5 ms·

The 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 ho

The 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 ago
We 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 ago
  Interesting, 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
  - madaxe_again 6y ago
    We bought ours from an outfit in Estonia, as the baltic states are very experienced log structure builders, and the baltic pine forests give a good and consistent quality of wood. I looked at portuguese suppliers but the offerings were much more "shed" than cabin, and the thickest "logs" I could find here were 35mm - not so much a log as a plank. Our freight cost down from Estonia was about €4k - full lorry. Ours is 70mm milled logs, fit together like tongue and groove. Generally really pleased with how it's come together, although I need to finish the roof, which got postponed by weeks of rain. Only thing I'd say is that they can be tricky to get permission for in Portugal, but it really depends where you are. Where we are, in the north, where the fires aren't so bad, pretty much anything goes - I have a signed note from the local council saying "it's your land, you build what you like". Only other thing is don't underestimate the labour. I naievly thought we'd have it up within a few weeks of the kit arriving, but it's been more like four months, and we're still not quite done. Oh, and don't build in winter :)
    - MaheshC 6y ago
      May I ask you what municipality or general district?
    - aruggirello 6y ago
      Shameless plug, I'm selling such wooden "sheds" (in Italy, but could ship EU-wide if required) with up to 45mm thick walls (mostly garden / leisure / party oriented though) on my website. I'm willing to give a little discount if any fellow HNers are interested (sorry, you'll have to use Google Translate - it's in Italian :) https://www.h2oreca.it/cerca.php?categoria=giardino%2Fcasette%2Fcasette-capanni&marca=Losa+Esterni+da+vivere https://www.h2oreca.it/cerca.php?categoria=giardino%2Fcasett...
    - gog 6y ago
- lifeisstillgood 6y ago
  Sorry, just to check - the flood came over the roof of your house ? Are you putting the log house further up hill? :-? Love the idea of the house btw - inspiring once the kids get older
  - madaxe_again 6y ago
    Yeah - we had 10cm of rain in 36h, and the mill is on a, uh, dynamic mountain river. It surged from its normal winter level by seven meters - our car disappeared entirely - it's nowhere downstream of us that we've been able to see, so it's probably in the Douro. The drainage basin is pretty small, which means that the water level is heavily influenced by the weather in the immediate area - in summer, it dries to a trickle, in the winter, if there's intense rain on already saturated soil, it can surge pretty impressively. This winter the worst we had was 3cm in 24h, and the river stayed a good meter below the level of the floor of the mill, so we now have a better understanding of what kind of weather conditions constitute a danger - the rain we had at the end of 2019 was the worst in 70 years or more. The mill itself is ancient, and built out of enormous boulders, each weighing tens of tonnes, so the structure was entirely unscathed despite being battered to hell by both the force of the water and the debris that came down - everything from trees to trash to trailers. The roof got pretty badly torn up, so we've had a tarp over it for the last year, as we intend to take it off and put a storey on top this year anyway. Overall, while it was a crisis (we waded out in thigh deep water in torrential rain, and had to walk to the nearest village as our car was already gone, cats screaming in their bag... all a bit traumatic tbh), we've turned it into an opportunity - it spurred us into building the cabin, it's shown us what the river can do and what we should therefore plan for with our projects (for instance, I moved our entire battery bank a few meters further uphill), and the damage to the roof has encouraged us to think about building upwards. It's also shown us what we can bounce back from - lost a lot of posessions, and hosing down the house and everything in it was pretty miserable. Oh, and it happened a few days before Christmas! The cabin is about 30 meters uphill, and about half a kilometer away, on an old agricultural terrace - nightmare doing the groundwork, and getting materials in, but it's so worth it - spring is just beginning here, and I'm sat in the unfinished structure right now, watching birds flit between the treetops at window level, listening to the stream chuckling in its bed - very different to the perennial roar of the weir at the mill. It's a challenging lifestyle, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.
- slfnflctd 6y ago
  Around 10 years ago, I did a bunch of research into battery banks for an off-grid solar installation. I looked at probably a dozen very different battery types (some of which were 'coming to market soon', boy were all those a dead end). The option that seemed to be the best choice overall was flooded lead acid, which surprised me. It's very interesting that even after all the improvements in battery tech since then, this still appears to be the case. I wonder how much longer it will hold true?
  - mikeytown2 6y ago
    You can get Lifepo4 for roughly $100 per kWh of storage is you do a group buy on 272 ah cells. This is cheaper than lead and is a better chemistry from what I've seen.
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    Lithium's principle benefit is weight. For mobile applications (handheld devices, laptops, automobiles) that wins out. Lead is at the other end of the periodic table. It's heavy and dense. But the batteries last and last and last, and are well-proven. The lead itself is recyclable,a nd is the most-recycled material by mass in the US IIRC (the USGS reports on this). About 40% of lead production is from recycled lead.
- oflannabhra 6y ago
  I’ve lost countless hours on YouTube to people building their own water wheels...
- yourapostasy 6y ago
  > Can't go wrong with lead acid OPzS... I can't wait for some of the more stable, non-toxic chemistries run through redox flow batteries to become more marketable. For a shelter, I don't care how big the system is, and if all I have to replace is a pump (and I'm trying to figure out if I can use magneto-hydrodynamic pumps to even extend the life of that component) and what evaporates away, the lifespan of the battery is far longer than what we are used to. I'm also interested in nickel-iron chemistries getting hammered out.
wsc981 6y ago
In Thailand one can quite easily and cheaply buy wooden home “construction kits”. Of course those kinds of houses are often not insulated due to the hot climate in most of the country, most of the year. Many of these “construction kits” can be seen and bought in a city somewhere on the highway between Chiang Mai and Bangkok (probably Phrae as this[0] company is located there as well). —-- [0]: http://m.thailannahome.com/ http://m.thailannahome.com/
- gcanyon 6y ago
  Pretty sure the place you linked is high end and there are probably much cheaper options. The prices they're quoting for 100m^2 / 1100ft^2 houses is about $120k depending on the model. They look like very nice houses, but not cheap. For comparison consider that I rent a 45m^2 1 bedroom furnished apartment on the 28th floor of a high rise in the heart of Bangkok for roughly $600/month. I could have a 90m^2 two bedroom in the same building for about $1,000/month.
beauzero 6y ago
As someone who lives in rural Georgia/almost Alabama...trends I see here are people having "barn houses" built for them or using some of the huge prefab outbuildings from Home Depot/Lowes dropped on a piece of property and starting with that. The "barn houses" I am talking about are current tech barns built with 2x6s and galvilum (galvanized aluminum) for roof and walls. Generally take out a barn/land loan and then have interior slab and subs come in and turn the interior into a home. A home permit would not allow such an inexpensive build and if tax assessors only come around every five years provides a significant savings...generally 10-15k over those first five years.

madaxe_again 6y ago

We 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 ago
Interesting, 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
- madaxe_again 6y ago
  We bought ours from an outfit in Estonia, as the baltic states are very experienced log structure builders, and the baltic pine forests give a good and consistent quality of wood. I looked at portuguese suppliers but the offerings were much more "shed" than cabin, and the thickest "logs" I could find here were 35mm - not so much a log as a plank. Our freight cost down from Estonia was about €4k - full lorry. Ours is 70mm milled logs, fit together like tongue and groove. Generally really pleased with how it's come together, although I need to finish the roof, which got postponed by weeks of rain. Only thing I'd say is that they can be tricky to get permission for in Portugal, but it really depends where you are. Where we are, in the north, where the fires aren't so bad, pretty much anything goes - I have a signed note from the local council saying "it's your land, you build what you like". Only other thing is don't underestimate the labour. I naievly thought we'd have it up within a few weeks of the kit arriving, but it's been more like four months, and we're still not quite done. Oh, and don't build in winter :)
  - MaheshC 6y ago
    May I ask you what municipality or general district?
  - aruggirello 6y ago
    Shameless plug, I'm selling such wooden "sheds" (in Italy, but could ship EU-wide if required) with up to 45mm thick walls (mostly garden / leisure / party oriented though) on my website. I'm willing to give a little discount if any fellow HNers are interested (sorry, you'll have to use Google Translate - it's in Italian :) https://www.h2oreca.it/cerca.php?categoria=giardino%2Fcasette%2Fcasette-capanni&marca=Losa+Esterni+da+vivere https://www.h2oreca.it/cerca.php?categoria=giardino%2Fcasett...
  - gog 6y ago
lifeisstillgood 6y ago
Sorry, just to check - the flood came over the roof of your house ? Are you putting the log house further up hill? :-? Love the idea of the house btw - inspiring once the kids get older
- madaxe_again 6y ago
  Yeah - we had 10cm of rain in 36h, and the mill is on a, uh, dynamic mountain river. It surged from its normal winter level by seven meters - our car disappeared entirely - it's nowhere downstream of us that we've been able to see, so it's probably in the Douro. The drainage basin is pretty small, which means that the water level is heavily influenced by the weather in the immediate area - in summer, it dries to a trickle, in the winter, if there's intense rain on already saturated soil, it can surge pretty impressively. This winter the worst we had was 3cm in 24h, and the river stayed a good meter below the level of the floor of the mill, so we now have a better understanding of what kind of weather conditions constitute a danger - the rain we had at the end of 2019 was the worst in 70 years or more. The mill itself is ancient, and built out of enormous boulders, each weighing tens of tonnes, so the structure was entirely unscathed despite being battered to hell by both the force of the water and the debris that came down - everything from trees to trash to trailers. The roof got pretty badly torn up, so we've had a tarp over it for the last year, as we intend to take it off and put a storey on top this year anyway. Overall, while it was a crisis (we waded out in thigh deep water in torrential rain, and had to walk to the nearest village as our car was already gone, cats screaming in their bag... all a bit traumatic tbh), we've turned it into an opportunity - it spurred us into building the cabin, it's shown us what the river can do and what we should therefore plan for with our projects (for instance, I moved our entire battery bank a few meters further uphill), and the damage to the roof has encouraged us to think about building upwards. It's also shown us what we can bounce back from - lost a lot of posessions, and hosing down the house and everything in it was pretty miserable. Oh, and it happened a few days before Christmas! The cabin is about 30 meters uphill, and about half a kilometer away, on an old agricultural terrace - nightmare doing the groundwork, and getting materials in, but it's so worth it - spring is just beginning here, and I'm sat in the unfinished structure right now, watching birds flit between the treetops at window level, listening to the stream chuckling in its bed - very different to the perennial roar of the weir at the mill. It's a challenging lifestyle, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.
slfnflctd 6y ago
Around 10 years ago, I did a bunch of research into battery banks for an off-grid solar installation. I looked at probably a dozen very different battery types (some of which were 'coming to market soon', boy were all those a dead end). The option that seemed to be the best choice overall was flooded lead acid, which surprised me. It's very interesting that even after all the improvements in battery tech since then, this still appears to be the case. I wonder how much longer it will hold true?
- mikeytown2 6y ago
  You can get Lifepo4 for roughly $100 per kWh of storage is you do a group buy on 272 ah cells. This is cheaper than lead and is a better chemistry from what I've seen.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Lithium's principle benefit is weight. For mobile applications (handheld devices, laptops, automobiles) that wins out. Lead is at the other end of the periodic table. It's heavy and dense. But the batteries last and last and last, and are well-proven. The lead itself is recyclable,a nd is the most-recycled material by mass in the US IIRC (the USGS reports on this). About 40% of lead production is from recycled lead.
oflannabhra 6y ago
I’ve lost countless hours on YouTube to people building their own water wheels...
yourapostasy 6y ago
> Can't go wrong with lead acid OPzS... I can't wait for some of the more stable, non-toxic chemistries run through redox flow batteries to become more marketable. For a shelter, I don't care how big the system is, and if all I have to replace is a pump (and I'm trying to figure out if I can use magneto-hydrodynamic pumps to even extend the life of that component) and what evaporates away, the lifespan of the battery is far longer than what we are used to. I'm also interested in nickel-iron chemistries getting hammered out.

wsc981 6y ago

In Thailand one can quite easily and cheaply buy wooden home “construction kits”. Of course those kinds of houses are often not insulated due to the hot climate in most of the country, most of the year. Many of these “construction kits” can be seen and bought in a city somewhere on the highway between Chiang Mai and Bangkok (probably Phrae as this[0] company is located there as well). —-- [0]: http://m.thailannahome.com/ http://m.thailannahome.com/

gcanyon 6y ago
Pretty sure the place you linked is high end and there are probably much cheaper options. The prices they're quoting for 100m^2 / 1100ft^2 houses is about $120k depending on the model. They look like very nice houses, but not cheap. For comparison consider that I rent a 45m^2 1 bedroom furnished apartment on the 28th floor of a high rise in the heart of Bangkok for roughly $600/month. I could have a 90m^2 two bedroom in the same building for about $1,000/month.

beauzero 6y ago

As someone who lives in rural Georgia/almost Alabama...trends I see here are people having "barn houses" built for them or using some of the huge prefab outbuildings from Home Depot/Lowes dropped on a piece of property and starting with that. The "barn houses" I am talking about are current tech barns built with 2x6s and galvilum (galvanized aluminum) for roof and walls. Generally take out a barn/land loan and then have interior slab and subs come in and turn the interior into a home. A home permit would not allow such an inexpensive build and if tax assessors only come around every five years provides a significant savings...generally 10-15k over those first five years.