Why Off Grid?
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Chances are you’ve seen romanticized pictures of a nice cabin with a pristine wood stove in a peaceful setting in the woods. Everything is rustic but tidy and clean. It looks dreamy! “Off grid life” has become a catch phrase for the younger generation. Chances are, most of the images you’ve seen are from Instagram influencers or even fake images generated by AI. The term, “off grid” is one of those things that seems to mean something different to everyone. Some imagine a hut in the woods with no contact with the outside world, living like the Amish with no electricity or running water. Others may imagine very expensive and high solar power systems that run a home just like you would if you were connected to the grid. The truth is that there are a wide variety of ways one can live off grid.
“Off grid” just means that you are not connected to public electricity. Some people opt to just live without electricity. Others buy a large solar power system and live just about the same as they would if they were connected to the grid. Most people, however, are somewhere in the middle.
The very first property that caught our attention and brought us to Southern Missouri was off grid. There was a high flowing spring there, and a small solar setup. The setup worked well but was really designed for one person. We have 7 people in our family so I knew we’d need more. There was power available at the road and when I checked into the cost of getting power run to the home, it was surprisingly inexpensive. However, as we looked at more and more properties we could see that many of them were not connected to the grid and we began to imagine how we would live without being connected to the grid. There are many ways of doing things and I found that I enjoyed looking at different solutions and creative ideas people have. We began to actually consider the idea of going off grid. Again, you see these videos of so called off grid “hacks” online and half of them are nothing but bogus click bait so you have to be careful.
Right now, we have two of these 400w bifacial panels that hook up to our solar generator. These catch direct light on top, but also catch light that reflects off the white paint of our camp trailer. My plan was to buy more of these from the same place we got them from, but they have sold out!
We have always been interested in becoming more self sufficient, and being prepared. We’re not doomsday preppers by any means, but I’m always thinking, “how would I do this if there were a disaster and we didn’t have power?”. I’d like to at least know how to do some basic things without having electricity so I’m not totally lost and unprepared if something were to happen. There are some real life events that have left people without power for a substantial amount of time. There are also times where public utilities can be used against people. (2020 anyone?) That wouldn’t happen here though! Would it??? What if it did? What would you do? Again, this idea boils down to freedom. I want to have the freedom to live my life with or without having to rely on public utilities.
I began researching solar power systems. There is a wide variety of systems that range in size, cost, capacity, and complexity. It’s a vast topic with a lot of technicalities involved. There is still a lot that I don’t know, but there are vast resources for people wanting to build their own systems. We actually live close to one of the nation’s leading suppliers for DIY off grid solutions. I feel confident that I’ll be able to build out a system that will serve our needs.
With that in mind, it freed us from having to find a property that was already connected. Many of the things we were looking for were in more remote areas. We fell in love with the property we now own and while some of the neighbors are connected to the grid, the cost to get it to our land is actually quite high compared to the first one we looked at. So the cost of getting power run and installed, then paying the monthly bills really doesn’t make much sense since the cost of solar has gone down substantially. There are also many different ways of doing things and different technology (old and new) that can make for a comfortable off grid life possible.
Right now we have two separate solar power systems. One is connected to the 12 volt DC system of our camp trailer. It powers fans, lights, a water pump, and we have a propane refrigerator and water heater although the water heater needs some work. This system runs on regular deep cycle RV/marine batteries. These are sealed lead acid batteries. The trailer came with a cheap Harbor Freight solar kit for this. It has a small charge controller and 4, 25 watt self standing panels. It works for what it’s meant for.
Our other system is a portable power station that we purchased on sale shortly after obtaining our property. It is really designed to be a backup power system for a home so it is portable, but there are more portable units out there. I did some research and there were pros and cons to each different brand and unit but we landed on the Bluetti AC300. If you are interested in this, please be aware that it is NOT a standalone unit. You have to purchase Bluetti battery units in order for this to work. It came with a free folding 200w solar panel. It is designed to be very mobile and it rarely generates more than 80 watts. We needed a little more power so I went over to Missouri Wind and Solar and purchased a couple of 400 watt, bifacial panels that we can plug in to the Bluetti and get it charged up really fast on a sunny day.
After looking at about a dozen companies, I decided to go with Bluetti. They seemed to have the most consistent positive reviews and although they are expensive, when I crunched the numbers they came out on top for price per watt. There has been a learning curve and there are some things I don’t love about it, but overall it has been a good option for our situation and I’m glad I bought it. What I like the most is that it has a 30amp outlet (right side) that we can plug our trailer into and that power goes out to the outlets, we can use the air conditioner, etc. Just be aware that this unit must have a separate battery in order to operate. It doesn’t have a battery in it so it isn’t a totally standalone unit. There are smaller standalone units available such as this one. If you’re in the market for something like this, do your research and find one that fits your needs. There is a very wide variety out there!
This system will allow us to use AC power for things like blenders, Instant Pot, power tools, laptop, etc. We will need power tools to build so we very much need this. The big downside to this system is that we are maxed out on the number of solar panels we can use with it. For some reason, it is limited to solar input. It doesn’t have enough battery power for our family to live as we are used to, but this summer will be more like a big camping trip for us anyway!
These systems are really meant to be temporary. At some point, we’ll invest in a larger system with more panels, a larger inverter, and a bigger battery bank. I plan to write some posts once we’ve installed our more permanent system.
This post was about electricity but we do have plans for other infrastructure. I’ll save those for another day. There are a lot of challenges to going off grid but there are also some advantages. For me, going off grid means that we’re taking responsibility for our own utilities. Freedom is the main goal but we also look forward to using the natural resources that are available.
Just for fun I’m including a picture of our very temporary off grid outdoor kitchen setup. It’ll change, when we all move there but so far I’ve just taken trips with individual kids or only stayed a single day. We have two stoves like this and I’m going to hook them both up to a single 20lb propane stove instead of using the dumb little single use canisters. That water jug is a gravity water filter kit we got. It works exactly like the Big Berky filters but is a tiny fraction of the price! It has been great! The biggest cost is the filter itself. I’ll probably dedicate an entire post about our kitchen setup later.
