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I decided to take a break from society last year. I'm fortunate enough where I am that it's eminently reasonable to do. I found some Mennonites that build smal

by MrLeap 8y ago

I decided to take a break from society last year. I'm fortunate enough where I am that it's eminently reasonable to do. I found some Mennonites that build small 14 * 28 foot cabins with two sleeping lofts. It costs about 8k, and that includes delivery to your land. They come with the exterior/roof finished, but the interior is up to you. Your personal asceticism modulates the cost. My shower is actuated by a ball valve. I set the temperature at the inline gas water heater to perfection, so I don't need hot and cold! I was surprised to learn how cheap the insulation, carpet, sheetrock, mud and paint were. Rural land here is about 2k per acre. Many plots already have wells dug, but if not It'll cost about 4-6k to get one drilled, and 500-1000$ for a well pump. Septic tanks are a few grand. A trenching shovel is cheaper, but that option depends on the topology of your land and your heart. I get my electricity from solar. If you do that, you need some panels, an inverter, charge controller and batteries. My system is pretty modest. 10 deep cycle batteries. I've lost track of how many panels we've got. Most of them we soldered the cells together so it kind of all blurs together. The whole of it probably cost about 1700$. It's enough to run our super efficient 12 volt fridge, the pump and a few laptops.. except when we go a week without sun during the winter. Next consulting gig I get, I'll probably get a wind generator as well. When it's oppressively cloudy, I use a small gasoline generator to power all the stuff. It also will kick on a battery charger that'll top the batteries off. This winter I used a propane heater. I've come to realize liquid propane is somewhat money inefficient compared to a wood stove. I'll have the wood stove installed by next winter. I'll probably keep using the propane oven. Leading up to me dropping out of society, I came to resent paying rent.. I resented the thought of office power games having survival consequences for my life. I didn't have to off-grid like I have.. There are power lines. It's just such a great feeling to cut out monthly subscription costs from my life. The serenity it brings is maximum. Mother gaia gives me my water and sol my electrons. I still do consulting work as it comes to me. Blissfully, I no longer feel desperation and anxiety between contracts.

hector_vasquez 8y ago
Don't get me wrong, it's great that you found a way to reduce the work stress in your life! But ... I genuinely cannot tell whether the guy posting on Hacker News that he "dropped out of society" is being serious or tongue-in-cheek. If paying society's currency for all the solar panels and the batteries and the gas and the generator and the refrigerator and the laptops and the deeded property and all the other stuff that society created is dropping out of society, I wonder what it is like to be a member of society.
- MrLeap 8y ago
  It's a bit tongue-in-cheek but not totally inaccurate. I'm visiting the big city for now which is why I'm on HN. You all are my people, so I like to check in when I can ;) I consider 'dropping out of society' to partially be a state of mind thing. Currently, when I'm 'in country', I am very disconnected from the world at large. I have to drive for 30 minutes in order to receive text messages or phone calls. In order to get internet, I have to drive an hour to the lake so I can get some LTE. I don't have a TV, and I don't listen to the radio. America could go to war and I could go a month without knowing about it. I grew up in suburbia right outside of the densest city in the state. Until last year I had never put a screw into wood, nor had I ever wired up a light or planted a potato. MrLeap's life this year is 180 degrees different than it was every year prior. I think the contrast in my perspective makes the 'drop out' comment more appropriate, but it's a personal thing. I obliterated most of my savings doing this, and I'm on track this year to make SIGNIFICANTLY less than the poverty line. I think that represents a certain uncoupling from the standard structures of society. I intend to increase that as time goes on, but if I fail, I should still keep on living. I've lived an arduous life, and my re-orienting is in reflection of that. If I really put my soul into it, I could garden hard, raise animals and cut out the last human survival-y thing that takes me into town. I really like cans of mini-ravioli though so I might not take it that far. I could get satellite internet, or maybe a cell phone booster and a tower to obviate my connectivity problems. Maybe I will someday. Right now, I'm focused on building a workshop and blacksmithing. The workshop is hexagonal, which I think is cool. Anybody want a forged spatula? ;D
  - ohazi 8y ago
    America is currently at war, yet most of us still living in society don't seem to know about it.
  - archagon 8y ago
    That sounds fascinating. Too bad it’s kind of incompatible with blogging about it—would love to follow your story!
- coldtea 8y ago
  >I genuinely cannot tell whether the guy posting on Hacker News that he "dropped out of society" is being serious or tongue-in-cheek. For reference, 90% of people in subsaharan Africa, whatever the country, have a cellphone (with some kind of internet). And around 40% have internet connection (predicted to be 50% 3G in 2020). In the US many homeless people have internet access and even laptops. "Dropping out of society" in a concrete sense and posting on HN are not contradictory. You can do it from a small mobile home in Alaska, your own log cabin somewhere out in Wyoming, or from some hut in the Amazon, all of which qualify to my book.
RankingMember 8y ago
Any chance you can pass along that Mennonite builder info and/or provide some pictures of the finished product (but before you did anything to it)? Just curious, as I'm always looking at alternative living arrangements.
- MrLeap 8y ago
  https://www.backyardportablebldgs.com https://www.backyardportablebldgs.com The wraparound lofted barn cabin is the one I chose.
jbob2000 8y ago
This isn't an efficient use of resources, especially when you scale it to millions of people. Returning to wood burning for cooking and heating is absolutely a step backwards for your health and the environment. You're more "on the grid" than you think. Those solar panels were built in China (probably), how did you get them? Where will you go to get replacement parts? Where do you go to get gasoline for your generator? How is that easier than paying a power bill every month? You can't drink straight out of the well, you'll need a filtration system which needs maintenance, why not just pay a water bill with a hookup from a city? You haven't dropped out of society at all. You're intensely reliant on society right now. If anything in your janky setup breaks and you can't fix it in a few days, you will find yourself at a motel and fully back "on the grid". I'm not saying you need to be a condo living yuppie, but surely there's a happy middle ground.
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  You'd be interested in how cheap silicate bricks are then. Spoiler: very cheap. Plaster-cardboard, very cheap too, or HIPS board. Actual plaster, base paint, base fiberglass or rock wool for heat. (Or sacrifice space for insulation.) As is concrete and even the know how and material design tools are not that expensive. Wiring is cheap, hydraulics are more expensive sure to amount of metal involved, unless you out in for plastics. (AutoCAD with modules for stress analysis and building design libs would cost you $20k or so, but it can probably be rented as cloud license.) Rigging can be rented, even work clothes and power tools. Even then the tools are not super expensive anyway. The expensive parts are rental of lifter, crane and mixer machines as well as good operator. Barring that, more people to set up the building and much more wood and metal rigging. Building is cheap compared to prime land and marketing or sales markup, as well as paying off credit. (Most buildings are built with financial leverage.)
- MrLeap 8y ago
  > This isn't an efficient use of resources, especially when you scale it to millions of people. I'd have to think about this more to decide whether or not it's true, my life is more sustainable than it ever has been before. In pure watt hour accounting, I wager I'm energy-cheaper than most city people who deeply care about things like that. You're mistaken about wells requiring filtration. > If anything in your janky setup breaks and you can't fix it in a few days, you will find yourself at a motel and fully back "on the grid". This, like much of your reply, is rather presumptuous and ungenerous. There are some good discussion points in your reply. Unfortunately you've also stated as incontrovertible fact several things that are simply incorrect. I don't see much room for an actual conversation in your choice of words.

by MrLeap 8y ago

hector_vasquez 8y ago

Don't get me wrong, it's great that you found a way to reduce the work stress in your life! But ... I genuinely cannot tell whether the guy posting on Hacker News that he "dropped out of society" is being serious or tongue-in-cheek. If paying society's currency for all the solar panels and the batteries and the gas and the generator and the refrigerator and the laptops and the deeded property and all the other stuff that society created is dropping out of society, I wonder what it is like to be a member of society.

MrLeap 8y ago
It's a bit tongue-in-cheek but not totally inaccurate. I'm visiting the big city for now which is why I'm on HN. You all are my people, so I like to check in when I can ;) I consider 'dropping out of society' to partially be a state of mind thing. Currently, when I'm 'in country', I am very disconnected from the world at large. I have to drive for 30 minutes in order to receive text messages or phone calls. In order to get internet, I have to drive an hour to the lake so I can get some LTE. I don't have a TV, and I don't listen to the radio. America could go to war and I could go a month without knowing about it. I grew up in suburbia right outside of the densest city in the state. Until last year I had never put a screw into wood, nor had I ever wired up a light or planted a potato. MrLeap's life this year is 180 degrees different than it was every year prior. I think the contrast in my perspective makes the 'drop out' comment more appropriate, but it's a personal thing. I obliterated most of my savings doing this, and I'm on track this year to make SIGNIFICANTLY less than the poverty line. I think that represents a certain uncoupling from the standard structures of society. I intend to increase that as time goes on, but if I fail, I should still keep on living. I've lived an arduous life, and my re-orienting is in reflection of that. If I really put my soul into it, I could garden hard, raise animals and cut out the last human survival-y thing that takes me into town. I really like cans of mini-ravioli though so I might not take it that far. I could get satellite internet, or maybe a cell phone booster and a tower to obviate my connectivity problems. Maybe I will someday. Right now, I'm focused on building a workshop and blacksmithing. The workshop is hexagonal, which I think is cool. Anybody want a forged spatula? ;D
- ohazi 8y ago
  America is currently at war, yet most of us still living in society don't seem to know about it.
- archagon 8y ago
  That sounds fascinating. Too bad it’s kind of incompatible with blogging about it—would love to follow your story!
coldtea 8y ago
>I genuinely cannot tell whether the guy posting on Hacker News that he "dropped out of society" is being serious or tongue-in-cheek. For reference, 90% of people in subsaharan Africa, whatever the country, have a cellphone (with some kind of internet). And around 40% have internet connection (predicted to be 50% 3G in 2020). In the US many homeless people have internet access and even laptops. "Dropping out of society" in a concrete sense and posting on HN are not contradictory. You can do it from a small mobile home in Alaska, your own log cabin somewhere out in Wyoming, or from some hut in the Amazon, all of which qualify to my book.

RankingMember 8y ago

Any chance you can pass along that Mennonite builder info and/or provide some pictures of the finished product (but before you did anything to it)? Just curious, as I'm always looking at alternative living arrangements.

MrLeap 8y ago
https://www.backyardportablebldgs.com https://www.backyardportablebldgs.com The wraparound lofted barn cabin is the one I chose.

jbob2000 8y ago

This isn't an efficient use of resources, especially when you scale it to millions of people. Returning to wood burning for cooking and heating is absolutely a step backwards for your health and the environment. You're more "on the grid" than you think. Those solar panels were built in China (probably), how did you get them? Where will you go to get replacement parts? Where do you go to get gasoline for your generator? How is that easier than paying a power bill every month? You can't drink straight out of the well, you'll need a filtration system which needs maintenance, why not just pay a water bill with a hookup from a city? You haven't dropped out of society at all. You're intensely reliant on society right now. If anything in your janky setup breaks and you can't fix it in a few days, you will find yourself at a motel and fully back "on the grid". I'm not saying you need to be a condo living yuppie, but surely there's a happy middle ground.

AstralStorm 8y ago
You'd be interested in how cheap silicate bricks are then. Spoiler: very cheap. Plaster-cardboard, very cheap too, or HIPS board. Actual plaster, base paint, base fiberglass or rock wool for heat. (Or sacrifice space for insulation.) As is concrete and even the know how and material design tools are not that expensive. Wiring is cheap, hydraulics are more expensive sure to amount of metal involved, unless you out in for plastics. (AutoCAD with modules for stress analysis and building design libs would cost you $20k or so, but it can probably be rented as cloud license.) Rigging can be rented, even work clothes and power tools. Even then the tools are not super expensive anyway. The expensive parts are rental of lifter, crane and mixer machines as well as good operator. Barring that, more people to set up the building and much more wood and metal rigging. Building is cheap compared to prime land and marketing or sales markup, as well as paying off credit. (Most buildings are built with financial leverage.)
MrLeap 8y ago
> This isn't an efficient use of resources, especially when you scale it to millions of people. I'd have to think about this more to decide whether or not it's true, my life is more sustainable than it ever has been before. In pure watt hour accounting, I wager I'm energy-cheaper than most city people who deeply care about things like that. You're mistaken about wells requiring filtration. > If anything in your janky setup breaks and you can't fix it in a few days, you will find yourself at a motel and fully back "on the grid". This, like much of your reply, is rather presumptuous and ungenerous. There are some good discussion points in your reply. Unfortunately you've also stated as incontrovertible fact several things that are simply incorrect. I don't see much room for an actual conversation in your choice of words.