I never said anything about living off the grid having a requirement that you had to build everything yourself in the process of leading up to you living off th

I never said anything about living off the grid having a requirement that you had to build everything yourself in the process of leading up to you living off the grid. How you get to the point in time where you start living off the grid is irrelevant when the question is, am I living off the grid. Q.) Is paying someone to come dig a well really that different than buying water? Yes. One leaves you being self sufficient. One doesn't. Q.) What if he was hypothetically able to purchase and store the amount of water that would be required to live the rest of his life? Then he would be self sufficient and living off the grid. Q.) What happens when the well dries up? He finds another source of water, or dies. Perhaps he would have to rejoin civilisation to prevent death. Q.) He gets someone that is on the grid to drill a new one? Doesn't that put him by proxy back on the grid? If he does it that way. Then yes. Temporarily.