by Nick Meissner | Off Grid Water
Example: This example covers what to do with any of the previous situations when it is not possible to have a cistern above your building site. This applies to all the previous examples, with the exception of wells. Refer to Water System Example #5 for that. Solution...
by Nick Meissner | Off Grid Water
Example: There is a spring present on the property that is less than 40 vertical feet above the building site, level with it, or perhaps even below it. There is also a creek with at least 5-10 (bare minimum) gallons per minute flow that falls at least 3-5 vertical...
by Nick Meissner | Off Grid Power
Our goal for being off the grid has been to produce all of our power from renewable sources (solar, hydro, wind, wood gas, steam, hydrogen, etc) and not rely on fuel sources that must be purchased (gasoline, diesel, propane, etc). But particularly in northern...
by Nick Meissner | Off Grid Power
We finally found light bulbs we could get excited about! CFL's work, but there's some drawbacks that we weren't really excited about. Recently we were walking through Home Depot and you'll never guess what we discovered... LED home light bulbs! Incandescent light...
by Nick Meissner | Off Grid Power
In my years of experience living off the grid (since the late '90s), I have found batteries to be the most expensive and troublesome component of a renewable energy system over the long run. With that in mind, I knew there must be a better solution than the...