How can you Go Off The Grid

This is probably one of the top questions I receive, but the answer to that question isn’t always that easy, and even the term “going off the grid” can mean a million different things to a million different people.

If you are planning on completely cutting yourself off from the grid, then you need to consider what that really means.

Living off the grid means:

• Disconnecting from the electric and communication grid.
• Having a way to get water that does not rely on the municipal water supply.
• Having to deal with your own waste and sewage.
• Being able to heat and cool your home without being hooked into natural gas lines.
• Dealing with local zoning laws and legal issues.

You also need to understand that this is a huge lifestyle change.

Let’s face it; most people are not ready to live off the grid. The average American household now uses somewhere around 10,500 kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, and the average American family uses more than 300 gallons of water a day at home — somewhere in the neighborhood of 110,000 gallons a year. If you’re planning on living the same lifestyle that you’re currently living, you’re probably not ready to go off the grid – unless you have an unlimited amount of money to spend on completely retrofitting or replacing everything in your home with off-grid alternatives.

While living off the grid might not be possible for everyone, more and more Americans are choosing to unplug. Solid numbers are hard to pin down, since plenty of off-grid households intentionally stay off official records, but estimates currently put the number of fully off-grid homes in the U.S. somewhere between 180,000 and 750,000, with most serious estimates landing closer to a quarter million. Whatever the true figure, the trend line is up, not down, driven largely by the falling cost of solar equipment and rising frustration with utility bills.

So what does it mean to truly live off the grid?

Well, it’s not quite as simple as running a couple of light bulbs through a solar panel. To truly say you are living off the grid, you need to find a way to generate your own power, water, heat, and yes even things like your cable TV and internet.

It also helps to think of “off the grid” as a spectrum rather than a single switch. On one end you’ve got people who are 100% disconnected — no utility hookups of any kind, generating every watt and every gallon themselves. On the other end, plenty of people run what’s sometimes called a “hybrid” or “half on, half off” setup: still tied to the grid as a backup, but covering most of their day-to-day power and water needs independently. There’s no wrong answer here. Most people who eventually go fully off-grid get there by passing through a hybrid stage first, not by flipping a switch overnight.

So how do start to unplug?

Slow and steady wins the race. While pulling the plug may seem like a pipe dream, there a few things you can do while you wait for your earthship to be built. Most of us waste more than we actually use; being mindful of how you use your resources is the first step towards energy independence.

• Turn it Off – Sounds simple, but simply remembering to turn off your computers, lights, and other electrical items can dramatically reduce the amount of power you use.
• Use Power Strips – Turing it off doesn’t necessarily mean it’s really off. Did you know that a lot of the electrical gadgets in your house are probably still using power even when they are turned off? By plugging them into a power strip you can cut off their power supply by simply flipping a switch.
• Pull water from thin Air – Believe it or not, you can actually generate fresh drinking water from the air in your house. Check out this cool piece of technology that produces water from the humidity in the air. The Atmospheric Water Solutions G2C Aquaboy Atmospheric Water Generator

Beyond those first easy steps, a few other moves go a long way before you’ve spent any real money on solar or wells:

• Audit your actual usage. Most utility companies let you see your hour-by-hour or day-by-day electric and water use online now. Pull up a few months of data before you assume you know where your usage is going — it’s almost always different than you’d guess, and you can’t size a solar or water system correctly without a real baseline.
• Fix leaks before you do anything else. A single leaking toilet or dripping faucet can waste thousands of gallons a year, which is wasted capacity you’d otherwise have to generate or haul yourself once you’re off municipal water.
• Practice with small systems first. A single solar panel running a lamp, phone chargers, or a small fridge teaches you more about how solar actually behaves — cloudy days, battery drain, inverter quirks — than reading ten articles about it will.
• Get a composting or low-flush toilet for a trial run, even while you’re still connected to sewer. It’s one of the bigger mental adjustments people underestimate, and it’s cheap to test before you commit.

How to find the right Off-Grid Land:

Because of zoning issues, and the fact that more urban areas area cracking down or even making off-grid living illegal within the city, most people are going to have to look for at least a semi-rural piece of land. When it comes to finding that piece of land, there are a number of considerations that you need to be aware of.

• Access to emergency services is something you need to investigate before choosing a piece of land.
• Investigating possible dangers located near your land is something you can’t take lightly.
• Understanding zoning issues, building laws, and the legality of living without being plugged into the local grid.

A few more things worth digging into before you put money down on a piece of land:

• Water rights are not the same as land ownership. In a lot of western states, the water under or running through your property may legally belong to someone else, or be subject to separate water rights you’d need to secure. Don’t assume a stream, spring, or even a well automatically comes with the land.
• Solar exposure and microclimate matter as much as acreage. A beautiful piece of land tucked into a north-facing valley can be a poor solar site. Check sun exposure across all four seasons, not just the day you toured it.
• Road access and easements can quietly limit what you’re allowed to build. Land that’s legally landlocked, or only reachable by an easement someone else controls, creates problems that have nothing to do with off-grid living specifically but will absolutely affect your ability to live there.
• Talk to the county before you buy, not after. A phone call to the local planning and zoning office, asking specifically about off-grid construction, alternative wastewater systems, and minimum dwelling size requirements, can save you from buying land you can’t legally build what you want on.

For more information on how to find the right piece of property, check out our article on how to safely buy rural land.

What about internet access?

Yes, believe it or not, you can have the internet and still technically live off the grid. It’s not going to be easy, and it is going to cost some money to get started, but it is possible.

From running your internet connection through a simple cell phone connection to setting up your own WIFI hotspot or satellite connection, there are a number of ways to get online. Satellite internet in particular has changed a lot over the past several years — newer low-earth-orbit satellite services have made rural and off-grid internet dramatically faster and more reliable than the older geostationary satellite options that used to be the only choice, though it does mean budgeting for the equipment and a power draw that your solar system needs to account for. To find out what options you have, check out our article on Off-Grid Internet Access.

Prepping Considerations when Living Off the Grid:

Since one of the primary goals of this site is helping people become better prepared, and since a lot of preparedness minded people are often the ones who are looking to cut their ties to the grid, preparedness is a big factor when building this type of property.

• The further you can get away from a major city, the better off you’ll be during a major collapse or SHTF situation.
• A good reliable water source is one of the most important considerations when selecting any piece of land to build on.
• You need to find an area that lends itself to the self-reliant lifestyle. Your land needs to be able to grow food, give you the ability to raise livestock, and it needs to be in a climate that allows you to take advantage or the local resources throughout the year.

A few additional considerations worth thinking through before you commit to a property:

Plan for aging in place, or for not being able to. A homestead that depends on you personally hauling water, splitting wood, and climbing onto a roof to clean solar panels works great when you’re 35. Think through what that property looks like when you’re 65, or if you’re ever injured or sick for an extended stretch.

For information on what type of things you need to be looking for, check out our article on Building the Ultimate Survival Retreat.

Other Resources & Stories for living off the grid:

• How to live in an Off-grid Tiny Home: A Family’s Journey into Off The Grid Living
• Portable Tiny Homes: Mobile Bugout Shelters and Off-Grid Living Solutions
• Urban Homesteading – Living off your land even in the city
• One man living off the grid in the desert
• Alone in the Wilderness – Richard Proenneke