The Everything Guide to Living Off the Grid (10 page)

There is a chance, in the near future, that having health insurance will be legislated in the United States and you will not have an option. If this is a concern to you, you need to research legislation and find out what it means to you in your particular situation.

Building a Strong Community

Why would building a strong community be an important task for someone who lives off-grid? Even back when the original pioneers and homesteaders settled this country, they built communities in order to support one another. Communities were created for protection, to share the cost of communal needs like teachers, doctors, and pastors, and to share knowledge and skills. There was always one woman in town who was called to assist in childbearing, one man in town who understood blacksmithing, or another person who understood how to use medicinal herbs.

The same is true today, but the skill sets have changed. Perhaps someone is an expert in solar heating panels or running electric lines, another might be knowledgeable about agriculture, still another has a background in alternative medicine. If you can gather up an off-grid community in which you complement one another, you will be much better off.

But how can you accomplish setting up a community when you are trying to concentrate on getting your family ready to go off-grid? Through the forums you participate in and through the research you’ve begun, you can start watching for like-minded people who have already moved off-grid or are in the same position you are. If they’ve already moved off-grid, perhaps you could find your piece of property in the same vicinity as theirs. If they
haven’t moved yet, perhaps you can share information and see if the areas you have been researching are appealing to them.

You probably don’t want to set up a commune or a joint venture; there may be too many potential problems of owning property with someone else. You just want to create a support system where shared skills benefit the community.

You should also visit the towns near the areas you are considering for your off-grid home. Read their local newspaper, either online or by subscription to the print edition. Learn about the community, its strengths and its weaknesses. Visit the community during a vacation and see how you are welcomed. Determine whether you and your family can become part of the community and “fit” well with the other residents. If not, look for another community.

Where to Find Legal Advice

As you take steps to buy your property and move your family off-grid, there are things you should consider to safeguard yourself and your family.

Be sure you have legal representation when you buy your property. Buying is expensive, and you don’t want to make any mistakes.

Make sure a search has been done to ensure that the property is free from mortgage, unpaid taxes, or any other financial liens. If there is a lien on the property, you need to be sure that either the seller has paid the lien or the purchase price includes the amount that you will pay to the lien holder to free the property of encumbrances.

Be sure you and your spouse have an updated will and power of attorney. Because wills are legal documents that provide instruction on how your assets are to be distributed and who will become caregivers for any children, dying without one will take those choices away from your spouse and give them to the state or province in which you lived.

A power of attorney is a document that gives someone the right to act in your name, if you are unable to do so. The most common powers of attorney are for medical care and for financial matters. A medical or personal care power of attorney gives someone else the right to make decisions for you if you are unable to do so yourself. For example, if you are in a coma, the person holding the power of attorney would represent you and your wishes. A
financial power of attorney allows someone to make financial decisions for you when you are unable to make those decisions for yourself. Financial powers of attorney often come into play as people age and can no longer handle the day-to-day duties of their finances. However, your power of attorney would also allow for your financial matters to be seen to if you were in a coma or in other ways incapacitated.

To search for a lien, get the correct address of the property and contact the county assessor or local tax board. These departments will have public records pertaining to ownership of the property, taxes paid or owed, and the last sale date of the property. They will also know if there is a lien on the property and can direct you to the lien holder.

There are places on the Internet where you can download a basic power of attorney form and fill it in yourself. Be sure that you and your witness sign these documents in the presence of a notary public, who witnesses and verifies the document signatures with her stamp.

You can receive all kinds of legal advice and information on the Internet. There are places where you can pay a minimal expense to have documents like wills, trusts, and powers of attorney created for you by people with a legal background. However, even if you decide to have these documents created online, it’s a good idea to have a relationship with a local lawyer you know and trust.

CHAPTER 6
Power Supplies

The basic idea of off-grid living is to be self-sustaining, so no matter what happens in the outside world, you and your family will be fine. One example of the importance of having your own power source is the ice storm that hit Canada in January 1998. Over the course of six days, freezing rain covered Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick with three to four inches of ice. The ice coating caused electric wires to become brittle and break. The power outages lasted for as long as a month. More than 3 million people were without power in Quebec, and over 1 million in eastern Ontario. About 100,000 people went into shelters in school gymnasiums and churches. If you were living in a self-sustaining house with your own power source and heat source, you would not be one of those forced to relocate. As a matter of fact, if the grid went down, it would not affect your life at all.

Geothermal Power

The word “geo” means earth, and “thermal” means heat. So, geothermal means heat from the earth. If you were to dig ten feet below ground level, almost anywhere in the world, you would find the temperature to be between 50° and 60°F (10° and 16°C). No matter what the temperature outside, the readings ten feet below the earth remain fairly constant. Geothermal heat pump systems use that constant temperature to either heat or cool your home. Using pipes that are buried in the ground near your home, fluid, like antifreeze, is circulated through the heat pump system. In winter, heat from the warmer ground travels through the heat exchanger of the pump and sends warm air into your home. In summer, the cooler temperatures travel through the heat exchanger and cool the air in your home.

To determine whether or not your location has enough sun or wind to supply energy, you can study maps at
WindSolarEnergy.org
(
www.windsolarenergy.org
) that show you how much solar or wind power you can expect. In some cases, you might need to use a combination in order to live off-grid.

Geothermal heat pumps use much less energy than conventional heating systems, since they draw heat from the ground and only have to potentially bring the temperature up several degrees. For example, with other heat sources, you have to maintain the fuel source to reach the internal home temperature of your choice. With geothermal, your heat source is already at 60°F and so only has to be heated another ten or so degrees to reach your comfort level. The same is true for air conditioning, where the 60°F temperature can bring your home down to the level you desire without using excess energy. Geothermal heat systems can also heat your home’s hot water.

Since the first geothermally generated electricity in the world was produced at Larderello, Italy, in 1904, the use of geothermal energy for electricity has grown worldwide to about 7,000 megawatts in twenty-one countries around the world. The United States alone produces 2,700 megawatts of electricity from geothermal energy. Using that amount of electricity is comparable to burning 60 million barrels of oil each year. Source:
http://geothermal.marin.org/pwrheat.html
.

Solar Power

There are two different kinds of solar energy—passive and active. Passive solar energy means you are not using any mechanical devices to harness the energy of the sun. For example, using south-facing windows to provide natural light would be passive solar energy. Having a sunroom with a brick floor that would absorb the heat during the day and release it at night is another example. Even heating the water in a swimming pool in the sun is an example. When you build your home, you will want to take advantage of passive solar energy because it is a free gift from the sun.

Active solar energy uses mechanical devices in the collection, storage, and distribution of solar energy for your home. Active solar energy works by taking energy from the sun and, using solar panels, converts that energy into electricity. A component called an inverter works with the solar panels to convert the electricity from your panels into AC (alternating current) electricity. This electricity can be used right away or stored in a battery array in your home for future use.

There are five main components to an off-grid solar electric system:

• Solar panels:
  may also be referred to as PV panels or modules. PV is short for photovoltaic (“light-powered”). A group of PV panels is called an array.
  
• Mounting rack:
  metal support structures that hold an array of solar panels in a tilted position facing the sun. There are some mounting racks that can track the movement of the sun and shift the panels to collect as much energy as possible.
  
• Charge controller:
  monitors and manages the electricity between the solar panels and the battery array.
  
• Battery array or battery bank:
  a group of batteries, wired together, to capture the energy captured by the solar panels. These batteries can then be drawn on for electrical use.
  
• Inverter:
  changes the battery power to AC power for everyday electrical use.
  

You will need to determine your power consumption before you can get started with any type of solar installation.