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I love the idea of an off-grid house but it always comes with too much DIY. I wish there were sellers with fixed affordable off-grid packages. You get House A
by newsbinator 6y ago
I love the idea of an off-grid house but it always comes with too much DIY.
I wish there were sellers with fixed affordable off-grid packages.
You get House A on Plot A for $50,000
You own the house and the plot. It is fully off-grid (except WiFi) and we made smart decisions and installed reliable systems.
You pay your money and you maintain the house.
Unfortunately it’s never like that. It’s all DIY:
Come camp with us for 4 weeks without a hot shower while we teach you how to mix AirCrete and sell you a pump. Get 4 friends and spend 4 months slathering cob incorrectly together. Never cut down a tree before? Buy a chainsaw and start stacking 1-ton logs- you’ll be perfectly safe: nobody has blogged yet about having crushed themselves.
I realize this is contrary to the spirit.
I just want a convention-over-configuration small off-grid house that I can see in models, read specs for, and purchase outright, including the land it’s sitting on.
- forgotmypw17 6y agoI think two age-old adages apply here: There's no such thing as free lunch, and not just when it comes to monetary payment, but also to due diligence. and If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Animats 6y agoThey exist. Search for "complete prefab off grid house". Here's an elaborate one. [1] [1] https://spechtarchitects.com/work/zerohouse/ https://spechtarchitects.com/work/zerohouse/
- TeMPOraL 6y agoWoah. That looks like a mashup of container-based structures you'd walk through in Mass Effect games, with Kerbal Space Program - the way that oversized solar panel is just glued to the top of the structure. That is to say, I love the design. But I suspect my wife wouldn't.
- bsenftner 6y agoI can imagine these as a fantastic "lake house" or other club house like structure on a larger residential yard or no-structure investment property. These are super cool.
- throwanem 6y agoThose are nice renders. Has anyone built one? If so, how has it held up?
- newsbinator 6y agoThat’s the thing- it’s an idea of a house, rather than a house: * how much does it cost? * what’s included? What are the specs on the windows? What kind of toilet? What’s the flooring made from? What are the screws that hold on the bathroom mirror? * how long is the warranty? * where is it located? Obviously these questions don’t apply to a spec house listed on an architect’s site. But more generally you find when attempting to purchase an off-grid house or even a small/tiny house, that they leave as many question marks up to the buyer to DIY as possible. I’m advocating for the reverse: sell me the cheap Xiaomi phone of houses: something mass-market, with sane trade-offs, and all the boxes checked in advance, including the parcel where it lives. Go ahead and put a price tag on the whole package, builders. Customization = bad (for me). If somebody else wants the modular custom-built PC of houses, that’s fine. Me, I’m good with mass-market.
- chrisdinn 6y agoYou want an off-grid builder-grade house like you’d buy in a suburb, it sounds like. Going to be a long time before that happens. The builder homes work (both price and reliability) because there’s hundreds of thousands of them virtually identical. Trades know exactly what to do, even affordable ones, because they’ve done it 1000 times before. That’s a mature industry producing a stable product. Until there are thousands of these things and the kinks have been worked out you can’t have that. Every innovative architect home has one (or more) secret horror story/screwed up detail you haven’t heard about. When doing something new you need to bear the mental burden of making the house work, build yes but also maintenance which is also specialized and non-standard. There will be a lot of customers learning this the hard way as the industry catches up with demand.
- hutzlibu 6y ago"Me, I’m good with mass-market" So you want mass-market off the grid? You realize thats kind of an oxymoron? The mass market is by definition only on the grid. Because the grid is predictable and there you can mass produce. But off the grid allmost always has to be customized. Just alone the getting things there and installing them part. And like others mentioned, what do you do off grid if your mass produced solar/thermal heating system breaks in the winter? Order a new one? To be delivered by helicopter?
- solidsnack9000 6y agoIt has to do with risk. You know what you're getting into, or if you don't, you're going to have to deal with all of your own customer complaints, confusion, dissatisfaction, &c. As soon as someone sells something to you, that stuff is their problem, and they need to charge a lot more for managing all the risk and expectations: documentation, customer service, insurance, lawyers to write contracts, lawyers to write letters...
- Thorrez 6y ago>except WiFi What type of internet do you think would be best? Cell? Traditional satellite? Low orbit satellite? Long range wireless? Cable? DSL? Fiber? Actual wifi from a very nearby neighbor?
- filereaper 6y agoStarlink which is taking orders
- madaxe_again 6y agoLTE in most places - we get 80Mbs down and 30 up here, and we are a long way from anywhere - having to use our own mast on a hilltop to get a signal.
- throwawaygulf 6y agoLTE is limited to 21GB of higher speed transfer a month, at which point you get rate limited down to 2Mbps down and .5Mbps up. Can't have Zoom calls on that garbage.
- Shared404 6y agoWould that not be dependent on the carrier?
- throwawaygulf 6y agoIndeed. Last time I was forced on LTE in home at the states, the plan I described above was the best in the US. That was 5ish years ago when I was living in the stix.
- p_l 6y agoYou don't know what kind of contracts are available for the GP. In EU, getting a lot more is usually not a problem
- 6y ago
- leoedin 6y agoThe off grid part is almost orthogonal to the house part. There's plenty of companies making prefab or modular homes. An off grid home is just a conventional home with a different electricity supply. If you build a small, well insulated conventional building it's a perfect off grid candidate.
- madaxe_again 6y agoWe currently live in a old watermill in Portugal - and as it flooded badly (over the roof) a bit over a year ago, we decided we needed a Plan B. This came in the form of a prefab log cabin - that is to say, the lumber is all cut to shape and size, and you're "just" banging it together. "You" in this case being my wife and I. Total for the structure was just under €20k - includes windows, doors, insulated walls, floor, ceiling. Total for water is less than €1000 - IBCs for storage, a km of water line, carbon and sediment filters, UV-C reaction chamber, reverse osmosis. Total for waste is about €200. IBC. Worms. Cheap plumbing supplies. Total for power is about €15,000 - most of that cost is in a huge bank of OPzS batteries, and then theres victron gear, a dozen solar panels, a dinky wind turbine, and an experimental (failed) waterwheel. This covers both the mill and the cabin, which are about 600m apart. So, all in all, it's an off-grid house for under €40k. That of course doesn't include labour, which has been about 1000 hours of our time, from digging and pouring column foundations through to transporting everything to site by aerial cableway - so in many cases it'd be much less, as you wouldn't be building on a 45 degree slope with zero access for machinery. The thing I keep seeing people getting wrong is energy. Literally yesterday I talked someone out of buying used lithium ion cells from EVs, as while they were indeed very cheap, they likely only had a few years of life in them, so the price/kwH stored amortised over the lifetime of the batteries was terrible. Can't go wrong with lead acid OPzS - 20 year lifetime, easy to maintain - two years in and they've lost basically nothing in terms of their potential. For some reason you don't often see them in domestic installs - but they're super common for battery backups at hospitals, battery storage for renewables providers, etc.
- Mikushi 6y agoInteresting, I've been eyeing Portugal with my wife as possible place to retire early. In terms of prefab log cabin, any pointers you could share? (Even if portugal specific) Thanks
- peteretep 6y agoIsn’t this just a regular house with non-grid power and water?
- rklaehn 6y agoI would love this as well. There is a lot of ready made tech for off grid living these days. E.g. you can buy an island capable solar+storage system from many vendors, not just Tesla. You can buy very efficient and clean log-powered heating systems. "Stückholzheizung" in german. All the components are commercial off the shelf. So you only would need a prefab house contractor to combine these offerings into a good package. Add in starlink, and you can indeed be completely off the grid, even including WIFI. The biggest obstacle for off-grid living is legal. E.g. in Germany you can not opt out of grid connection charges, even if you do not use the grid.
- raverbashing 6y agoThis only goes to show how "off-grid" is a pipe-dream, especially for people who have no experience with it Hey you truly want to live off-grid and off the land? There's plenty of farms like that in the US, other big countries, and I guess it's doable even in Spain or France for example. Off-grid is not a choice in a lot of places, it's how things are. Closest "city" is 30min/1h by car. And by city I mean a gas station, a pharmacy and a grocery store and one main street. Edit: > I recommend the book How to Build and Furnish a Log Cabin ... that teaches old fashioned methods requiring inexpensive tools. No expensive chainsaws necessary. Oh boy, if you think a chainsaw is expensive and/or not necessary I'm sure you're going to have a great time building your log cabin. /s If you're trying to live off grid but has never managed a small backyard (some corn, a small orchard, raising chickens, etc) you don't know what you're signing off for.
- throwaway316943 6y agoA lot of people manage it. It’s honestly not that bad but you can’t be shy of doing the work. The pipe dream is people thinking it’ll be a turn key solution. “All I need to do is buy solar, drill a well, put in septic and build a house, how hard could that be?” It’s amazing how much you don’t know until you try it. My recommendation to anyone living in a city and looking to escape is to just buy a regular house in a rural area, no cabins, no farms, for sure not a yurt. Just buy a bungalow on a half acre and try it out, there’s going to be enough stuff to keep you busy. If you can take all of that in stride while improving the property and not be sick of it or bankrupt yourself then consider selling in a year or two and buying something a bit more daring.
- jessaustin 6y ago...if you think a chainsaw is expensive and/or not necessary I'm sure you're going to have a great time... I'm visualizing OP trying to fell a tree using one of those survivalist wire saws. "Should be done some time next week!"
- dalbasal 6y agoIt's super-contrary to the spirit of this blog in particular. This is a quarter step away from renouncing barter of any kind. It's also kind of against the idea in the abstract too. "Off-grid," self sufficiency and DIY are pretty closely related. None of that matters though, and you're right. Punk rock was DIY too. That doesn't mean music companies didn't eventually produce it like any other pop music.
- foolfoolz 6y agoa lot of homesteading projects start by buying a RV or mobile home and park it on the land until you’ve built something. this solves the problem of throwing 50k in with your free land to get off the ground
- madaxe_again 6y agoWhat you're missing there is maintenance. I live off grid, I have nothing but reliable systems here. Stuff breaks every single day. Nature happens - we get lightning strikes, floods, fires, freezing temperatures, droughts - stuff breaks. When we moved here, some stuff had been done by the previous owners. No plans or anything, just "hunt the burst water line under the concrete" and all that fun. The major advantage of DIY is that you end up being able to repair your own stuff, to know how it works, to know where it is. If you have an off-grid home that you can't maintain, you aren't going to last long there.
- tomcam 6y ago> I live off grid, I have nothing but reliable systems here. Stuff breaks every single day One of HN’s most important comments on this subject ever IMHO
- nunodonato 6y agoThis. I live off-grid as well, you really need to be ready to DIY. People looking for easy off-grid solutions are fooling themselves.stay in your flat
- swader999 6y agoLiving rural, on grid on an acreage and I'm still amazed at how much work it is. Some of it is self inflicted. Redoing my footer drains by hand, building a cistern for extra water storage, land scaping, finish a basement, gardening, tuning teleposts, bobcat, mini excavator, snow fencing to reduce plowing, tree planting and protecting, fencing, too many maintenance and repair tasks to list. There's always another project waiting...
- ryandrake 6y agoOP might want to go live somewhere sufficiently rural but partially on-grid to try it out and see if it's for him. I'd suggest something with at least access through a gravel road, traditional electric provider, but with off-grid well and septic might be a good start. When you're at the point where you don't need to call anyone to do something for you, then maybe you're ready to live full time off grid.
- pbourke 6y ago> nobody has blogged yet about having crushed themselves. “Hi HN! (waves). It’s Johnny from Loggr.me (formerly timbr.ho). We’re building the world’s first platform to connect loggers (who can chop down trees) and loggees (who have no business doing so). The idea came at me suddenly while I was building my off-grid tiny house in the Sierra Nevadas...”
- glsdfgkjsklfj 6y agoI don't know if I will be more impressed if that is parody or real sites.
- ryandrake 6y agoThe best satire is totally believable. He got me for a second too. I could totally picture the responsive web site and About Us page complete with a picture of the guy’s dog captioned Chief Bark Officer.
- tata202008 6y agothanks for the smirk, great/awful pun. we could all do with a few more laughs & groans!
- lettergram 6y agoFunny you should mention that. I’m currently in Tennessee buying land to build off grid housing in the middle of no where. Plan on buying 60-150 acres, building a house off grid, adding starlink, then renting it until / when I’d like to move in. We’d probably build 2-3 homes and rent out 1-2 and people can bring their families. They can learn to hunt, fish, take care of cattle, etc for a summer.
- fredgrott 6y agothe guy who came up with concept of off-grid earth-ship offers classes in the USA(Colorado). Earth-ship is built using recycling, ie a concrete thermal mass and recycled tires, bottles, etc.
- true_religion 6y agoI kind of wonder what off-the-grid means? Does it mean without any normal roads? Well you can find that in VA easily if you know where to look. No power lines? Harder, unless you can accept that power line exist but you simply won't use them. No water pipes? In a rural environment, having central water would be rare.
- hef19898 6y agoEven in the German country side, sometimes water is coming from your own well for ages. Usually houses are connected to electricity, phone and maybe TV. Waste water tends to be on site as well. My uncle is living between two farms, next to my late grandparents house, and that always has been their set up. Edit: Heating used to be oil, replaced by wood pallets. Heat pumps are a nice alternative as well. Today we can generate electricity on site, which leaves phone an internet.
- skeeter2020 6y agoI'm not sure if this is a joke or not. It sounds like whaty you are asking for is All the benefits, none of the costs, someone else that does all the work and you get it for a bargain. And nobody has offerred this yet is a mystery? It sounds like your best bet is to buy a cookie-cutter in the suburbs and a generator.
- waiseristy 6y agoI had this same thought. Someone who does not like DIY should not be thinking about living in an off grid cabin in the woods. Everything you do is diy, you can't just call in a contractor when your wellhead freezes or your wood shed collapses. Off grid living is hard-ass-work
- twothamendment 6y agoI live "in the middle of nowhere". I'm not off-grid, but have friends who are. I think there are a handful of reasons that it is difficult to find a turn-key, ready to live in of grid home. Subdivisions are easy, they are all essentially the same. They have a road, electricity, water, sewer are waiting and everyone (builders) knows how to hook up to them. As soon as you go of grid you have to figure that out, much of it from scratch because each site is different. Electricity- How much solar do you need? That depends on the climate and the level of comfort the owner wants. Are they good running a generator when the sun doesn't shine or are they willing to shell out for a lot of battery? Are the panels on the roof or on the ground? Water - do you want to haul your own water or punch a well? That is a big, site specific cost that can be estimated, but is also a big unknown. Sewer- composting toilet or septic system? Septic obviously costs not and each site needs some amount of design and approval, even here where you don't even need a permit for the structure. Roads - it is likely to not exist in most properties, the cost to get that done varies greatly. Ok, so the price can swing - a lot and it isn't so cookie cutter, but why does of grid so often get coupled to DIY? Because when you live of grid (at least around here) you are the one who will plow and maintain your road. You are the one to maintain your solar system. Your generator carb needs tuned? Do you drive an hour each way to drop it off and pick it up next week or watch a YouTube video and do it in an hour and have your generator ready and available instead of in the shop? I can only speak about what I see around me, but it is mostly DIY, self-reliant, prepared people who live here (on or off grid). By building your own systems you are ready to maintain and repair them rather than wait for someone to come save you. Can't cut a tree with a chainsaw? It might be a while before someone clears the fallen tree from your road. Even old Grandma's around here have a saw and won't let a tree in the road stop them. (I keep a bow saw in each vehicle and have used it. It is slower, but not as slow as waiting!) It is a mentality that is so different than my old subdivision neighbors.
- silexia 6y agoI also live in a very rural place. Basically you have to end up doing a ton of stuff yourself just because of the time to drive to town and back is very high, or the cost to get a repairman out is prohibitive. One other issue is that there is usually a ton of regulations around building, and a county or state may not allow a developer to do at scale what it will allow an individual to do for themselves. DIY is very much a necessary part of living off grid. It actually can be quite fun!
- f69281c 6y ago> I love the idea of an off-grid house but it always comes with too much DIY. Are you seriously complaining that homesteading is DIY? That's the point. You belong in SV, just buy a copy of stardew valley. >I wish there were sellers with fixed affordable off-grid packages. (...) I realize this is contrary to the spirit. You don't get it. It's going to break and if you've got the maintenance skills of a disillusioned tech worker, it's never going to be anything more than a money pit for you. Stay in whatever tech hub you're in.
- znpy 6y ago>nobody has blogged yet about having crushed themselves you could have just searched "van life reality" on youtube. i mean, it's not that hard: - The reality of van life on social media @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvOHjIGi30Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvOHjIGi30Y - The Reality of #VanLife - Full Documentary Movie - 2018 @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6McizBPKaE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6McizBPKaE I watched the first one, from somebody that has been actually living in a van. A lot of the problems highlighted in those video are about (dumb?) people that expect to get free money in exchange of likes and things like that. Yeah you can live in a van or whatever, but do you really expect a misterious hand to give out money every month for you to go surfing and exploring the wilderness? The youtubers that blog about working full time are a minority, of course, becasue they are mostly busy working (full time) and making a living. If i was living in a van while having a full-time job and earning a proper salary, I'd probably be spending my time enjoying life more than informing strangers on the internet about my whereabouts. Yeah I might be posting updates from time to time, but the "algorithm" wouldn't pick me up that much.