Going Off The Grid: The How-To Book Of Simple Living And Happiness (Off The Grid Series 1)

by Gary Collins

from unpublished sources, books, research journals, articles, and the author’s opinions are not intended to replace the advice or attention of construction professionals.

Certainly, off-grid living offers a kind of independence, peacefulness, and personal reward that is rarely found in our overly busy, technology-driven lives.

Buying remote land and building an off-grid home from scratch is still, to a large degree, the final frontier of modern real estate. It’s not easy, and there isn’t a lot of precedent to rely on. It’s absolutely not like building an on-grid home in the suburbs. An off-grid home can be a real challenge and take several years to complete. I know there are many TV shows and videos on

YouTube, that make it look easy, but trust me, it will be one of the biggest self-imposed challenges you can undertake in today’s world.

Finally, you’ll learn why I recommend building a small, regular home instead of a “tiny house,” despite the trendiness of the tiny house movement (Chapter 7).

You’ll learn practical and affordable ways to protect your property from would-be thieves, which sadly exist in remote locations just as they do in the city

Let’s just clarify, living

off the grid is not some kind of paradise, no matter what the blogosphere tells you.

I have become more disenchanted with and disengaged from that type of living. Not that it is a bad type of living, it’s just not for me anymore.

I have had very few opportunities to do the things I so enjoyed while growing up—hiking, fishing, hunting and just being in nature.

I started to become more and more frustrated with today’s modern stresses, I began to think that there had to be a better way for those of us who desired a simpler type of life.

it is always better to have a plan and to take it slowly in the beginning.

Given the expectations of our instant gratification thought process and society, many people today forget that great

things come with time and pe...

Until I made the decision to go off the grid, I had spent my life being just what society and the system wanted me to be: the ultimate consumer. I think it is no secret today that our lives are driven by suffering through a maximum workload to make money, and by consuming and buying as much as we can to fill the

unhappiness void.

most of us don’t maintain, we upgrade, so that total would actually go up.

Change is always painful in the beginning, and there is

no getting around this.

When you take your time and are patient, a little luck will come your way.

My plan to finally make my dream a reality was originally hatched about ten years ago while I was living in New Mexico during my employment with the federal government.

Here’s my hard-won advice. First, you have to be dedicated to the idea of changing your lifestyle, and it should be with real intention and thought, and not just on some whim.

Someone told me I should go to the local bank, and see if they had any foreclosed or short sale properties they were selling.

Now, here is the real genius in their plan. A logging company has to build a “landing” at its worksites. The landing is the spot where all the heavy logging equipment is placed and the trees are de-branched, de-barked, and prepared for transport.

The power company road leads almost all the way to my upper building area … that complimentary, ongoing road maintenance is a big-time bonus!

But in many rural areas, roads are private, meaning the people living on them must pay for and arrange for their maintenance.

Building, and especially paving, a road is expensive … to say nothing of fixing the inevitable potholes, cracks, and erosion that appear over time.

I bought 20 acres of gorgeous mountain land for $23,000.

your first and biggest problem will be how to access water. As basic as this seems, you would be surprised how many people ignore this simple, yet necessary component in the off-the-grid/survivalist lifestyle.

Access can be attained from any of several possible sources, such as a creek, river, pond, or (most frequently) a well.

The bottom line is that without a reliable water source on your property, you have nothing but an expensive camping site.

Expect to pay from $40 to $50 per foot of drilled well depth for all the previous listed components.

This water is very clean and pure and is exquisite to drink. In fact, once you taste fresh well water you will hardly be able to believe you drank city water for most of your life!

A workable well usually needs to produces a minimum of one gallon of water per minute.

In fact, the damaging chemicals you can incur via your skin and lungs (from the water and steam in the shower) can surpass the possible harmful effects of unfiltered drinking

water. I have used the Aquasana shower filter in combination with the Berkey drinking water purification system as a cheap and easy solution for my travel trailer with great results.

riparian

The ongoing drought issues in this country suggest to me that water will become an increasingly valuable resource.

I finally found a septic installer with some integrity who agreed with me, and the standard system was installed without any problems.

There are certain projects that are out of my comfort zone, and when it comes to poo and pee, I would rather have a professional involved.

A homemade option is what I consider a camping toilet, of course,

and does not require much skill to build on your own if you wish, so don’t rule that out.

Instead, use a modern septic system if possible.

Many marriages have ended, properties have been foreclosed on, and financial ruin has been caused by dishonest general contractors.

Dealing with contractors is the most difficult part of the building process for would-be off-gridders … period!

Yet even with my vast experience dealing with contractors, and with my background in law enforcement, I’m still not immune to being duped by a dishonest builder.

contractors act like your project is the equivalent of designing and building the space shuttle, it is really nothing more than a box structure created mostly of wood, steel, and concrete.

We are talking about one of the biggest decisions and financial investments you will make in your lifetime, so I think it is important to understand the mindset of the average “bad” general contractor,

If you have two arms and two legs, you can and will get hired in the construction industry as a laborer.

All that is required in some areas is paying a licensing fee, and boom, they now hold a General Contractors license.