people living off the grid

[mzteris]

I mean totally "off the grid" in a Forest setting (rather than "mountain people" or "hillbillies"...)

Know of any - where they are, etc?

Thanks!

[maddezmom]

1. I know one, she's a mod and lives on a sailboat

got to visit and made me rethink my retirement plans. :)

[elocs]

8. A boat... now that is something I never seriously considered

even though I live and have lived on the Mississippi for over 50 years. I've never been a water person--don't, can't really swim and therefore have avoided boats for the most part.

In another 3 or so years my intention upon retiring is to become a nomad and live out of my small car towing a small teardrop trailer in order to survive on my meager retirement. Lots of federal lands to stay on for free and maybe I could enjoy 10-15 years of going where the winds take me, or rather the roads and highways.

[sce56]

9. I'm close to it I have one solar panel with a few more on the way plus a windmill!

Here is the view from my back door

[maddezmom]

11. beautiful

:hi:

[sce56]

21. Oh and it can be fun also

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2FD8qWu-Dg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVnXXu2_n9U

Love them Dolphins.

[FLPanhandle]

34. Nine more years of work and I'll be joining you.

Just have to get my youngest through college, then it's "good bye world!"

[BeFree]

2. Where are they? All over the world.

In China, Africa, Alaska, Siberia, India, places like VietNam and South America.

The only Americans living off the grid are either very rich or very poor.
Hope that helps.

[hfojvt]

7. except maybe the Amish

They do okay, and are neither very rich nor very poor. They cheat a little, I guess, by buying rides. One trouble is that the automobile has made it just about impossible to live without one. It makes everything further away, in terms of services in rural areas, and it makes every other mode of transportation much more dangerous.

There is one family outside of town here who has their own windmill. They are on the grid, but also somewhat independent, producing most of their own electricity. The windmill is small too, only about twenty feet high.

[sce56]

39. Uhh shouldn't that be Hello World! ;)

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain

[shanti]

3. here's something

www.ic.org

[Blue_Tires]

4. you mean something like this?

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0508/feature7/

[hfojvt]

5. I sorta did that once for about a year

I had no electricity, no running water, heat was from burning wood that I cut and split myself (okay, my dad helped too, he came over for a day with his chainsaw, but otherwise I used a 36 inch bow saw and an axe and sledge). I was not able to grow my own food, not even after the first summer, and not even close. The most I got from nature was a few blackberries. Also, it turned out there was still some propane in the big tanks, which enabled me to cook during the summer. Oh, and no automobile either.

I found it to be a fairly miserable experience and was happy to come back to civilization. The only fun part for me was splitting wood. Like Maxwell, I love to swing my hammer.

[Yo_Mama]

14. I love to split wood also

I burn it for heat in the moderate temp seasons. I just love the smell of split wood - I love the feeling of splitting wood.

I generally don't confess this, but it is good exercise and it makes you feel great. Also it is a wonderful way to deal with frustrations and bad moods - I call it natural Prozac.

[Shagbark Hickory]

19. So you and George Bush have a common interest.

:rofl: Choppin' wuuuud.

[Fumesucker]

31. Yep, getting back to nature is overrated..

Been there, done that, don't want the tee shirt thank you very much.

[FedUpWithIt All]

33. We live off grid currently.

I'm writing here now, off the power from the solar panels. This makes a huge difference in the comfort of this type of lifestyle. We also do not have running water, but we easily collect nearly 100 gallons every time it rains and this runs downhill to give sufficient pressure for washing and other uses.

I think that current advances in the areas of alternative energy, sanitation and water use, combined with a real look into the past can create a very comfortable AND off grid lifestyles. Things do not have to be backbreaking anymore to be long term independent.

There is an increase of burden to this lifestyle when compared to a traditional American lifestyle but there is also a decrease in burden outside of it as well. The main struggles are in the first couple of years while building. It takes time to build root cellars and water collection tanks and towers... Once these things exist, cost of living goes down significantly.

[hfojvt]

37. well the back breaking part did not bother me so much

Not as much as the lack of amenities. After about two months I would think many times a day "God, would I love to take a hot shower".

Plus, I have an admitted lack of knowledge in gardening, canning, preserving, composting etc. I built my own woodshed, which was a nice little open shed - until it got four inches of snow on it, and I heard this "whump" and went outside the next morning to see that it had fallen over from the weight of the wet snow. Yeah, turns out my college degree didn't teach me much about building either. I read some books, but that did not help all that much.

I still minimixe energy use in some ways, using only little window air conditioners and keeping the house only as cool as 80 in the summer. Riding my bicycle instead of driving. Using a clothesline instead of an electric clothes dryer. Today it is 100 degrees outside and I have two loads of laundry on the line.

I could reduce water usage in many ways, but the city charges me for 1500 gallons a month minimum so I don't bother to conserve.

[kayakjohnny]

6. Here ya go.... and as you can see, they seem just a bit protective of their off the grid status...

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/05/080530-uncontacted-tribes-photo.html

[Lucinda]

10. That's my fallback if the world goes to crap.

I'll just sneak across the GSMNP boundry and settle in. :)

I have a friend living on a boat, and one pretty self-sufficient in Belize, but otherwise, everyone else is plugged in.

[elocs]

12. Here is a website about that very subject (on a boat):

http://www.frugal-retirement-living.com/living-off-the-grid.html

Living off the grid conjures up images of hippie communes, reading by candlelight and bathing in a stream. I guess you could do that, but it seems a bit much.


We know it can be done because living on a sailboat is living off the grid.

And there was no way I would call our 8 years on the boat slumming in any fashion.

[Xithras]

13. There are a number of off-grid communities here in California.

Most aren't well known unless you're a local, or know someone who is. For example, there's a little "village" about halfway between highways 120 and 140 outside of Yosemite that is accessible only by dirt road, and has no external electricity. Their homes are mostly solar powered (or just have big windows), augmented by a diesel generator that they run for about an hour every day after sundown, or when the weather is very poor. They have no electricity because PG&E quoted them millions of dollars to string the poles and run power to their little village decades ago, and they just decided that it wasn't worth the money.

The people aren't hillbillies, and aren't rich. Most just came looking for a simpler life. They are, however, very friendly...as I learned when I got a flat about a mile up the road from their village. The guy I met actually walked over and fired up the town generator just so he could use the shop equipment to fix my tire, at no cost (when you're isolated, you can't exactly call AAA when you get a flat, so they have a shop with most of the tools needed to provide at least temporary fixes to broken cars and equipment).

To be clear, it's NOT a huge place...maybe 10-15 homes. Maybe 40 people living in the middle of the woods, isolated from the rest of the world.

They DO have internet access when the generator is running though :)

[TygrBright]

15. We have a good many in NM.

I know a few as acquaintances, not well. The ones I know of tend to fall into two categories, the traditional and the convictional.

The traditional off-the-gridders are usually from old Hispanic families trying to hold onto or reclaim land grant property and may be hoping at some point to "re-grid" that property, but for the moment they are dependent on solar, generators, etc. Some of them are within or adjacent to boundaries of Federal and State reserves. There are also plenty of people on the pueblos and tribal lands who are living off the grid. Some of that land is forested, but mostly not.

The convictional off-the-gridders are a hodgepodge of old hippie types, eco-warriors, and folks motivated by other beliefs that take them into the territory of experimenting with constructing living arrangements. We have a few old Bucky domes, some rammed-earth construction, modified traditional adobes, etc. in that category. Some are connected to communications via solar-powered generators that maintain transceivers for wi-fi, most not. They "come into town" to pick up email as well as snail mail. Some are in wooded areas, some in high desert areas.

helpfully,
Bright

[Warpy]

16. I don't think the desire to be off the grid is so much

living on the power of your own muscles and going to bed when the sun does, which can be exhausting and miserable, it's being able to unplug from all the corporate craziness that comes with being on the grid.

I've met people totally off the grid out here, either hippie dippie types or Navajos from the back ends of the rez and their main desire seems to be to get things that are available on the grid without plugging into the nuttiness or getting onto a corporate treadmill to pay for it.

I feel the desire to be off the grid, too, but there's no way someone with my health issues can be. However, I've learned to minimize it.

It's really a question of balance and knowing what you need versus what you want. Remember, going to kerosene lamps instead of electric lighting just means exchanging one corporate debt for another and CFL/LED lighting is cheaper than kerosene (and smells better). Heating with wood from your own property might be laudable, but remember that without a chaisaw, it's an exhausting proposition to get that three cords, minimum, for the next season and The Man is powering the chainsaw.

I'm plugged in these days, but my carbon footprint has been getting smaller every year. I don't have any conceit that it will ever disappear entirely, but I've struck a balance I can live with.

[Shagbark Hickory]

17. Good points. nt

[hfojvt]

25. I only used about a cord - in Wisconsin

but it was coooolllld. I was only heating one room, and that not very well. I had to put my milk in my non-working refrigerator to keep it from freezing. Gardening was a lot of work too, especially turning over the sod by hand, and then it was about the driest summer on record, so I had to haul extra water a quarter mile uphill to try to keep my plants alive.

[Warpy]

26. I managed to keep it to 2 cords

in a 750 square foot house in New England in the late 70s when anybody with an oil tank was taking Jerry cans in for five gallons a day. I was less cold than they were but that's not saying a great deal. I would not like to repeat it.

[Shagbark Hickory]

18. Do a search online for alaska bushdwellers.

I think you will find out what you are looking for.
These folks don't even live close to roads let alone utilities.

[Marrah_G]

20. There are lots of resources on the web

I had planned to be doing just that this Fall in Northern VT but my plans have been moved back a bit. Check into things like "off the grid" "earth Homes" "Cob homes" "Permaculture".

[chillspike]

22. The mountains of Japan

A book entitled "A Different Kind of Luxury" chronicles the lives of 11 people living off-grid and with little money in Japan. They seem to be not only living off grid but living abundantly and with little necessity to be wage slaves. I highly recommended it.

[Coyote_Bandit]

23. I'm guessing that

you would consider the people I know who have done this "mountain people" or "hillbillies" even though they are well educated and highly skilled.

One is an engineer with both a machinist and electrical background. This fellow has been known to fabricate his own auto repair parts. He did water flow studies on the creek where he built off the grid to help determine the best location to build. He did his own install work, of course. He spent at least a couple of years doing his design work - and benefitted from the experience of a family member who had already gone off the grid. And, yes, he fabricated some stuff himself. But he lives in the Ozark mountains.

[FedUpWithIt All]

24. We're now completely off grid.

We're still building though so it is still a bit chaotic.



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=268&topic_id=4873&mesg_id=4873

[Dreamer Tatum]

28. You're on the greatest grid in the history of the world.

Own it.

[FedUpWithIt All]

30. :) n/t

[RadiationTherapy]

27. There are not any, even remotely, off the grid communities.

For all the idealism 40 years ago, through hook, crook, or human failings, there are no 40 year old "communes". There are only a few individuals who have achieved it and are, though arguable, "off the grid".

It is an escapist non-solution, like a rapture, or 'mother earth' shaking us off like fleas. We have to do something real to prevent wider destruction.

[FedUpWithIt All]

29. I think it is an error to confuse the current movement toward self sufficiency

with the efforts of so many decades ago.

I wasn't alive at the time but i gather that old models involved a desire to "change the world" into a specific model. I can only speak for my own family but we're not trying to change the world, we're trying to adapt to it before adaption becomes both imperative and far more difficult.

We live within walking distance of town and participate in it. We feel that the future is now presenting as one that will require a "new way" and we know that these changes do not occur in massive sweeps of large groups of people but slowly and increasingly become more common and acceptable. We didn't want to wait to begin decreasing our energy usage, learning more self providing skills such as gardening and building and setting up an infrastructure which would use up less of the resources at a time when so many are suffering from a lack of these resources.

We simply chose to try and implement some changes to live more naturally in the world as it is becoming, now and with the added benefit of one day being able to devote more of our personal time to our family and community development rather than the development of the corporate structure which so many of us depend on to survive under the current model.

[JanMichael]

35. what? Many of the communes from the sixties are still going

we have friends on one here in NC; and apparently you have never heard of "The Farm." Look it up...there's a good link on their website with the history of the place.

[FedUpWithIt All]

36. Is that Shannon Farm in VA?

We were looking at some of their stuff the other day. Says they've been there since the early 70's.

[JanMichael]

41. no. "The Farm" in TN

It's a cool place...lots of cool folks still there.

[hunter]

32. Throw your wallet in the fire, pick a direction...

... and start walking.

In a couple of days you'll be well off the grid.

[county worker]

38. I used to know a few of them.

Well I still do know two of them but they have moved and now have electricity.

I use to live in the lower Sierra Nevada mountains and I had neighbors who did not have electricity. Their families had been living in the area for generations and just never hooked up to the grid.


In the 70's I lived in the country in Michigan and had a neighbor that did without any utilities. He and his wife built their house with wood they cut on their land and grew most of their food.

We had a blizzard once and I thought maybe I should go over to their house to see if they were OK since they were both in their 70's. They came to see if we were OK before I could get to their place. The snow was 4 ft deep!

[End Of The Road]

40. Post and run?

There's a homeless camp in a forested field not too far from my house.

Is this what you had in mind?

[mzteris]

42. Um - not exactly...

:hi:

Being "off the grid" for me is turning my phone off! :)

No, just information gathering.

Thanks to everyone who replied. Some good references & some general info.

[WillyT]

43. I Knew Several People Off The Grid In Mendocino County (Nor Cal)

A couple of them got back on the grid, but only because PG&E had to cut THEM checks for the extra electricity they were generating from their homes.

:D

:hi: