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the albatross
Gym climber
Flagstaff
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 27, 2017 - 06:40pm PT
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I'm NE of Flag out by Sunset Crater over in the Painted Desert. There is excellent bouldering at Grand Falls a short quad drive away. Some interesting little crags scattered about too.
Great ideas so far, along the lines of my research. Mostly solo my needs are fairly minimal for power and water. I've got neighbors down the road that have a kick ass house and haven't hauled water in 20'years and hardly ever start a fire in their stove even in this chilly northern AZ climate.
I am blessed to have a much younger Dine friend who is very in tune with efficiient building practices. I'm thinking a simple straw bale with large south facing windows, steel roof and simple solar with back up generator, I know that for the next 6 months or a year it will be a bit closer to camping than home living, but I have been preparing for something like this for several decades.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Feb 27, 2017 - 06:42pm PT
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My mind is off grid all the time...... does that count?
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the albatross
Gym climber
Flagstaff
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 27, 2017 - 06:45pm PT
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Survival, part of my eagerness to get out there is spending much less time on this stupid iPad and much more time thinking about sunlight,wind and rain.
vvvv. True that Flip Flop. Fortunately for now I'm financially secure working about 4 months a year and am comfy living a modest lifestyle.
Thanks everyone for listening to my ravings for an evening I'm stepping out into the big sky....
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Flip Flop
climber
Earth Planet, Universe
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Feb 27, 2017 - 06:45pm PT
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The budget is where the rubber hits the road
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Feb 27, 2017 - 07:09pm PT
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much more time thinking about sunlight,wind and rain.
Well done brother! It looks like you have a righteous place for it. I lived in Flag for a bit in the early 70's and have been a high desert nut all my life.
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Barry Bates
Trad climber
Brookings oregon
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Feb 27, 2017 - 07:46pm PT
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I agree with Werner better than drooling in a stupid city. The key is enjoying the process if you don't its probably not worth it. Wood heat, big veggie garden, home canned veggies for the winter, a freezer full of salmon and ling cod, mussels and clams from the beach a few miles away. Water here is not a problem Ive emptied our 5 inch rain gauge about 25 times this winter. The only thing we don't have is off grid power we've been thinking about it but our power bills average out to $20 a month so its hard to justify the expense of a major system. Every one has there own way of living this isn't for every one and I don't think every one should live this way. but for us it works. if it works for you enjoy it.
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Happiegrrrl2
Trad climber
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Feb 27, 2017 - 08:02pm PT
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I think you will be surprised at how much electricity you DON'T need, once you start to live within the natural cycle of light and dark. It's when people want to stay up past bedtime that they need light. Or when they want things like clothes washer/dryer or air conditioner, when they use electricity.
For reading or small tasks that don't require "working light" you can just use a headlamp. My hint: It sucks to wash dishes in the dark. Have supper before the sun goes down.
The ONLY thing I need electricity for is my laptop, cel phone and camera battery charging. Pretty much everything else can be done without electricity. In my case, I can use the workplace electricity to get them heated up, or in the van when I am driving, with an inverter. But I live just a mile and a half from a place where I can go and plug in and get wifi, not miles out like it it seems the OP is.
A propane fridge would be a luxury that if I could afford, I would have, but since 2010 I have used no refrigeration except that which comes naturally. Only in the dog days of summer does it get where vegetables don't last as long as you'd like, but a soggy tomato is not an inedible tomato. If a piece of fruit or vegetable gets a yucky spot, you cut it out and eat the rest. Cheese - slice off the mold and the rest is fine. Eggs? I have had eggs in a cooler(without ice) for three weeks, in all but, like I said - extended periods of wretched over 80 degrees temps. I have never gotten so much as a tummy ache in all that time(except when I have eaten in restaurants, believe it or not)
Would a windmill be the thing to do for that area?
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cavemonkey
Ice climber
ak
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Feb 27, 2017 - 08:13pm PT
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I dropped a considerable amount of coin on my solar setup, and only wish I would have gone bigger on storage. I can go 8 months without starting my generator, and I live in the mtns. in AK. Collecting rainwater is great, but you need a fallback during dry periods.
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the albatross
Gym climber
Flagstaff
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 27, 2017 - 08:41pm PT
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These are all some great suggestions.
I can hear that old refrigerator humming and the freezer half full of elk purring in this old inefficient rental house right now. I look forward in the next month to living more in harmony with the natural cycle of light and to harvesting more of my electricity from the sun and rain. One of the many challenges this Spring is setting up the cell signal booster on an antennae and generating enough electricity to check in on the internet on occasion,
As to an earlier question, "town" is about 30 minutes away, so groceries and water (for now) isn't too big of deal once or twice a week. I like the idea of being a little less dependent on the system and spending more time working on my own property and sustenance.
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ionlyski
Trad climber
Kalispell, Montana
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Feb 27, 2017 - 08:51pm PT
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Just for Munge! Off the grid, turnkey operation, next to Indian creek, 640 acres. The needles outpost for sale, starting bid, $1 million
That is just music to my ears. The State is selling the land out from under Utah's worst campground hosts ever, due to multiple complaints. She was nothing but a c#nt to us.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 28, 2017 - 01:19am PT
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Have a friend outside of Smith who lives off-grid powerwise in a new home a not large solar array (maybe 6-8 panels). Seems to have all the normal accoutrements of modern life. I do recall, though, him saying you have to have the system setup and operated correctly if you want to insure the longest life possible out of the expensive batteries the whole rig runs off of.
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Vitaliy M.
Mountain climber
San Francisco
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Feb 28, 2017 - 02:29am PT
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I'm approaching it in much the same way I did all those big wall routes of AZ we established, bit by bit, patience and persistence
Is there a thread where you don't bring this up, #spraylord?
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Crazy Bat
Sport climber
Birmingham, AL & Seweanee, TN
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Feb 28, 2017 - 03:09am PT
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As a kid I lived in a log cabin. Electricity was super unreliable. Toilet was an outhouse. Running water was basiclaly a hose from the neighbors, frquently cut when they scraped the road.
We kept kerosine or oil lamps handy. Heated with coal. Went to the laundromat or handwashed clothes. Baths were frequenly out of those big bowl and pitcher arrangements that were popular for decorations in the 80s. That or in the rinsemwater for the laundry.
In West Virginia warer catchment and cisterns are very common. Many people use a second septic tank with the inner walls breached for water. Most agree that a circlular, concrete lined, underground cistern gives the best water. They do have an excess of rain water so it flushes the cisterns out. My thory is that the lime in the concrete changes the ph of the water reducing bacterial growth. That said the worst cister water I ever experienced was from an aboveground plastic cistern in North Georgia. It developed a thermocline, which caused anaerobic conditions in the tank. The owner did not really do enough to keep organic debries from entering the cistern so it was really nasty stuff. She left treees above her house for shade and did not adequatly filter it. Of corse the water came from the bottom of the tank. Out west I have seen a lot of above ground tanks and I wonder how they deal with the issue. But then, very few of them have plants taller than the roof.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Feb 28, 2017 - 05:13am PT
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Pulled by a twenty yr old suburban in four wheel low with chains on all four. There are ways to do these things but you must embrace the process!
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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Feb 28, 2017 - 06:10am PT
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Solar is so cheap now it's easy to experiment with a few hundred watt + panels and go from there. In AZ, solar is a no-brainer.
And if you stay 12V for your initial wiring for lights and such, it makes it much simpler and more efficient than dealing with inverters.
1200 feet to the water table eh? Get a good post-hole digger....
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wayne w
Trad climber
the nw
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Feb 28, 2017 - 06:33am PT
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Check out Brickawood on Youtube, really an inventive and super efficient home building process with no nails or glue.
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Winemaker
Sport climber
Yakima, WA
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Feb 28, 2017 - 06:53am PT
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Yeah fear, you do lose efficiency with an inverter. 12V wiring requires bigger gauges; for example, a 60 watt 120V bulb draws 0.5 amps, 60 watts @ 12V is 5 amps. Anyway, just saying there are things to think about. I suppose you could run 12V storage batteries in series instead of parallel.........
albatross, are you doing your own construction? Do you need permitting? Exciting project.
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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Feb 28, 2017 - 07:09am PT
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Great that you can move on your dreams in such a great area. Although I live in the city I like to be closer to the natural cycles. I have grid-tied solar so even though I am still part of the grid I try to live efficiently, and keep consumption in the black. Yesterday it rained all day and I set a record for the lowest generation in 10 years, .997 kwh hours. I usually generate 8-13 kwh this time of year. So you have to be prepared for that, but Flag is much less susceptible to extended cloud cover. However running a generator 24/7 is damned annoying. I am sure Mt. Woodson old timers remember the house on the road up that had a generator running for years back in the 80s, very obnoxious.
I have a pile of Photowattt PW1000 panels I am not going to use. I can make you a sweet deal on some of them if you are interested. They are 100 Watt panels and can be configured as 12V or 24V. A friend of mine has been living off the grid in Vermont using only a few very old panels and a couple of batteries. Using 12 LED lights hardly takes any power. Refrigeration is the real problem Sun Frost is an awesome refrigerator, a bit pricey though
http://www.sunfrost.com/blog/off-grid-refrigeration-solar-electric-vs-propane/
The DC models can be powered by 12 V or 24 V batteries. One 100 amp hr 12V deep cycle battery will typically run the Sun Frost RF12 for 3 days without recharging. If a generator is run periodically it could keep the batteries fully charged or the battery could be kept charged by a single 135 watt Photovoltaic (PV) panel.
http://forum.solar-electric.com/discussion/349432/photowatt-pw1000-12-24-wiring#
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kief
Trad climber
east side
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Feb 28, 2017 - 07:43am PT
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Driving the back way to Grand Falls I've coveted those parcels of private land out near the rez boundary. Very nice area. As an eventual supplement for water hauling you might want to stop by the Kaibab Forest office in Flag sometime and ask about the water catchments/cisterns they've been setting up for wildlife in the North Kaibab ranger district. I checked one out on the Jumpup Point road last fall. They're basically panels of metal sheeting arranged to cover a shallow depression and angled to collect precipitation into a covered cistern below, with a gravity flow pipe providing a continuous flow down and away to a small cement watering tank. I can't find the photos I took but you can see the collector and tank on Google Earth at 36°31'11.51"N, 112°35'59.26"W. (Imagery shows the tank and part of the collector dropping off the cliffside due to the 3D rendering.) A ranger at Big Springs told me they have been setting up a whole network of these on the North Rim to help wildlife survive drought conditions and fire damage to watersheds. Cisterns hold at least 1000 gallons. Pretty low tech and low maintenance once installed and seemed to me like a feasible DIY project for off-grid living.
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slabbo
Trad climber
colo south
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Feb 28, 2017 - 08:51am PT
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Off grid almost 10 years now, all solar with a Honda 2000 backup. Going 12 v to start is a waste of time and wire....wire up for 24 or 48Volt initially and save some $$.
You pay $100 for a junk inverter and guess what you get ?
Water issues are way more important than power though, harvesting is fine, but rarely meets all needs. If you do a well, beware the beast pumps that are most common..again you pay for efficiency.
Above all building takes way longer than anticipated,,typically 4x..maybe more.
pm if you like
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