Being laid up like I am I have had a chance to catch up on some reading. One book I
finally got to read is called Living off the Grid by Dave Black. The book put me off the first time I tried to read it with a lot of touchy feely stuff about saving the earth by using less energy. I got passed that this time around and read with some interest the ideas Mr. Black put forth. I also started thinking long and hard about my feelings and thoughts about going off grid. Now my wife will tell you that I would just as soon go to war with the local Edison as not. It is a long story but they are a bunch of lying stealing SOBs and if this were a hundred and fifty years ago I would tell them to come armed the next time they see me for I plan to shoot ‘em on sight. But, this is not the old west and I can’t do that so I just bite my tongue and hope they go away.
Anyway, I like so many of you, have dreamed of going off grid and getting rid of that
Edison bill. I can imagine telling them to come get their poles off my land; Idon’t need them anymore. In a real good day dream, I take the poles myself and use them to build an elevated deer blind.
Mr. Black laid out a lot to think about when it comes to going off grid. The type of house, direction it faces, and material it is built of all make a difference in your cost and ability to go off grid. Common sense says an earth shelter house in a south facing hill will heat cheaper than an old farm house sitting in the middle of a windy field.
My farm house is of new construction. It is not one of those McMansion with seven different roof lines and walls that jut in and out nor does it have huge windows. I built my house with one roof line and square walls. The builder fought me every step of the way, he didn’t think I should build what I wanted
but rather he wanted to build something that had “style and resale value.” I could not make him understand this farm was in the third generation of ownership and my boys already have plans to live here after they are done with their military careers. That notwithstanding, I did several things right according to Mr. Black and a bunch of stuff wrong. I did right when I built the outside walls with 2X6s for extra insulation. I also built it with all brick to keep it both warmer in winter and cooler in summer. I also insulated several inside walls so we could cocoon down to one large room if we needed to. I did some major things wrong too. My house has only one window on the south side, and my house runs North/South not East/West. I get no solar gain during the winter from southern windows and I can’t put solar panels on the roof because it doesn’t face the south with the biggest part of the roof. The biggest drawback to going off grid that I see is the cost. I only did a guesstament calculation so I could be off by a lot, but this is what I got. To start, I need solar panel and or wind turbines, or both, enough to cover the fact that Michigan doesn’t have all that much sun generating days. I also need stands or towers for same, storage batteries, invertors, and of course wiring. Based on the amount of juice I currently use (no pun intended) I would need to spend in the neighborhood of thirty thousand dollars.
Ok, for the sake of argument let us say I have that much. (I don’t, trust me on that.) If I
spent it on going off grid I would save a little over one thousand dollars a year in Edison bills. Not a great return in my book. If I put it in the bank I could make maybe 2% or around $600 which would cut my bill down to about half.
Or, and here is the plan I like, I could take that money and buy about ten acres of farm land which goes for around three grand an acre right now around here. Even if I shared the land and stayed a “gentleman” farmer that much land would produce about two thousand dollars a year in crops payment. Not only could I knock off my Edison bill but pay the taxes or about half of my year’s gas bill for heating the place. It also gives me long term investment potential if TSHTF with the ability to raise more food crops to sell locally. Yeah, I would like to be off grid if we go to TEOTWAWKI, but even then sooner or later the solar cells will need replacing as will the batteries, so eventually I will be just like everyone else.
Mr. Black gave me a lot to think about in his book that is for sure. He also points out that even if you are off grid the rest of the world is not. If we have a major event that knocks out the power grid all the items that are produced with the grid will be lost. How will we buy new solar panels or batteries? Yes, going off grid would be good in some cases, but not all. Before I would take that step I would sit down and run real accurate numbers and make sure that it was a good investment to go off the grid.
Wolverine
