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Offgrid homestead
- Thread starter David D
- Start date
You guys are blessed!!!
Thanks!!Awesome! I pray you have a successful trip! Let us know how it goes
Yeah! Great job!
There is a lot more I could put up and I will of the well house. Because of how I did it, since I was starting from scratch I did it in a way that if I had a water line busted I would not have to bust up any cement to change out the water line. Also in the well house thanks to a friend of mine's idea I have a thermostat that is controlling the power to an outlet that has a space heater and heat lamp plugged into it. If I want my well house at 50 degrees all winter, that is where it will stay. I also have a wireless indoor/outdoor thermometer, so as to keep track of the temp in the well house without having to walk out there in the winter. I put the outdoor sender in the well house and receiver in the house.
We had a barn on 36 acres I remodeled into a house with a well i dug and solar panels I made from scrap I picked up from the junk yard. The panels weren't pretty but did their job.We were able to disconnect our home from the co-opt we originally used, they weren't happy. We were on a peninsula on Lake Limestone. The problem I had was the water table at its deepest was 6 ft in some parts and in other parts after six inches I'd hit the clay layer and if I broke the clay layer, I'd end up soaking an acre or two snd have to wait until the end of summer to repack the clay. It made putting in a septic tank a challenge and we had to get creative when It came to the latteral lines. I built a slow sand shift to turn the waste water into grey water that I used for watering our garden. Then took the slurry ever year and mixed It in with our compost. Let the chickens that died rippen in the sun for a few days before tossing them in the septic tank to start breaking down the waste so we could avoid using chemicals that we couldn't be sure would be filtered out through the Slow sand shift. It caused us to be very cautious where we planted and built. I miss our farm. The children miss The animals and fishing everyday, I had 3 ponds, one stocked with bass, one with croppie, and one with perch. Some how we ended up with catfish in our ponds. We caught the croppie, bass and perch from The lake and released about 10 of each in the ponds. They thrived and multiplied. The goal is to build a new farm, hopefully this time in the montaians or Hill country, for the purpose of homesteading, teaching blacksmithing and the lost skills of yester year, aswell as ministry use. If I can figure out how to post pictures i think I can find some of our farm from over grown delapitaed barn to the Home we made it.
That’s really awesome Kevin!!!
We've been doing the off grind homestead thing for over a decade now. It's a journey. We moved recently so we're doing it all over again from scratch. A lot of work ahead of us but we own our land debt free and produce most of our own food. This life eliminates a lot of expenses so we needn't rely on outside income as much as most people. More resilient. It can be a hard life but there is no better way to live. Best way to raise kids. Better for our marriage too.
Yes this is soooo true. It really is good for the marriage. Keeps everyone close and dependent on God.
We're living this way also, started with a bare paddock 8 years or so ago. Gets more complex when you have a lot of children, tiny houses are not an option! But you can do everything far cheaper than you think. The earlier you start the less money you'll waste paying rent to someone else to pay for their house.
If you have no money to buy land, find a farmer who'll lease you a paddock and put a caravan on it. Stop paying rent and start immediately sinking that money into things you need or saving for land. Keep everything really simple, for instance you don't need a septic tank - build a simple composting toilet or dig a good old longdrop / pit toilet (so long as you're not breaking any local laws, or at least have no neighbours who'll report it!). Keep everything movable until you own your own land.
Just get started and do something.
If you have no money, then you should be doing this as it's actually cheaper. So long as you're not a dreamer looking for fancy modern living conditions powered by a million solar panels so you can feel like an environmentalist while you waste money and resources on nonsense.
If you have no money to buy land, find a farmer who'll lease you a paddock and put a caravan on it. Stop paying rent and start immediately sinking that money into things you need or saving for land. Keep everything really simple, for instance you don't need a septic tank - build a simple composting toilet or dig a good old longdrop / pit toilet (so long as you're not breaking any local laws, or at least have no neighbours who'll report it!). Keep everything movable until you own your own land.
Just get started and do something.
If you have no money, then you should be doing this as it's actually cheaper. So long as you're not a dreamer looking for fancy modern living conditions powered by a million solar panels so you can feel like an environmentalist while you waste money and resources on nonsense.
22 bucks at a hardware store, 15 at a lumber store if you dont have trees and a trip to the salvage yard, I got what I needed from there for free, a few batteries and you can build solar pannels to run a house. We even ran the AC in the summer, only during the day it drew to much power at night. If you have a portable drill to spare you can even make the P annels adjustable through the day.
This is how I got all those pictures up really quick, you just need to know where they're located at on your device.
Lagoon's are usually the more expensive option.
A lot depends on which state and which county you live in regulation wise.
A lot of states in the US highly regulate wastewater due to historic problems with peoples toilets contaminating the water supply. IIRC Missouri is one of the few exceptions. This can be one of the more expensive parts of getting started.
Out west you can often get away with a pit toilet, not sure about the regs though. But in the east it is way too wet for that to work safely so they are often prohibited.
Finding a county without zoning helps, as usually means you can avoid the building inspectors; makes building a house a lot cheaper and easier.
Another option, if not prohibited by NIMBY's is moving in a mobile home. They can often be had very cheap. More elbow room than a travel trailer.
We do a composting toiled system and it seems to work very well. I would like to install a conventional gravity system on a new property. If I can I plan to take my track hoe with me.
Grand solar minimum, it's going to be yuuuuuuge.
I grew up on an "off grid" homestead my parents started building when I was 5. We lived in the tent for a time. We lived in one room for a time. We had an outhouse (which was a huge step up from the bucket). We were in a rural but by no means isolated environment. It was a fun life although it did separate us quite a bit from our peers. We built the place from scratch and almost 40 years later it's still not completely finished. A lot of people have a special connection to it though.
As in ice age? Or just harder to grow food? Living in Alaska is like living in grand solar minimum, permanently lol