Seeking your advice on building a low cost house that is off grid and sustainable. Solar, passive heating, cellar etc.

The cost to maintain the off grid systems are not really less than being on the grid. Instead of a monthly bill you get hit with maintenance surprises that are costly.

Panels have gotten so cheap that I found that pole mounted tracking array was too expensive for the gain it provides. Just better and cheaper to get a bigger stationary array

I use a regular top of pole mount that I made to turn manually not one of those automatic overpriced gimmicks. It's real easy to do. Besides a bigger array you will need more batt power because you will have very little power in the morning and evening. It is NOT cheaper going your way, it is a lot more expensive.

By the time the sun in midsummer hits my stationary panels about 3-4 hours have passed since sunrise. Same amount of time when the sun has passed the stationary rack. So thats 6-8 hours more solar power I get every day with turnable racks. Do the math.

I pinned it for more answers

Which latitude and yearly temps?

Which latitude and yearly temps?

Mr. Zipface,

We built our small cabin in 08', and built it ourselves, tooth and nail.
It was offgrid, composter, 2 grill bottles, 12pump with rain collection.... blah blah blah....

I can tell you after 8years we started reverting to split-grid, it does get tiring...

I'm also an Electromechanical Eng, and have even taught college part time, so I know a thing or two.

Questions,
What part of which state does this property rest?

This creek on your property; how far of an elevation drop does it have from where it leaves your land, back up to where you can see it standing from where it enters your land?

How many kids & adults will be living in this the first 24months?

What skilled trades do you have?

I rented a house in the country on 15 acres that was built by an old man. It was very well designed for thermal regulation of the house.

It had a stream and he built a 3 acre pond South of the house. The shore of the pond ended about 25 feet from the house. He build walls for the edges of the pond from the same flatrock that he built half the house with.

In the winter, the Sun angle would drop in the sky and the sunlight would bounce up and hit the house, effectively doubling the radiation heating on the house.

In the summer, the sun angle would be overhead, so no solar bounce from the pond would happen.

The house had large windows on the Southern exposure to collect that sunlight into the house and there was a massive amount of rock to retain the heat. (The walls were flat rock along the front and the windows looked like the windows you see on the old British sailing ships. This also made the house strikingly beautiful). One day I came home and there was a group of artists in front making paintings of the house.)

Inside the windows on the ground floor was the big Wood stove, surrounded by a massive rock hearth.

Lived there 3 years and heated with the wood stove only. They got a real winter there. This was on the West part of NJ in farm country. Nothing but 640 acre farms surrounding this place. He had enough trees to easily heat the house with the trees that needed to be removed anyway (elm trees dying and just general overgrowth).

Part of the rental deal was I had to raise a couple cattle so the property would be taxed as farm land otherwise the NJ taxes would have made the place impossibly expensive to own.

The house also had a huge tree on the Western end that would shade the house in summer when it had leaves, and in the winter, it would drop all the leaves and the Sun would once again hit the house in the evenings.

There was a huge purple martin house on a tall pole by the lake. The martins would eat the bugs from the lake and were fun while I would do a little fishing in the pond. He had stocked it with bass and bluegills. The martins would cartwheel right in front of me only a couple feet away, catching insects. Such beautiful birds.

I raised a dozen or so ducks in the pond, thinking they might chase away the noisy Canadian Geese, but they didn't chase anything. They did however lay their eggs on my front porch most of the time, so I always had more fresh eggs than I could eat.

In the winter when the pond would freeze over, I had to catch the ducks and keep them in a wire pen to protect them from the foxes and coyotes. Otherwise, they could stay away from the foxes when the pond was free of ice.

The amount of wildlife that visited that pond was amazing. So many different kinds of beautiful wild ducks. Tiny little Harlequin ducks, and larger, very ornate wood ducks.

Large hawks would dive into the pond to catch fish, which they would carry to the nearest telephone pole and pick apart up there.

And Blue Herons would wade around the pond and stand still, waiting for a fish to come by. They would catch and swallow some very large bass in one gulp.

A herd of deer would hide from the hunters on the property in the fall, and they would come by twice a day to drink water from the pond and eat the corn that the ducks left for them. The fawns were so nice to watch in the spring, standing on their back hooves and reaching up to eat leaves from the trees.

The cicadas would hatch out in the fall and I tossed a few in the pond to watch the bass hit them. The bass loved those fat cicadas. Then I tossed one to the ducks and they went crazy for the cicadas. The one thing that got them out of the pond. They would organize cicada hunts and pick them off the trees and the 100 year old locust fenceposts.

The driveway was gravel and about 500 feet long, so I did have to buy a big snowblower to clear the driveway snow.

Wonderful place. Like living in Eden.

[link to www.youtube.com (secure)]
Kristie Wolfe builds underground home & sets rural WA hamlet

Batteries...yes....this is key.

For a simple van setup and cheap, purchase the Blue Optima and run one solar panel for support of a simple 12V miniature refrigerator or two to support 2 refrigerators or a freezer. These batteries are light, deep cycle, work for both vehicle start up / marine and 12V and will not break down and they run about $300 or so, so purchase in a non tax state and avoid the tax.

Now, if you are doing something stationary like a house, you are going to get multiple extremely heavy, large, lithium batteries for about $500 a piece. These have a rope handle on either side and you will need a cart or something on wheels just to haul them in from the vehicle you pick them up with.

The number of batteries determines the amount of juice that you will have on tap. This is for keeping up with 110V and you will need 4 to start out just to keep up with a fridge, freezer and a few other odds and ends. This will not keep up with 24/7 A/C.

The number of panels is basically what you can fit on your roof and how much extra dough you have.

I believe they are now coming out with the roll out sheets of solar that aren't in big heavy aluminum and glass containers...Might want to look into it. However, if going with the standard, they are way the fuck cheaper if you go to someone like CED greentech and buy out the back of their warehouse. You can get a reel of cable from them and buy ends for the cable in bulk and then watch some youtube videos about making the ends -- bit of a learning curve on making the ends -- but once you get it down, you'll be able to knock it out.

If you want to support 220V like for running a dryer or something else that needs more juice or for running A/C for longer amounts of time, you are going to need a complete setup, which is like 10 or 20 panels depending on how long you want to run the appliance for and your battery bank is going to have to have 10 24V batteries minimum I think, but the guys at CED greentech have an engineer who will run the exact specs for you; he might recommend twice that depending on the load, like if you are doing some serious A/C.

You get more juice on your panels when they are clean, so leave enough room to get up there and clean them so you don't fall off and if they are facing the sun, that helps a lot too. Don't stick them where birds are going to shit on them or where it is hard to get snow off of them. Maybe don't mount them on the house and put them near the ground on a detached mounting system that can change orientation.

I think the number or residents (and ages too) would be also helpful.

Batteries...yes....this is key.

For a simple van setup and cheap, purchase the Blue Optima and run one solar panel for support of a simple 12V miniature refrigerator or two to support 2 refrigerators or a freezer. These batteries are light, deep cycle, work for both vehicle start up / marine and 12V and will not break down and they run about $300 or so, so purchase in a non tax state and avoid the tax.

Now, if you are doing something stationary like a house, you are going to get multiple extremely heavy, large, lithium batteries for about $500 a piece. These have a rope handle on either side and you will need a cart or something on wheels just to haul them in from the vehicle you pick them up with.

The number of batteries determines the amount of juice that you will have on tap. This is for keeping up with 110V and you will need 4 to start out just to keep up with a fridge, freezer and a few other odds and ends. This will not keep up with 24/7 A/C.

The number of panels is basically what you can fit on your roof and how much extra dough you have.

I believe they are now coming out with the roll out sheets of solar that aren't in big heavy aluminum and glass containers...Might want to look into it. However, if going with the standard, they are way the fuck cheaper if you go to someone like CED greentech and buy out the back of their warehouse. You can get a reel of cable from them and buy ends for the cable in bulk and then watch some youtube videos about making the ends -- bit of a learning curve on making the ends -- but once you get it down, you'll be able to knock it out.

If you want to support 220V like for running a dryer or something else that needs more juice or for running A/C for longer amounts of time, you are going to need a complete setup, which is like 10 or 20 panels depending on how long you want to run the appliance for and your battery bank is going to have to have 10 24V batteries minimum I think, but the guys at CED greentech have an engineer who will run the exact specs for you; he might recommend twice that depending on the load, like if you are doing some serious A/C.

You get more juice on your panels when they are clean, so leave enough room to get up there and clean them so you don't fall off and if they are facing the sun, that helps a lot too. Don't stick them where birds are going to shit on them or where it is hard to get snow off of them. Maybe don't mount them on the house and put them near the ground on a detached mounting system that can change orientation.

By the time the sun in midsummer hits my stationary panels about 3-4 hours have passed since sunrise. Same amount of time when the sun has passed the stationary rack. So thats 6-8 hours more solar power I get every day with turnable racks. Do the math.

Youtube search, brother.


[link to youtu.be (secure)]


[link to youtu.be (secure)]