members of the public to
comment on the proposed project.
You should in no way treat this hearing as merely a formality in receiving
your final ok from the board. These hearings can be fraught with peril if
you are not properly prepared. Never take anything for granted and assume
that neighbors will be happy about your project.

Do I come with an Attorney?

Most commission hearings do not require that you come with an attorney.
However, depending on the complexity of the project and the questions
that you anticipate being asked about the overall goals of the project,
coming with a well-prepared attorney may be a great insurance policy to
ensure permit approval.
Keep in mind that most of these commissions are either elected through
local elections or are serving in a volunteer capacity. What this ultimately
means is that these boards can be wildly unpredictable.
What may seem like a shoo-in can be dumped on end and leave you having
to go back to the drawing board completely. In off-grid situations, some
municipalities will require that you jump through hoops not to be hooked
to power. Some will require you to be tied to city water with septic
systems, putting the kibosh on your compost toilet plans.
Perhaps you have a member who is having a bad day or someone who
simply does not like those who attempt to buck the national trend by
disconnecting from the power grid. The bottom line, you simply do not
know what may happen, so take nothing for granted. If the commission
denies your permit, you either have to spend a lot of time and resources
refining your plan or appeal their decision to the courts. Neither of these
potential outcomes is desirable, cheap, or guaranteed.
Thus, it is important that when you go into this hearing, you are ready to
put forth a clear record of the grounds for your application to be approved.
You should make a good impression, be respectful, and show that you are
prepared.

Wastewater Permit
If your off-grid home will be serviced by a public septic system, this part
of the approval permitting process may not be required. However, for
those looking to install their septic, you cannot start the septic
construction until you have secured the wastewater permit.

What is a Wastewater Permit?

Simply put, a wastewater permit allows you to install a system that deals
with all your human waste, gray water, and run-off. These permits will
often require a site inspection by an approved septic inspector who will be
able to test the ground to ensure that there is a suitable location to install
the septic system. This is called a perk test.
For instance, if your land is full of rock and the only area that is not is near
a protected marsh area, you may not be able to build septic on the land in
an area conducive to the environment. This alone may be grounds for
permit denial. You may have other options, but they will likely be very
costly compared to the septic system.
As outlined above, the unknown variable is one of the many reasons why it
is important to gather information regarding the proposed land purchase
before you close on the deal. This will ensure that hidden hazards such as
insufficient land for septic will not arise after it is too late to withdraw
from the deal. You might have the land perk tested or research to see if it
has ever failed a perk test before.

Understand your Home State’s Regulations Before Consulting

with an Attorney
For the sake of efficiency, you do not want to go into your initial attorney
consultation without any understanding of the permitting process.
Remember, attorneys bill by the hour, regardless of whether they are
advising you on things you can easily research on the State website or
dealing with more complex issues with the permitting process.
Each state should have its agency of natural resources website or
similarly named agency that has valuable information on the permitting
process. If you familiarize yourself with the State’s application, instead of
asking how to apply, you can use your attorney to verify what you need to
apply for instead of how you need to apply.
This preparation changes a 2-hour initial consultation into a 30 minute
one. At upwards of $300 per hour, coming prepared can result in
substantial savings in legal costs, which you can then apply to the cost of
obtaining the actual permit.
There is no point in spending money on anything that is avoidable, and
you can put that money to good use later once you’re building your cabin
and planting your first garden.
Understanding the Deed - Devil in the Details
The real estate deed controls how real estate changes hands. The language
in the deed itself may be confusing to the layperson, which makes it that
much more important to have an understanding of what goes into the deed
before you close.
Although an experienced real estate attorney should be able to guide you
in the process of the real estate deed analysis, reading the fine print in a
deed is an important exercise to maximize your current and long-term
efficiency.
The fine print is what you should pay the most attention to because the
details are often burning in the fine print. Knowing these details is crucial
to ensuring that you are protecting yourself and your investment.
Not only does the deed describe the parties involved in the transaction, but
it also should provide sufficient details on the property itself to educate
the buyer on exactly what they are buying.
There should be a legal description of the property with clearly determined
corners of the property, as determined by GPS coordinates. Be sure that
any land you purchase has already been surveyed and pinned so that you
can locate these corner markers. This can save you thousands of dollars in
boundary disputes with neighbors in the future.

The Warranty Deed - the Gold Standard in Property Transfers

A warranty deed in legal terms is a deed that contains promises from the
seller that they have good and marketable title to the property they are
selling. Further, a warranty deed provides that should there be an issue
raised by a third party, the seller will defend against the claim to ensure
that the buyer is protected. This saves you the court fees should this
happen.
In most cases where bank financing is involved, a warranty deed is
required. In most purchase and sale contracts, there is a requirement that
the seller produce a warranty deed at closing. Although a warranty deed
may be expected, it does not guarantee that it will be produced.
This is just another reason why you need to ensure that you and your
counsel have time to review and modify a purchase and sale contract
before it becomes enforceable.

The Quitclaim Deeds - Buyers Beware!

There is nothing more fraught with potential legal peril than the transfer of
a quitclaim deed at closing.
When a seller produces a quitclaim deed, they are guaranteeing nothing.
They are not even promising that they can convey the land that is
described in the deed. All the buyer is saying is that whatever they own in
this general vicinity, they are granting it to the seller.
In other words, it may not even be the specific plot of land that you went
to see. It could be a mile away or the lot next door or a land-locked parcel
that has no guaranteed access to the land for you to even get to your land.
It likely hasn’t been surveyed, and that is costly to have done, and if a
neighbor has already put up fences across the land that you have bought,
you’ll have a legal battle on your hands to get those fences removed.
Although a quitclaim deed has legitimate value in certain cases, like when
a property is changing hands for no consideration, the quitclaim has no
place in purchasing real estate for your off-grid home. Stay away from it.
The bottom line, if all the seller can offer is a quitclaim deed to the
property you wish to purchase, do not do it unless you are 100% certain of
what it is you are receiving.
There are scams happening where people are selling land with a quitclaim
deed and then disappearing quickly. People are moving to the land only to
be hit with an eviction notice from the actual property owner who has no
idea who they are or why they are on his/her property.

Administrator or Executor’s Deed

Another common deed is the deed that transfers real estate through an
estate. These deeds are commonly signed by an executor named in a will
who has been tasked by the language of the will to liquidate the real estate.
Although the individual owner has passed, a buyer can still be assured by
the executor as an extension of the estate that they can transfer the real
estate as described. As is the case with other transactions, ensure that the
deed WARRANTS AND DEFENDS title. You also want to ensure that the
probate court, which presides over the estate, has granted permission
before the transfer. If the court has not granted this license, you are facing
a significant risk of a beneficiary of the estate coming back and contesting
the transfer.

Rights-of-Way Define Who Else Can Access the

Property
It is common in the deed description for there to be references to a third
party's right to access the property that is being conveyed.
Commonly this has to do with power utility rights to access pre-existing
infrastructure that has either already been installed on the property or for
which a road has been built so they can access the infrastructure on
another parcel of land. Rights of way can also grant access to the parcel by
individuals or businesses who may have interests in neighboring parcels.
The major issue in evaluating rights of way is to analyze where exactly the
right of way is so you can ensure that you are not building your off-grid
home in that area.
Some of these rights of way are decades old and are not visible on the
property. However, this does not invalidate the right; it only muddies the
waters, making it increasingly important to understand this restriction on
your deed before purchasing.
 PART THREE: Building

CHAPTER 6: Construction - What Can

You Do to Maximize Efficiency?

Chances are, if you are planning to live off-grid, you are looking to lessen
your carbon footprint by utilizing as much human power as you can
welcome into your project. Off-grid and hand-built homes are growing as
trends, even in less rural areas.
Since this is such a growing trend, strong, able-bodied folks who are
interested in the experience of building an off-grid home may be willing to
volunteer to join the experience and share skills. With this being said,
putting up flyers, advertising on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, and
similar forums could generate a glorious bounty of interesting individuals
who may, along with free or bartered labor, bring a variety of skills and
knowledge to your project.
Depending on your area, the types of knowledge about sustainable
building methods will vary. However, compared to a decade ago, off-grid
building and design are more common, and many general contractors now
have the experience, including off-grid concepts into their designs.
If you are interested in learning on your own, there are a handful of
schools that offer graduate programs in ecological design, as well as some
smaller training programs that offer short classes in sustainable building
practices and tiny home construction.
Beyond the wholesome nature that may be provided for those seeking off-
grid living, there is also the practicality surrounding self-sufficiency and
what that means for your bottom line.
As our back of the napkin math has shown, which is likely further
emphasized by your performance of the running task list, off-grid homes
can be as or more expensive than a traditional home.
Although the costs may be technically comparable, this chapter is meant
to stimulate ideas on how you can save on certain expenses such as
building materials and labor. The most cost-efficient way for you to build
your off-grid home is for you to be able to assist in the building process in
any way possible.
Not only will this save you money on professional labor, it will also allow
you to become more intimately knowledgeable about the details of the
home as it is being built.

Find a Builder Who Will Also Act as a Teacher

One of the first questions you should ask your building contractor is
whether they will allow you to tag along as they go through the building
process. By observing how certain aspects of your home are built, you are
building your knowledge base on what it will take to repair these parts of
the home when the aging process begins to deteriorate certain parts of the
home.
When the time comes to repair certain parts of your off-grid home, you
will have the knowledge to do it yourself, which saves you the call to the
contractor to perform the labor for you. Not only does this save you a
substantial amount of money, it also enriches your off-grid living
experience.
Knowledge is certainly power, and in this case, this knowledge equates to
big-time savings, so do not be afraid to inquire from your builder if he is
willing to teach you while you are also offering him an extra hand to help.
Beyond learning the building process, you can also be a real asset to the
efficiency of building your home by taking care of the mundane tasks that
consume a large part of the builder’s days.
Runs to the dump to dispose of materials, landscaping, and clean-up duties
are all important tasks that you can easily perform to assist in the flow of
the project. Performing these tasks will save you money in avoiding
having to pay a third party while also freeing up time to allow the builders
to focus more of their energy on the complex tasks of building the home.
It may be a good idea to have an initial consultation with the builder on
exactly what role you will play in assisting them in the building process.
Come to a clear understanding of what you should and should not be doing
throughout the process.
Although helping with the basic tasks of the building process can be quite
helpful, what may be counterproductive is if you step on other's toes while
you're doing it.

The old adage of ‘too many cooks in the kitchen ’ certainly applies to
home building as well, so make sure the directions are clear prior to you
taking on too many tasks that may, in fact, restrict the building process
instead of freeing it up.
Some builders are not keen to have the homeowner involved in the process
for this very reason, and this is why you should work it out beforehand. It
can also cramp their style when the homeowner gets overly involved and
attempts to change the design at the last minute.
For the contractor, having someone ask to change the layout of the
bathroom at the last minute is a major pain, and it won’t go far in building
a great relationship with your construction manager if you are constantly
attempting to do this.
If he asks you for input, that’s one thing, but otherwise, don’t try to make
last-minute changes and improvements to your plan.

Timber
Depending on the amount of time you have and the available space, you
might want to consider harvesting your lumber from your land. It is
becoming increasingly accessible for landowners to get a hold of a simple
sawmill or rent or hire a portable mill to use on their land. This requires a
significant amount of planning because the wood will need to cure prior to
it being cut.
There are several ways to “cure” lumber, which is just a technical word for
“drying,” and each may take some time. Location is something to consider
here because depending on the average level of humidity in your area and
average yearly rainfall, this process can take upwards of six months for
your green lumber to dry naturally.
Without an existing structure on your land, the lumber will need to sit
outside for the entirety of the drying period unless it is kiln-dried. Kiln
drying cuts the process down significantly from several weeks to about a
month.
A solar kiln is something you can build right on your property to house the
wood and allow for it to dry using solar power, decreasing drying time. All
of this reduces your carbon footprint and avoids supporting lumber
companies that may use harmful harvesting practices.

Straw Bale Homes

A friend of mine grew up in a straw bale home. I used to make jokes with
her about whether the big bad wolf could huff and puff and blow her house
down. She assured me that it was probably sturdier than my house!
As I grew up and became more interested in ecological building styles, I
learned more about how straw bale houses are built. The house is built by
framing the entire house structure and forming the walls by stacking and
securing straw bales with ropes and wood framing materials.
The walls provide some support, but mainly serve as an insulation. Then
the bales are covered in plaster, allowing for the walls to be waterproof but
breathable. This process requires significantly less effort than building a
cob or straw/clay home and provides a similar, if not better, level of
insulation that can keep a house at an ambient temperature year-round
with great efficiency.
The most challenging aspect of this building style is securing a good
source of straw, having it delivered to the property depending on location,
and keeping it perfectly dry during the building process.
This challenge extends to keeping the house under cover while the plaster
coating dries. The last thing you want in a house like this is mold. You are
completely beholden to mother nature with this style of architecture.
While not impossible to accomplish in a humid environment, you will
have a much easier time in a warm, dry climate.
One perk of straw bale homes is that you can do a lot of the work yourself,
saving thousands on construction labor. There are many online resources
and available classes and schools in different parts of the country that can
teach you the skills needed to build a straw bale home.

Cob/Wattle and Daub

An ancient building method, Cob , originated in England in Wales. Some
of them still exist, as cob structures have been standing for several
centuries. Cob is a mixture of clay, sand, rock, and straw.
The builder mixes the earthen materials with water and straw on a big
tarp(usually mixing with their feet) and either form bricks with this
material, fill previously built frames, “wattle and daub” (a historic
European building method using woven sticks to create a framed wall
which is filled with clay, sand, earth, straw and sometimes...animal dung
), or just hand build your home by layering slabs of this material and
sculpting as you go.
Cob houses are often described charmingly as “hobbit huts” regarding
their aesthetics because they have smoothed corners and sometimes
flowing extremities as a stylish attribute.
There has been a significant resurgence with the trend of sustainable
building practices, with more modern design concepts and ideas available
to help you decide whether this style is the one for you.
The beauty of this building style is that it’s relatively simple, so pretty
much anyone can learn how to build a cob home in a very short time, and
the materials can be locally sourced or purchased for very little.
Similar challenges exist when building with Cob or Straw Clay, as you
may experience with the straw bale home. The builder is constantly
fighting against humidity until the home is completely dry. Cob, however,
allows the builder to build heat pipes throughout the structure of the home,
which in turn helps the home to dry much faster from the inside out.
Cob homes are some of the most efficient homes concerning heating and
cooling. Oftentimes, a Cob home can be heated year-round with very little
wood and using a small rocket stove (more on Rocket Stoves later) along
with some strategically placed wood stove piping. The builder can install a
couch or bed platform around the exit pipes from the stove, so they can sit
or sleep on the warm surface.
Oregon Cob is a more contemporary style of cob building that was
developed in Oregon to accommodate for wetter climates (such as the
Pacific Northwest). This method was designed to use less material by
building thinner walls with a more precise mixture of clay and sand, along
with more straw to create a stronger structure using less.
These thinner walls dry quicker, cost less, and are potentially stronger than
traditional cob styles. With these thinner walls, however, you compromise
the amount of heat that can be held within the structure of the building,
and therefore these homes may be less cost-efficient to heat.
Some of the disadvantages of Cob homes are they are pretty much the
finished product. It is challenging to do any renovations on them without
destroying them completely.
Cob houses can be repaired, however, using the same materials built on
top of itself, so minor repairs and adjustments are quite easy. Also, very
careful planning and design are required for this method with regards to
wiring and plumbing before building because you build the walls around
these networks as you go.
Thermal mass is a term used when talking about cob structures, but this
does not necessarily mean insulation. Cob can hold heat and distribute it
efficiently around a home that is well designed for this purpose. However,
it is not the best insulator.
A combination of straw bale walls and a cob interior can utilize the
efficiency of the thermal mass that cob provides while improving the
efficiency of the straw bale interior.

Stone
Stone requires a lot of man or machine power to incorporate into your
structure. One way to build an efficient stone home is to frame the
complete structure, leaving gaps in the frame, which will function as
molds for the stone and concrete. While this is a quicker way to build with
stone, it may not be the most aesthetically pleasing.
Essentially, you dump a large number of rocks into the framed “walls” and
then pour concrete down atop them, allowing it to settle into the crevices.
This can produce a beautiful effect in some areas, but not others due to the
unruly nature of the spreading of the concrete.
Historically, stone homes were built by hand, and the stones were picked
carefully and placed in such a way that the formation of the rock wall
would provide support, and concrete was just the glue to bring the rocks
into place.
The benefit of a stone house, other than they are beautiful and
“otherworldly,” is that the insulation potential is immense. Although it
may be a challenge to heat up depending on the size of the home, stone
holds heat extremely well as well as cold.

Recycled materials
Many recycled or upcycled materials can be used to save time and money.
Most areas have local building materials/housewares salvage companies
that sell bits and pieces for a fraction of the cost you would face in buying
new ones.
Materials such as doors, windows, cabinets, sinks, you name it, have been
salvaged from houses that have gutted or torn down. It’s always good to
look into these places well before you start building. The availability of
materials may influence many decisions along the way.

Shipping Containers
You may have read about a new trend of tiny houses made out of shipping
containers. Although these houses are aesthetically industrial, they are
extremely affordable. This is because they are fully contained when they
arrive. They require no manpower to create the structure, and you can
work year-round at renovating the inside right from the time it arrives on
your land.
Shipping container homes are so popular; they can even be purchased,
fully designed, and ready to move into on Amazon. The buying options for
tiny homes and specifically shipping container homes have been booming
in the last few years.
These homes come in 2 sizes: 20 by 8 or 40 by 8, similar to a common
trailer. Interestingly enough, these also are stackable, and you can hop
down the Google rabbit hole for a variety of attractive stacked designs.
Purchasing a shipping container home designed and ready to go can be
quite efficient and affordable, so you don’t have to worry about the design
process and all of the trial and error that comes along with it. It all
depends on how involved you want to be in the creative process, which,
however, can actually be the most exciting part.
Many municipalities have special building codes for shipping container
homes because once the metal is cut, they lose a lot of their structural
integrity. It’s essential that proper methods of framing are used to ensure
that the buildings don’t collapse as the work is being done or after
construction is complete.
Tiny homes, Homes on Wheels, and Conversions
Any version of the home you are dreaming of can be built in a tiny version
or a rolling version. From an old airstream to a school bus, a tiny home
can give you the freedom of your own space while seriously cutting
expenses. Tiny homes are structurally compact and can provide an
aesthetic beauty of a much larger home for a significantly lower price.
A majority of the time can be either recycled completely or made from
recycled or found materials. In the U.S, the size considered to be a tiny
home is between 100 and 400 square feet or ⅙ of the size of a
conventional home.
Now living in a space this small definitely requires significant planning
and downsizing of possessions. Some people choose to use a storage unit
for belongings until they have had adequate time in their tiny home to
determine if it is safe to sell their furniture and excess possessions.
There are many unique ways to incorporate storage into a well-designed
tiny home, but regardless of the clever locations of the storage
compartments, you will seriously have to consider which possessions are
worth weeding out depending on the size and type of tiny home you
choose. It’s a big decision and trying the tiny home on for size first might
be a good idea.
Tiny homes are perfect for many people, while others find them too small
and restrictive. They certainly are a great way to reduce your footprint and
also be free to travel if your tiny house on wheels (THOW) is towable to
the next destination.
Be it stationary or a rolling home, the tiny home is gaining in popularity
because it can allow the builder the freedom of having a home of their own
but on a limited budget. If the tiny home is a rolling home, it can allow
freedom to change location without having to move any of your stuff.
Younger Americans are in love with tiny homes.
They can live near college campuses and easily relocate after graduation.
Moving to an expensive metro area is not as out of reach if their home is
portable and paid-off. A self-built tiny home can be built for cash, one
piece at a time. Even using recycled items and upcycled goods can put this
type of home well into anyone’s budget.

Types of Homes on Wheels

Campers
The standard rolling home is an actual camper or camper van. These are
designed for vacation living, set up to hook up to water, sewer, and electric
systems and already have everything you need to live. Newer ones
obviously have more modern technology with regards to the amenities you
might want in a rolling home, but even older campers can be upgraded
fairly easily.
Older campers such as the popular airstream can be found in a spectrum of
different conditions depending on how much you would like to spend.
These can also be easily gutted and remodeled inside with your own
design. Most of these camper styles are not winterized, so modifications to
increase insulation would be necessary if you were planning to overwinter
in one of these.

Trailers
There is a growing trend now of tiny rolling homes built atop flatbed
trailers. This concept allows for endless design possibilities regarding
size, style, and efficiency. There are a variety of different flatbed trailers
to choose from, starting with a conventional flatbed trailer to fiberglass
trailers, specifically designed to improve fuel economy.
The materials you choose to build your rolling home can certainly affect
fuel economy as well. For instance, fir is a light wood that has the highest
strength to weight ratio of all the North American softwoods.
Additionally, for the roof, fiberglass, as used on boats, can be used here as
a weather-resistant but light material to take the place of a conventional
roof. Depending on the size and intentional use of your rolling home, the
possibilities are endless when you start with a blank flatbed as a canvas.

Conversions
Finally, there are many different other conversions that can be made to
conventional vehicles such as buses, vans, and even pick-up truck beds. A
wide variety of designs can be built inside or on just about any type of
vehicle you have the vision to convert.
The challenges with converting existing vehicles into rolling homes are
that you must rely on the state of the mechanical components of the
vehicle to ensure the longevity of the mobility of your home. Oftentimes,
affordable vehicles that are structurally sound enough to gut and convert
inside and out into a rolling home are older, used vehicles (they just don’t
make vehicles like they used to).
More modern vehicles are made out of a significant amount more plastic
than older vehicles, and that is not the best material to build a rolling
home into or on (because of the age). However, these vehicles may have a
lot of wear and tear on the engines and other mechanical components.
This does not mean there are not well-kept school buses for sale that can
easily be converted into rolling homes, but it may take some shopping
around and some trips to the mechanic to build your dream conversion
vehicle.

Some Additional Things to Consider:

Many decisions make up the off-grid construction project. Regardless of
aesthetics, there will be many questions to ask yourself regarding the
practicality of your endeavor based on your location, budget, available
materials and time, and whether or not you plan to design and build your
home yourself or hire an experienced contractor.
Some basic components of your off-grid home remain constant across all
styles of structures. Components of your project such as Water, Sewer,
Power, and Heat, and your needs based on geographic location and climate
may aid in your design decision making before you even decide on any of
the aesthetics.
All the structures listed in this chapter can be equipped with all of the
amenities necessary for a home, depending on your level of need and your
location.
CHAPTER 7: The Pros and Cons of a Tiny
House

In today’s society, humans live very complicated lives: long work weeks,
numerous debts, and monthly expenses, as well as the accumulation of
material possessions. We have large sections of our homes as well as
extra buildings dedicated to just storage.
The things that we store are not things that we are using daily, but the
things we keep for later, things we hold onto for sentimental value, the
clothing we might fit into again, or some useful things that we might need
someday.
Media popularity of minimizing possessions and decluttering our homes
through television shows, books, and blogs, has recently shown that our
continuous accumulation of possessions, that essentially only lead to
clutter in our lives, is stressing us out.
We dream of simpler lives where we don’t have to work as much for all of
these possessions and to keep up our properties as we fight against mother
nature to repair, replace and rebuild aging structures.
It’s a losing battle and quite often ends up being unmanageable and fails,
to the expense of our mental and physical health with very little time for
leisure.
When we think of living inside a tiny home, quite often being used too
much larger amounts of household space, we may find it impossible to
imagine being able to function. However, as we learn to minimize and
keep only the things that we need and use every day, a form of order comes
to our lives; one that can relieve us of the great burden of responsibility
we carry to repeatedly re-organize large mounds of possessions, and
further cultivate the psychological need to buy more.
It doesn’t happen overnight to wrap your brain around such an endeavor,
but by letting go of material possessions that just hold space in our homes
and our psyches, and by making the decision to only keep what is useful,
not only clears our living space but also clears our minds. New science has
come out in the past decade that shows that clutter causes anxiety.
Cluttered homes cause a continued spike in the stress hormone cortisol
(which has been linked to obesity and numerous health problems) and
causes it to continue to spike throughout the day. Workers are much more
productive in spaces free from clutter. If cluttered immediate surroundings
cause us great stress, think of an entire home filled with useless stuff
accumulating by the year that surrounds us as it grows and grows, as we
work longer hours to buy more of it.
Then we imagine a life free from these huge expenses when we can have
time to spend on creative projects, time to spend with family and friends.
Also, the time we don’t have to spend repairing, organizing, and moving
around our possessions that we forgot we had, and quite potentially are
still paying for having charged them on our credit cards.
In a tiny home, these trials may still exist to an extent, but along with the
decision to live in a tiny home comes a philosophical change.
Experiencing the simplistic beauty of a minimalist lifestyle can add years
to your life by freeing up living space and brain space for the peace and
tranquility of freedom from complexities that we are so used to enduring,
that they have become normal.
Tiny homes became a growing trend in the 60s when the back to the land
movement began in the northeast and the Pacific northwest. People began
dreaming of living on communal land with low overhead and living
expenses. Even tree houses became popular as living spaces and have
shown new popularity in recent times.
Lloyd Kahn, a modern tiny-home and fitness guru has published many
books on tiny homes and living spaces, highlighting a variety of tiny
homes spanning decades and across the world. With so many resources in
these building styles, there are endless design concepts for tiny house
dwelling so that you can customize your small space to fit your lifestyle
and location.

Financing
One big way to save money by living in a tiny home is general financing.
Most tiny home dwellers do not hold mortgages on their houses, and
therefore save thousands of dollars on the interest that they would have
paid for mortgages for much larger homes.
Unless you are purchasing land, the loans to construct tiny homes are too
low to meet the minimum for a conventional mortgage. This situation is
not ideal because personal loans carry high-interest rates in comparison to
mortgages, so in the end, if you don’t have the cash up front to build a tiny
home, you will be paying a ton in just interest.

Adapting to Smaller Spaces

Design is most important when making the decision to transition to live in
a tiny home. Think of where you would like to spend the most time and
make sure you do not compromise that space in your design. While small,
the tiny house can be very comfortable if designed properly. Care must be
taken to ensure you can move through your space with ease and will feel
comfortable. This being said, if you are used to having guests over
regularly, indoor seating will be extremely limited, no matter your design.
It can take some time getting used to it when suddenly you just have less
available space.
You will be doing laundry more often, washing dishes more often, and
needing to return things to their place to maintain a sense of order in such
a small space. But these tasks will take a fraction of the time they once did
before downsizing. As we will mention later, you will also notice that
living expenses with regards to heating, cooling, and general upkeep will
be next to nothing compared to living in an average to larger sized home.

Storage
Storage can be a puzzle when designing a tiny home, but a creative one at
that. You will need to get rid of or store separately a good majority of your
belongings before jumping into a tiny house living situation.
However, there are many storage compartment ideas online about how to
design the interior of your tiny home with a dual purpose in mind, such as
using staircases (which can incorporate pocket shelves underneath the
staircase, as well as drawers beneath each stair) for storage.
Incorporating plenty of wall shelving helps with space. If you want to keep
a lot of stuff, you are going to have to get creative with storage.
Additionally, if your tiny home is of the rolling variety, you will be
seriously concerned with weight most of all. Therefore, your personal
possessions will need to be carefully chosen.

Taxes and Living Expenses. Are Tiny Homes

Cheaper?
The Expense of Building a Tiny Home
Depending on the materials you choose for building, a tiny house can cost
as little as $10,000 to $12,000 to build. Compared to the average price to
build a conventional home, which is as costly as $200,000.
Because the square footage of the tiny home is so small, the tiny home can
often be built with mostly reclaimed, recycled, or natural materials that
can be purchased for a fraction of the cost of buying new materials.
The biggest expenses, other than contractor fees, and depending on the
style, lie in the utilities: sewer, plumbing, electrical, and heating systems,
including solar panels. Once the house is built, there are various regular
expenses such as taxes, heating, cooling, and maintenance.
Most tiny home dwellers spend as little as $10 to $35 a month for all
utilities. This makes these homes attainable for any budget. Solar homes,
depending on the location, will cost nothing for electricity and sometimes
hot water. However, if you live in a place where it isn’t sunny all year
long, you will have an added cost of fueling a generator during the dark
months.

Property Taxes
Property taxes are one of the reasons one might gravitate toward owning a
tiny home. If your tiny home is on wheels, you will not have to worry
about paying property taxes at all unless it is parked on the property that
you own.
If yours is a rolling home, you get the freedom to move away whenever
you wish. Typically, rolling home dwellers would enter into a lease
agreement with the landowner, essentially renting a parking spot wherever
they decide will be their temporary home.
Additionally, mobile or rolling homes can be parked at state parks and
other spots set up for mobile living, and then you just pay the fees while
you are there.
This is also a great time to remind you that a home on wheels is not
considered a permanent improvement on the land, and therefore, will not
increase your property taxes if you own the land. Park your tiny home
where it is allowed and enjoy the life of the country without the increase in
taxes.

Water, Sewer, and Electricity

There are a variety of creative ways to tackle basic amenities in a tiny
home. A lot of tiny homes use minimal resources for heating, cooling, and
energy.
Solar power is perfect for the tiny home as it will need only a few solar
panels to achieve the energy needed for both electricity and hot water. A
stationary tiny home will either connect to a municipal system for water
and sewer or, similar to a conventional home, will have a dug well or
sewer.
Rolling homes, however, will require a storage container for both water
and sewer, in addition to having hookups to tap into water sources on the
road. One way to bypass the septic storage would be to install a
composting toilet.
These come in various sizes and styles. As we will address later in Act 3,
they can either be anywhere from very primitive to very sophisticated and
almost like a conventional toilet. Either way, your burden on a system for
these purposes will be extremely light in a tiny home.
Heating and cooling
It is extremely efficient to heat a tiny home. Since the space is much
smaller, you have the less square footage to heat, and with certain
insulation and heating techniques, you can keep warm on next to nothing
with regards to resources.
The best way to heat a tiny home is with a wood stove or pellet stove.
They come in a wide range of sizes and styles, and more modern stoves
burn very efficiently, so you can set them to recirculate the smoke within
to harness the heat from the coals of the wood following the burn.
In addition, as discussed in the section on cob architecture, this material
can be used in thermal mass and requires only a small rocket stove (a
small, 2-part stove listed later, which uses small diameter wood for fuel to
produce high heat output at a low cost) to heat a small space efficiently.
Some tiny homes use conventional heaters such as propane or gas.

Groceries
We already mentioned the lack of storage, so a change in lifestyle is
advised when thinking of tiny house living. Included in the topic of
storage is food storage. Depending on how many people are living in your
tiny home, you probably won’t be able to store as much food inside your
home as you would in a conventional home.
This implies more regular visits to the grocery store and services. If you're
like me and you shop regularly during the week, that's not going to be a
concern. If you pick a remote place to locate your tiny house, you'll do a
longer trek more often. This will, however, stress your piggy bank with
regard to gas, unless you can ride or walk, which also restricts your ability
to shop for more than a few days.

Laundry
The likelihood of your desire to compromise your already limited space in
your tiny home with a washer and dryer is slim. Therefore, another trip
you will be making will be to the laundromat. This could potentially cost
more in laundromat fees and fuel for travel.
There are some portable clothes washer options out there for folks looking
to live in a more primitive style, but if you are not into hand washing and
line drying, you’re going to have to go to the laundromat. Also, because
you will have significantly downsized your wardrobe due to the lack of
available closet space, your trips to do laundry will be more frequent.

Appliances
It would be a waste of already limited space to install a full-sized
refrigerator and stove into your tiny kitchen, so there will be some
shopping to do with regard to choosing the appliances to install.
With so many to choose from, you will need to decide which attributes of
tiny home appliances you would like to focus on with regard to energy use,
size, and price.
These smaller appliances, since they are not standard models, are not
much cheaper than their full-sized versions but can save you a lot of
money in the long run by their efficiency standards.
For instance, a solar refrigerator/freezer in the mini variety could cost you
around $1,100 brand new, but the energy savings will allow for the
appliance to pay for itself in the long run. Stove ranges are more
reasonable for the size, and you can get a 20” range in either propane or
electric between $500 and $600. However, if you are looking to go solar in
your tiny home, propane would be the way to go, especially during the
darker months, so setting up your home with a propane hook up would be
necessary.
As far as laundry goes, it is unlikely that you would want to designate any
of your already limited space to a washer and dryer. However, there are
some efficient and user-friendly portable clothes washers to fill in the
gaps between trips to the laundromat.
If you cannot let go of in-home laundry, you can choose between some
fairly pricey options for RV washer and dryer combos, which are either
stackable or all in one to save space.
There are a lot of ways a tiny home can be a way to save money. However,
the initial startup costs and purchase of appliances may be similar to that
of a conventional home. You will save money on energy costs living in a
tiny home no matter your climate because smaller spaces take less energy
to heat and cool.
If your home is on wheels, you will save significantly on property taxes
and also have the option to travel to warmer climates as the seasons
change in order to avoid having to use expensive energy to heat the home.
Generally, over time, the tiny home would pay for itself in savings. Since
you have only the space for necessary items, you will get out of the habit
of over purchasing personal items that will eventually end up in storage.
 PART FOUR - Completion

CHAPTER 8 - Water Supply

No home is complete without a safe and reliable water supply. For those
who are looking to build an off-grid home in an area serviced by
municipal water supply, this chapter may not apply.
However, for most off-grid homeowners, their desire to be free from
public utility reliance also consists of being free from water treatment
often conducted by the town public work's department.
What this means is that as part of the construction process, you need to
locate the best possible water source on your property and to gauge how
you wish to utilize it for your needs.

Step One - Determine Your Water Requirements

The average American uses 80-100 gallons of water per day. This statistic
means that a family of four can consume over 12,000 gallons of water per
month. The first step in ensuring you have a water supply sufficient to
your needs is first to see if there are ways in which you can minimize the
water you pull from your water source so you can alleviate the stress
placed on the system. Below are a couple of easy habit-building ways to
cut down on your water supply usage.

Rainfall
There are many people who question whether rainfall is suitable for
consumer use in activities such as showering. Catching and using rain has
long been a way for people to flush their toilets or wash their clothes;
however, some have resisted the temptation to use it when it comes to
personal hygiene.
Filtered rainwater is perfectly safe, and many find out that it is better than
well water. Rainwater is soft water, making it a wonderful choice for
showers and washing the hair. Your skin is always soft after a shower with
rainwater.
Given that the average showerhead produces 2 gallons of water per
minute, for a family of four, it is easy to see why recycling water for
showers may be one of the most efficient ways to cut down on your water
supply usage.
There are numerous resources out there that can teach you how to
properly treat your rainwater collection to ensure it is safe to shower in.
The major components of this process are:
● Use a sanitized storage container that is not clear to keep
water safe and fresh. Clear containers encourage algae
growth in the sunshine.
● Filter the water that is pumped through your plumbing to
prevent mineral deposits.
● If needed, use additives to sanitize the water further. The
measurements of bleach to sanitize water safely can be found
https://www.thoughtco.com .

Low-Flow Appliances
Another great way to reduce your water usage is to install low flow
appliances in your household. These are especially effective for
showerheads as well as toilets. If installed, they can cut your water usage
by up to half.

Change You Usage Habits

Although the development of technology has made the conservation of
water more straightforward, there still is no substitute for modifying your
behavior to cut down on water usage. Although many of these habits are
self-explanatory, if you genuinely want to cut down on water usage, these
simple techniques deserve constant reminding:
● Limit showers to no more than 10 minutes: We all get dirty, sweaty,
and downright filthy. However, it should never take longer than 10
minutes for you to shower away the dirt. Remember that each
minute in the shower expends 2 gallons of water, which means that
if you turn a 20-minute shower into 10, you are saving 20 gallons of
water per shower.
● Maximize Productivity While in Shower: There is no reason why
you cannot take care of other bathroom tasks with the same water
that you are using to shower. Bring in your toothbrush and razor. A
little suction cup mirror will allow you to use the same water for
brushing your teeth and shaving as you are for cleaning your body,
instead of restraining the process once you leave the shower.
● Shut Water off While Brushing Teeth - There is no more significant
waste of water than running the water while you brush your teeth,
although many people still seem to ignore this. It's simple, it's
straightforward, and it can save you a ton of water. Dampen
toothbrush, shut the water off, brush teeth, turn the water on, rinse.
The water should be running for no more than 20 seconds instead of
the 2 minutes that of running water that is often associated with
brushing your teeth.
● Place Bowl Under Sink to Catch Otherwise Wasted Water: If you
place a large water bowl under the faucet, you will be able to catch
a lot of the water that would otherwise go down the drain. Washing
your vegetables, washing your hands, or even getting a drink of
water from the faucet cause excess water to be expended. This
excess water may serve a useful purpose, such as flushing a toilet or
watering your plants can be caught by the bowl instead of draining
into your septic system. Every bit of caught water helps and, if you
are consistent with it, can add up to a lot of saved water.
● Place Bucket in Shower to Catch Water While Shower is Warming
Up: Depending on your water heater, it can take upwards of one
minute running for the shower water to reach a comfortable
warmth. This reality means that you are wasting up to two gallons
of water while you wait. Instead of watching this water go down the
 train, place a 5-gallon bucket in the shower to catch the water so
you can use it for other tasks later.
● Recycle Water That Would Otherwise Go Down the Drain: There is
a wide range of household tasks that do not require freshwater to
perform. Flushing toilets, washing windows are but a few of the
examples where you can use recycled water. If you have a dishpan
or bathtub full of water, instead of using the water faucet, utilize
this water to perform these everyday tasks. Diligence in recycling
water can make a significant impact.

Choosing the Right Water Supply

Now that you have been able to determine a rough water usage outline for
your home, it is time to pick the right type of independent water source
that will feed your off-grid home. For homes that seek independence from
public infrastructure, there are two options when it comes to choosing a
water supply.

Natural Spring
A natural spring is the most efficient way to tap into a water supply that
already exists on your property. If you have an abundance of fresh water
on your property that feeds into your house, count your lucky stars as the
harvesting of natural spring often takes a lot more analysis beyond
identifying the spring's existence.
Spring needs to be carefully tapped as it can easily collapse on itself and
close up. There are many states that have a plethora of natural springs
available. Missouri has an extensive underground water supply that exists
in underground caves and streams and sometimes bubbles up in springs.
Springwater is of excellent quality as it has been naturally sand-filtered.

Test Before You Consider

Before you start to formulate even the most basic of plans for your natural
spring, the first thing you need to do is test the quality of the water.
Springwater can look pristine by site yet still be full of minerals, bacteria,
and other contaminants that will turn your ideal spring water into an
expensive hassle.
It can take as little as ten minutes to get a reading on the quality of your
water, as here is an abundance of quality drinking water test kits that are
on the market—testing the spring water on two occasions during two
different times of the day. You do not want to risk a false reading, as this
can have disastrous results if you rely on a clean test that, upon the second
opinion, is determined to be incorrect.
After you have received an accurate reading on your water test, research
what the ideal levels for each of the identified components of the water
are. Although these tests may indicate that there is a presence of a
contaminant, it may be well within the acceptable guidelines set forth by
the EPA and, therefore, suitable for your water supply. Go to
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/ files/2018-
03/documents/dwtable2018.pdf for more info.

Do You Need a Water Filtration System?

If you are fortunate enough to have a pure spring water supply, the
question becomes whether you should try to tamper with this water by
applying a water filtration system. Ideally, the makeup of your drinking
water will have the right minerals to enrich your health. If they do, you
may wish to leave the water as it is.
However, if your tests reveal elevated, although acceptable levels of
minerals, as well as other sediments, the use of a water filtration system
may turn your adequate water into something far superior that is also safer
for your plumbing.
There is a wide range of water filters available to address water quality
issues. Be sure to conduct the proper research and consult with an
experienced plumber or water quality expert before you commit to a water
filtration system.

Where is the Spring Located?

One of the most frustrating parts of finding your water supply is finding a
fresh spring that is located too close to your home in an area that is likely
to interfere with your septic. Your water supply needs to be at least 100
feet from your leach field and should be located above it.
Depending on the makeup of your land, this may be difficult to achieve as
it is common for there to be very few acceptable places for a leach field to
be installed, which can preclude your utilization of many sources of fresh
water.

Installing the Water Line

Now that you have found a spring that provides freshwater, it is time to
plan the water line that will bring this water directly to your home. Ideally,
the spring will be located above your home so you can let gravity do most
of the work. Even if the water supply is located below your home, there
are water pumps on the market that can pump the water uphill so it can
feed in your home.
There are many ingenious ideas on how to utilize a pump system, some of
which are more expensive than others. If you have been able to accurately
gauge your family's anticipated water usage (add 10% to your estimates
like in your back of the napkin math), then you can easily find a water
pump that will fit your needs.
For some creative ideas on pump ideas, there are some great articles on
those who have utilized low-cost systems to feed their backwoods cabins.
Not only do these articles provide low-cost options, they also chart them
out for you so you can understand exactly how the system works.
Regardless of whether you need a pump to assist in providing your water
supply, there are a few other considerations you need to consider when
running your water line from the spring to the home.

How Deep Does the Water Line Need to Be?

The major debate going on now with the burying depth of water lines is
exactly how deed they need to be in order to avoid freezing. Generally
speaking, it has been advised that the water line should be buried
somewhere between 5-6 feet deep. This depth will get the waterline below
the frost line in the ground, which will allow it to avoid freezing.
There is now a second line of thought for water lines, where instead of
digging a 5-foot trench for the length of the line, you utilize a shielded
water line that is buried only two feet deep. A study showed that the
combination of an insulated pipe and a two-foot trench was as effective as
an uninsulated pipe buried six feet deep.
The cost difference between digging a six-foot trench as opposed to a two-
foot one is significant. Although it may seem like an obvious choice if the
studies have shown a similar result, you should not simply begin the two-
foot digging process without consulting with a professional first. What
would be even more expensive than digging the six-foot trench would be if
your waterline burst due to insufficient insulation, which would then
require you to dig up the water line to repair the damaged pipe.
Be 100% sure that your waterline will be safe from the elements before
you commit to a plan. Only through this cautious approach can you
efficiently proceed to provide your house with the fresh spring water it
needs.

Well
If you cannot find an adequate freshwater supply on your property, your
only other option is to dig for one. Finding a well can be time-consuming
and expensive, especially for land that is more arid. The variations in cost
are significantly different in each state. The average cost to hire a
company to dig a well can range from $3,000-$15,000.
A more accurate way to determine the cost is to measure by per-foot that
is dug. Given the wide range in geological compositions of the soil across
the country, it is best to use your estimates based on the state in which
your off-grid home will be located. A great tool to get a per-foot estimate
for digging a well in each state can be found at
https://homeguide.com/costs/well-drilling-cost#location.
It is important to note that the same water testing criteria should apply
with a well as with a natural spring. If you are required to dig deep to
access a water supply, the need for testing becomes even more important.
Do not rush this part of the process. If it is found after digging that one
area is heavy with minerals and other contaminants, you may need to find
another location. Although this will increase the cost, there is no substitute
for having the healthiest, cleanest water possible to serve your off-grid
home.
CHAPTER 9: The Bathroom - Where and
What You Need

Now that you have secured a sufficient water source that is hooked up to
your home, it is time to figure out how your bathrooms will best be able to
utilize the water source while also minimizing water usage. Water is a
precious resource, and we must not use it without regard.
The first step in analyzing potential bathrooms is to figure out exactly how
minimal you want this part of your off-grid home to play in the floor space
or, if you're even more hardcore, if you want it to play any role inside the
home at all. Some off-grid homes utilize outhouses and composting toilets
that may be indoors or outdoors. In this section, we’ll explore the many
choices that you can consider.

A Discussion About Outhouses

Going to the bathroom and showering outside your home may not be an
attractive idea to most persons, especially during the winter months.
However, even today, outhouses can play a significant role in your
bathroom designs while also cutting down on your water usage and
required indoor space.
There are several styles of outhouses from which you can choose - from
the moveable outhouse over a man-made hole variety, to a composting set
up where you remove the waste and add it to your composting system
(more on that later).
If you are considering a conventional outhouse (hole in the ground type) to
accessorize your off-grid home, keep in mind the following:

Blow the Stench Away

The most important aspect of a conventional outhouse is finding the right
location for it, so it does not interfere with other aspects of your home.
First off, there is no amount of sawdust, topsoil, or other material that can
completely eliminate the smell of the outhouse, especially as it fills up.
Finding a good location that is downwind from your home and outdoor
areas is a good start in determining a suitable location. It will also need to
be covered, and the outhouse moved at some point in time when the hole
fills.

Down the Hill

Although there are many outhouse designs that minimize waste runoff,
you do not want to take any risk with locating your outhouse above your
home and water supply. Find a good place that is significantly downhill;
that way, any runoff will not affect water quality or the health of your
living and recreational spaces.

The Outhouse Does Not Need to be Ugly

Most people equate an outhouse with some rickety old shack with a couple
of holes cut into it. They think of an outhouse as being a structure that is
built on the idea of bare necessity, nothing more.
This does not need to be the case with your off-grid outhouse, as modern-
day designs can make the outhouse pleasing to the eye, which will invite
more usage. Some outhouses are built with water collection that allows a
place to wash your hands and are painted and decorated to be cute and
cozy. It doesn’t need to be an awful experience to use the outhouse.

Water Hookup?
If the goal of your outhouse is to maximize its usage, then having a water
hookup to the outhouse for a sink to wash your hands is a crucial
component. There is a wide range of portable hand washing stations that
are designed for outdoor food vendors that can also be utilized for
servicing an outhouse. For those looking to save money, the construction
of a hot water sink is easier than you may think.
Ultimately, an outhouse can play a significant role in your way of life. For
those choosing an off-grid home in a more populated area, an outhouse
may not be the ideal solution. However, for those with plenty of acreages
to spare and wide-open spaces free from outside influence, an outhouse is
a simple and inexpensive way to reduce the strain on your indoor
plumbing and can provide an enriching experience for reducing your
overall environmental footprint.

Composting Toilet
A composting toilet is also referred to as a dry toilet. This means that a
water connection is not necessary, and the primary focus of the toilet is to
dry the contents and begin the natural process of biodegradation that
happens when organic matter is broken down to dirt once again.
There are many types of composting toilets that you can choose from.
Some require electricity, while others are completely self-contained for
off-grid purposes.

Systemic composting
Depending on how technical you want to get with your bathroom waste,
you can set up a fairly sophisticated system to fully compost your waste
into non-hazardous, usable compost using the bin method. This method
involves 2 bins using various techniques to divert (or not) urine from the
mix.
There are many resources out there to delve into the science of human
waste composting, and this method will allow you to avoid having to move
your outhouse from place to place over the years. Additionally, a
composting toilet can be used in this manner for an indoor toilet, since it
will need to be emptied frequently, which will mitigate odors.

Self-composting toilet
It is not glamorous, but if you are looking to significantly reduce your
water usage with efficient bathroom design for your toilet, going the route
of a self-composting toilet is the route to take.
First, it is important to refute some of the myths that go along with self-
composting toilets. These can easily detract you from the idea even when
you do not have sufficient information to fully analyze the pros and cons.
Composting Toilets Do Not Need to Be Outhouses
As noted before, if you are taking on the composting challenge yourself,
you can install a composting toilet just about anywhere. Since the removal
of waste will be frequent, they can even be installed inside, although they
are far from conventional and may emit unpleasant odors from time to
time.
If your off-grid home will be subject to cold weather, the outdoor toilet
may not be attractive to you, especially in the winter months. Luckily, the
self-composting toilet was designed specifically to be installed inside as
they emit virtually no odor, and the material removed will be fully
composted and omit little to no odor whatsoever. There is also a wide
range of designs to choose from.
Although these toilets run up to 4 times the price of a conventional toilet,
the savings on water usage will make up the difference in cost in the
matter of a few years. In analyzing the feasibility of an indoor self-
composting toilet, there are several things you need to keep in mind:
1. Regular maintenance: self-composting toilets require that you
empty them on a regular basis. It is recommended that the
urine tray be emptied daily and that the entire storage toilet be
emptied after a maximum of 90 uses.
2. Access to Electricity: In order to ventilate and aerate the self-
composting toilet, the best designs require that the toilet have
access to a power source. The power source will serve the
rotator in the toilet, which turns over the waste to mix it with
the peat moss that is part of the composting process.
3. A Willingness to Get Dirty: A self-composting toilet is only
effective if the owner is willing to utilize the compost when it
is time to empty the holding tank. Yes, cleaning out a tank of
feces does not sound too appealing; however, what may be
even less appealing is the amount of water you are wasting on
flushing these feces into a holding tank that needs to be
regularly maintained.
 By cutting down on what you put in your septic tank, you are
extending its life and ultimately saving yourself thousands of
dollars in maintenance costs. The cost-benefit analysis will be left
for the individual off-grid homeowner to conduct. Still, it is a real
consideration when weighing what type of relationship you need to
have with your toilet.

Conventional Toilet
Conventional toilets have been around since 1952 when Sir John
Harrington invented the first water closet that consisted of a raised cistern
and a downpipe that would flush the waste out of the residence. Since that
time, the technology of toilets has seen some adjustments but has mostly
run on the same premises of using fresh water to flush the waste down a
pipe.
Luckily, with the growing concern of freshwater supply, companies have
seen an increased interest in reducing the water usage of conventional
toilets and have developed toilets to meet the demand of consumers to
reduce their water usage through the flushing of a toilet. The average
person flushes over 5,000 gallons of water per year. That is a lot of
perfectly good water that is essentially wasted.

Low flow
There is no reason now to go with any type of conventional toilet that is
not low flow. Since 1994, every toilet manufactured was required to use a
maximum of 1.6 gallons of water per flush. Many companies have now
lowered this per-flush water usage to as little as 1.2 gallons.
A great way to find the right low flow toilet for your off-grid home is to
have a side-by-side comparison of what is on the market today. Only
through this research can you find the right toilet to fit your budget and
needs.

Shower, Tub or Both?

This book is not meant to weigh in on personal hygiene habits. However,
this book is meant to stimulate ideas on how you can achieve proper
hygiene in the most efficient manner possible while saving valuable
resources. With water savings being the general theme of analyzing off-
grid bathrooms, the discussion must inevitably turn from the toilet to the
shower.
Space is the number one consideration of whether you should have a
shower stall or bathtub. Showers can be efficiently designed to take up
very little space. One of the best ways to research the right shower/tub
combination for small bathrooms is to look for design ideas for showers in
tiny houses.
A consideration for those who enjoy a soak might be a portable Japanese
soaking tub that allows you to soak your bones without taking a lot of
space or utilize a lot of water either. Considerations should be given to the
type of water source you have access to. If you are relying on rainwater
collection, you may not wish to waste that water on a bathtub.

Why a Shower Stall Makes Sense

Tiny house designs are meant to maximize every square foot of space, and
the shower or bathtub is no different from the rest of the house. Although
the size of the shower may ensure that there is very little room to move
about, this does not mean that the shower design itself has to skimp on
style. Some great ideas for tiny showers that look stylish and are quite
effective can be found by visiting https://www.thespruce.com/tiny-
showers-4156387.
Beyond the shower design itself, the water production of the showerhead
can also be maximized for efficiency by finding the right design that
minimizes water usage while also not sacrificing water pressure. One of
the major misconceptions about shower heads is that the higher the
pressure, the more water the head uses. This is not true, as it is the air
generated by the showerhead that creates the pressure, not the amount of
water coming through it.
High-pressure shower heads can make up for low water pressure. This is
especially important for off-grid homes that are tapped into freshwater
springs that struggle to produce the water necessary to generate high water
pressure throughout the home's plumbing.
As with all parts of the home, do not commit to purchasing a showerhead
until you have compared it with its competition. What you are looking for
is a mixture of pressure with the lowest amount of water usage possible. A
great side-by-side comparison of these types of showerheads can be found
at https://www.beyondshower.com/ .

Outdoor Showers
Outdoor showers are another great way to reduce the strain on your septic
while providing an enriching experience for its users. There is nothing as
exhilarating as a shower outside in the early morning chill. When
contemplating about an outdoor shower, there are two schools of thought
when it comes to design.

The Permanent Outdoor Shower

If you have the resources and space, an outdoor shower hooked to the
plumbing will allow you to utilize the outdoor season for at least three
seasons out of the year, depending on your location. These designs can be
simple backyard shower heads, or they can take on a more glamorous
approach. Remember that being off-the-grid doesn’t mean that you’ve got
to rough it.
The major components of the outdoor shower are the showerhead and
sufficient drainage to move the water away from the house, allowing it to
be absorbed into the earth naturally. You should use an environmentally
friendly soap and shampoo if you are going to let this soapy water run
back into your soil and your groundwater. We’ll cover that in more detail
below.

Camping/Portable Outdoor Showers

If you are looking for something a little more primitive but also effective,
a camping/outdoor shower can allow you to use any canopy of trees as a
shower curtain and any flat piece of ground as your shower stall. Although
these portable showers can get the job done, they also require more
initiative from the user than if they are using a permanent outdoor
shower.
The goal always is to facilitate regular use of the outdoor shower to save
strain on your infrastructure. This cost/benefit analysis should be
considered thoroughly before you determine what type of outdoor shower
will best meet you and your family’s needs while also passing on the best
possible benefit it can by the facilitation of regular use.
Outdoor Showers Need Biodegradable Soap
Regardless of the outdoor shower chosen, the soap you use is the most
important part of the process to ensure you are not needlessly
contaminating groundwater with needless chemicals. Finding an all-
natural soap that is considered safe for outdoor use is essential. A list of
some of the best soaps to use can be located at
https://thedyrt.com/magazine/gear/.

Saving Water with a Bathtub

There is little way around it. If you enjoy a good bath, you are going to
need to utilize more square footage to accommodate this luxury. Although
the required square footage may pose an obstacle, the utilization of a
bathtub has other efficiency benefits; number one being that the water you
use in the bath can be recycled for other uses besides filing up your gray
water septic tank.
On average, baths use 36 gallons of water. This is nearly twice the amount
of water that is used in a 10-minute shower. This water, although
contaminated with your bacteria and dirt at the end, can be recycled to
perform many other tasks that require water; number one is flushing the
toilet. With one bath, you have generated enough water for flushing your
toilet upwards of 18 times if you use a low-flow toilet or 7 times if you
use a conventional toilet.

Completing the Water Saving Project with the Right Sink

A sink is meant to perform a very straightforward task, which is to provide
water for the hands to manipulate. It is not meant to be fancy; it is not
meant to instill awe from guests, rather it serves a simple purpose. With
simplicity in mind, you can forge a great relationship with your sink by
ensuring that it performs what it needs to, while ensuring that both space
and water used is minimized.
Small is Best
As an off-grid homeowner, you have chosen a route of getting the most out
of your home without the need for excessive frills. Choosing a space-
efficient sink is an easy way to continue this theme, and with a little
research, you can find a sink that is not only space-efficient but also
effective in performing the duties it is required to perform.

Wall-Mounted Sink
The most economic sink on the market today for those looking to save
space is the wall-mounted sink. Easy to install to any wall studs and it
takes up as little as 2 square feet of space. These sinks can be installed
anywhere in a bathroom to facilitate efficient use. Do not be fooled
though, the high-power faucet can deliver as much water pressure as you
need.

Vessel Above-Counter Sink

If you have installed a vanity for storage and working space and want to
double the use of this space to include sink installation, the vessel above-
the-counter sink is a great option. A simple bowl design with a faucet is
installed on top of the vanity and takes up less than 4 square feet of
counter space.

Corner Wall Mounted Sink

By far the most space-efficient of all sinks, the corner wall mounted sink
can be signed for right or left-handed users and can be installed in what
would otherwise be considered dead space in the corner area of a
bathroom. It may not be extravagant, but it serves the purpose and allows
for most of the remaining bathroom space to be utilized for other, more
important aspects of the bathroom.
 CHAPTER 10: Deciding on a Power
System

Depending on geographic location and the position of your land, there are
various systems and combinations of systems that can give you your basic
power needs and allow you to operate completely off-grid. These all
require a significant investment to start, but eventually, depending on how
you finance them, allow for free electricity for many years.

First-Weigh the Cost Versus the Incentives

Before you begin the process of choosing the right power generator for
your off-grid home, it is important for you to understand where the federal
and state-level incentives are that can have a significant impact on the
system’s overall cost.

What Programs Exist to Reduce the Cost?

A good place to start your funding search for grants or low-interest loans
is the U.S. Department of Energy. You will find an abundance of
information on different types of funding for your green energy project
and can even apply for this assistance online.
Keep in mind that this funding can be highly competitive, and much of it
is geared towards business development as opposed to personal power
generation. However, just completing the application can be a useful
exercise in stimulating your creativity to seek out additional sources of
funding for your power generation that you may not have known existed
before.

Tax Credits
One of the easiest ways to leverage your green power system into savings
is through tax credits that can be applied to your project. According to
Energystar.gov, tax credits for green energy installation are applied
through the following step-down procedure:
● 30% for systems placed in service by 12/31/2019

● 26% for systems placed in service after 12/31/2019 and before

01/01/2021

● 22% for systems placed in service after 12/31/2020 and before

01/01/2022
If your off-grid home is pre-existing (i.e., you are remodeling and not
building from scratch), and the home will be your primary residence, you
may also be entitled to an additional 10% tax credit for the cost of the
equipment up to a maximum of $500.

State Tax Incentives/Rebates

Beyond what is offered through the federal government, most states may
also provide incentives to entice homeowners into installing green energy
products.

A good place to find your local tax incentives is to visit the state-by-state
database which is located at https://www.dsireusa.org/ .

Local/Municipal Incentives
Beyond the federal and state incentives, local governments may also offer
some incentives. Although these incentives may be smaller than those
offered by the federal and state government, they are also less
competitive, which can increase the likelihood of you receiving the
assistance requested.
Talk to your local zoning or planning board to seek out information on
these programs.

Solar
When thinking about going off-grid, the first thing most people think
about is solar panels. They are the most common system, the most
consistent source of power, and currently, with a growing trend for
companies “going solar,” there are more and more companies popping up
to take care of the design and installation for you at competitive prices.
Solar power arrays consist of a solar panel either installed on a pole,
mounted on a roof, the side of a house or solar panels that may be stand-
alone or mounted on a roof or other portion of your house depending on
the angle of your property in relation to the direction of the sun.
This could seriously affect your choice of homesite should you desire to
use your roof for the solar array as opposed to free-standing. There are
even photovoltaic “shingles,” so the solar array can be discreetly installed
into the roof of your home.
The positioning of the panels at the correct angle and direction is key to
the amount of power you can convert from the sun. The most effective
positioning for solar panels is south or southwest (depending on location),
and panels do the best positioning perpendicular to the sun's path.
Some newer, free-standing solar panels are designed to move into the best
position throughout the day, so you won’t have to worry about
repositioning at different times of the year. This is a very beneficial option
that works to ensure that you have more hours of direct sunlight
throughout the day.
Other equipment you will need involve converting the power from the sun
into usable electricity with a solar inverter and a special output meter.
These are responsible for monitoring the electric output to the home,
which will prevent power surges on sunny days and to help distribute the
power evenly.
If your house site is already connected to the grid, you may consider
looking into programs that power companies have been adopting to buy
back unused power from customers. With this, you could end up making
money on your solar panels, or at least offsetting your power bill during
the dark months.
However, most people who are truly off-grid use a set of batteries to store
the power they collect. There are many types of batteries to choose from,
depending on your electricity needs. The batteries will normally be the
greatest cost in your solar system, and you should try to get the best
batteries that you can afford as they’ll last longer and give you better
service.
There are several types of batteries to choose from:
● LEAD ACID - The electrodes are metallic lead-containing lead
oxides that change in composition during charging and discharging.
They are filled with a fluid, which is an electrolyte diluted sulfuric
acid.
* AGM batteries are technically in this grouping, but they are
sealed and do not discharge gas like regular lead-acid batteries.
This makes them safer and maintenance-free. They last longer as
well.
● LITHIUM - These have a very long life cycle and can be
discharged and recharged lower and higher. These are widely
accepted as the best batteries that you can get for your solar system.
● NICKEL-CADMIUM - Not good for solar. Very expensive,
expensive to dispose of, and only have an efficiency of about 65%,
which is far lower than Lithium, and can reach 90% efficiency.
Ultimately, the major consideration in solar is whether you have the right
type of land that is conducive to the sun production you need to maximize
your solar production. This determination should be made prior to the
construction of the home. It should come when you are working on the
land to build the proper site. In determining whether solar is a viable
option for your building site, here are a few tips in ensuring that you make
the right decision.
Watch How the Sun Travels on the Site:
It may seem straightforward, but it is actually a complex task in observing
how the sun travels on your parcel of land. In order to most accurately
depict the path of the sun, you will need to observe where it hits your
parcel during different parts of the day and to mark the areas where the
sun hits the strongest.
This can be difficult if your building lot contains significant woodlands, as
the sun will often be blocked from striking the ground due to the tree
cover. However, marking the spots where the sun does breakthrough is a
great way to find where the sun's power is the strongest.
Keep in mind that the closer to winter, the lower the sun will travel in the
sky. This variation between summer and winter will allow you to
determine where the sun hits in all seasons, making it easier for you to
determine a viable spot to place your solar panels.
A useful resource in charting the sun can be found by reading the
following article located at
https://www.permaculturenews.org/2015/10/23/.
Making Site Modifications to Facilitate the Sun’s Path
Once you have charted the sun and marked it appropriately on your site,
the next step is to determine what type of site modifications you will need
to complete in order to capture the path of the sun in the most efficient
manner. Trees are often the biggest obstacle in the site modification for
solar. The biggest decision you will need to make regarding site
modification is determining what trees you will need to remove and what
impact that removal will have on the overall site plan.

Do I Cut Tree Down or Remove Limbs?

After you have constructed your chart of the sun’s path, it will be easier
for you to determine exactly what you need to do with the trees that block
the sun’s access to the ground. Removal of entire trees can be a difficult
decision to make, especially if the trees provide good shade to areas of the
site that you deem will be used often.
In such cases, where you are weighing the value of the tree with the value
of the sun it is blocking, you may be able to negotiate some by only
removing certain limbs that have the most impact while maintaining the
integrity of the tree.
Pruning a tree’s limbs will not only be less expensive and time-consuming,
but it may also, in certain instances, have the same impact as if you
removed the entire tree when it comes to capturing the sun.
It may be a good idea at this point in the planning to consult with a
professional arborist. They will be able to fully analyze the tree and weigh
the risks you run in removing limbs as opposed to cutting down the entire
tree. They may also be able to access the overall health of the tree in order
to estimate whether the tree poses dangers that require it to be taken down
completely or if it has a lot of years of healthy growth that can sustain the
pruning of it while still maintaining its overall health.

Does the Ground Need to Be Modified to Capture More Sun?

Another consideration in determining the viability of a solar site is the
ground contours that make up the site. If you are operating on a flat site,
this question is easy to answer. However, if your site is located in a hillier
landscape, you may need to consider how these hills may play a role in the
overall viability of the solar system.
Moving the earth is expensive. Excavating companies can often charge
well over $100 per hour and flattening or modifying hillsides can be ripe
with potential impediments. If your plan is to flatten a rise on the site, and
you run into a ledge while doing so, you either have to blast through it or
move your proposed site for solar to a different location.
Ensuring Your Site Plan Does not Conflict with Other Infrastructure
Although it may appear that you have found an excellent site for your
solar, if it conflicts with your water, sewer, or electric, you may have to
modify your plans to ensure that one part of your infrastructure does not
conflict with another.
This concern makes it important for you to plan all aspects of your
infrastructure prior to any construction. This will ensure that a solid plan
has been put into place to ensure a cooperative approach between all
aspects of the infrastructure before breaking ground.

Wind
Wind power is available for certain off-grid homes where it is determined
that the land can harness enough of the natural wind to turn it into power.
Commonly, this is completed by the installation of wind turbines. Wind
turbines use the natural power of the wind to generate kinetic energy. This
energy runs through an internal generator that, in turn, converts the wind
into clean energy.
The technology behind wind power has constantly evolved since its
invention in 1988. The turbines have gone through significant
modifications, focusing on the aerodynamics of the turbines that create
more energy with less size.
Much has been reported about the use of wind as a supplemental source of
power. Small wind turbines have been installed in a wide range of areas to
serve both large- and small-scale power generation.
The appealing nature of wind turbines, however, has also come with quite
a bit of controversy. Opponents of wide-scale wind power have
complained that the wind turbines are noisy, ruin the beauty of natural
ridgelines, and can have a negative impact on native bird populations.
These claims are false.
It has also recently been discovered that painting one of the propellers of
the wind generator can reduce bird fatalities to almost zero. The smaller
windmills should not be attached to your cabin because doing so will be
noisy as they vibrate in the wind, and this will be exacerbated by traveling
through the home. Move the generator to a space away from the home, on
a pole, and you won’t hear it or feel it.
On the flip side, proponents of wind power have argued that wind is one of
the most efficient ways to generate power, and it is available to a wide
range of municipalities, businesses, and individuals at a modest cost.
In some instances, wind can be the primary source of power for a
residence or business, while in others, it can drastically reduce your
overall dependency on more conventional power generation. It depends on
where you live. Most wind generators need to have at a minimum, 7 mile-
per-hour winds to generate any power.
Where they seem to have the most benefit is in hybrid power systems that
utilize a mixture of solar and wind, ensuring that no matter what the
weather is like, power is being generated. Both small and large systems
can be very effective for a multitude of varying applications.
To evaluate the feasibility of wind as a power generator on your off-grid
home, you should begin the process by researching the following.

What Role Do I Want Wind Power to Play in Power Generation?

There are two ways to evaluate the power usage required in wind
generation. Do you want it to supplement your power generation with
other forms of clean energy such as solar or geothermal? Or are you
looking for wind to be the primary power generator of your home?
Some may say that you need to look at your building site first to see if
wind power is even feasible before you decide what role wind will play.
However, determining the viability of the site can be an expensive
proposition.
Instead, first look to the anticipated goal and then work backward to see if
the goal is achievable by the land you have purchased. This will ensure
that you do not jump the gun on committing to a wind system that,
although feasible from a building standpoint, may not ultimately fit your
goals and budget.

Matching Cost with Power Output

The cost of a wind turbine is based on the expected power it will generate.
According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), even a
small wind turbine can cost in the neighborhood of $3,000-$5,000 for
every kilowatt of power it produces.
Most homeowners using a wind turbine as their primary source of
electricity install between 5 to 15 kW of wind power capacity, meaning
they can expect to pay between $15,000 and $75,000 for their small wind
turbine project.

Determining Benefits Versus Negatives

Wind power is more discriminate in where it can generate power. If there
is not enough wind to turn the turbines, then it is useless. This is why it is
so important that you carefully study the locations that might be available
before committing to the project if you plan to select wind power for your
off-grid home.

What About Zoning Regulations?

Even if your home is suitable for a wind turbine, the town in which your
home will be located may have regulations that limit or even eliminate the
possibility of installing a wind turbine in the desired area.
There is nothing more inefficient than paying for a plan and then finding
out that the local government will not permit its construction due to
zoning laws. In general, there are far more restrictions on wind turbines as
opposed to solar due to the potential intrusion the turbines may have on
wildlife and other residents.
In many towns, a permit for a wind turbine, no matter the size, is required
prior to construction. Often you will need to accompany this permit
application with a site plan along with the specifications of the intended
turbine. This will often require a hearing in front of an elected zoning
board where those that may be affected by the turbine may voice
objections to the proposal.
Never assume that your plan will be approved simply because it is an
attempt to become greener in your energy production. Although this is
certainly a noble cause, there is much at play when you are talking about
installing a large tower that generates noise, impacts ridgelines or
viewpoints, and may have an impact on natural habitat such as bird
populations.
Ensure that you know the process, and if confusing, you ought to have an
attorney and/or wind turbine professional ready to testify as to the impact
the windmill will have. Only through this careful presentation will you be
able to maximize your chances of fending off potential challenges.
To prepare you for the zoning hearing, be sure to look into the following:
 ● Reach out to the local zoning board, building inspector, or other
similar government officials to seek out the information you need
to file an application.
● Visit the Permitting and Zoning Resource Center of energy.gov.
● Visit Distributed Wind Energy Zoning and Permitting: A Toolkit
for Local Governments .
As with other aspects of the building process, you can save a substantial
amount of money by doing your own leg work first before you seek the
assistance of professionals.

Wind Feasibility Study

If wind power is going to be your primary generator of electricity, then it
may be worth conducting a wind feasibility study before beginning
construction. Experts are trained to evaluate the landscape of a proposed
windmill and determine the areas where the most power can be generated.
Although this study may cost several thousands of dollars to complete, the
peace of mind you have knowing that your investment will be maximized
is well worth the start-up cost.
Once a proposed site has been found on your land, the next step in the
process is to figure out how this site coincides with other aspects of your
home. There are a substantial number of factors that you will need to
consider in determining whether the proposed site will fit in with the
overall goals of your home.

Size of Turbine
The size of a residential turbine can range from 400 watts to 100 kW
depending on the amount of power you wish to generate. The major issues
that you must calculate in finding the right sized turbine for your home are
the anticipated energy needs along with the estimated wind speed of your
site.
In general, the higher the wind speed, the more power can be generated. If
you are looking for a majority or all of your power to be generated by the
wind turbine, you will need to correlate the anticipated power generation
required with the wind speed estimates.
This formula will give you a rough idea of the sized turbine you will need
and how this requirement matches your goals, as well as the limitations
that you may face as a result of zoning regulations.
The complicated nature of determining an appropriate wind turbine size
makes the wind feasibility study even more important. With all aspects of
your building process, you never want to install more than you need.
However, what may be even more inefficient is installing less than what
you need. This re-emphasizes the importance of taking a cautious and well
thought out approach before you commit the financial resources to the
project.

Is the Site Really Worth It?

Even if you have an ideal site for a wind turbine that will produce large
quantities of energy, you must still ask yourself the question of whether or
not the installation of the wind turbine, given all of its characteristics, is
really worth it when compared to other, potentially less intrusive manners
of power generation.
There has been much debate about the value of wind turbines on
ridgelines, especially those within the view of populous areas. It has been
argued that the negative impact of the deterioration of these ridgelines
outweighs the benefit of green energy production.
Although your personal windmill will be far less intrusive than those large
wind farms you see across the country, the impact may be just as drastic
for you and your neighbors if the windmill takes away an ideal natural
spot that would otherwise be enjoyed for outdoor activities.
Beyond the aesthetic impact of a wind turbine, you must also weigh the
impact the turbine will have on other important aspects of your home.
Turbines require land clearing, maintenance, and it take up valuable air
space.
Not only will this have an impact on the ground surrounding the turbine, it
will also have an impact on the natural habitat. If granted, this impact will
be far less dramatic than that of large-scale wind turbines, but the
localized effect it will have on your home site may be just as substantial.
 CHAPTER 11: Heat Sources - Options

There has been no better time for an off-grid heating system than now. As
reliance on fossil fuels continues to decline and technology continues to
evolve, the options for heating your home are in abundance.
With the plentiful options, however, also comes difficult decisions,
especially for those who live in colder climates. What you need in your
heating system is a combination of efficiency and practicality.
You do not want to have more heat than you need, but also do not want to
run the risk of having less heat than what you require. When trying to
facilitate the right decision for your off-grid home, it's important to
analyze each potential heat source and how this interacts with its natural
environment.

Wood Heat - The Age-Old Classic

Wood heat has been around since harnessing fire was first discovered 2
million years ago. Although the harnessing of wood heat has changed quite
a bit since that time, the premises remain the same; burning dry wood
equals consistent heat.
Simple, right? Not quite. Although burning wood has always been
considered folksy and enjoyable when it is not a primary heat source,
relying on wood to heat your off-grid home is far more complicated.

Finding the Source

The first step in determining whether wood heat makes sense for your
home is deciding where this wood is coming from. Do you intend to
harvest the wood on your own, or do you intend to have a third party
deliver the wood to your home? This answer alone can make a big
difference in weighing the feasibility as your primary heat source.

Do It Yourself? Are You Sure You Can?

It sounds romantic, doesn’t it? Out in the woods on your own, armed with
a chainsaw, cutting your own trees to provide a basic necessity for you and
your family. As attractive as this may sound, let's get into the details
before signing off on this romance novel.

What wood are you cutting?

Yes, it is true that most, if not all wood, burns eventually. However, each
type of wood burns differently. Softwood trees, such as pine, cedar, spruce,
larch, and fir, retain their leaves throughout the year and are known to
grow faster than hardwoods.
Softwoods are also notorious for burning fast and dirty. This means that
should you choose to fill your woodstove primarily with softwoods, you
will need to cut more and will need to clean your chimney far more often.
If you have more hardwoods such as oak or maple on your land, count
yourself fortunate, as these woods will burn cleaner and longer than
softwoods.

How much wood do you need?

Determining the amount of wood or cords required to heat your home can
be a complicated calculation. The primary factors in determining the
amount of wood are first to understand how efficient your home is.
If the home is a new construction with a focus on energy efficiency,
depending on your location, it may require as little as four cords of wood
to heat a 2,000 square foot home for the entire year. However, if the home
is older, draftier, and has less insulation, it may take upwards of twice as
much wood.

How quickly can I burn wood that has been cut?

Wood needs to be dried before you use it on your stove. It is often a good
practice to let it dry at least three months before burning it, especially if
the wood is exposed to the elements.
If the wood is covered, you may be able to reduce the dry time by 33%.
What is important to remember is that you should never try to burn wood
right after it is harvested, as it can cause substantial issues not only
regarding efficiency but also with regards to stove maintenance.

After You Have Committed to Wood, Choose a

Stove
There are two schools of thought when it comes to finding the right wood
stove to heat your home. The first is to have a centralized furnace located
in a basement that distributes the heat generated through a series of ducts
throughout the home. This can be the most efficient way to burn wood, but
requires a substantial amount of installation work.
The second school is to install a series of smaller wood stoves in areas that
are heavily used. These stoves will heat specific rooms, and if vented
correctly, the heat will also travel upwards to bedrooms or other areas that
do not have a stove in them.
In either case, the key to properly distribute the heat is to ensure that there
is a proper chimney installed that will vent the smoke from the burning
wood out of the house while also ensuring that a maximum amount of the
heat travels throughout the house.

Stove Choices
There is a wide range of wood stoves on the market today. The market for
ambiance along with cheap heat production, has brought many consumers
back to the roots of wood heating by reinventing an age-old pastime. As a
result, quality wood stoves remain in high demand.
For your heating project, you will need to determine how each stove meets
the heating requirements of the space it occupies. For basement furnaces,
the key is to find a stove that matches the required BTUs to heat the entire
home. For small homes, the trick is to find a stove that won’t burn too hot
and make it so hot that it’s intolerable indoors.
Generally speaking, it takes approximately 3,000 BTUs to heat 100 square
feet of living space. Luckily wood furnaces are designed to burn upwards
of 160,000 BTUs, which should, if properly vented, can take a significant
bite out of your heating requirements each year.
For localized stoves, the focus again is on BTU production, but this must
also be correlated with the heat requirements for each stove. Thought must
also be given to whether the stove will have multiple uses, such as
doubling as a cookstove. Regardless of the need, there are several major
stoves that are worth considering.

Open Fireplace
By far the most iconic of the localized heat production methods, but also
the most inefficient and, for the sake of transparency, the most wasteful.
The open fireplace requires a chimney to vent and, due to the openness of
its design, will heat very little beyond the immediate area surrounding the
fireplace.
If you are looking for a fire to cozy up next to and read a book, this is a
great design but if you are looking for something to heat your home, stay
as far away from the open fireplace as possible.
There are many other far more efficient models of wood-burning stoves,
and we will explore them all below. Ensure that your stove is rated safe
and that you have it professionally installed unless you know very well
how to do so.
Improper installation can result in burning your home to the ground, and it
happens far too often. You have to ensure that where the stovepipe passes
through to the wall to vent is correctly insulated, as this is essential. The
wall can get so hot that it ignites if the stove pipe isn’t properly vented and
insulated.

Potbelly Stove
Considered one of the most iconic of all the wood stoves, a potbelly stove
gets its name from its wide midriff that is designed to hold a significant
amount of fuel, which allows it to burn at extremely high heat.
Some of the newer potbelly stoves have been rated at around 200,000
BTUs, which turns this simple design into a heat-producing machine. A
potbelly stove can also double as a cooktop, as its flat heat allows you to
heat water or cook anything that you could also use a conventional burner
for.
The potbelly stove could burn coal or wood but is used with wood today.
Ensure that burning wood is allowed where you live, and if you’re on
wheels, this is very important to check into before lighting up your heat
source.

Traditional Cookstove
These stoves have been designed to last, as they have been popular in both
on and off-grid homes for over a hundred years.
The cookstove is the ultimate hybrid, designed to heat a kitchen as well as
provide a primary cooking source. These stoves often contain both a
burner top and an oven that can be used to bake.
The one challenge with cookstoves is that the firewood needed to fuel
these stoves cannot be large; it needs to be cut down to smaller pieces,
which will result in a demand to feed the stove more often than other
stoves.
Although the fire may need to be fed more often, if you are merely looking
to maintain a modest temperature, the cookstove design is perfect for
maintaining a warm bed of coals that keep a consistent temperature for
both cooking and heating.
Proper venting is essential with cookstoves as they can generate a lot of
smoke. Ensuring there is a direct linear to the chimney will ensure the
smoke feeds outside while also capturing the heat that can be transferred
to upstairs rooms for further heating efficiency.

Masonry Stove
Masonry stoves are designed like potbelly stoves. Their focus is to burn
fast and hot. This results in a cleaner burn than from stoves that focus
more on coal preservation (i.e., a cookstove).
Often referred to by its German name, the Kachelofen stove , this design is
based on a complex series of heat-exchange passages that harness the
fire’s gasses. This design allows for the heat to be consistently and slowly
circulated, which is great for maintaining consistent temperatures for long
periods.
Modern Day Woodstove
The EPA became increasingly concerned with the emissions from wood
stoves in the late 1980s. As a result, new technology focused on a cleaner-
burning wood stove. Phrases such as catalytic and noncatalytic have been
used to describe these new designs.
Regardless of whether you chose a catalytic or non-catalytic design, the
goal of the stove remains the same; to fully combust the wood fuel and
eliminate emissions that cause CO2 from being emitted into the air. Not
only are these stoves better for the environment, they also burn more
efficiently than more traditional stoves.

Wood Pellet Stoves

For those who enjoy the efficiency of a wood stove but do not want to deal
with the hassle of firewood, a wood pellet stove may be an excellent
alternative. As is the case with traditional wood stoves, pellet stoves have
continued to evolve with new models designed to provide heat for an
entire home or focus solely on heating one space.
The average home will require the burning of 2-3 tons of pellets per year
to heat their home. At an average cost of $250 per ton, heating with pellets
can be a cost-effective way to heat your home while avoiding much of the
labor that is required with firewood.
Another major appeal for pellets over firewood is the venting requirement.
Customarily, when burning firewood, you are required to hook the stove up
to the chimney. With efficiency and safety in mind, your chimney would
also require a liner to be installed in the chimney.
It is also important for the chimney to be cleaned yearly to ensure that the
carbon buildup, or soot as it is commonly referred to, does not build up in
the chimney. This reduces the risk of fire.
With pellet stoves, they are designed to be vented out the wall with its
only metal pipe and are not required to be hooked into your chimney. This
opens up the use of the pellet stove for areas not directly connected to the
chimney, which can allow you to efficiently heat areas that are often
considered cold spots in a home when burning with wood.
Now the Negative
The major negatives for wood stove heating, beyond the requirement of
securing all the wood, is the inconsistency of how the heat is applied to the
house. It is easy, if you do not plan appropriately, for there to be cold and
hot spots throughout the house.
These irregularities are largely because the heat will travel, literally, as the
wind blows. This means that if you have a drafty home and a cross breeze,
that the heat can be transferred in an inconsistent manner and can, in fact,
heat areas that it was not intended to heat while leaving other areas colder
than desired.
There are some ways to combat the inconsistency issue.
● There are specially designed fans that are used for wood stoves that
will force the hot air to circulate throughout the room as opposed to
remaining stagnant. These fans can be installed at the top of the
stove, where a majority of the heat escapes and can then be blown
outwardly to reach more areas of the home.
● Open spaces: If it is your intent to heat with wood before the house
is built, one of the best ways to ensure that wood heat will be
effective is to design your home with a lot of open space.
Wood heat can get trapped or fenced off if there are a lot of walls
separated for living space. By removing as many barriers as you can
from your heat source, you are allowing the heat to travel freely
throughout the home, which will help immensely in eliminating
cold spots.

Never Stop Looking to Close Up Outdoor Leaks

As is the case with all heating sources, but especially with wood heat, the
more insulated you are from the outdoors, the better and more consistent
the wood will heat the home.
Even in new construction, there are ways to increase overall efficiency
that can be as easy as plugging small holes, installing door, inserts that
seal off the space between the bottom of the door and the threshold. This
means ensuring that all windows have storm windows and that they are
sealed tightly during the winter months. This is also part of shoring up the
leaks.

Geothermal Heating and Cooling

Take note!
Before you start to contemplate on a geothermal system for your off-grid
home, keep in mind that these systems are customarily designed to
produce heating and cooling only.
Although the savings on heating costs can be upwards of 70-80% over
conventional heating sources such as oil or propane, you will still need to
have a separate power generator beyond what geothermal can provide.

Geothermal heating and cooling systems for homes have become

increasingly popular for residential construction as the technology in these
systems have evolved and become more affordable. In general, there are
three different types of geothermal systems that can be used for residential
construction.

Vertical closed-loop systems

A U-shaped design, the vertical closed-loop system continuously
circulates fluid through a high-density polyethylene piping that allows
either cooling or heating to be circulated from the ground into the home.

The issue with these systems is that you are generally required to dig at
least 300 feet for these systems to work properly. The cost to install these
systems is usually calculated by the foot, which will equate to a significant
up-front cost.

Horizontal closed-loop systems

The horizontal closed-loop systems generate heating and cooling in the
same manner as vertical systems, except that the pipe layout runs the
liquid back and forth underground.
The installation of horizontal systems requires the digging of trenches as
opposed to a well, which can be more efficient in initial installation costs
over the vertical design.

The downside to horizontal systems is that they require a large amount of

ground space. If your off-grid home is on a small plot of land, you should
cross this potential design off your list immediately, as the land you own
will not be able to properly facilitate the horizontal design.

Open-loop systems
An open-loop system utilized groundwater is pumped directly from a
water supply well, which is customarily 75 to 100 feet deep. To generate
heat or cooling, the water is pumped out of the first well. After the heat
exchange is carried out, the water is injected into the second well.

Open-loop systems are by far the most cost-effective out of all the designs
and can be the most efficient. However, in order to use an open looped
system, you must have an abundance of groundwater.
If there is any question as to this requirement, especially with the needs
dictated by your freshwater supply for the home, an open-loop system may
not be the best choice.

Geothermal heating systems can be a great way to efficiently heat your

home. However, there are many requirements beyond the system itself that
are required that take a lot of specialized planning.

As is the case with most systems, you should first determine the feasibility
of the system before committing to it. The extra consultation time can
save you a lot of money in the long run.
 Chapter 12: Putting It All Together

Your off-grid home can be whatever you want it to be. The things that
make it your home, after all, are the unique touches that you incorporate
into the design.
The blood, sweat, and tears that you invest during the building process will
give you instant equity and generate a sense of pride you’ve never felt
before.
You are in the driver’s seat. The plan, the design, the remoteness, the type
of heating, method of power generation, and just how off-grid you are is
completely up to you. Buy land or lease. Permanently affix your home to
land or build it on wheels and travel where the road takes you.
What makes your house a home will be the memories you create in it, and
surrounding yourself with the people and possessions that are the most
important to you will ensure that those moments you create will be special
and unique.
Your budget, now that you understand how to put it together is within your
ability to control. We’ve shown you the tools and given you the
information to put it all together, create your checklist, and build that
home.
You can build it from new materials or go the upcycled route. Totally your
call. No matter what you choose to do, just take it one step at a time, and
the next thing you know, you’ll be moving into your own house,
customized just for you.
The draw of off-grid living is living sustainably while reducing your
carbon footprint. The allure is also about challenging oneself to see how
far you can escape from the things that have made our species lazy and
ruined the environment.
Become the steward of the earth that you’ve always wanted to be and build
your off-grid castle to raise your children in, teaching them that life isn’t
about what we own in our lives but instead, what we do with our lives.